9 September 2016

Revisitation

When one has been blogging for over eleven years, it can be interesting to look back in time in order to read posts that one created long ago. The experience can feel peculiar - as if one is reading someone else's blog. Did I really write that? Was that really me?

Obviously, the people who visit this blog nowadays are not the same people as those who came to this corner of the blogosphere in 2005 and 2006. Time marches on and the scenery changes. People come and people go.

With those thoughts in mind, this post is a little window on the past - an act of revisitation that I wish to share with current visitors. Rather randomly, I am about to share five blogposts from past years with little contextual introductions. I hope you find this historical excursion interesting. You will need to click on the links.

October 7th 2005. It was the day before my fifty second birthday and I had been blogging for just over three months. I thought it was about time that I told international visitors about my adopted city - Sheffield in the far south of Yorkshire. Unsurprisingly, I called that post Sheffield.

September 13th 2007. It was the day of my mother's death at the age of eighty six. Her passing was not unexpected as she had been deteriorating rapidly in the old folks' home where she lived for the last two years of her life. She was a powerful influence in my life - a strong, independent and emotional woman who possessed many talents and loved life to the full. There is a sense in which she has not "gone" at all but the post I wrote that day was titled Gone.

November 15th 2009. A lot happened in 2009. That was the year I decided to jump off the top diving board and take early retirement from teaching. It was also the year that I fulfilled an ambition I had harboured for many years - to visit Rapa Nui, otherwise known as Easter Island. To me it is an amazing place. I made a couple of blogposts while I was on the island and this was one of them - I called it Mecca.

March 25th 2011. That was the year I visited Thailand for the first time. I spent six months teaching at St Stephen's International School in northern Bangkok. It was a wonderful, healing experience. I also got to travel around to northern Thailand, Malaysia, Laos and Cambodia. Shirley came over at Eastertime and we went to Koh Chang and one of the old capitals of Siam - Ayutthaya. The post I have chosen to share describes Buddhist new year celebrations in the school.  It's titled Songkran.

August 4th 2013. One of the nicest things about managing your own blog is that you can make posts about anything that catches your fancy, There's no editor or governing body vetoing the content. On this day back in 2013, I decided to write about what was once the most remote inhabited island in the British Isles - the main island in the St Kilda archipelago - Hirta.

Those five randomly chosen posts from the past give just a glimpse into the history of this blog. There's so much I have left out. No poems. No long country walks. No rants or recipes. In these past eleven years I have made 2125 blogposts. It has been a long journey. Perhaps I shall repeat this exercise in looking back another day.

28 comments:

  1. This is a really good idea. I've thought about highlighting some of my past posts but I haven't done it yet. Let me just say I am SO envious of your trip to Easter Island -- amazing! It's on my bucket list too. I'm impressed you could even get internet there!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can borrow my idea any time you like Steve and as for Easter Island... I hope you make it one day. It is amazing/tragic/mysterious/memorable and very faraway.

      Delete
  2. So interesting YP to read about your past life - I feel I know you a lot better if those glimpses. What a good idea.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I see that you got started back in 2008 Mrs Weaver. You were nobbut a young lass then.

      Delete
  3. Great minds ... I too have been looking back over the years on my blog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have been blogging even longer than me Jenny. Am I right in thinking that you started back in May 2004?

      Delete
  4. I began reading your blog some time after your mother died but before you went to Rapa Nui. I do not remember why, or how it (your blog) came to my attention. Possibly Putz had something to do with it; I really don't know. But you have provided me with many hours of reading pleasure and for that I thank you. I do not thank you for the occasional moments of consternation you have also provided, but hey, nobody's perfect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for that Bob and thanks for sticking with me as I have stuck with you. With regard to consternation - this can be avoided with a fibre-rich diet. Recently, Victoria plums from our garden have been working very effectively for me.

      Delete
  5. Victoria plums are passé. These days everyone is more interested in Kate Middleton's plums, or even her sister Pippa's. But I will take your advice under, er, advisement.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lovely looking back with you, Mr Pudding. I think we may have started our friendship at the beginning of 2013; for the life of me I can't think of how or why I first happened upon your blog! But to say I have enjoyed all our visits with each other would definitely be an understatement. Your photos are awesome, your poetry is fitting and the walks we have taken together are memorable. Thank you, kind sir.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How did we "meet"? I also have no idea. It just happened. It's nice to have a friend in Colorado - with your majestic kitchen view. Will you ever resurrect your own blog Mama Bear?

      Delete
    2. I just might, Mr. Pudding. I just might. Can't promise you anything any more exciting than the last time but if you insist......

      Delete
  7. At this point in time I've only read one of the links you provided, Yorkie, but I will return to read them all before day's end. The one I've read has left me misty-eyed...it was your fine tribute to your mother. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One of the things that still rankles about Mum's death is that my workplace reception received a phone call about her worsening condition in the morning but failed to pass the message on to me. I could have raced back to East Yorkshire to be at her bedside.

      Delete
    2. And it will continue to rankle, Yorkie. A mixture of emotions - the total frustration and a feeling of helplessness, among many other. That should never have happened.

      Delete
  8. Congratulations on your blog accomplishment. I find that if I write things it stays with me and I remember other things that were not written down. I also advise people to write about their losses.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is nice how a blog can become like a personal diary or journal for the author of the blog.

      Delete
  9. I've been searching through my blog posts trying to see when we first "met". Seems to be 2011/12 ish ??? I do remember the first post of yours that I read. It just came to me as I was searching my blog for comments from you. It was one about tiny little bugs / organisms that were present in mucus from our eyes... or eye infections? Do you remember it? I think my first comment on your blog may have been "YUK!"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes I do remember that post Helen. "Yuk!" would probably be your reaction if you met me in real life too.

      Delete
  10. Now that was a good idea Pudding. Revisiting the past, I wasn't a follower(sounds like some weird cult?) when you wrote the post abut your mother. What an admirable woman.

    And I do remember Easter Island and you nipping off from the dreaded classroom and teaching in Thailand.

    I also glanced through the comments on your Gone post and with the exception of Jenny Ta there were no familiar names. What happened to those readers? Did they fail to renew their subscription?

    And now I'm laughing because I've just recalled the evils that befell the parking officers.....lol


    Alphie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for being a "follower" Alphie. I shall don my colourful piper's outfit and take up my flute before I lead you to the cave on the outskirts of town.

      On yes, the parking enforcement officers. Those poor, misguided creatures!

      Delete
  11. I can't remember when or how we "met", but I'm glad we did! I enjoy reading your blog and getting to know more about your part of the world!

    ReplyDelete
  12. It's fun to go back to see what one has written over the years...thanks for the opportunity to do so, Yorkie.

    I, too, can't remember how I stumbled across your path; but I'm glad I did. :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Like you, I sometimes marvel at my old posts. And unlike you, I very often include links in a current post to an older one with more/different detail about the same or similar topic.
    I can't remember exactly how long I have been reading your blog, but I am pretty sure that I remember the one from 2013 about Hirta (without having actually clicked on it to check whether I commented).

    Yes, one of the great things about blogging is that we can write about whichever topic we like, and how much or how little we want.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Neil, this is off-topic, but do you have any information on Adrian? He usually posts several times a week and there has been nothing since 14 August. He mentioned that he was going to be around his beloved heavy machinery again, so I'm hoping he hasn't been injured or fallen ill or worse. I have been having vague fealings of dread but hope all is well. I do worry about what will happen to Alf and Molly. I thought you might have heard something from him offline. (Sorry for this intrusion; I have neither his nor your email address.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. RWP Adrian is not responding to emails (I have corresponded with him regularly since he visited me on Lewis years ago) and I'm wondering what has happened to him. I used to have friends in Auchtermuchty where he is/was near but I no longer have anyone to go and spy out the land near there. I shall persist however.

      Delete
  15. As a much younger blogger than you YP (I started in 2007) I still have moments of nostalgia when looking back over old posts. I'm not sure when I started following your blog but presumably not until after your St Kilda post because I would have commented had I read it. I found St Kilda one of the most moving places I have visited. I hope that you manage to get there one day.

    ReplyDelete

Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

Most Visits