There are two ways to look at most things in life – either you take a positive approach, the old glass half full approach, or a negative approach, the glass half empty approach. Being a positive kind of soul, often on the verge of turning into a middle-aged (now there’s positive) Pollyanna I like to find an upbeat spin to most things. So I will not be saying I have failed with the NaBloMoPo challenge – although I have. Instead I am going to tell you how trying to write a blog post a day has been a bit like some form of aversion therapy for my blogging habit, albeit unexpected.
I was doing Ok until last week. Last week was a crazy week. We had our award ceremonies at work so I spent 4 days hosting VIPs during 8 ceremonies: transporting them backwards and forwards between venues which meant something like 16 coach trips; eating seemingly piles of couscous salad and tartlets and other things which I can’t even remember now; attending two dinners; and making more small talk than any one person should be expected to. This meant that at the end of each day I was collapsing through the door brain-dead and on the couple of evenings when I might have had time to write something there was definitely nothing there to be said. So the blog was forgotten.
Now a strange thing happened. It didn’t bother me that I couldn’t write a blog post and even stranger this weekend I couldn’t be bothered to write one even though I had plenty of time and my head had cleared. This is very strange indeed as for the past 8 years I have blogged religiously 3 or 4 times a week, and sometimes more. When I have been away I have missed blogging. I have often said that I have done it so long that it is part of my routine, it’s a habit – but it seems not.
Why this change? I don’t really know. There is an element of work being very challenging of late leaving me exhausted but I am also spending more and more time on other things apart from gardening. Dont get me wrong I love my garden and I am still fascinated by plants but I don’t feel a need to write about it all the time any more. I have been playing around on the blog experimenting with writing about other things and its Ok but if I am honest doing the NaBloMoPo really made me feel that I was writing for the sake of it and any enjoyment I might have got was lost so why do it. When I started blogging all those years ago it was primarily to connect with other horticulturally minded people and I have done that which is great but I have also in the last few years met lots of people in the ‘real’ world through the various groups I have discovered. These groups have led over the last year to me being involved more in horticulture such as my role as recorder for the RHS Symphyotrichum trial and I think my need for horticultural input is being met more, these days, in this way than on-line.
I doubt I will stop blogging, and I will definitely finish the End of Month meme this year but I have a strange sense of being liberated from something which is quite wonderful.
The only reason for this post is to reassure regular readers that I haven’t completely fallen off the planet.