I don’t know how it came to pass, but somehow I missed writing here yesterday!! Gosh, what happened? We weren’t particularly busy, it wasn’t terribly hot, I know we drifted down to the Ship for a couple last night, and I know I did some editing of one of my stories, I know we went shopping at Morrisons in the morning and as usual got some bargains, plus a couple of bags of the ingredients for a Caesar salad (my favourite). I know I watched some TV including Angus Ashworth, my recent fave, seeking out items for his Yorkshire Auction House. But how come I didn’t do a blog? It’s a mystery, and I’m now determined it won’t become a habit or a trend.
I’m not sure who started blogging first, me or my friend Andrew Simpson. We both retired from our day jobs at a similar time, he was a history teacher who produced prodigious amounts of material for his students, ditto me teaching English as a second language. For me giving up work meant I could start my real work properly, writing my novels, and to start writing a blog here. I think (and Andrew may correct me) I suggested to him that he did the same – to pull his research into his local area of Manchester and history in general into books, and blog about it at the same time.
X number of years further on, and here we both are, still at it, although Andrew has also branched out into talks, guided walks, local history research and a variety of other connected interests.
When I started writing here, I really had not a clue what to do or how to go about doing it – and I tried to do similar things to what I saw other bloggers doing. My first posts were to promote the first novel I self-published, “Farholm” and I tried to do it in the fashion of newspaper and magazine reviews. However, it took hardly any time at all to realise I had to do more than just write about one book, and gradually I began to share my thoughts on writing – the inspiration, process and sheer slog. I should comment on other books, and describe what I’d been doing, to “talk” about where I live and where I have lived… And gradually I had a sense of a conversation (one-sided for the most part) between me and whoever might be kind enough to read my wittering – I mean writing!
The years have flown by (in fact it’s a bit daunting and slightly horrifying to realise how the time has flown) and writing here is as important to me as ever – even though I confess that sometimes i do write a lot of nonsense, and am not always as careful as I should be in proof-reading my stuff.
Apparently, this is my 11,096th piece of writing and will be my 10,0872nd blog once I publish it since March 2012, in twenty-six categories. I’m thrilled that I have readers from literally all over the world and I am so grateful to them all – or should I say, you all for taking the time to read and comment.
I honestly had no clue when I first started that this would become such a big and very wonderful part of my life!
Here are some links – just in case you’re interested!
https://www.instagram.com/loiselsden
https://www.threads.com/@loiselsden
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com
https://thehistorypress.co.uk/contributor/andrew-simpson
https://www.facebook.com/andrew.simpson.794
https://www.facebook.com/LoisElsden
https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Lois-Elsden/author/B007JWXZ9U
Lois Elsden 
It is always a pleasure reading your posts (as I think you meant post, not blog :-).
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Thank you, that’s very kind! I hope all is well with you?
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Yes, thank you, just suffering from the damp heat but it seems that France and the UK have had it worse this year, although with less humidity. Have a great summer and keep on posting :-))))
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Thank you, and the same to you! x
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