happy blog first birthday!

In the midst of my blogger's block I managed to completely miss my blog's first birthday on 1 April!

So apologies dear blog and may the new year be filled with many more posts and growing blog friendships :-)

I started this blog last year as a way of sharing ideas, inspiration and photographs with my sister in Cape Town. It's developed into a place where I practice stringing words together and hope that what results will make sense, if not to anyone else, then at least to me.

And I've discovered that the more I write, the more I realise how much I need to write. I spent many years wanting to write but feeling I simply wasn't good enough at writing to even know where to start. Every now and then I'd have an attack of inspiration and I'd sit down and write something that seemed to come from some place buried deep down inside me and I'd be surprised and delighted by what came up on the page. But then I'd get bogged down with life again and I'd lose touch with that place. But blogging has given me a place to begin. At the moment it still feels very much like I have barely left the starting blocks but it doesn't matter because every time I write I feel better. Even when what comes up on the page/screen seems dull and boring and stupid.

Because always after I've scratched through the surface and dug through all the dirt, I discover some little shining nugget of truth that makes my life more meaningful and helps me make sense of the world.

So my hope for the coming year is that I will continue to write even when I feel blocked and stuck and crazy. (Hang on make that, especially when I feel blocked and stuck and crazy!) And that my writing will help me continue to make sense of the world and how I fit into it.

If along the way, what I write helps someone else make sense of the world then so much the better!

(One of the wonderful spin-offs of blogging has been meeting other bloggers and making new friends - so a big thank you to all of you for your comments and encouragement, and the daily inspiration you share in your blogs).

xox