Sunday 20 November 2011

Blog-a-versary

our house
Exactly a year ago today we stood and nervously pressed the 'publish post' button on the blogger 'new post' facility and watched with some trepidation as our first post appeared.

We'd never paid too much attention to blogs. Having weathered the first few frantic months that are part of any move to a new place we found that we were boring some of our friends/relations with repetition and failing to keep others abreast of the news. After the third email which kindly pointed out that: 'yes, we'd told them that already' we knew we had to find another solution!
Touraine Primeur

We'd found Simon & Susan's blog while searching for some information on wildlife.  As an extension of their blog they have an extremely useful site on flora & fauna in the area. We'd wanted to check if it was remotely possible to have spotted an otter along the Aigronne river [the jury is still out, but at best it is an 'unlikely to just maybe']. Reading their blog was -- and still is -- fun and informative. It also gave us the idea to try writing one ourselves as a solution to letting people know what we were up to.

So after some hesitant messing around with the Blogger design pages we put up our 1st post on 20 November 2010.

Now a year later we can honestly say that we remain touched and humbled by the number of people who visit our blog. For our part we thoroughly enjoy writing posts and have relished the comments that people have left behind. We've made many good friends along the way. Some remain 'blog friends' [maybe that will change in the future], others we have been lucky enough to also get to know in person. 

1st banner photo: Autumn 2010
To all of you a heartfelt THANK-YOU! We hope you continue to enjoy reading our adventures. We certainly enjoy sharing them :-). So we'll raise a glass of Touraine Primeur to our 1st 'blog-a-versay'.

 

16 comments:

the fly in the web said...

I enjoy your blog greatly...and started blogging for similar reasons...saying the same things over and over again to different people.
All power to your collective elbows!

Perpetua said...

Happy anniversary and here's to many more posts. I'm really glad that Fly showed me the way to your blog. You beat me to starting a blog by exactly 3 months, though my reasons for doing so were quite different. That's the wonderful thing about blogging - it can be what you want it to be and if you're lucky, others come along for the ride.

Diane said...

Congratulations and hopefully there will be many more posts to follow. Love your blog. Keep up the good work. Diane

GaynorB said...

Niall and Antoinette,

Congratulations!

Your blog is always varied, interesting and very well written. Your excellent - even better with your new camera- photographs add an extra dimension, through which we have discovered so much about your/our area.

Enjoy your celebratory drink; I think I'll join you - virtually, of course!

Susan said...

Keep up the good work. Quite by coincidence we have an anniversary post tomorrow. I'm very glad blogging meant we met you (and my vote's for a large marten :-)

wcs said...

Happy blogaversary!

ladybird said...

Congratulations and thank you for many lovely posts and photos! Hope to meet you in a not too distant future ... Martine

Jean said...

Congratulations from us, too !!
We were taling the other day about blogs and friends and came to the conclusion that we have more friends in France that we do in the uk, and most of them we have met through the blog.

Your blog is always a delight to read, so keep writing so we can keep enjoying !!

Niall & Antoinette said...

@All - thanks for the very kind comments :-))

Niall & Antoinette said...

@Fly - we'll keep the elbows greased -- promise! Just need to find time to do some posts on a more historical note.

@Martine - That would be great! Did you spot the lieveheersbeestje on the bottle label ? :-)

@Susan - we'll never know :-) but we owe the 'mystery beastie' our thanks. It started it all off.


@Jean - see you in December!

LindyLouMac said...

Congratulations on your first blog anniversary, keep it up as it is always fascinating to compare your life in France with ours here in Italy. I started my blog for almost the same reasons and love the interaction with everyone.

Niall & Antoinette said...

@Perpetua - we've certainly been lucky in the people who've come along for the ride :-)

Niall & Antoinette said...

@LindyLou - As you say the interaction is just great!

BTW still can't get over your narcissi :-) lucky you.

Tim said...

Congratulations you two! We feel that we've also made many more friends over here because of the "Blogosphere". For instance, as Simon is away at the moment, we were able to have Susan over for a meal that included things that Simon doesn't like [Rabbit and Pumpkin]... it was a great evening and we compared the Touraine Primeur that you were drinking with som Beaujolly New... and decided that our regions Primeur was much better as an instant drink than the Beaujolais which was full of tanins and quite difficult to enjoy... but as Susan put... "has a lot of potential to be a good keeper"... primeurs are meant to be drunk now... not kept!
So we'll get another bottle of the Touraine and drink to your future blogging and our good friends here in the Touraine.
Keep on Bloggin'

Anonymous said...

We will raise a glass of Touraine Primeur for/with you - Don't stop blogging - We rely on you to touch the Charnizay base. Thankyou.

Niall & Antoinette said...

@Tim - we were quite pleased with this year's Touraine Primeur too. More will not doubt find its way into our shopping trolley :-).