Navel gazing...

I have been outing myself... admitting to close friends and even people I don't know at all well that I blog.  When I tell someone I slip it into the conversation and then immediately play it down. "I don't know why I'm doing it really," I'll say. "It's not that great and no one follows me."

Well actually it's not that bad - on some days it's quite good. And I didn't do it for followers although I do get great pleasure from any interest people take - I'm only human!

It certainly makes me question why I blog as if I need to justify it... mostly to myself I think.

The official reason was to get writing and see how it all works on the worldwide web. After years in broadcast media and then a couple more at home while the career died a slow death and my family flourished, I was losing myself. In a new city with no one much to talk to in those first few months I started to explore the net going from blog to blog finding amazing talent. Designers, writers, photographers, artists and a lot of ordinary people with their own little window on the world.  I wanted to have a go.

I've never been really into hobbies.  My hobby was my work which sounds absolutely tragic but I imagine a lot of people spend their twenties and early thirties like that. And in my defence I had an interesting job - different every day and terribly exciting on some. So now no job, no hobby.

I think that's why I am enjoying the blog. It's my hobby. And one that's helped me to feel like the writer I wanted to be before I left law school and fell into a TV career. I've written four magazine articles in the time since I started My Villa Life and should be writing another right now!  That surely makes me a writer... blogging to avoid a deadline. How very 2010.

By the way, the photograph was taken in London's Kew Gardens - my local park when I first swapped the job for motherhood. I seem to have a thing for all things spring this month... must be in denial about the cold weather which seems to have arrived for good.