I'm never sure of the tone for these things - maybe really chatty, but how does that work? I mean, some of you I may know, but realisitically most of you I don't. Maybe you're interested in the work, maybe the blog, maybe you're not interested! Equally really formal wouldn't properly represent me - not that it won't creep in, I mean most of what i've written over the years has been some form of essay or disertation. On top of that I've had fun getting this set-up - linking with the web site - and almost obliterating the thing in the process (Ah the joys of touch screen and messy fingers!), which can alter the tenor of the piece a little, reducing the carefully worded thought into a hieroglyph worthy of Julius Ceaser on the end of another thwarting from Asterix.
I set the page and blog up quickly, before heading off for a holiday in Galloway, so found myself both fascinated by a new places - geography, history, culture - and, in this case, distileries, and mithered by the thought of what was going on with the site. I love to get to a remote place and sketch - some of which are on the site, it's why I went on about making a connection in the last piece. There's something about the concentration of looking, and then letting the information process through recording what you see. You notice the movement of the place, wind, animals, crumbling stones, the pitter-patter of life in even a tranquil place. Yet at the same time you enter a kind of meditation - for those twenty minutes, half an hour, you filter out the buzzing thoughts that pester more conscious moments and are left with what is.
Contrast that with the idea of setting up a web-site and blog, where the whole idea is to reach out to other people and opportunities, to engage with all the little thoughts and anxieties that nag everyday. In doing this you are shouting out (possibly into the void), screaming you oppinions, thoughts and observations, desperately trying to find what might be. I guess the drama queen in me wants to do this stuff and show it off, but the other part of me - my inner monk, sees it like coming up for breath after immersing myself in deep water. I found the impulses at once at odds, yet strangely complimentary, the extremity of each impluse bringing a balance to the trip, although I'd like to feel that hoildays won't always need IT support.