Grandad asked a question on Saturday.

The conditions of his release from a short spell in captivity include lying low and not interfering with his neighbours property or staff building workers, shooting Tourists, or ranting and raving about the dedicated and hardworking personnel who so unselfishly and wholeheartedly give of themselves for the good of Ireland by serving in Government. This leaves little for him to do so in his boredom he committed a few short words to the laptop and asked a question.

Now this was either a ploy to check up on the loyalty of his followers, or to get them to do all the work and fill Cyberspace with their answers and keep his stats up. There is also the possibility that the answers would provide meat fodder topics for further blog posts.

The question he posed was ‘Why do I(you) Blog?’

I quickly sent my first thoughts winging over the Interweb:

• • Elly walked me into it.
  • The novelty.
  • Now to keep in contact with all the virtual friends I have made.

Happy enough with that I went about my daily chores. Alas there was no peace, the question haunted me at every twist and turn.

So, Why do I blog?

Yes, the answers above were all correct. Elly did walk or push me into it. I was her guinea pig for Bar Camp South East way back in September ’06. I did say “what would I want to do that for? and many other unprintable things as well. But we I got there and my first post was two sentences!!!! Yes two.

Elly was more concerned with me learning about Podcasting. I did my best, and my first effort The Favour was all of two or three minutes. Way to long for anyone to suffer listening to such a dreadful voice!

With time I became more comfortable and adventurous, the blog posts grew longer as did the Podcasts. I learned to insert graphics and photos and last week I managed to add a mini video clip.

Slowly, very slowly over time the comments started to arrive. There are some folk who visit and tip-toe away saying nothing, and that is their right, but there are other stalwarts who visit everyday adding their wisdom, another point of view or sense of fun. At this stage I feel they are my friends and I cherish them. Not being able to ‘Run the Roads’, as they say here in Norn Iron, as much as I would like, I appreciate my blogging friends all the more.

Thank you, Elly for the push! Thank you George for your help also (now where are my flags?). I have learned so much since I started, I discovered there is so much more to learn and most important of all plenty more fun to be had.

So in short I blog, and read blogs because:

• I learn from others.
• Ranting or readings rants, raises my blood pressure.
• The laughter is like jogging on the inside.
• The smile some posts put on my face requires the use of more muscles than a frown, and it also keeps the laughter lines curved upwards giving my face a softer look!
• Then there is the ‘T’ word…..

So please visit more, you are good for my health! 😉