Blogs are for blogging

When I started food-blogging about 8 months ago I set extremely high standards for myself. I am lucky enough to have come across some truly inspiring food blogs and wanted nothing less. However, that only managed to depress me as there was no way I could emulate those wonderful blogs I read regularly. I was (and still am) learning how to be a better cook, make up my own recipes, take good photos of food and reading about light, lenses and composition. I had (and still have) two small children, a full-time job, a hectic lifestyle, home & family to look after, long commutes to work, running to keep healthy, gardening, DIY, you name it. And I had just started. Some of the blogs I am talking about have been around for a least a couple of years and others more.

Still, I was determined (stubborn? delusional?) and set a bunch of strict rules for my blog. One of them was about consistency of content – I would only post recipes (my own or adaptations), reviews and general musings about food. After all this is a food blog (cue another ‘rule’).

I am sure by now you can see how ridiculous this all sounds. This is a blog, not a commercial publication, not a piece of journalism, it is beyond inconsequential. It’s my personal blog, emphasis on both words.

This reminds me of the first time I took painting as a hobby and joined a class. I used to admire the people next to me who painted with strong colours, on big canvases and used their fingers to create free-spirited works. Whereas I insisted in painting perfect pictures with perfect technique and perfect brush strokes (which ended up far from perfect, of course). This meant I ended up creating lots of nearly monochromatic paintings and drawings of a certain size and only used fairly controllable media like oil or pencil (I have since had a second stint at painting and managed to become a messy charcoal fan, so somewhat redeemed myself).

An example is below. Every time I look at this painting, I feel an immense urge to paint a bright pink flower on her head. I might just do that one day.

And so, in my personal blog, I should write about whatever tickles my fancy. Why not? If some of my readers dump me, what does it matter? I decided I needed to relax some of the self-imposed rules for my blog and I hope you don’t mind. And so here it is. A post with a bit of contemplation and some bits and pieces on things that I enjoy. For example taking photos of garden and nature things or houses and buildings. Here you can see a photo of the wonderful roses that grow around one of our windows every year in the summer.

And below are the beautiful white cliffs of the Sussex Heritage Coast. This place is truly breathtaking. When you are up there you feel as if you have reached the end of the world. It just begs for introspection.

And finally the Tiger Inn pub in Beachy Head. I LOVE traditional English pubs and we often make a trip to a new one if we hear good things about it or it features in the Good Pub Guide. This one is just wonderful. Set in the village green, it is as quaint inside as it is outside. The food was decent too (and we are back to food!). We sat at the only empty table you can see in the photo and the sun shone all afternoon.

There are many more things I enjoy and many more photos I could share, of course, this is just a very small selection. However I don’t want to overdo it and scare you all away.

But all I can say is now that I have written this deviant non-food blog post, I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Next up…. a recipe!