The Company of Strangers

I love the internet. Seriously . .I've been blogging now for around 18 months and I've met such interesting people . . well not literally but most of my blogroll peeps email or Skype which I find really cool. My children once thought me a nutter for having conversations with total strangers but now, one has a blog of her own and the other, no problem with me chatting to a 20 year old or a 60 year old on the other side of the world. Interesting when your children become your minders and warn of internet predators!

One blogger has recently moved here and is living just 10 minutes away and hopefully when she's settled we'll catch up. Another is visiting Australia within the next couple of months. Another planning a visit in the new year. Another is in Ireland as we speak, meeting his bloggers and people he's met via the net for the first time. Others have stopped blogging but email to keep in touch or offer advice on where it's safe to travel in South America (earlier panicky mum needed to know). Others chat online about their lives, their families and the points we have in common and some, who live in my City (yes it is mine, all mine) wish to remain anonymous but still have fun via the blog and share so much. Anonymous, that's targetted at you!

With some I have a bond in angst, life experiences, family, work . . I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy and grateful to you for even bothering to pop by. Meeting you is an objective, unless you don't want to be met. I know a few because they're local. I feel like I know a few more because you keep in touch and I want to know others because where else in the world would I come into contact with people like you? I have grannies, poets, photographers . . writers, musicians and students, patients, sled dog trainers, drug addicts, conservationists, libertarians, students, geeks (I loves me geeks), hill climbers, teachers and principals . . younglings and oldies, married and single, hetero and gay . . .you all enrich me with the little things you share.

Blogging has given me an outlet for my own frustrations and concerns as well as an opportunity to stand on my pathetic soap box or to vent some banal spleen or share my thrills and woes in this rather odd journal. Some of you are like me, some are world's apart yet through this odd medium, we collaborate, argue, agree, support, joke, suck up or disagree . . ultimately, we wish each other well. So at the risk of sounding sycophantic, and without dropping any names. Thanks a heap . . .I sleep soundly knowing that some have offered refuge to Clare should she come unstuck overseas and wait with anticipation to meet those of you who venture to the antipodes.

Better still I hope that should I wonder to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Capetown, Hungary, Adelaide, Belfast, England, Adelaide, Queensland, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, Mexico, Dubai, Dublin or Belfast . . you'll put on a smile and welcome me into your parlour - and allow me to shout you a drink! Or in your case Ropi . . an ice cream!

Cheers! OK Time to get the roast on!