Here I am, blowing the dust off my blog. It wasn’t inspiration that brought me here (as will likely now become painfully obvious), it was fear. Email chatter suggested that the host for the site has a partnership with a company that sends out warnings that your site has been “infected” with something unspecific. Athlete’s Foot, perhaps. Either you pony up a subscription to sort it out or they lock the account. So it’s speak now or forever hold my peace.

I’m conscious that I am speaking to an empty room. That’s fine. I’m very noisy on Twitter (using my real name) and I get more attention than I can handle there. Talking to you, Mr Overturned Chair and you, Mr Threadbare Curtain, is sort of comforting. Or is it? Perhaps there is no comfort in absence; specifically the absence of those of you who were once kind enough to pass by and who shared a little life with me here. There were many times when something you said in your blogs or in a comment made me see the world differently. Sometimes they made me see myself differently. I could pretend that the blog was about scratching some itch to write or that it served a particular therapeutic purpose but, in truth, it was about … well .. companionship and camaraderie. Or, to put it another way, it was about love. I’m not sure I could have said then that I loved you all, but I did. I do. So if this sentiment finds its way to you – tumbling in the electron torrent of the network – I would like to say thank you. If it never finds its way to you, then I am sorry that I did not speak up sooner.