750 posts and still at it

As is customary, I mark every 150th post by producing a hard-backed book and this post will end up in the collection spanning numbers 601 to 750.  Apart from it being a vanity project (no, Carly Simon was not singing about me but the lyrics fit), I do this in the hope that one day someone in the family might be vaguely interested in learning a little about one of their forebears (and if that happens to be you, hello and have a good life).  It's also timely to consider why I’m still blogging after all this time (since January 2010 actually, since you ask). Here are a few reasons:

1. I like writing. There’s a little narrating voice in my head as I write, sometimes talking sense, sometimes talking absolute rubbish. But more often than not, I listen. (What do you mean, you don’t have that? That's a shame. You are definitely missing out).
2. Why not? No, really: why not blog? For me, blogging has always been fun. I’m an introvert living an extravert’s life, in many ways, and writing allows me to socialise in a very comfortable way.
3. It’s fun to pick new themes. Sometimes the voice in my head gives me a subject and I'll see if I can write something to fit. It's fun when it works and, to be honest, it's still enjoyable when it falls flat (and believe me, it does fall flat quite often).
4. Some thoughts are better written. Or, to be more accurate, I find that the process of translating thoughts into writing helps me to better shape my response to whatever the subject is. Sometimes, having to articulate thoughts verbally gets in the way of clarity of expression. It's difficult to edit what's just come out of your mouth!
5. The blog as a journal. The content has become an archive of my life and my little online room. I share it with the world, true, but at the end of the day, I’m blogging just for me.
6. You! By comparison with the output of some bloggers, I’m not popular by any stretch of the imagination, but I know I have a handful of steady readers. And I’d be a pillock not to acknowledge (and thank) you for that. So thanks! Allow me to buy you a coffee the next time we meet.
7. And because....if I wasn’t still blogging, I wouldn’t be able to say "I wonder where the narrating voice will take me over the next 150 posts?".