A Grand Gathering In Robert's Park

Like many of you reading this, I have dedicated quite a bit of time over recent years to blogging. It is a pastime which has given me a great amount of pleasure and satisfaction, but it is also a pastime I have difficulty explaining to many non-blogging friends. However, put me in a room with another blogger and I am instantly at home, instantly sharing ideas and memories with an old friend, instantly at ease. I have a theory which states that bloggers - or at least the kind of bloggers I hang around with (which by definition includes you) - are all of a certain personality type and when they meet for real they are guaranteed to get along. Earlier this year Isobel and I went to Lanzarote and there met fellow blogger Marilyn Brindley (Little Nell) and her husband. Not only did we seal a firm friendship, they also extended to us such wonderful hospitality which made our stay on their island a memorable one. 

A couple of weeks ago I got the chance to offer my own bloggers' hospitality when one of my very favourite bloggers - Christine H of The Daily Postcard - was visiting England along with her husband. They stayed with us over a weekend and I tried to put together a programme of visits which included a number of local West Yorkshire sites. Given their interest in architecture and town planning, a visit to Saltaire was an essential ingredient for the weekend, and so I thought I would ask another of my favourite bloggers - Saltaire resident Jennyfreckles of Salt and Light - to show us around. Although Jenny and I have undertaken joint blog projects before, we had never actually met and therefore this would be a fine opportunity to test out my theory.

The theory proved right. Anyone who observed the three of us sat together in the Half Moon Cafe in Saltaire would, I am sure, have bet a fortune on the fact that we were old friends who had known each other for years. And in many ways they would be right, we knew each others ideas, interests and thoughts and we shared a long and fascinating list of mutual friends who none of us had ever actually met. This is the strange, fascinating, unifying, and stimulating world of blogging, a world we all share, a world we all derive great pleasure from.

We decided to celebrate the meeting by publishing the same photograph on our three blogs. It shows the three of us - along with a bronze Llama!, It might appear that there is a big empty cricket field behind us, but look again, look closely. It is full of the virtual images of all our mutual blog friends from every country of every continent throughout the world. You were all with us that day - and I have to say that I have still not met a blogger who I didn't get along with like an old friend.