The Mouse House blog….

Is now four years old, according to the WordPress notification I got yesterday.

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!

You registered on WordPress.com 4 years ago.

Although this blog is only four years old I’ve actually been blogging for almost eleven years. I discovered a talent for writing when I was at school, photography had been a hobby since the age of ten and a love of camping started in 1997 with my very first weekend on Anglesey, so after becoming a solo camper in 2009 I started my first blog as a way of combining all three interests. Initially it was more of a reminder to myself of places I’d been to but if I picked up a few readers along the way then that was a bonus.

When I started this blog in October four years ago it was mainly as a hobby, something to keep myself occupied during the late autumn and winter months when I wasn’t camping, but I’ve found that in the last couple of years it’s turned into almost a full-time job. Right from the start I’ve often randomly featured places, usually fairly local, which I’ve been to while walking the dogs but joining in occasionally with Jo’s Monday Walk has encouraged me to explore places further afield and to always post my walks on Mondays, with probably more general posts on Fridays.

Many of the places I write about have a fair bit of history attached to them, history which could mean the difference between writing an interesting post and writing a mediocre one, so I can often spend hours, days even, researching the details and editing the photos for whatever I happen to be writing about at the time – and as soon as I publish one post I make a start on the draft for the next one. So if anyone ever asks me if I watched (insert whatever programme comes to mind) on tv recently the answer will most likely be ‘no’ – I rarely watch tv as I’m too busy here on my pc.

Not long ago I had a 2-week holiday from work although I didn’t actually go away anywhere. Camping was out of the question and a trip to Ireland would have produced more problems than it was worth so I stayed at home, and being blessed with good weather for most of the two weeks I was able to get out and about with the camera to places which will eventually feature on here. In fact I was so busy exploring during those two weeks that I went back to work for a rest!

Of course, there’s something about this blog which shouldn’t be ignored and that’s my lovely blog readers. It’s nice to know that there are at least some people reading my scribblings, and if it wasn’t for my readers there may not be a blog anyway, so thank you everyone for following me over the last four years – here’s to the next four, and hopefully beyond.