A few days ago I came across this post by Donna Halper (media historian, author, professor, public speaker, former rock & roll deejay best known for having discovered the rock band Rush) in which she described how and why she began blogging ten years ago. Just click on the red box (and others) below.
It was a credit option for a course she was taking at New York University at the time, and she hasn’t stopped since.
That got me thinking about why I started this blog, A Balanced Diet, way back in February 2012, with a short story of just 131 words about a visit my wife Steph and I made to a canal pumping station in Wiltshire.
If you’d asked me then if I would still be writing 13 years later, I probably would have dismissed such an idea as preposterous. I write for myself, but it’s always a pleasure if others appreciate what I publish.
I have kept the overall format of the blog the same, although I have tweaked some aspects, like how I include links and other media items, for example.
Having retired in April 2010 (after a successful career in international agricultural research in South and Central America and the Philippines as well as a decade in academia in the UK), I wanted to record my memories of growing up, studying at university and, of course, those interesting and challenging years working overseas. And what we’ve been up to in the years since.
It was my daughters Hannah and Philippa who suggested I start a blog. So with their encouragement I began putting ‘pen to paper’, so to speak, with that first short attempt.
And here I am, still writing on a regular basis, although I have slowed down somewhat from my early blog years. I write about whatever takes my fancy. That’s one of the joys for me of this blog.
This post is number 755. I can’t quite believe it. That’s an average of just under five posts per month, a total of around 859,000 words, and an average of 1100 words per post! There are more than 18,000 media items (photos, videos, and maps). Most of the photos are mine.
So where is my blog being read? Almost everywhere, it seems. However, I wonder how to attract attention from Greenland without mentioning Donald Trump.
My blog covers a wide range of themes (it is, after all, a balanced diet of ideas), but these are the three main ones:
- I studied environmental botany and geography as an undergraduate, and was fortunate to make a career from my plant sciences background in the field of conservation and use of plant genetic resources. These posts describe my work on potatoes and rice, collecting potatoes in the Andes of Peru, and running one of the world’s largest and most important genebanks in the Philippines, among others.
- Through my work I have been lucky to visit almost 70 countries. My elder daughter studied and has settled in the USA (in glorious Minnesota), and apart from the recent Covid years, we have visited the USA each years and have made some epic road trips.
- All our National Trust and English Heritage and other heritage site visits are described here.
But I have also written about music, books, history, and politics as well. There are also links to these in the column to the right. I really must update those pages.
Regarding politics, I’ve written more posts than I had realised. But it was two events in particular that were the impetus to comment: the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK and Donald Trump’s election (twice!) in the USA.
These are the seven posts that have received more than 3000 views, with the first two (at 7553 and 6890, respectively) almost twice as many as the next highest:
- I love Test cricket, and enjoyed listening to commentary on the radio as I was growing up. In this post, I describe some of the most amusing commentaries I’ve heard.
- For many years I was a fan of Garrison Keillor and his program on Minnesota Public Radio, A Prairie Home Companion, sadly no longer broadcast. In 2015, we had the opportunity of attending a live broadcast in St Paul.
- In 1968, at the end of my first or freshman year at the University of Southampton, the botany students attended a two-week field course in the west of Ireland in Co. Clare. This post describes the beauty of the limestone landscape that’s The Burren.
- I worked on potatoes for 20 years, spending 1973-1975 at the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru, exploring the Andes for native varieties.
- In 2020, we moved 230 miles north to Newcastle upon Tyne, leaving our home of 40 years in Worcestershire. The Romans left an impressive and extensive legacy here in the northeast.
- In 2017, I decided to read all the novels of English author Charles Dickens. At high school we had to read his novels as part of the English Literature curriculum. And I wasn’t impressed. However, many decades later I came to realise just what a impressive writer Dickens had been.
- And for a bit of humour, I wrote about two comedy programs that was broadcast on the BBC 60 years ago. The anniversary of the first broadcast was celebrated just a few days ago. Round the Horne and Beyond Our Ken were way ahead of their time – which you will appreciate if you take a read.
With some travel planned for May (to the USA) and September (in the southwest of England in Somerset), there will be plenty to write about. But I am having to restrain myself from commenting further about Trump and Musk. I get too wound up.
A balanced diet . . . 