Dear Reader ...

Warning - contains introspection

When I first started this blogging lark, I'm not entirely sure what my motives were or whom I expected to be reading it. In part, it seemed like a good way of keeping a record of progress with Warrior, for my own benefit. And it would also be an easy way for me to update family and friends who might - or might not - be interested, rather than bombarding them with detailed emails about what we were doing last weekend that was so important we couldn't come and see them etc. The same reasoning was behind the setting up of the Webshots photo albums, only more so. (Now I bombard people with emails asking whether they've been reading the blog and looking at the photos - well, at least they're shorter.)

And then I found myself part - a marginal part perhaps, but part nonetheless - of an online community of narrowboat bloggers, thanks largely to Mike and Andy (if I may be so familiar). Which is nice. And so I chunter on, sharing my half formed thoughts and highly imperfect knowledge with, I fondly imagine, people who are by and large in a similar position: passionate about boats, desperate to learn (and, yes, to belong), but not necessarily very knowledgeable or competant or experienced (yet). By assuming that you, dear reader, are thus placed, I have been able to expose my ignorance and worse, my little learning (one of my father's favourite phrases was 'A little learning is a dangerous thing'. But why is it? Too late to ask that now; I'm obviously scarred for life by the thought).

But what if you're not? What if you're not my mum or my sister, or a former colleague, or a fellow newbie, but someone who really really knows about all this stuff I just play at? When I re-read some posts through those eyes, I cringe at my naivete and/or presumption. The thing is, I think that probably makes me pretty unusual in the world of blogs, which is all about shameless self confidence. If I want to play the game, which I do, I have to force myself to overcome that diffidence. If I get something wrong, please tell me. Ditto if I'm rambling incomprehensibly. Having issued that invitation, I can carry on with a clear(er) conscience ...

And from tomorrow, normal service will be resumed with lots of minute detail about what we have been doing over the weekend on Warrior and Andante.