Metamorphosis of a blog

I started this blog less than a year ago.

As the title suggests - or at least is meant to suggest - it is about me deciding to do something different with my life when I got to 40.

About some of my adventures travelling, my trip on the way down here from the UK, our adventures renting a horrible villa, trying to buy a property in Spain, camping out in a finca with no running water (hence no toilet or bathroom at all), travelling round Spain and Portugal and camping in winter, and the sort of things that start to happen to you at 40. Like your parents dying, deciding what sort of life you want to lead - and knowing there is no going back, well maybe there is but I don't think there is for me. Setting different goals rather than rushing into the office, clambering up the ladder for as high a position as possible and the nice salary and the horrific stress that goes with it.

So far, the only serious posts I have written have been:

Agua de Valencia - about my 40th birthday

The villa from hell about the aforementioned horrible, truly truly stressful - and life-threatening villa

and more recently

My father about the last time I saw my father.

Three serious posts out of 115. The naughty blog has insidiously taken over.

I have ended up writing about my life here in Spain - and since we bought a flat in Gib, life in Gib too. The antics of my neighbours, and some of our off-the-wall conversations here in Spain. Our exciting and resourceful life rescuing bikes out of skips and repairing them.

I have even written about cooking. Is that adventurous? No.

But, I can just about handle writing this sort of stuff, because at least it all gives a relatively honest picture of this Englishwoman living abroad.

I wrote about the Land Rover and swore I would never start a separate Landy blog, after all I was already writing the dog's blog for him. The Land Rovers won, and they too have their own blog or they would have started to dominate this one.

But the straw that broke the camel's back was My 100. I have written 100 things about me. How egotistical is that? It is not British to write 100 things about oneself. Especially on a blog that is not about what I think or feel or did before the age of 40. I am mortified and embarrassed. This blog has a very clear brief, or at least it has in my head, and it is not sticking to it.

So I now have a secret blog. No clicky linky thingies on the sidebar. Even Partner has said he doesn't want the url.

What I think, what I did when I was younger, drivelly stuff like my wedding in Sydney, university, career, friends, family, obnoxious work mates - all the usual sort of stuff - that will be on there. Not here. By which I mean if I feel like writing it up at all I will put it on my secret blog.

There probably won't be much about politics as I find politics too irritating to even consider discussing rationally, and there is highly unlikely to be much about religion. There will be something about my interests. And there will also be some swearing. Not a lot but sometimes I think it is appropriate.

I don't want to offend anyone who visits here - so if you think you want to read any of this stuff, have another read of My 100 and decide if you really want to read the life and opinions of a 40-something non-smoking, vegetarian, left-wing, environmentalist, agnostic, self-opinionated feminist who writes far too many blogs. If so, let me know. I might send you the url.

Oh, and I'm going to take the 100 things down after a few days. It's already on the other blog - where it belongs.

ETA: The 100 has now gone - if you haven't read it you were too slow