Friendship (lots of it) – that massive unexpected benefit from blogging
BIrds of a feather flock together~
This month’s travel link up was a tough one. I’m getting old and it’s difficult to remember all of the benefits blogging as brought into my life, so I’m going to go with the most obvious one. This post is about friendship.
I started blogging 10 years ago. I’ve done the travel blog where I detailed every little encounter on the road – some amazing, some not so amazing. I’ve done the “Mummy blogger thing” and ran away screaming. Lady loves cake is the one who has stuck in my life without getting overly controversial or died when I became too broke to keep it up.
I never imagined when I published my travel diary online (and that is really what it was in 2004) with its silly name (Kat of the Orient… what a nutter) and only my dad reading it that blogging would open up a whole new world for me.
So many fabulous afternoon teas with blogging friends who eventually become friends in real life…
Case in point: our travel link-up real life meet-up over a divine afternoon tea at Browns last weekend. Back in 2004 the last thing on my mind was walking into a room full of new friends I’d made over the internet (then couch-surfing entered my life but that’s different) all because I had found a platform where I could write the way I talk, having been told over and over and over again at university not to do that, ever.
Ridiculously beautiful Guernsey
Last year I went to Guernsey to visit a very good friend of mine who came into my life purely because she found Royal Teas in Greenwich through my blog. For some god-forsaken reason, that happy-go-lucky Canadian, called Jen, continued to read my blog (and I hers) and she is now counted among my best friends, as are the other bloggers who then entered my life thanks to her – hello Melissa, Mandy, Manasi and the rest of you!! 2004’s me had never considered Guernsey as a place to travel to and 2015’s probably wouldn’t if my blog didn’t exist. Melissa is planning a trip to Wellington where I’m hoping to host her. Mandy and I had an amazing weekend in Belfast and Manasi is my sister from another Mister (we’ve had freakishly similar lives growing up as children of eternal expats).
Bloggers tend to be like-minded people. There seems to be something that connects us all together – I think it’s the shared creative spirit but maybe we’re just a whole breed of our own. I’ve very rarely met a blogger I didn’t get along with and get so excited when it comes to meeting up with other bloggers (Hello Angie and Yannick, see you on Thursday!) as I know we’ll almost definitely click.
I couldn’t have had some of the adventures I’ve been on if it wasn’t for my ever expanding amazing blogging crew, so I’m raising my glass here to friendship. Thank you internet.
This post is part of Kelly, Emma and Rebecca’s travel link up – also people I now count as Friends in Real Life.
