obligatory blog-birthday blogging blig

Dear readers of Baroque in Hackney,

Thank you all very much for participating in making this past year as much fun (ahem!) as it has been. (Seriously: I've spent a lot of time lying on the sofa in this past year, and often blogging about it has been the most fun I've had. I know that sounds utterly pathetic.) I was shamed by a friend into starting this blog. She persuaded me that simply anyone who's anyone has a blog, and you're totally nowheresville if you haven't got one. And I had just been made redundant, and was pretty wiped out* so was determined to rest on my laurels for a few months, so there was absolutely no excuse not to. I mean, it's not like I was busy.

It was a question of Profile. My friend said a blog would be worth it, but time-consuming. I think it's probably been even more time-consuming - read all-consuming - than she meant! (It turns out she has five blogs, and one of them is about home-schooling, which tells you what else she's doing. Superhuman or what. Maybe my blog is as time-consuming as all her five put together. Like kids. Of which she also, come to think of it, has five.)

My profile has been raised, too! Some of you may remember the glorious first weekend of April, when Baroque got quoted in the Saturday Guardian! Now there was a day. It was my historic Jane Austen post, Becoming Jane Winslet. (Soft-focus gaze across massive expanse of rolling English lawns)
Now, to reward, celebrate, and generally mark the passage into Year Two I have spent much of today fussing about with my sidebar. See how nice it is?

I've sorted the links into categories, because frankly it was confusing even me; I've wanted to do this for months, but couldn't be arsed. I've also pruned the links and added new ones. These decisions were based on the following combined factors: what I really read, what I think is really good, who I'm friends with, who has stopped posting their blog, and whim. Amnesia may also have played a part, if there's anything obvious not on there.

And I've added a sidebar widget linking to Dina Rabinovitch's blog, Take Off Your Running Shoes. This is because Dina is 37% of the way through a major fund-raising campaign to raise money for a cancer trials unit at Mount Vernon Cancer Hospital, and I would like to think the people who read my blog would go over there and contribute to the fund. Her blog is a compulsive read, in any case, like the book (and like her Guardian columns): she writes about what it's like, day-to-day, to have cancer; her kids and her husband; food; the throes of getting her first book published; clothes; and, of course, the fund-raising campaign itself.

We all know how wonderful the internet is: it brings people together, and I'm no exception. I love that I've 'met' so many people through this lark. Unlike the people who have 'blogmeets' I haven't met any of you in person - it's a different scene, I guess - except of course for those of you I already knew. But in its first year Baroque in Hackney has definitely come to occupy a particular niche. People tell me they love reading about poetry here (thanks!), and I have some great correspondences; there's also a thriving network of Hackney bloggers I'm very happy to be part of.

And I did have one funny experience. When I went back to the hospital after my cholecystitis to see if I was okay for going back to work, the doctor said, "and what do you do?"

I said, "I'm a writer and editor in the not-for-profit sector," and she said: "and are you a blogger?"

"What?" I said.

"Are you Baroque in Hackney?"

With that, here's to Year Two of Baroque in Hackney (touch wood). I thank all of you for your time, your attention, your wit, your emails, and often your kindness.

love,

Ms Baroque


* Of course it turns out to have been gall stones all along. Who knew!