Beginnings

When I started, there were ideas of the pitfalls and joys and humour of being an older person. I was especially keen to promote exercise and laid out the NICE guidelines. Also keeping mentally alert and active and using older role models as inspiration.

The dark side

This followed a long period of reflection on where my strengths and weaknesses came from and what I might do about them. I have insight enough to realise I live with them and just get on with it. I am regularly reminded, thoughts coming to mind in the small hours of the morning and sometimes in quiet moments like reading a book. The dark times produce unpleasant memories, but I also need to celebrate. Here is a verse I wrote for ‘Don’t let the old man in.’

Many things we have done/Some good and some bad/Leave your sorrows behind/Enjoy the love that you have

 I have a vague itch somewhere that suggests I’ve said most of what what I want to say.

Lighter notes

There were lighter notes on travel, senior moments or gaffes, coffee, family matters and the garden. These were largely for my benefit and anyone who cared to read about me. There have been loyal supporters who enjoy content and style. But it was never going national.

We can continue with a diary which will always be there for the family members that come after us. The other stuff about activity in older people has been now covered. There are still gaffes and inspiring role models and maybe the occasional helpful piece of advice.

Change

So, going with the experts, a blog must evolve. Stop, start, carry on – a mantra from my management development days. Stop – there are too many subjects and labels. Content is diluted and needs more focus. Keep to single figures in the topics I cover, with clear labels as themes. I haven’t discovered a way of deleting labels/categories in shallilo-foreveryoung and the new format makes it very hard when you have already 50 or so to choose from. Moving to WordPress makes this easier. Google blogger has lost all my photos. Thankfully I have not deleted the originals.

Carry on – the basic content outlined above continues in shallilo-foreveryoung, concentrating on less than 10 topics. This will help with key words. I could not work out whether these were purely for the blog or were multiple and topic based. If it is the latter then less than 10 topics will reduce the key word work load. Good images as well.

Start – a more story-based blog with lear-youngatheart, whether it be family history, cricket or walking in the Yorkshire Dales and Scotland. I am going to pay more attention to what goes on under the hood (SEO).

• There is not a lot of time left
• It’s not about being in a rush
• It’s not about being trivial

Haiku, line drawings, photographs, bite sized personal moments, short stories – sketches.

It’s still a personal blog.