A Year in Review

An Internet game based on the Tour de France last summer led me to write to a daily email review of results and standings. The means I chose to publish those emails to the web to have an archive readable online by all participants was the blogging platform WordPress. Soon the Tour was over, but I decided to keep going – I was enjoying the regular writing – and I launched this blog. 84 posts and 248 comments later, including a change in template and in hosting, it’s now 2006 and time to look back over some of those posts which you may have missed.

The first non-cycling post was about the “war on terror” – or rather the risk to personal privacy – and followed the bombings in London. Indeed I’ve been political on occasion, talking about America’s rising debt or the decision to put a man on the moon again by 2018. Closer to where I am, I commented on the urban violence in France during October and November.

Living in France, I occasionally come up with some insight into French office culture compared to the UK, and about linguistic experimentation (or rather, silliness) in the office. Sometimes I got technical, for example in my post about the new digital cinema standard – an article I hoped might raise more interest, but I just couldn’t get it “out there” anywhere. I read through a whole technical specification to come up with that content, but it’s really a niche interest thing. Closer to the interest of some readers, I’ve also been techy with HTML and CSS regarding a suggestion for improvement to the look of “When Tara Met Blog”. That led to a review which unfortunately was done when techy content was filling most of my homepage… but it was fair criticism and started me thinking a bit harder about what to write about.

The main event of my year and obviously a recurrent theme is the birth of my son Nathan. Back in July, I wrote about a scare we had when Yasmina went into hospital. It was a difficult pregnancy, but finally on October 14th Nathan was born and the post announcing the birth was the most commented on in 2005.

New Year’s day is a time to remember the good and the bad, and look forward with hope for a great year ahead. In 2005, I occasionally posted about anniversaries : the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, the 4th anniversary of the attacks on NYC, and more recently the 25th anniversary of the assassination of John Lennon. In 2006, I will be posting about some more personal anniversaries. Nathan’s first birthday, and our 5th wedding anniversary are up for celebration this year. So much to look forward to with a son developing and doing new things every day.

I wish you all a great 2006, and hope you will click on a link or two to look back over the year with me. After a slow start to this blogging project, I am pleased to note there are some regular readers. It’s great to see you here, for you bring so much to the blog. Without you, I’m just talking to myself…

6 Comments

  1. A healthy and happy New Year to you and your family

  2. Simon

    2/1/2006 at 5:19 pm

    Hi Pauline

    Welcome back, and a happy New Year to you and yours too!

    -Fruey

  3. Have a fantastic year!! I wish you more good than bad, more happiness than tears and many many wonderful memories. 🙂

  4. Simon

    3/1/2006 at 11:18 pm

    Hi Carrster

    Good to see you back in 2006, I hope that you have an interesting year planning and having your wedding and filming and all…

    Pauline,

    I hope you’re having fun back home after your trip to the south and Leon is probably back at school, right?

    -Fruey

  5. Happy New Years. Will blogroll you now. Should probably have you look at my sidebar; like Tara I don’t have complete control, and it’s driving me crazy

  6. Simon

    5/1/2006 at 10:05 am

    Hi Pia,

    You’re using WordPress so I think I could do something for your sidebar. Do you have an idea on how do you want it to look and how to manage it, or would you like me to propose a solution?

    Thanks for the blogroll. Note the spelling “caperet” – it comes from a latin quote from the mathematician Fermat.

    -Fruey