Details

I think, speaking for myself and generalizing wildly (as I do), we have an endless fascination with other people's lives. I think this is why people read blogs. Because even when other people seem just like you, their lives are always different in tiny (or enormous) ways, ways they often wouldn't even think of as remarkable - and it's those chinks that make it so compelling to read about other people's doings. It's like visiting a friend's house, a friend you've known a while, and seeing their family photo collages on the wall, and poking around the books on their shelves, and considering the colours they painted their walls that you would never have thought of. (And then, I suppose, you either think "I'm so glad this cool person is my friend," or "Wow. Maybe I should ease gracefully out of this whole thing.")

And so I think I blog because, if you care enough to read this, and are interested enough to stop by every now and then, I'd probably like to invite you over to my house and have you ask me about my photo collage with its grainy, orange-hued 1970s picture of me with my grandparents (they had Instagram even then?) and the photo of me with my class in our white First Communion dresses ranged around the stautue of Mary in the chilly Dublin wind of May 1980, and the blurry one that looks all arty because my mum's disk camera was dodgy and you never knew what sort of double exposure you were going to get. And then, while I was making the tea, you could scan the bookshelves and ask yourself what sort of people have an ancient set of classics (in the original languages) on the top and far too many battered Dick Francis paperbacks in the middle and an entire collection of PG Wodehouse on the bottom, and discover many new and fascinating things about us.

The devil, as they say, is in the details. So please keep writing your own details, and I'll keep writing mine as best I can.