(Permission to publish sought and granted)
This morning this somewhat paradoxically-sounding question received a reply in the form of an email which went, "Hello Peter, Just a short note to let you know that I really appreciate your blog posts. I have been reading them on and off for several years. I can't recall how I found your site, but I am glad I did. You have led an interesting life, and your anecdotes and recollections are well worth reading. I also appreciate your recommended YouTube videos; you find some real gems amongst the YouTube dross. Your book recommendations are also of interest, but I think we have different tastes when it comes to reading. I am sure writing blog posts must feel a little like one way communication at times. So, thanks again from one of your readers."
This being a rather dull day which never fails to put me in a dull mood, I wasted no time in sending him my reply: "My blog usually draws some comments from the far-away friends I still have from my many years in remote and not-so-remote parts of the world, after which life back in Australia seems a little mundane and the people I still meet in retirement a little hard to connect with. Anyway, the two or three like-minded people I befriended when I first came to little Nelligen have since died. Given my age (I'll get my OBE this year: over bloody eighty!), it seems hardly worth the trouble looking for new ones but should you ever pass through Nelligen on your way to and from Surfside, trundle down to the end of Sproxtons Lane where you find me going round the bend behind the gate marked RIVERBEND. And thanks again for your email. I really liked it and it brightened up an otherwise dull day. It also explains the sudden appearance of another Canberra reader in the Life Traffic Feed. The other one is from someone I befriended when I first came to Australia in 1965. I sometimes write similar emails when I find a second-hand book and inside an ex-libris inscription or other bookmark. I then track that person or bookshop down and assure them that their book is in safe hands."
If a tree falls in a forest and no-one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Surprisingly, my blog has made a sound in rather unexpected nearby quarters. Something may come of it or nothing may come of it.
