Recently in blogging Category

Probably to the relief of most of you, my sojourn on Field Day is almost at an end. Tim will be back next week, complete with an impressive sun tan and probably still decked out in his holiday Bermuda shorts and flip-flops.

I felt I couldn't let my last day go by though without a final foray into the world of cats. Or to be more precise, cats and wigs.

So far I've given you nightmares over the weird world of owners adding hair to their feline friends. But Mr Poultry report has come up with something so much better.

'Til next time, Cat Chat chums, enjoy:

PS - If you feel you can welcome another Farmers Weekly blog into your life, feel free to pop over to mine. I promise I don't talk about cats there. 

Guest blogger: Heather Gorringe

Heather runs an award-winning business, the wonderfully named Wiggly Wigglers (it sells garden products including worm composters - hence the name.)

The 43-year-old farmer's wife from Herefordshire has one son (Monty), two chickens (Lilian and Valerie), two pigs (unnamed as they will become pork), two chocolate labs (Toast and Jam) and one chocolate cat (Noah). She's big on twittering and in this post explains why.

Just in case I forget to mention it later - I'm going to be here next week, so won't be blogging. It's one of my favourite counties: Somerset.

Two guests will be stopping by to blog on Field Day, though - the man who knows everything about blogs (although, worryingly, is a fan of camping) Adam Tinworth, and a previous contributor, Caroline Stocks.

Caroline, incidentally, will also be looking after my cats, Numeg and Parsley. Wish her luck.

The more eagle-eyed of you may have noticed a new "Subscribe by E mail" feature in the right hand column of this blog (Adam, who kindly had me as a guest blogger recently, did the techie stuff).

The idea is simple: you just type in your email address and an email will wing its way to you whenever there's a new post on Field Day.

The advantage is that you don't end up disappointed because you check the blog so frequently that you find there are no new posts or, more likely, only do it periodically and find there's too much reading to catch up on! So feel free to give it a go. One click will deactivate it if you sign up and get email overload.

For those of you interested in journalism and blogging, I've been a guest blogger for Adam on One Man and His Blog.

Remember Bella Hall, that nice lady who won our new columnist competition in Farmers Weekly?

Well here, even though it's not going to appear in the mag until next week, is her latest column:

Three things determine my husband's frame of mind: the weather, machinery and pigeons (commodity prices was the third, but currently it definitely is pigeons).

We were due to go out. Charlie had just recovered from chicken pox and then Will came down with a virus that knocked him for six.

I hadn't left the house for weeks (okay, I'm exaggerating, but you get the picture) and had taken up nursing as a full-time occupation, administering medicines and creams to anyone who came near me. Hence, David decided to take me out.

After years of experience, I known that being a mother and a farmer's wife greatly reduces the odds of a night out actually taking place. I also should have known better than to expect a relaxing evening.

The day in question hadn't started well for my husband. His early morning pot-shot out of the bedroom window at an unsuspecting pigeon had missed its target.

Talking of books, that nice man Scott Pack (he used to be a bigwig at Waterstone's and now works in publishing) has had me as a guest blogger over on Me and My Big Mouth.

I wrote about (and it was partly Field Day readers' comments about my bent head that got me thinking about the subject) how ridiculous author photos (mine included) tend to be.

OK, a little bit of housekeeping.

I was away in Lanzarote last week, hence my absence from this blog. Thank you, to those of you who've asked, I did have a lovely time. I am now slightly red, but should go back to being pale by lunchtime tomorrow.

I see there's also been some debate about the new photo of me. Mopsa, who writes the Ramblings blog, reckons it looks like I've injured my neck (possibly a squirrel bite, she suggests), while Sally agrees it's not my best look, and Cavan who edits Countryfile's website reckons my head looks like it's about to fall off. Matthew Naylor, meanwhile, commented that it looks like I've been punched.

At this rate, I may be forced to change it. I might tilt the other way next time...

You might have noticed Field Day looks different.

That nice man Adam, Farmers Weekly's blog tsar, has made it nicer and more user friendly.

The changes haven't gone unnoticed with Mr Naylor - he of the small feet and the blow-dried dogs. He isn't sure about the new mugshot of me. I think he may have a point.

I'm always interested to hear your views, so do let me know if there's anything you'd like to see more of, or less of, on the blog. All comments are welcome (although nice ones are obviously more welcome than critical ones).

I'm away on holiday next week, incidentally, so I've given the keys to Field Day to Caroline and Johann. Usual rules apply: Be nice to them and enjoy their stuff (but not, obviously, as much as mine).

Neither Caroline nor Johann, incidentally, has a titled head.

I don't normally enter competitions. That way, you can stand on the sidelines, snipe about the people who do, gripe about the rules and tell yourself you would have won had you entered.

I broke the habit of a lifetime recently and went in for a blogging competition. It was run by Farmers Weekly's parent company, RBI, which has well over 100 blogs. And, guess what, I didn't win.

That said, I was made up to get the runners-up spot. Field Day obviously is doing something right, so please carry on giving me feedback in 2009 about what you'd like to see more of and what you'd like to see less of.

This is the blog that beat me. I don't understand a lot of it - but I'm sure it's fantastic.

Seriously, though, well done Mr Ostrower. I never knew there was so much to say about planes!

If you notice I'm rather quiet next week, don't worry - I'm not dead. I'm away on holiday.

Two Field Day regulars, Caroline and Johann, will be posting. Usual rules apply: be nice to them and enjoy what they write (but no so much that you prefer it to my stuff, obviously).

See you in a week or so.

I'm getting old.

I can forget that fact for months at a time and then, bang, it suddenly hits me.

It occurred to me yesterday when I was explaining to someone that we didn't have emails or the internet when I was in my first job. We didn't even have mobiles phones, for heaven's sake. And I'm not talking about the 1960s here; it was the early 1990s.

I guess it's the same with all jobs - but journalism has changed more in the last couple of years than it did in the previous 10.

One of the many, many ways it's changed is through video. The ease-of-use and sheer accessibilty of it. There are literally millions of video clips on the internet. A lot are total rubbish, but some are fantastic.

I'm going to compile a Top 10 list of the best rural-related clips, so if you've got any suggestions, please let me know. Have you watched any recently that you found fascinating? Or that made you laugh? Or made you mad? Or changed your opinion on something?

Meanwhile, in the spirit of this new exciting video era, I've decided to have a go.

Old dogs, it seems, can sometimes learn new tricks.

First I had to move fast to scotch rumours of my demise, now I find myself fighting to dispel another rumour - namely that I am a peeping tom.

Here's how it happened. This morning, Nutmeg disappeared. Not disappeared in the gone-for-three-weeks or catnapped-for-a-pair-of-gloves kind of way, admittedly, but just disappeared for longer than usual.

I went walkabout in the neighbourhood to find her, armed with a box of cat food. My search took me along an overgrown alley which runs between two rows of houses. Picture the scene. It's early morning. People in houses are going about their business, getting up, getting dressed. You can probably guess what happened next.

I wasn't thinking. I heard a familiar miaow. Couldn't quite see in the garden where it came from. Stepped up onto the bottom rung of a fence to peer over. A woman (in a dressing gown) peered back from her living room. A woman in a dressing gown, looking alarmed. It's understandable: she would have seen a man skulking in the foliage behind her house, looking in at her.

I reacted swiftly by holding aloft the box of cat food as if to say: Look, this isn't what you think, I'm here on legitimate business. I called out (in my most un-pervert-like voice): Here Nutmeg. Puss, puss, puss, come here Nutmeg. Come here, cat that I'm looking for in this alley.

The woman drew her curtains. The cat ran to me. We went home. The police haven't knocked.

Talking about cats, if you're not sick of me rambling on about them, you might be interested to know that Tom Cox (who wrote the hilarious Under The Paw) has kindly had me as a guest blogger on The Little Cat Diaries.

Apologies for my deafening silence recently.

I've been away on the exotic Isle of Wight (more of which later). Just wanted to say hello, I am now back. I promise to do better and put lots of stuff on the blog from now on!

How low can you go? Having repeatedly taken me to task for publishing cute cat pictures, Matthew Naylor has now resorted to publishing shots of dogs in fancy dress on his blog.

And, here's the worst thing - apparently it's proving very popular!

Those of you who are interested in blogging (and blog yourself) will have probably heard of Judith O'Reilly.

Or, you may not have heard of Judith O'Reilly, but you're almost certain to be familiar with her blogging name: Wife in the North.

Her blog charts the trials and tribulations of life in rural Northumberland, after she moved to the North East from London. It's been turned into a book which, frankly, has got bestseller written all over it.

Anyway, I'm very excited because I've just been talking to her (well, swapping emails) as she's going to write a piece for Farmers Weekly (you'll be able to read it on this blog first).

She's a bit of a star: there have been articles about her recently in The Times and The Mail and here's one in The Times last year that talks about her book deal. 

Matthew Naylor (who many of you will know because of my run-ins with him over cats) is a man of many talents.

As well as growing some beautiful flowers, he also - along with a couple of other farmers - makes a podcast called Pure Tilth - the fresh voice for food. It's well worth a listen.

The theme tune to the podcast has caused some discussion, though. Guy Smith (he's the bloke who wrote the NFU book, remember... do try to keep up) compared it to the music from Deliverance, which is a little cruel but he's got a point.