So, one finger tapping away. I won’t consider adding a photo -keep that excitement for next time! This is all I am going to say. I’m feeling fairly worn out with the tension. Will it appear?

A quick snap of Tom's Barn taken by John on 1st May 2011

I was trying yesterday to describe to someone what we used our Tom’s Barn Blog for, what in fact a blog actually was. I struggled slightly, and said that I found it a truly pleasurable way for me to keep in touch with our guests past and present and even possibly future; obviously one delights in telling good news but we don’t at all see it primarily as PR and will cheerfully admit the bad as well.

In many ways it is a luxurious chance to have a natter about whatever subject comes to mind, even if a rather one-sided natter, although we do like comments and would really like more suggestions and feedback…(please!).

As for what a blog is, for fun I looked it up on Wikipedia. “Regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events” it tells me, while “others function as more personal online diaries”. So it looks as if we’ve got it more or less right! Apparently there are approximately 156million blogs ‘alive’ at the moment, so there is nothing unique about this one but it is nice that it is read and enjoyed by some!

Which brings me neatly to what was going to be the subject of this post, reading and books, but on reflection I think that will have to wait until the next post because I am getting carried away on the subject of blogs and as I’m not being interviewed by Mr Humphreys on Today I am free to carry on, regardless.

The third and increasingly important part of our blog is John’s photos, in the Photo Gallery. As many of you know, John is a very keen amateur photographer, with a reputation locally as a rather good one. He is particularly keen on birds (feathered in this case) but also is very good at landscapes and people. He has a good eye, and a real ability to see an unusual slant, or a view no one else has spotted.

He has an enormous selection of photographs on his own computer, a large number on the Parwich blog and puts a selection onto our blog Photo Gallery gallery (link in green on the right hand at the top of each page). Our ‘Gallery Management’ is not yet of the highest order, and we haven’t learnt yet how to arrange the pictures so they look neater but they can be seen and enjoyed, for all that.

He is running a fun caption competition on the Parwich website at the moment, with a £5 prize which is attracting a lot of fun comments. If you want to enter, click here – Friday 6th is the last day!

You can get an idea of the various topics of conversation. Answers to questions – where we have an answer – will follow in a later post, but to begin with Derek is commenting on the Tom’s Barn Blog.)

In many respects you have created a facility which, originally designed to allow guests to record their experiences, now allows future guests to keep their interest at a high level as they wait for their stay to arrive.

The combination of your site and the village site provides a wealth of information.

How is the new vicar settling in? What snags have arisen in the building of the new hall ? Will the road ever be repaired? What is happening in the village school?
How is the garden ( pictured in the glossy magazine in 2009 ) looking this spring ?
How are Marion’s piano lessons proceeding? What birds has John seen recently?

As a farmer’s son who grew up in a Sussex village with similar traditions to Parwich it warms one’s heart to see how what was once an agricultural society developing and blending into a 21st century –totally in touch – community.

That you have gone green is so lovely. I well recall how in our village the lavender man – he who collected elsan buckets – drove his vehicle on to our fields and spread his load accordingly. My father was very much against modern phosphates in the 1940/1950s and was very much against the arrival of a sewage system being introduced into village life.

Can I impress you as I have recently taken delivery of a green Sony mobile telephone? How such an intrusion can be considered green I do not know !

I am not a blogger by instinct but we just wanted to tell you that the cheque is in the post.

Comments: Anyone can ‘post a comment’ i.e. write something about a post they have just read. We really hope that gradually more of you will do this so that others can benefit by your recommendations or experiences.

To avoid spammers we now have to check that each comment is  genuine before publishing so there may be a delay before your comment goes live.

Anonymity: To avoid being rejected as a spammer you need to have a genuine email address (which we will see but never publish).  You can use a pseudonym or your real name – what ever you feel happiest doing.

Finally,  I’ll finish with our protocol:  The aim of our website and blog is to inform, entertain and involve young and old: our guests past present and future, our family and friends including our many friends and colleagues in Parwich and the surrounding Peak District area.

We will publish any comments that we deem written in good faith (whether critical of us or our barns or not!). However, if ever we  considered a comment or photo unsuitable or offensive, for whatever reason,  we would not publish it.

Most of you will know far more than us. We are very new to blogging ourselves so hesitate to start parading even as semi-experts; however our enjoyment of the Parwich blog and now our own  means that our confidence is growing and we are beginning to understand some of the terminology.

However, we are new enough still to be painfully aware of what can totally mystify a newcomer so here follows some short explanations of the words you may meet while trying to make your way through our blog (please correct us gently if we’re wrong) . Lesson three will be more about actually using the blog.

Pages: You are on the Home Page. On the right at the top of the page you will see all the other pages including the Photo Gallery  listed in green with little icons beside – click on any that interest you.

Posts: In blog terminology, articles are called Posts. New posts appear at the top on the left. As soon as a newer one appears, the original one moves down. It then moves to the top of the list of five Recent Posts  on the right.  When another five have come after it,  it ‘disappears’ and can be accessed by clicking the appropriate  Category heading.

Categories: Down the right hand side are listed the topics you might want to follow. All the articles (‘posts’) should be categorised under the appropriate heading, so one doesn’t have to go wading through scores of subjects of no personal  interest at the time.

Tags do much the same thing with a different set of headings. Tags  enable one to pursue a theme regardless of which category all the articles are officially listed under.

Browse: This lists all the tag titles, the more  ‘popular’  the bigger the writing.

Archives: Everything posted each month is listed under that month.

Well, we probably don’t really but we are very excited all the same at the idea of having the two different species  running side by side, complementing each other.

As we see it our Tom’s Barn website provides the more conventional, factual  element,  with information provided by us, which we hope will give guests and others a real insight into our holiday cottages and what to expect.

On the other hand, the Blog & Gallery will be the more dynamic section of the same site. Here you will find latest news from us and input from guests and friends, constantly changing as the things evolve. There will also be  masses (eventually) of photos from John and others.

We hope that guests will also share tips and suggestions for the benefit of others guests – and us -  about  good walks, lovely restaurants and wonderful pubs; we have already had two guests keen to share successful  recipes for the slow cooker ‘crockpot’. Watch this page!

And how does one new to the blogging scene know what to do…? The next lecture in this series will appear after Christmas… Bloggers forget that it is all rather overwhelming to he uninitiated; we’re only a couple of steps ahead of that ourselves but years of enjoying the Parwich Blog has helped initiate us, slightly. It has certainly taught us what fun they are.