When I came here to write about my birthday, I was shocked to find it was almost 3 weeks since I’d last written anything. The reason was that I decided to move my other blog from Wordpress to my server under it’s own domain name. It’s called Stazjia’s Commentary and is mostly more serious than this blog. That’s why I started this one so I could write about more light hearted topics which didn’t fit there.

I’ve installed cms on websites before but never blogging software and hit some small problems which held me up. I solved them, mostly through trial and error. I then installed it in a sub domain of an long standing website I run with a friend. I definitely wanted ‘pretty URLs’ there and that gave me problems. I made such a small mistake setting them up and it took me two days and four reinstalls of Wordpress. I could have given myself such a kick when I discovered the answer.

That sub domain is called Chocolate Recipes and the clue to content is in the name! I’ve stilled got a lot more recipes to put on yet.

On Tuesday this week, I had my 60th birthday. It’s very strange because I don’t feel any older than I did when I was in my late 20s. It is a milestone birthday, though, and it does make you look back.

I’ve always been a risk taker so I don’t have many regrets for chances not taken. Like most people, there are things I wish I hadn’t done especially when it’s hurt somebody else. I’ve never done it deliberately but sometimes it’s happened.

I wish I had never started smoking because I’m finding it impossible to give up. My brother-in-law recommended some pills called Champix (I guess that’s how it’s spelled) but the nurse at my doctor’s practice said they might not be suitable because I’m subject to depression and that can be a side effect of this drug.

I had a great birthday. My sister made a cake and put two candles on it – she thought 60 candles might be a fire hazard! I got £60 (British pounds) from my brother on a store voucher, £80 from my mother (she’s 86 in January), earrings, shoes, toiletries and various other gifts. People have been very kind. I had lots of cards including two that made me laugh out loud.

I bought Rydian’s debut CD with some of my birthday money. He’s the singer who should have won The X Factor last year – there was such an outcry when he didn’t win. Simon Cowell appeared as shocked as anybody and signed him up to a record deal regardless. Rydian is so popular that I had to go to several stores to buy the CD one day after it was released and his first big tour of the UK is a sell-out already even though tickets have only been on sale for about a week. I managed to get two tickets for his Bournemouth show at the end of May. It’s in the last week of the tour. I’ll go with my best friend.

So even though I’m now 60 years old, I’m still happy and glad to have made it this far.

According to the Webster Dictionary, a potpourri is a miscellaneous collection and that is appropriate for my plans for this blog.

I’ll write about what I’m doing, my thoughts on current events and quirky happenings, my dogs, and anything else that interests me. Of course, I hope that it will interest other people as well.

I live in Wiltshire, a county in the South of England, my health is not great so I’m semi-retired but still write compulsively, mostly on Squidoo where I was recently made a Giant Squid – trust me, that’s good!

I’ve worked on specialist newspapers and magazines for many years but went freelance in 1988. I’ve had two books published on buying antiques as well as articles in magazines and writing online for 10 years now.

Not only am I a compulsive writer, I’m on a compulsive reader too. I read all kinds of books from thrillers to classics. I’m passionately interested in politics and current affairs. I believe if you don’t vote, you shouldn’t complain about what politicians do. Watching people in South Africa, after the fall of the apartheid regime, standing in line for hours to vote for the very first time in their lives brought tears to my eyes. It brought home to me how lucky we are in the UK and other democratic countries to have this right.