Gonnago

I remember when I was a new (B.E. virgin ) reading someone who did a newsletter every so often to send to friends/family back in U.K. with pics and updates etc, remember thinking this was a fabby idea....come on who were you???

How do others do this - do you blog? or email people seperately? or did you just do that for first couple of weeks then not be arsed??

Johnsyweb

I'm an occasional blogger. Like most people I know, I don't update it anywhere near as much as I did when I first started it (nearly eight years ago!) but that stopped worrying me a long, long time ago. I've been a long-time subscriber to the theory that blogs should be posted to because someone has something that they want to say, not that they want to say something!

Last month I made four blog posts compared with 15 in January 2006, our first full month in Australia.

The blog is an easy way to share information with people without spamming their inboxes, it's entirely up to individuals if they want to read it or not and doubly-so if they feel the need to respond to what I have written.

These days I use so many repositories for such things, as well as my blog, there is Flickr for photos (and perhaps video), Delicious for bookmarks, Last.fm for music, Twitter for moods and soundbites, and so on and so forth.

Then there is the ubiquitous Facebook, which most of my friends use. I don't much care for Facebook and it's stupid 'walls'. One thing that I do like about Facebook, however, is that it aggregates all of this information (blog, del.icio.us, Flickr, Twitter, etc...) and presents it on a profile page for all to read. I don't know if they do or not, but that's by-the-by.

The best way to keep in touch, by far, is actually speaking with people. For that I use Skype as it's free to call other Skype users and most of my friends and family that I call have webcams, which makes the distance between here and there much less.

Cheetah7

Facebook for me.

I post video messages to them, photos and stuff and they like it.

And I have a blog on there as well.

DunRoaminTheUK

I've just bought a muscle-bound carrier pigeon, which I am trying to train to use the jet-stream at the moment.

Pinkie

We have a blog which was updated about once a week (sometimes more) for the first few months we were here as we did a lot of travelling round and new stuff. Now we're a bit more settled it's once every couple of weeks or longer - I'm with Johnsyweb on this that blogs can just become really self indulgent so we just say something when we feel we have something to say.

Bizarrely sometimes I look forward to and actively seek out new things to do just so we can post something! Not because I like to show off but because OH's nan is on her own now and pretty much lives to read our posts so I like to give her something to spend some time over.

The other great thing is that so much happened in such a short time when we got here that sometimes I look back through it myself (and the photos especially) and just think "wow, I'd forgotten we did that!!".

Hutch

I'm all for posting any old shit that happens in my life. Couldn't give a flying **** if it's self-indulgent or not - it's my online diary, written for me and close friends and family if they're interested. Nobody has a gun held to their head to force them to read it and as such, I don't edit myself.

Pinkie

Fair enough, we just choose a slightly different path. For various reasons we have some people read our blog who we may not necessarily want to read 'everything' so we have the general blog and then e-mail our close friends with anything additional, the more day to day stuff probably or anything personal. Just our preference. I write, OH tends to Skype more.

Sam

We blog about every 2 months or so on myspace

but also use skype and msn, and facebook to keep in touch with family

Hutch

Well yea, there's certainly stuff I wouldn't put on there. But I like recording some of the nuances of everyday living - like when my son says something funny, or I make a tit of myself (again) in some way. I don't save it up for momentous events like "We're renewing our marriage vows" because that's the stuff that's easy to remember - it's the daily wrinkles of life that you forget and that's what I want to record. But that's me ...

Pinkie

That's kind of the stuff I mean, although we don't have kids, and I NEVER make a tit of myself

I just write the things I would tell these people if we were sat in a pub chatting at the end of a week, or try to anyway. And like you say, trying to remember the 'wrinkles' that make life interesting. There have been a fair few of those since we moved out here.....

hitchcock71

facebk for my friends - they get photos sooner than others

its also where i can see what mates back in the uk are upto - they on the other hand just post filthy photos back on my account

mass email to family when i can be arsed i have been told that i dont post that often and should do it more often

website i did from the uk not used it since i moved to au


also have skype which we have to be on on a sunday night for al least 1 hr otherwise inlaws moan like we are not ment to have a life of our own

oh be aware that everything you do you will be expected to tell all to them back in the uk



what happened to pen and ink and snail mail????? wish it would be popular again (moan moan moan)

moneypenny20

I just babble away on mine. Friends in the UK feel as though they are right here with me except they can turn me off now I can't be arsed to email family and friends with updates although my mother would like a daily diary of ALL events, so it's the blog or nothing. If total strangers want to read it they can and if they like it, cool, if they don't then I really couldn't care less. It says at the top it's to update friends and family. As a friend from NZ who was visiting the other day said, apart from anything else, it will be great to look back on in years to come and remember stuff.

Johnsyweb

He he.

My rule of thumb for self-censorship is that before posting anything I ask myself would I want my mother to read it (because she does) and would I want my children to read it (because, should I ever reproduce, I'm sure they'd find it eventually and start asking questions).

Gonnago

Thats a god guide Johnny - I wrote a pregnancy diary once - when my daughter was one I decided to do a print out and put it in her photo album for when she was older - the trouble was by the time I edited out all the swearing, and moaning about hubby and other family members there wasnt really much left....I had hormones to blame in those days.