Origins
There was a time when this website might have been a bit short on soul with its photo gallery and its visitor information directory. Of course, the best solution to this state of affairs to add content that is infused with a dash of your own writing style and personality. That has been what I have been doing with my blog and it is the intention of this newer part of the website too. After all, website listings look very bare and we all can use Google. As well as fleshing out the visitor dossiers that preceded it, I have been full articles having been forthcoming too. Eventually, I hope that it will be the writing that shines with any hyperlinks sending you to selected places where you can learn more after having your appetite whetted. Reaching that situation remains a work in progress but what website isn't evolving over time?
That's not to say that there wasn't another reason for creating the miscellany and it may have influenced how it got created. When I started the blog for the principal purpose of logging site news such as the addition of new photos to the gallery and other such developments, some unrelated content found its way in there too. I suppose that I was treating it as a bucket for different bits and pieces before it got shaped by the visitors that it attracted. Reports on trips that I had undertaken changed from being a teaser for putative gallery updates to being the main attraction all of themselves. Most regulars share my interest in hillwalking but I have no intention of excluding cycling outings either. With a fine tuning of the blog's content, a few articles became displaced and needed somewhere to go and you'll find them here along with the other things.
In the middle of that refinement, I began to ponder the purpose of the website and that's what brought home to me how broad and diverse everything had become. The photo gallery contained photos from urban and rural jaunts, and it still does, so it couldn't be branded as an exclusively outdoor activities website. Public transport musings had found their way into the blog and didn't sit so easily there so they have been redirected to On Trains and Buses, a very busy place during the spell of arctic weather that ended 2009 and started 2010.
If I was to try and capture what you find here in a nutshell, I would say that most content on the site is inspired by my travels throughout Britain and Ireland, urban as well as rural. That is the situation that allowed me to keep on the original directories but I began to feel that there was gap between urban photography and outdoors musings that needed filling and it is in that space that this miscellany. There may be a temptation to use it like a big bucket into which anything can go but I want to try to keep under better control than that.
Even so, it has become a place to take in content from the blog that didn't fit in there and allowed me to share insights from travels of a less than rural nature. Articles containing a little history fall into the former category and examples include a short history of my family name along with that of Scotland's Parliament. Given that my outings usually allow me to come away with photos of my own making, my having an interest in photography should be too surprising and that's why I have shared the website addresses of fellow practitioners, many of whom are better than my own self.
Latest Additions
At the top, I promised to be adding articles with a little more substance and, at the bottom, you'll find a list of the latest additions. Hopefully, you'll find the list of subjects is broadening and, more importantly, that there's something of interest among them.
By design, I have things open-ended around here to take in contributions pondering the possibilities offered by the Isle of Man and other parts of the world away from mainland Britain and Ireland. Speaking of the latter, there's plenty to inspire writings on subjects not featured on here before now. An article collecting a selection of Britain's preserved railways is but one with another on getting your tongue around Welsh place-names joining it. Finding the time to add more like these should make this part of cyberspace a little more unique and useful.
They're a departure from add more commentary to the old website listings and are just starting to overwhelmed that old way of doing things. My hope is that this will be a continuing trend. For now, take a look at what's in the list below and, of course, you're more than welcome to look at more than this again.
