Back from the dead.

Someone nudged me back to life last week. It was Fouad in Sydney. He writes an excellent blog and muses on food and life. Out of the blue, he emailed and asked if I could throw some pointers at friend who was heading to Morocco later this year. He had some nice things to say about this blog. He also said it was neglected. Fouad, of course, was right.

It's been almost six months since I last posted here. I was obsessive about this blog, always looking for things to write about. I turned every meal turning into a photo shoot and spent hours putting it all together. I ate better than ever before, trying different recipes, searching out new ingredients, and I loved it. I'd get home after a day covering the courts and writing about crime for the local paper, my day job, and switch chip to sit down and blog about food and the world around me. It relaxed me and I loved the feedback. I had readers from around the world and they kept coming back. It was modest traffic, but it was a buzz nonetheless. I started to exchange thoughts and ideas with other bloggers. Fouad. Diana at A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa. Alfonso at On The Wine Trail in Italy. Joumana at A Taste of Beirut. Peter at Kalofagas.

So what happened? Well, what started out as relaxation slowly started to feel like work. Unpaid work, unfortunately. Blogging, I learned, is tough. It takes commitment, passion, and it's hard to sustain. When you write for a living as I do, a steady diet of crime, courts and politics, you can rapidly reach saturation point if you blog for a hobby. I didn't see it coming. It happened overnight. One day, I just couldn't muster the energy to sit down and write on the blog. I didn't dwell on it, figuring I'd find inspiration the next day. But it never came. The days slipped by and the blog began to gather dust.

I wasn't idle mind. I really enjoyed blogging and I missed it. But words, well, they failed me. Instead I turned to pictures. I set up another site, The View Across The Bay, images of life in and around the Strait of Gibraltar, where I live, a unique place. I roped in some friends, journalists and photographers all of them. Together, we try to post an image a day. It's fun. For a while, it was also enough.

But when Fouad wrote last week, I did something I hadn't done for months. I had a look at this blog. It brought a smile to my face. I enjoyed reading through the posts and comments, spent a long while looking at the pics. I liked what I saw.

I also logged on to Blogger and had a look at the stats for the site. What a surprise! I was expecting a flat line. Instead, I found the blog was still getting traffic on a daily basis. It was erratic, but it was there, over one thousand unique visitors every month, mostly first timers. It was bizarre. After all, I wasn't doing anything to drive the traffic to the site. It was finding it's way there organically. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, though I’m still trying to figure it out. Your thoughts, as always, much appreciated.

So here I am at a crossroads. Can I get myself fired up for this again? I want to, that much I know. I’ll probably give it a go. It won’t be all about food though. Sometimes, changing the chip is just too much hassle. You may well find a bit of crime and politics here too in between courses. Can I sustain it this time round? Who knows. We'll just have to wait and see. But please, watch this space.

The photo above was taken on a ferry from Morocco to Spain. It's from my other blog, The View Across The Bay.