This week I’m answering Sadje’s Sunday Poser about blogging, or rather, about not blogging.

When real life takes you away from your blog, how do you manage?

That depends on whether it is planned or unplanned.

If I am going to be away from home for an extended period, I may try to schedule a few posts to appear while I’m gone. I will normally write a post about my upcoming absence because it feels like the polite thing to do. We bloggers worry about each other and when someone who posts on a regular basis doesn’t appear it can set off alarm bells. I don’t like people to worry about me unnecessarily.

If I’m on a trip where I’ll have access to the internet, I will generally log in to read and answer comments at least. I do like to take my laptop away so that I can upload photos and write about my day occasionally but it’s not always practical. It is a good way to pass the time at night if you are staying with friends who go to bed early though. I can’t go to bed at half past nine.

If I don’t have internet access, I will go old school and write notes in a journal. I know I will forget details if I don’t make a note of them. I have the short-term memory of a goldfish so keeping a journal is helpful. I should do it all the time really.

Sometimes life prevents me from blogging in annoying ways. There might be a power outage or the internet drops out for a few hours. Or there was the time when my phone and internet provider did some sort of upgrade that killed my modem. I was offline for about a week that time and it made me very angry and frustrated. I think on that occasion I resorted to writing what I wanted to write in a Word document to copy paste later.

Three years ago, we had terrible bushfires in Tasmania and they came near enough to my home that I was forced to leave for three weeks, mostly because of poor air quality and because I was worried about embers. I knew I couldn’t defend my house if it caught fire. Some of you might remember that. Naomi was able to log in to the blogs and give updates on where I was until I arrived at a place where I had internet access again. Most of my posts during that period were about the progress of the fires.

I love blogging and while I do sometimes just take a break for a few days if I’m not inspired to write anything I do like to check in most days. Sometimes IRL situations need to be dealt with and take precedence over hobbies but once they are sorted out, I’m back.