Yesterday I got a message from WordPress congratulating me on being 17 years with them. Before that I was with Blogger. So it’s been a long time since I’ve been blogging.

I started out as Penelope Potty Snooper on Blogger Then I morphed to Mumbai On A High on WordPress and actually got a professional to re-design my blog since I went self-hosted. and finally I’m here with Jetpack as 25×7.

A long journey

It’s been a great ride . As always, I jumped on to this bandwagon as a complete novice. Categories, tags, social media, algorithms – these were words which frankly only now are beginning to make sense.

Like most people my age, I was scared to approach this new technology – being accustomed to a manual typewriter.

From typing on my clunky 486 to flitting between my iPhone and desktop, I’ve learnt to navigate my way. I learnt how to make my own images on Canva, transfer straight from my phone and do many wonderful things with the blog.

(But still I find it difficult to master reels and stories and posts and basically all that is INSTA, so VLOGGING is not happening yet)

Still bumbling

From figuring things out on my ownI went into joining blogging communities at Blogadda and Indiblogger. Those were really fun days when I throroughly immersed myself in blogging. It was fun attending their events and I enjoyed meeting a whole load of people through the opportunities it got me.

My first ever thrill of winning was with Blogadda’s competition that gave Blogadda that earned me Rs. 5000 coupon. Then, I went on to win a Hamilton Grill in another contest. The highlight of my blogging journey was winning a competition that enabled me a 4 day all expenses trip to Malaysia. This was sponsored by the Malaysian Tourism board and was totally unforgettable.

I once had a hair raising experience driving a newly launched car to Lonavla and back with a bunch of guys even younger than my own children! And one of them didn’t even possess a licence. This was a contest Blogadda had with Tata Motors to promote their then new launch BOLT. The car has long since been discontinued, but the memory of that ride will stay with me forever.

Through blogging I made a tonne of friends online and even managed to meet some of them in person .

By participating in blog hops like the A to Z Challenge I discovered so many wonderful writers.

For years I participated in the annual #A to Z challenge, #Skywatch Friday and several bloghops like #ThursdayTreeLove.

I used to enjoy those bloghops and consistent bloggingso I wonder what made me stop?

change is the only constant

When I started out, my intention was to let my family and friends overseas know what was happening in my life.

I soon realised that no one was interested so I began writing for myself.

I had three blogs – One on food that I called Foodities where I shared food memories, restaurant reviews and recipes. I signed off this blog as Bellybytes which I thought was a great name!

My second blog was on parenting or rather grandparenting and was called Nappy Tales.

Once again, I found it difficult to keep up writing three blogs and didn’t manage to generate any traffic or followers.

So these naturally fell by the way and I am now on this one blog in its latest avatar 25×7 since Anna Shetty convinced me that Mumbai On a High sounded like the confessions of a regular substance abuser!

I wonder how long I will stay on this journey.

It gets disheartening when the followers don’t come. I get disappointed when I find that despite Social Media feeds, the likes and comments are not forthcoming.

And more than anything else, trying to master newer skills on Canva etc becomes really difficult if you have to carve out minutes in a busy day.

But, I hope to be around for a few years more.

So see you on this blog.

Ciao,