Some days my relationship with PBASE is better than others – that is if you accept you can have a relationship with an inanimate object.

Yesterday was a bad day. Just because I have galleries on PBASE and write a fairly frank diary here doesn’t mean that I am ‘open season’ for anyone who thinks they can pester me using this forum. I had such an experience last week and was (in retrospect badly) advised by David to simply ignore it. I took the advice but then later decided that invading my privacy through this means was simply not acceptable to me so I decided to respond even though I had agreed not to.

Despite that, I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening with one of our new-found friends, met through these pages (Ray P) so I got home late last night in slightly better humour and found an email waiting for me (yes, email not pmail) from Emily, Slug’s missus. Its contents turned around my day and left me knowing exactly why I do this each day.

All I wanted when I started this was to engage people and to write. I’ve said that a number of times before and will probably say it again many more times. I have found such a wonderful community here, it’s fluid but that is just like ‘real life’ in so many senses so that’s cool.

I’m always intrigued by who reads my daily journal because of course so many don’t ever comment – the folks who do comment are relatively few in number compared to those who read it. Sometimes I write something that rings a bell with someone who is then stimulated to leave a message who wouldn’t otherwise say anything and that is good because I discover another real person who is reading it and commenting. There may be many people who read each day but NEVER comment – I simply can’t tell.

I’ve ‘met’ many people through this route and now enjoy some of my most satisfying friendships because of PBASE, though that’s not to say I neglect my ‘real life’ friends.

The email from Emily was wonderful because it contained another email from a complete stranger who wrote this…..

‘……while recouping from surgery, I've become depressed (from isolation) & have really benefited from Linda Alstead's diary/gallery…….’

I have been so thrilled by this – it’s funny, every time a ‘bad’ PBASE experience pops into my life, a wonderful one like this follows soon after. That is of course partly because the majority of the people who leave comments are nice, but I like to think fate plays a hand in keeping me going when it knows I’m jaundiced about it.

So, I have benefited this lovely lady and she, in return, has made my day. Thank you to my new friend if you are reading this. I so appreciate what you said, you have really ‘sweetened my pill’.