holtieshouse 1000th post

Once more from "The Throne Room"

And on a brand new template just for the occasion.

I owe my start in blogging to my son Marcus and my competitive/inquisitive nature, to explain that a little... Marcus began blogging about 1 month before me and when he told me about this I thought I would see if I could master blogging as well.
Suffice to say we are both still at it although I must say not with quite the same enthusiasm that we had back in those first 3 or 4 years.
My blog headquarters here at holtieshouse has survived for the full time, although during the changeover to "New Blogger" an exercise that many will recall was often not accomplished without some traumas, they did manage to loose almost all of the comments left between April 05 and October 06.
Not that there were many to loose in those first few months, my Son Marcus and my Sister Merle were IT for a while but as my confidence grew so to did the readership and I would love to have the record showing this expansion, I note with great pleasure that two of my earliest readers Kenju and Maria both left a comment on post 999.
I mentioned that I'd lost MOST of the comments, for some strange reason the comment were retained on a few posts, 2 of note were on Nov 24 2005 and may 30 2006 if you want to go back to my archives quite a lot of you made these comments and I thank you for them, BTW I got my first spam comment on Aug 31 2005.
To illustrate the innocence that was the early holtieshouse I have reprinted my first 2 posts!!!

The birth of a blog

Monday, April 04, 2005

kicking and screaming into todays world

Well so far I've pushed about 100 buttons, but there seems a chance that I'm finally in the right spot to become a blogger, all that remains is to think of something to blog about!
I bought my first computer about 3 years ago and after learning to type, a comical exercise in itself, I now try to learn something new at every given
opportunity, so now it's time to look into blogging.
I already use Picasa, so have extended that to include hello, it seems the
door is now open, if this is so I will become far more adventurous with my
next try.

Posted by Peter at 4/04/2005 07:14:00 PM 0 comments

Labels: Blogging

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

My 1st Post April 5th 2005

Anyone that I would expect to be visiting this blogsite will
know enough about me already, but for any unwary surfers
who have wound up here accidentally;
I was born in 1936 in country Victoria, so that makes me an
"old" Mexican (from south of the Queensland border.)
Having tried marriage twice, without much success, I now live
a pretty happy life alone in Gympie Queensland.
My first marriage produced four wonderful children, (so it
wasn't a total failure) so I have 4 that call me Dad 11 that call
me Grandad and to date 1 that will call me Great Grandad
when he learns how to speak.
My second marriage produced 25 wonderful years, (so it wasn't
a total failure either)
My passions are movies and music, (mainly country, but pretty
much anything gets a go.) and my family.
My three sons live in WA, two in Perth and one in Busselton,
and my Daughter lives in country SA, so travelling plays an
unusually large part in my life.

Posted by Peter at 4/05/2005 04:21:00 AM

Labels: Blogging

From these early efforts holtieshouse gradually emerged and expanded with 2 more (now unused) sites, Poetry Galore and Peter's Pictures, like most bloggers I have run hot and cold over the years so much so that I retired in August 2008... only to resurrect holtieshouse again 2 weeks later as a site dedicated to Australia, the first post under this guise was on Aug 15 2008 if you want to have a look via the archives.

Over the years I have been an advocate for Australian poetry so I'm going to finish this post with a poem by the late Bobby Millar both the poet and the poem are among my favourites.

The True Australian

What makes a true Australian?
Have they set some stringent test?
Should he ride a stallion stockhorse
Round some station in the west?
Does he camp at night with ringers
When the dust has turned to mud?
Could you smell the eucalyptus
That is running through his blood?

Does he drift with sunburnt drovers
On the overlanders track?
Should he gallop through the timbers
With a stirring stockwhip crack?
Does he rush down mountain gullies
Chasing brumbies in the scrub?
Would you find him Saturday evening
In some lonely outback pub?

Am I any less Australian
On my green suburban block,
Where I’ve never heard the gunfire
As they slaughter starving stock?
Where I can little but imagine
Tragic tales in times of drought.
As I’ve never wandered westward
To the stations further out.

I have never known the horror
When the water holes go dry.
I can only grasp at glimpses
Why a drovers wife would cry.
Am I any less Australian
‘Cause my crops just do not fail?
Or I’ve never humped Matilda
On a dusty trackless trail?

I live in easy splendour
On a manicured city street,
Is it guilt I should be feeling
For the bounty that I eat?
When my taps are never empty
And my grass is always green,
Should I feel regret and sorrow
For the things that might have been?

Now there’s not a single stockman
In the circle of my friends,
But they stick like mates together
And they’ll be there till it ends,
They are plumbers and they’re painters
And I like ‘em just the same;
They’re true Australian Aussies
Who are proud to bear that name.

Written by Bob Miller
(The Larrikin)

I hope that you found something of interest in post 1000, I had fun digging back into the past for the facts.