Ten years ago today, I published the first post on this blog. Clichéd though it may be, it really does seem like yesterday.

I’m not sure that I ever thought that I would continue writing for so long. I wasn’t sure what I was doing when I started out (I’m still not entirely sure what I’m doing), but somewhere along the way, I began to really enjoy writing. I found my own true voice, settled in to my pseudonym, and this blog became a kind of basecamp for my online life.

You never know what’s coming around the corner, but right now, I can’t imagine ever stopping. The frequency of my posts certainly goes up and down depending on how busy I am with other things, but it never feels like a burden to write here. Quite the opposite — when I have time to write, I sit down at the keyboard with enormous pleasure.

I wanted to use this opportunity to thank you, gentle readers, for taking the time to read all this stuff I produce. I suppose that I would probably still write here even if I knew that no-one was reading, but it has added immeasurably to my enjoyment of this whole endeavour to be able to share it all with you. I know that some of you are recent visitors and some have inexplicably carried on reading for most of this blog’s ten years, but I have loved having all of you sitting around the campfire in my virtual basecamp.

I did have grand plans to celebrate this anniversary in a more tangible way. I’ve started compiling an ebook of my favourite articles here: a kind of ‘Best of But She’s a Girl’. I wanted to release it — with a triumphant ‘Ta Da!’ — today. Unfortunately, life (or more specifically, work life) got in the way, and I haven’t yet had time to finish it. When the most pressing of my ghastly deadlines are over in a few weeks, I’ll get back to it. Perhaps I’ll manage to release the book before Christmas, though I’m horribly aware how much that reminds me of those people on Grand Designs who state confidently that they will be in their newly constructed house by Christmas. They never are.

Anyway, book or no book, I raise my virtual glass of Bowmore 18 year old single malt¹, and say, cheers — here’s to another 10 years.