The saying that includes the words “old dog” and “new tricks” keeps popping into my head as I trawl through the pages and pages of ‘simple’ instructions on how to set up a new blog. The only simple thing I can deduce so far is that it’s not simple.

However, I’ve recently joined a social group that works better if you blog. I’ve tweeted my last two months’ interactions, but I really do feel it’s worth making more of an effort. And every journey starts with the first step, right? Maybe I should have titled this website “The First Step”. However I feel that might have invited readers wanting to share their baby’s initial perambulations. And as adorable as I’m sure they would have been, it’s not really the direction I see this going (but I won’t rule it out at this early stage).

So I enlisted the help of one of my most creative friends (LMA) who helped come up with “Lake Michigan Upon Thames”, amongst some other great suggestions (which I’m not revealing in case I need to suddenly close this site down).  This name is fantastic because I grew up on Lake Michigan, but moved to the city that hosts the mighty River Thames.  How clever is she?

And on this site, I intend to post . . . well . . . I’m not all that sure yet. But I thought I’d get it set up, just in case I think of something.

My postings will most likely include, but are not exclusive to: Food (eating and cooking); gardening (these will be short posts); cats (which I fear may take over the blog completely); travel (which will probably highlight my original home town of Chicago and my current home town of London), and various other things that pop into my head.

I also feel I need a challenge of some sort, so I’m going to start looking for a cook book to work through over the next year. Or maybe I’ll take a horticulture course so I can tell the difference between a new seedling and a weed. Or maybe I’ll learn Italian.

But for now, I’ll just stick with how to get this blog started.