Our Website and Us

The whys and wherefores

Some visitors may wonder why Albert and I have gone to so much trouble to make a website which is all about our family, our relationship and us. Who would want to read it?

There are two main reasons why we decided to have a website and why we spend a lot of time writing articles and adding various extras to the site.

Firstly, as far as we are concerned, it's not necessarily about wanting people to read all about us, but more a case of us wanting to tell. We are happy with each other and with what we do and could shout it from the rooftops, but as that’s not possible - and would disturb the neighbours - we can publicise our thoughts and experiences in such a way whereby either the entire world can read it - or no one will.
Albert and I both believe, as I'm sure many other couples believe of themselves, that we have found something very special, but not only that, we have mastered, and are still mastering, many difficulties just to achieve what we want, which is simply to be together happily and live our lives in peace.

Similarities

We both lived almost a half a lifetime before finding each other, neither of us really realising how good life could be with the right partner by our side. Since moving in together, and in spite of the hard work and lack of time, which five children bring with them, we have constantly discovered new areas of compatibility. In fact, we can not believe in the saying "opposites attract"; we are so similar in our daily rhythm, ideas, likes and dislikes and find that whatever we wish to do, whether it’s redecorating the house, collecting fossils, jogging through the woods or working in the garden or on the computer, everything is so much more enjoyable when we can do it together.

The challenge

That's where the second reason for our website comes in. At the end of each evening Albert and I often sit at our bar talking about the day, making plans and spinning ideas. With both of us enjoying computer work we started spinning the idea of a website around. Through my office job I have gained some experience with HTML and Albert is the programmer genius but neither of us had any idea about setting up a site. The challenge was there and we wanted to see if we could achieve it.

We decided to make the design similar to our house so, having recently finished our lounge, and were very happy with the results, we designed the site to match that room. The background is made from a photograph of our walls, the left-hand menu banner is from a photograph of the curtains and the top banner is the frame of one of our pictures. That was the easy part, and then came the question about the content. That's when we decided to combine the fun of computer work with the wish to express to the world what we have together. Not being professional journalists, what else could we write about?
I write the articles following ideas from us both and Albert works on the programming and we complement each other. If I have an idea - such as would it be possible to play a song from one of the pages - Albert sets about making it possible. If Albert gets stuck with the programming or HTML then I can often see where the problem lies and help him.

What matters

We have spent many hours together, not only at our respective computers, but also talking and chasing ideas around. It has been incredibly interesting and we have both learned an awful lot. At the end of it all we have created this website for us and have had a great deal of fun doing so. It would be nice to think that someone may visit our site and read our stories but the important matters to us were the challenge and the achievement.