This week’s Follow Friday blog recommendation is for Realising the Dream by my friend, Rosie Morison.  I love following Rosie’s blog, as it is like a mix of some of some of my favourite TV programmes, such as “Escape to the Country”, “Property Ladder”, “Ground Force” and any decent cookery programme, all packaged into an entertaining read!

Tell us about your site

My site (www.realisingthedream.blogspot.com) is the story of how my husband and I are attempting to move from a city life to a life in the country.  Starting from when we first began looking at houses until… whatever the future holds!  It will let people into our lives during this time as we face the ups and downs (hopefully more ups) of the whole experience.

       Is this your first blog?

No.  I had several other blogs before this, although this is the first one with a real purpose and direction.  My Rambling Rose blog was dedicated to my love of cooking and gave recipes and photos of everything I had tried.  I am now attempting to incorporate that blog into the new one.  I had a couple of others as well, which gave me plenty of practice when it came to getting the style right (although I am still never happy!) for this blog.  I think there are still a couple of changes I’d like to make but it’s nearly there!

Tell us more about your big move.

My husband and I grew up in the country (my man more than me – coming from a farm) but we ended up, through necessity living in the town. Our dream was always to one day return to the country and to a slower pace of life.  I am a big animal fan and wanted some space to fill my life with animals and hubby wanted to have some peacefulness to return to after a day of work!  So we went on the hunt for a decent place, not far from the town (unfortunately we still need to work!) but with a bit of land.  We went through various options (which you can read all about!), almost settling on one place and then finally the perfect place came up, a place we weren’t even going to look at because it sounded completely unsuitable in the description.  But we thought we should look at it anyway and as soon as we stepped through the door, we both thought, this is it!  So we went for it!  We are now in the midst of getting the place ready to move into, we have a deadline of November the 13^th, but the house needs a lot of work, electrics, plumbing, wood treatments, new kitchen… the list goes on!

How often do you update your blog?

My blog is kind of an “if and when” style of blogging, as it relates to what is actually happening in our lives, but I usually try for three posts a week, minimum.  And I love to attempt the Wordless Wednesdays – although I admit, some of my Wordless Wednesdays are more Limited Word Wednesdays!

Where do you get the ideas for your posts?

Whatever is happening in relation to the ‘dream’ gets a post.  But I also like to add in snippets of our actual lives, particularly if it relates to my cooking, garden or pets!  Sometimes though I will suddenly spot something which seems mundane, like eating lunch, and suddenly think of an angle for a blog post.  In this case it was the fact that we were eating lunch in a field and I suddenly thought ‘Hang on! This is MY field! I’ve never OWNED a field before!’ so suddenly it becomes a blog post!  Just trying to share all the experiences that we have from the small unexpected stuff, like, “I Own A Field!”, to the bigger “What Happened When the Plumbers Came”!

How do you promote your site?

I don’t do much promotion work.  I use twitter to automatically tweet that I have updated the blog, I used to make more use of it but it has fallen to the wayside.  I am a big fan of Entrecard; it has certainly provided me with a lot of great followers but has also opened the doors to a load of great sites and blogs that are now part of my “Blog Reading List”!  It allows me some free advertising but also feels like I am helping out other people in my situation!  I also use Project Wonderful in a small way; I am hoping to make better use of it in the future.

Have you any plans to develop the site further?

Physically on the blog there is a hope to add videos, particularly once we get some of the animals into the mix – was an excuse to buy myself a nice new camcorder – and I would also like to add more “How To” posts.  Not actually moving from the “story of the dream” aspect of the blog but just adding details of things that I personally have done in a How To format; much like I do currently with the recipes. 

In a less pre-planned way I think the blog will, develop itself, as Annette herself said ‘The Dream’ never ends, and this is so true!  We have so many plans for the farm, vegetable gardens and orchards, so many ideas floating around that any, all or none could happen and take the blog in new direction, or perhaps just expand on what is already there!  I think that is what I like most about the blog, it gives me a chance to look back and see where we have come from; I hope others enjoy seeing the progression too!

What blogs do you enjoy reading?

I am a sucker for blogs of others who have done similar and people with great gardening blogs but I always pay a visit to Tanya at www.allotments4you.com, a trip to Critter Farm (http://critterfarmgirl.blogspot.com/) and spend some time on a Southern Farm (http://georgiafarmwoman.blogspot.com).

You can follow Rosie on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/cully_c

 Did you miss last week’s Follow Friday on The Cat Comic?  If so, you can read it here.