First up.

G'day all. This is my new attempt at blogging. For those of you who don't know me, I am a New Zealander now with French nationality too, living with my wife and son in a small village in Brittany, France.

Unfortunately, we suffered a tragedy in 2010 when our oldest son died suddenly from meningococcal septicaemia shortly after his eighth birthday.  Our lives have not been the same since and never will be.  The loss of our darling son has really taken the life out of us, but we are fighting, especially for his younger brother.  It is hard and we often don't know how or where we will find the inner strength to continue.

I have often tweeted about our son and how I/we are coping or not. Twitter, in it's own way, has helped me cope.  It has enabled me to express myself, often to people I don't know personally and I have had so many messages of support from both people I know and complete strangers.  Nobody has judged me.

My wife and I are soon to start an association in our son's name to help raise awareness and fundraise for Méningites France.  This is something that is very important to us and we hope to have it up and running in early 2012.

Anyway, this blog is not only going to be about the loss of our treasured son.  It's an effort on my part to re-find certain passions in my life and be able to share them on the web.  I have simply lost interest in so many of the hobbies, interests and passions since our son died that I feel constantly hollow.  Hopefully 2012 (and perhaps this blog) will help me find a new equilibrium.

Off the top of my head, I'll probably share typical family life goings on, geekiness (I was quite a geek), and things I used to love; travelling, photography, reading, gardening, cooking...who knows?

Anyway, feel free to comment and we'll see where this blog leads to.

Voila.