Post Christmas, pre New Year

This is our first feeble attempt to reconnect with the Orphans "community", such as you good folk are. Hope Christmas and Boxing were good ... they were with me and I believe so with Julia too.

Orphans is an interesting concept, the admins both having their own main sites and yet Orphans itself has its own history and life, its own readers. There are posts I'd not put up here, the more "out there" type. I'm thinking Julia has some affection for the site as well for which she's numero uno admin.

So, thinking it was time to reopen for business, suddenly there was this by Lucy C:

The "I will never throw these away" bit ... well yes. I've heard and read many a caustic comment about "online friends not being friends" ... yeah?  There are very real friends I have, e.g. in the US, Canada, Russia, the antipodes ... very real, more real than in this area and yet my immediate neighbours and I just exchanged gifts ... so that can be real too.

The obvious difficulty for us online is if Them pull the plug.  There are ways around it but most don't know them ... it involves servers etc. and requires a certain knowledge base.

And it is worth it ... much good can be done.  For example, there is an onliner originally from here, married a NZer who had a medical horror ... people from all over are praying for her ... and him:

It takes not a lot on our part to try to help sustain someone and online is peculiarly suited to such a thing. (By the way, that moniker is a reference to a fine northern ale from this fair land.)