When I started my website 25 years ago, on 26 October 1998, I could never have imagined the site still existing so many years later. But here we are in 2023 and NettyRoyal – or Netty’s Royalty Blog as it was known at first – is still there, even if there have been quite a few changes over the years. After the first few years, it got its own URL and the name NettyRoyal. When blogs became more popular, I turned the website into a blog in 2012, although certain elements of the original website and reports are still there. For years I kept track of royal news, but I just couldn’t keep up with it any more, certainly not when everybody started doing the same on social media.
Talking to friends I have made online over the years, it is always a huge surprise to find out how long we have known each other. Although I have met a lot of people over the years, there are also many that I’ve never met in person. Recently I was in Portugal and met with a long-time internet friend, Ana, whom I must have known for nearly 25 years. We have exchanged Christmas cards forever. And now we finally met in person, and it was lots of fun.
I guess you all have noticed that in the past year or so I have updated the blog less and less. Somehow, I have lost some interest in the royals, and long for spending more time on other things. I know that I still enjoy visiting palaces, exhibitions and attending royal events, so it can’t have gone at all. I don’t know if it is the menopause (someone said it could be), the overload of royal news we got online in the past few years, the nasty trolls on social media, the combination of work and hobby, or something else. I am working on figuring out what it is, and hopefully it simply returns.
Anyway, NettyRoyal will surely not go away in the foreseeable future. So hang on and wait for more updates to come.