A Dilemma: Whether to Interview Someone or to Have a Day Out?

On Thursday someone that I have been chatting with online was in the local news, and on Friday the story spread across the UK, making the national newspapers and their corresponding web sites. They invited me to meet them Saturday morning, but I turned this golden opportunity down because my wife and I had a day out already planned. Was I wrong to do so I wonder?

This person has two unique shops, and we had already planned to go out on Saturday, visiting one of the shops on our travels, and hoping to meet her. However, it turns out that she was going to be in the other shop, which we want to visit, but with it being a larger shop, that includes a museum and various exhibits, to go here, which I also want to do, would have meant cancelling our planned trip, on what might have been the last weekend of the year when we have decent weather.

I haven't officially interviewed anyone for an article before, and this would have been the perfect opportunity to do so, but having planned a lovely day out to somewhere close to where I grew up and that is very special to me, well we decided to forego the opportunity and hope that we can pick up on it at a later date.

So why did I decide to decline this opportunity?

The location that we had decided to visit is Corfe Castle in Dorset, on the south coast of England.

Corfe Castle is a wonderful village, set in a gap in The Purbeck Hills, with a large mound in the middle of the gap, and on top of the mound the ruins of Corfe Castle itself.

This is close to where I grew up, and I have always been fascinated by the castle and the area, but only found out about five years ago that this was also an area that inspired the famous author of children's books, Enid Blyton, to write many of her stories.

Enid Blyton is not as well known in the USA as in the UK, but during her 40 year career as an author, she wrote more than 800 books, including for younger children Noddy, The Wishing Chair, and The Faraway Tree. Probably her best known books are the Famous Five series of 21 books, some of which were set in the fictional seaside village of Kirrin, with it's rocky island off the coast, complete with the ruins of Kirrin Castle, which is said to have been based in part on Corfe Castle.

I have just spent several weeks working on a lens on Squidoo about Enid Blyton and her connection to Dorset, and as well as wanting to go back to the area to sightsee, I wanted to take photographs of the area to use on my Enid Blyton lens, as well as for other lenses that I am planning to complete in the coming months.

Since the weather was supposed to be gorgeous on Saturday, and it was indeed, I think that we made the right decision.

Now the lady who I was hoping to interview has her smaller shop, called The Ginger Pop Shop, in the village of Corfe Castle, so we did manage to visit that one, despite her not being there, had a good look around, and took some photos. The shop is full of Enid Blyton books, games and related items, lots of toys from yesteryear, and so a nostalgic trip down memory lane for both of us.

The castle was wonderful to visit again, I hadn't been there in about 20 years. It is operated by The National Trust, who have done an excellent job in preserving the ruins, which proudly overlook the surrounding countryside.

In total during the day I took over 200 photographs, the best of which will appear on my new lenses, as well as on Postcards, T-Shirts and more that I plan to create on my Zazzle Store.

So there was method in my madness after all, and I now have plenty of photographs and information to keep me going for a while I hope, enabling me to expand on my niche articles about the county of Dorset where I grew up.