Oliver WhiteLast week I essentially closed BlogF1 and posted a note to the top of all pages on the site. The message is still there as I type this, but for future reference, it basically says that I am on hiatus until August. I appreciate however, that no explanation or reason was given, and for those who regularly read BlogF1 but do not necessarily know me, that may have seemed strange and probably turned you off from re-visiting. So, with things getting better, I hope you will allow me to briefly explain.
I run BlogF1 on my own. 99%+ of articles on the site are written by myself, and those that are not are authored by guest-posters. Therefore, when things happen in my personal life it is inevitable that BlogF1 will suffer – the site is not my job, it is purely a hobby. Although I did recently admit to it being a hobby that is out of control!
Last week, my girlfriend of six-and-a-bit years decided to leave me. It came completely out of the blue and I was not expecting it. I will not go into details but needless to say I was/am devastated. We lived together for most of those six years and suddenly finding myself alone in our home was very difficult. To add to the stress we were hoping to sell in a few months, and while that is still going to happen, it doesn’t make it any easier to overcome when you have extra worries to deal with outside of the obvious.
It has been a week now and I’m starting to get my head together and sort out what needs to be done to ensure I remain sane and functional, but it will take a long time before I’m back to my regular self. The good news is that I feel ready to get involved once again in the site and write about the love of my life that I know won’t be going away (well, not just yet anyway), Formula One. It won’t happen right now and I will leave the message up for a couple more days I imagine, but hopefully this week you will see the return of myself to the site.
I would like take this opportunity to thank every single person who have sent me emails, messaged me on Twitter or Facebook or any other means of communication – I thank you from the very bottom of my heart. I honestly didn’t realise so many people cared so much – it is very warming to know that BlogF1 readers are a sound bunch of guys and gals.
So I thank you for your patience and I look forward to writing again later this week; there’s a lot to catch up with and discuss!
Ollie.
Oh, and in case some of you are wondering, that’s me up there looking gormless in the sunglasses.
You don’t look *that* gormless!
Much as the situation hasn’t been good over the last few days, I’m glad you feel up to restarting BF1, and I hope that things settle down in your life beyond this website!
Tom
Thanks Tom!
As I said before, some things are more important than F1 so I’m sure everyone understands.
It will be good to have you back on here, but not before you are ready 🙂
I’ll add to the chorus of people offering sympathy and understanding, and add that all the effort you put in here is much appreciated. I too look forward to your return, but please make sure you’re ready and that things in the real world have stabilised first, I’d hate to think that my thirst for well-written f1 news contributed to your suffering.
The blog is always a good read so we all look forard to your great insight on f1 in the future Ollie! Take care
Hi Olli,
You know I am a new reader, so I won’t presume too much here. I do want to wish you the best. I am sorry to hear about the bad personal situation. I’ll keep my reader dialed-in to you feed as I am sure everyone here will, so take your time to get back on your feet.
Best – Mike
Have a good chill out olli, looking forward to you getting back to the blog.
Glad to hear you’re starting to feel better now Ollie. Come back to BlogF1 in your own time.
Will pray to God for your speedy return to normal. Chill, get yourself together and start sending out missiles of your posts, which we all here love to read.
That’s a shocker Ollie – I did wonder why my RSS reader showed the site wasn’t updated for a while and thought it might be a server going down as I couldn’t access anything except the homepage for a few days.
An awful lot to talk about indeed – but take your time over it , don’t feel compelled to rush – I very much agree with what Mike said above.
Man, that’s terrible… hope you feel better soon!
@Craig, Kris, Caleb, Mike, Paul, Duncan, Arun, Francois, Haplo: You guys are so wonderful, thank you so much.
@Francois: During my break I also moved the domain to different account so I could close it and save a few pounds each month. In the process I broke the site, but didn’t bother mending it as I was on hiatus. In the end all that was needed was to redo the DNS settings and re-upload the .htaccess (for reasons I still don’t understand). All works now though, I think. Let me know if anything is broken.
Thanks again guys, you’re all so great.
Your sporting passion and workmanlike posting endurance, alongside your incredibly up-to-date motorsport journalism will be sorely missed until your return. Take all the time you need – a herd of dedicated enthusiats have the patience to outlast any emotional stress you are experiencing.
Commiserations on your relationship. I pass over all of my psychological and physical strength to deal with a situation that must be very difficult for you.
I’m sure you could create a team of trustworthy writers to support the current BlogF1 infrastructure if necessary at remarkably short notice (ahem :P).
I’ll look forward to your return. In other news, the German GP was quite the dramatic display.
@Jamie: Thanks man. A few people did (incredibly, amazingly and with fantabulous generosity) offer to take over the site for a while. I was absolutely blown over and words cannot describe how simply amazing they are. I declined, with difficulty, because I thought it would do some good for the site (which is an extension of myself) to take a break as well. It was a hard decision and also included the potential guilty feeling of other people, who are very busy themselves, ‘working for me’ while I wallow. I couldn’t do that. But I thank you for your, ahem, offer as well. It really has been an eye-opener this week. Bad things, obviously, but also some really nice things as well. Every cloud, or something…
As others have said, take all the time you need – we’ll still be here when you’re ready (well, I speak for myself there)
Thank you for the explanation, Ollie. Hugs and best wishes to you for the future, and I look forward to seeing you return restored.
Thanks again Tom (and for the ‘slow’ Facebook conversations 🙂 ) – apparently (from the above) you’re not just speaking for yourself! And thanks to Ali – let it be known that you’re a babe! 😉
Now I know why Ferrari is lagging behind McLaren .. they ain’t getting your reviews to read man !! 🙂
Be good, be well, take your time and enjoy life.
Waiting for “Ollie Returns” 😉
Ollie, having been through very much the same thing, this is a time that you must focus on yourself, and get through it how best you can. Don’t worry about us – your faithful readers will be here for you when you’re good and ready. Take care, mate.
Hey, keep your head up and keep smiling. 🙂
Some things in life happen for a reason, and I’m sure you’ll be back to your normal self in a couple of weeks – which means churning out some more of the brilliant articles you post here on BlogF1.
Aw, thanks Ollie :blush:
Thanks Neeraj, Paul H, JBagley. 🙂
Blogging without you around has not been the same, Ollie – we miss you, dang it! We can struggle on a bit longer without your insights and cheerful comments but I hope it won’t be too long before you feel up to continuing.
Thanks for the explanation; it must have been very difficult for you and you have our full sympathies.
Thanks Clive, I’ll be back soon.
Hang in there Oliver! Sorry for your loss.
Thanks William. No one’s died, but at the time it sure felt like it. Getting better though, small steps. Hope to have BF1 back to normal soon. Thanks again.
Hey Ollie – hope you are ok ! Sorry about my late commiserations but I have been out bush (and no internet in outback Australia- felt like my right arm was cut off 😉 )
I come back to find it’s all been happening while I was away.
Take your time to do whatever you have to do – we’ll be here to welcome you back with open arms. However, I find keeping oneself busy – like updating a website for example – is the best way to stave off the bad thoughts *hint, hint*
*E-hug to Ollie*
Thanks Pink, I’ve been throwing myself into work (real-life work, that is) but I’m starting to get back into blogging. You won’t have to wait too long, I promise.
The bush? Sounds interesting. So you’re from deepest darkest Oz then? From what I understand it sounds like a great place to be, aside from the poisonous things that might crawl into my sleeping bag or shoes at night! 🙂
Ollie … I must say that i have never contributed to your site but I have been an avid reader for about 6 month now, your writing always inspires me, its always of a high standard so thank you for that … May I say that I am sorry to hear of your bad news and mate you take as long as you want to sort yourself … I am pretty sure that we have all been there at some point in our lives and we are all behind you 100% and hope ur feeling sorted soon mate. Keep ur chin up mate. Take it easy.
Thanks Ben, your kind and supportive thoughts are well received. I’m now going to head over to the Bleacher Report, click on the F1 tag and catch-me-up with some well written articles…
That would be great Ollie, there are some great writers over there … I am community leader over for the F1 section so it would be excellent to have someone such as yourself checking out some of my work and some of the others work … Would love to maybe contribute a piece for your site !
Actually Ollie, I am about as urban as you can get, hailing from Melbourne.
But I have just been on an outback jaunt around the top of Queensland, which is an extremely remote area.
Great place to visit, but yeah – gotta watch out for those crocs. They bite ! Snakes and spiders are the least of your worries out there. That, and no internet or mobile coverage 🙁
God must hv something better for u mate…u r marvelous n hope things will be back to normal soon…
Hey Ollie. I’ll echo what’s been said above. Hope you start feeling better soon.
Thanks Kimi and thanks Don. I’m getting there and I’ve been writing offline for the last couple of days so in terms of the site, it’s slowly getting back to normal. As for me? I’m doing much better. You guys are great. I truly mean that. 🙂
Sorry to hear that. I have had crazy similar problems on my life and I feel your pain. As i have learned life goes on and friends are a good thing to have around. you have made a lot of friends through this blog. Keep your head up, her loss.