Lucy blogging in

It’s a bit like the beginning of a Ken Dodd joke. "Have you ever been blogged, missus?" is the sort of thing he’d say as he twizzled his tickling stick and pulled out his hair at odd angles.

Well, I’ve come up against this chap, Andy Darlington, who’s a bit of a comedian. In real life, he’s Web Editor of the Derby Evening Telegraph www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk which, if you’re IT competent, means you can actually read the DET without having one shoved through your letterbox every afternoon.

It must be ever so clever because I have friends world wide – Florida, Mallorca, even Rob Skivington, who works in Reading – who can read our paper without having to pod out the necessary 35p, plus delivery charge.

For all his posh title, though, Ower Andy must be a bit of a wag. Why else would I receive the following missive from him over the e-mail air-waves : "Starting soon, we’ll have a new blogs page on the website, and what we’ll need you to do when you’ve written your columns is add them to your own personal webpage at www.blogger.com. It’s easy. I’ll send you a guide. Don’t worry….."

What a joker. As the original technophobe who can’t, won’t, and don’t want to get to grips with computers, the woman who craves an old Imperial manual typewriter, a sheet of carbon, and a bottle of Tippex, he wants to turn me into a blogger. And says "Don’t worry."

It wasn’t so much worry, as panic and paranoia, which set in, especially when the second note arrived, thanking every other columnist, contributor, journalist, writer, for their co-operation, before adding, tellingly, : "Lucy – please let me know when you get your Google passwords." Naughty Lucy. You can ignore it, but it won’t go away.

There are rare times when I think "Thank heaven for husbands". But even he, who boasts not only an e-mail address I’ve been denied all these years, but the ability to log on, log off, find me a tub of Madame Rochas Body Lotion, or an I’m-running-away-from-all-this-hassle air flight, and can down-load whatever it is folk down-load, ran around like a scolded cockerel for ten minutes before getting to grips with the idea of a blog for a wife. And he did the necessary, via an SOS call to fellow-columnist Anton Rippon, who was as useful as a chocolate teapot, then on to the aforementioned Mr Darlington, who blinded him with science before talking him through it.

I’d like to report that I’m now a fully-paid-up member of Blogs R Us but I’m not quite sure what the whole rigmarole means, if it’s going to enhance everybody’s life, and what’s in it for me, me, me. You see, among the reams of jargon come six more pages, under the heading of Administrator Guide, which had my eyes glazing over by the end of the welcome introductory sentence.

It’s encouraging to note that, once my blog is created, I can use it as I wish. "You can also play about with adding pictures and videos." Are these people real? Himself has written out, in words of one syllable, with the appropriate dots and coms, what I’m supposed to do once the column is written, and if I get stuck, then there’s another young man, Darren, to call on. Andy and Darren know not what they’ve let themselves in for. Within a week, they’ll wish I’d just blogger off.

It was the top man himself, John Kirkland, of nationally-renowned building company Bowmer and Kirkland, who told me : "You’ll never find a prettier Sainsbury’s – go and see for yourself." Which led me, the other week, to join his PA and press officer, former journalist Sarah Congui, and contracts manager Mark Ife, for a coffee stop in…….Sainsbury’s, Matlock.

Now, I’ve seen a few supermarkets in my time, of boring brick build, or simply white boxes. But to sit, sipping coffee, in what resembles an enormous conservatory, admiring the views across the Matlock Bank hillside, was a joy.

It nestles in the site of a defunct quarry, and is built of mainly wood, glass, and Derbyshire stone hewn from nearby Birchover. And it’s unique in not only its attractiveness, but the way it blends sympathetically with the environment.

As one who was raised in that area, I recall only too well the limited shopping facilities. We had posh shop R. Orme and Co Ltd, the Manchester Stores. And there was the ubiquitous Co-op.

This new Sainsbury’s has caused some controversy, which it would, considering people don’t like change. Planning took over ten years of shilly-shallying. Bowmer and Kirkland started on it in January 2007. It opened in September the same year. Christmas trading was a knock-out. And so it continues.

If Sarah and Mark were at one with their company’s success, my Darley Dale County Primary School friend Pauline Worthy was ecstatic. "I come here nearly every day. I love it. It’s what Matlock needs." And the fact that it’s provided her son Wynne, and dozens of other Matlockians, with much-needed employment, is beside the point. It’s delightful.