It seems so long ago now that I sat down with a man I still haven't met and tried to work out how to get Grizzly Bear Ranch on to the web.
I can't even remember how Garth was recommended to me now, but back then he made his terms clear: he was not in the business of designing and maintaining websites but was quite happy to guide me through the process if I was prepared to learn.
And so, back in the snowy winter of late 2005, the painful process of creating a web presence from scratch began.
The previous owners of the ranch, who as those of you have visited will know were less than serious about attracting guests, had handed over something that they had had designed according to their own tastes.
A bilingual Anglo-German affair, it was heavy on artificial grizzly prints, photos of bears' heads lifted from who know's were on the internet, and pictures of snowmobiles. It had a link to their favourite country singer.
We decided we would have to go with something new and eventually, after some painstaking guidance from Garth, and dozens of hours spent cursing and complaining, the original Grizzly Bear Ranch website was born.
Garth did the template. I filled in the details and uploaded the photographs. It wasn't the fanciest website in the world, it only had a few basic pages, but it allowed us to say what we wanted to get across.
And as the e-revolution raced ahead it held its own, just about, for six long digital years.
But as time passed, resolutions changed, search engines were redesigned and web browsers became ever more complex, our simple little site began to look a little long-in-the-tooth.
For those of our guests who had modern computers the margins began to creep towards the centre of the page. Other wrote to tell us there were entire pages that were invisible to them.
Finally, and reluctantly, this spring I gave in to Garth's ever more insistent pleas that we go for a full template-based redesign. And so, once again with his detailed and patient help, somewhere between Vancouver, London, Dubai and Helmand Province, Grizzly Bear Ranch 2.0 was born.
It's not a huge leap forward from the old, and we have kept as many of the design features that we liked as we could, but it does have a few more pictures and even thumbnails which Garth assures me can be used on an iPhone.
It even has a (fairly modest) little search box.
It's now been up for about a month, but as I sit here in my bunker in northern Helmand five months into my stint as a political officer for the British government, and survey the results, I am pleased we made the effort.
Of course a two-dimensional electronic rendering of life at the ranch will never be that real.
How do we convey the glorious spring birdsong or the smell of wood smoke in the autumn? Or the sensation of sitting by our soulful river on an early evening watching the snow-capped mountains?
But we've done our best. My hope is that the new site conveys just a little of our lovely valley: a taste of what lies in store for those of you have not yet visited, and a pleasing reminder of days by the river for those of you who have.
So, dear friends, former and future guests, try it out, click on the links, scrutinise my handiwork for mistakes, and drop me a line.
Sitting here surrounded by sandbags, dust, searing temperatures and tribal feuding, I promise to read all your comments.
After all today is Sunday, my one easy day of the week, when I get to spend a little time thinking about things other than Pashtunwali and tribal feuding.
Here's the link: www.grizzlybearranch.ca
With Very Best Wishes to you all,
Julius
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