For many years now, it’s been hard to see the point in blogging. No one visits, or, if they do, they don’t comment. I have persisted, half-heartedly, because I like the idea of recording things – books I’ve read, places I’ve gone, birds I’ve admired. I need to write things down or I forget.
To minimise what has long felt like wasted effort, I had taken to writing only two monthly summaries: one of what I’d read and the other of photos of anything that had captured my interest. Eventually, I dropped the ‘month in photos’ post, even though I enjoyed the opportunity to review the past month and pick favourites. Despite keeping a paper journal of everything I read, I could never quite give up on the book review posts, though, because the blog’s search function does come in handy sometimes.
Thanks to Feedly, I still keep up with about a hundred blogs, although the number dwindles every year. People get discouraged and give up, or switch to Patreon or Instagram or Substack (which pays actual Nazis to create newsletters, btw), or drop the personal (and, to me, more interesting) posts to focus on whatever bland content SEO demands.
I do enjoy the hardy bloggers who stick it out – like Lucy at Attic24, Julie at Little Cotton Rabbits, Barbara at Coastal Ripples and Pip at Meet Me at Mike’s – even though I am also guilty of not leaving comments. I guess it’s nosiness, but I love the glimpses into their daily lives. I like seeing what they’re interested in and what’s particularly trying to them at the moment and what they’re doing with their time. And every time I see them add another post I think again about how nice it would be to have years and years of detailed records of a life. How gratifying it would be to look back on.
Anyway, all this blah blah blah is me trying to remind myself that even if no one ever sees a thing I post, future-me would be grateful to current-me for taking the time to jot things down.
So, to keep it brief, this past week, I:
-celebrated Anna landing a permanent, full-time OT position only 20 minutes away (instead of the current six-hour drive to visit)
-started putting Merlin in the window again to listen to the birdies (no spring migrants yet)
-have been reading A Pelican at Blandings by Wodehouse, Undoctored by Adam Kay, Marple by Mark Aldridge, and listened to The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
-sowed Brandywine, Sweet 100, SunGold and Roma tomatoes, as well as Bright Lights chard, Sugar Ann bush pea, Grand Rapids lettuce and basil
-tidied all the seeds and potting stuff
-cleaned out and reorganised all the pantry shelves
-opened all the windows because it’s been unseasonably warm for mid-March
-watched Blue Jays spring training baseball
-went to the farm market for fruit and veg
-scored a couple old music books at the local Little Free Libraries
-cooked a gigantic pot of chickpeas to freeze (but have since used four jars so so much for a huge freezer stash)
-worked on the never-ending blue alpaca lace wrap and a very chunky baby blanket (nothing exciting – just using up stash)
-sat with my boy, the maple-dipped doughnut
