Sunshine in Middle England......

Rodent news from the Casa de la Rocking Chair is that my neighbours also saw a rat in their garden and a call to the rat man will be made soon. So maybe I need more rat poison. Something has eaten all of the stuff I put down. Charming. And on a beautiful sunny day here in Middle England too. I do not want to think about emptying the shed and organising everything in it. I do know it has to be done and that 90% will be tossed out, but it all seems a little daunting. Undesirable. And I may find a live mouse. Or a dead rat. Or something I do not wish to make acquaintance with at all.

I want to think of pretty flowers and warm sunshine and happy thoughts.

Not about rodents.

Now that is more like it. 

My sister has asked for Spring bunting in yellow and green, and the stash could provide the necessary to make the bunting, and so I have zapped up a few metres, and now we have ground to a halt because I have no idea how long it needs to be. I happened to give her some a couple of years ago which was the perfect length, but that was pure luck. I now need to know the exact length. Pure luck would not be able to get it right again. So we have to wait until she gets home from work. I did try asking my brother-in-law, but really, men just do not understand this sort of thing. They don't actually get the need for bunting either. And his English/my Germlish are not up to the technical details, so we will wait. 

I was lucky enough to get some M&Ms of the peanut butter variety for Christmas. You have NO IDEA how excited this made me!!!! I have a bag here, hidden in my study, because I am not sharing. I am rationing them. How come we get M&Ms here, but never the peanut butter ones unless you want to pay an arm and a leg from a specialist importer?? The nation is being deprived. Thank heavens I have travelling friends, is all I can say. 

Ah, my friends - I was reading some blogs in my reader last night, and they sort of followed a theme. How to improve, market, promote, identify target readers, use different engines and up ones stats and you know what? Most of them have only been blogging for a couple of years. I am more thankful than ever that I started blogging when it was the relationships we built with each other that counted. The connections made, and lives shared. Some, along the way, have developed into mega blogs, because of the outstanding talent of the bloggers. Well deserved recognition. But the sadder side is that there is no longer any personal communication between the blogger and reader - like me. It is just not possible time-wise. I miss that. And I find myself reading, but seldom commenting as I used to once upon a time. I miss that. I miss them, actually. The people I used to feel I was talking with - not to or at. 

I LOVE the big bloggers. I love what they write, but you see, it now feels like it does when I pick up a newspaper or a book. Mind you, half the books I am picking up are books written by those very people, and I LOVE reading them. And remembering the days when.......

It has nothing to do with envy, because I look at their schedules and wonder how they manage to fit it all in. My admiration is enormous. It all sort of fits with the things mulling around in my head, though, and there is a definite sadness for the loss of the innocence and openness there was just 5 or 6 or 7 years ago. 

It is as if a box of Lego was placed on the floor for children to build and play with, happily using their imagination, and suddenly, these grown engineers sat down between the children, grabbed the Lego and built elaborate, complicated buildings which held no appeal for the children and stripped the fun away from their toy at the same time. 

When I started blogging, I discovered a great many women my sort of age out there, and we have become friends. The sad thing is that many of them no longer blog. Making sure their templates were appealing, making sure they used the proper links/stats/widgets/privacy controls is enough to kill off the fun for anyone. Just stick around when I need to change my template. I mean, for goodness sake - keeping a template of telephone boxes over Christmas on the grounds it was red is an indication of one very technically frustrated blogger. It never mattered much before. 

But what do I know. I am just barrelling along merrily here and am ignoring all the big blogging "Must Do/Have" details. Hah. Linds can do what she likes right here. It is much more fun. I have turned away advertisers for the same reason - I want this to be me, and my place. I like knowing the people who visit, even though I have no idea who most of you are. I have a good imagination! 

Longing for the old days is something older people do. BUT OH MY WORD the old days can't be just 6 years ago. Can they? I suppose in terms of the Internet, then yes, 6 years ago is equivalent to the Dark Ages. Give me strength. I am an Internet Dinosaur. (I have a sudden vision of what an Internet Dinosaur looks like. I nearly choked on the coffee. )

Enough of dinosaur pondering. That wasn't what I came to chat about. I came to chat about rodents and sunshine and bunting. Maybe I need a nap, being a dinosaur and all.............