Friends Old and New

Happy New Year dear blog buddies.

I don’t know about you, but it’s  a while since I’ve seen a  nice sunset, here is one from stock,  just to tide us over until this relentless wind and rain abates.

 

I’m delighted to see that our dear friend Gerry has reappeared on the blog scene, I’ve missed her  wisdom, musings and whimsy so very much.

 

WordPress provided me with their  annual number crunching review of my blog, the gist of the ‘feedback sandwich’ was that 2013 wasn’t a vintage year for my blog. But then, I knew that.

 

I’ve been missing my blogging opportunities, and have resolved to ‘do better’ in 2014. Not because blogging is something I ‘should do’ but something I want to do,  my life is richer for it. I’ll need to get out more, in real world mode and in blogging mode.  So with that in mind, this weekend I’m aiming to zip off into Manchester, to catch, an exhibition by the skin of its teeth (it ends on 4th of Jan, just missing an exhibition is a reoccurring theme in my life). It’s ‘no photography allowed’ but as it  entitled  ‘Brains. The Mind as Matter’ I’m sure it will give me something to think about.

 

I’ve taken stroll out around the blogging world too, over the holiday, and fell upon this delicious blog, enjoy.

Hide and Seek

It’s been a strange sort of week.

The tooth drama rolls on sapping my energy as the weeks pass, today I’ve taken up the  offer of a second round of antibiotics prescribed by my dentist, ‘just in case’. Getting to the root cause of the pain has turned  into a  tedious game of hide and seek. I can tell you it hurts most when I drive up hill (don’t laugh it isn’t funny, remember? I live at the top of a hill. Maybe there is a reason for this?) Mr Uphilldowndale and the boys can vouch for the fact my sense of humour is AWOL too.

Something else disappeared this week, Police Inspector Gadget blog. This leaves a gapping hole in the blogosphere, as long as I’ve been  blogging Gadget has been popping by here, he was especially fond of Spud the dog.  One of his clear crisp text messages told me he’d written his last post and was pulling the blog. No fuss no drama. 24 hours later it was gone.

Gadget is always a man of his word, I know that. The news didn’t surprise me and yet it did, after all, seven years of blogging, 12 million hits and up to five hundred comments or more per post, not to mention the book,  has to be a huge part of someone’s life.

My camera has not seen the light of day this week, so I’ll leave you with a suitably occluded  image from my visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park a few weeks ago.

It’s taken from the inside of Basket #7 by Winter/Horbelt

Indoors if Wet

It would be very nice to be out and about,

after all, ‘Operation Cosy Christmas’ is a wrap, and whilst it got a bit fraught at times, getting everything done (Joe reupholstered six dining chairs on Christmas eve, he’s the fastest teenager in the north west with a staple gun)  we did it, and had lovely time. Now our guests have gone, all is quiet and still; it would be a good time to be out and about, mooching around with the camera, but it is just so, so, wet. So I’m pottering around with the blog instead, a new look and a review of the links in the side bar to follow. WordPress tell me my chosen new theme can morph itself to suit what ever device you chose to read this blog on, phone, PC, tablet etc, let me know how it shapes up especially if it is not delivering the goods.

It is not a bad place to be spending the darkest (I hope) of the winter days. Warm and cosy and in good company.

Not So Freshly Pressed

Uphilldowndale, One Thousand Posts Later

This is post number 1,000, I’m finding it hard to believe, but there you go, the nice people at WordPress kindly provide a behind the scenes (or screen) page of statistics about my blog and the little counter at the bottom of the page says my previous post was  number 999 and  as I can’t recall ever deleting any of my posts this must be it.

I thought I’d dish up a favourite post, but I couldn’t decide, I couldn’t even decide on a photo (some of my favourite blog photos are huddled together on my flickr page). In the end I settled for this little chap, who fledged from a nest in the barn wall back in June 2008, (maybe its how I felt when I first started the blog, it was a bit of a leap into the unknown)

Tonight  is a double celebration as I also pressed the send key, and dispatched the last piece of work for my course of study, off into cyberspace. Woooohoooo; me time beckons, the hills are a calling, time to get out and play.

Thank you all for stopping by and taking the time to comment, it wouldn’t be the same without you xx.