1,234,567

Here's a bit of Boxing Day trivia. The accumulated viewings on my blog have just reached 1,234,567. 

The total has been slowly edging towards this figure since Christmas Eve. I do wonder that some people have turned away from their seasonal festivities to check my blog out, but whoever you are, I salute you. It's been fun to see the viewing total get closer and closer to this magic sequence of digits - although it also argues a certain amount of obsession in myself, not only to be watching, but to actually capture the precise moment in this screenprint:

There was of course a sporting element in taking this unrepeatable screenshot. Very appropriate for Boxing Day! Some dash into the cold sea. Some play special games of football. Me, I poise my finger over the laptop keyboard - to be ready for a screenprint at exactly the right moment, before a reader moves the total on. 

The actual viewing total doesn't matter. I gave up the numbers game a long time ago. In the early days of this blog - in the first four years from 2009 say - it was fascinating to see how the readership gathered pace, as evidenced by the viewing totals. I suppose I was a new kid on the block, with a story to tell, and interests to reveal, and attitudes to explain. Some of those posts got me into difficulties. I was sometimes trolled by hate groups, or by individuals with a bee in their bonnet. I learned to be more careful, and that kind of attention faded. I was also, for a time, targeted by people on the lookout for blogs with growth potential, wanting me to sign up to advertising deals. I ignored them, not wishing to forfeit total control over what I wrote. 

I would say the blog was most read about eight years ago, around 2014. But after then readership began to fall off a bit, as I made the topic coverage more general. In any case by 2018 blogs - though still popular - were considered old hat. Newer things had arrived. Even so, my own viewings continued to accumulate, albeit more gradually, reaching the one million mark in April 2020. And then a further 234,567 viewings in the thirty-two months since - although you can justly remark that an average of only 7,000-odd viewings per month in recent times isn't impressive! No, of course it's not; but it's enough to make me feel that I'm producing something of interest to others, and not merely sending my posts out into an empty void. 

Even if I were writing into thin air, and almost nobody read my posts, blogging would still be a pleasant activity, and in its way a creative outlet. Besides, I find it useful to write about any current problems that vex or worry me. It's a way of sharing the problem, and getting it into proportion. And putting together a coherent post about the issue of the day helps to sort out what the best solution might be. Most recently, that tussle with OVO; and now the probability of spending yet more money on my ageing car.

The noteworthy thing is how posts on personal problems still get attention from readers. Perhaps they strike a chord. Maybe my problems are the kind that many people have to cope with.

The blog also showcases some of my photos, and surely these must add to the appeal of many a post. But I remain convinced that those who read this blog, and those who look at my Flickr site, are two quite separate groups. Despite the direct links to Flickr, and the 53,000 pictures that await anyone curious, I very much doubt whether any blog reader ever follows those links. Oh well.  

Next February my blog will be fourteen years old. But I have no plans to wind it up. Indeed, I would miss it. I hope others feel the same.