Tag: a post a day

Day 645 – Ten. Years.

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Hello, and thanks for joining me on this special day.

Why is this day so special?
Well, by my best calculations, it marks 10 years of continual blogging on this blog.

Yes, that’s at least one post a day on 6000 miles… each and every day for an entire decade.

Yep. 10 whole years.

I’ve been blogging here since early 2008 (and before that at the now defunct ballacorkish.net), but it was only at the end of 2011 that this ‘post a day’ nonsense began.

I’m not sure why I decided to start doing this on 31st December 2011 – in all likelihood, I didn’t make any conscious decision at that point to try to achieve anything other than putting pixel to screen for that day. It just continued from there until it became “a thing”.

It’s a bit sad that the very first post (of this series, at least) isn’t particularly exciting or remarkable, but I guess that’s what you get with this blog: the occasional flash of brilliance amongst all the disappointing mundanity. So a bit like being at a Michael McIntyre show, but with an occasional flash of brilliance.

Since then, we’ve been through a smorgasbord of football, music, parenting, history, geography, travel, photography, beagling, South Africanisms, beer, politics, microbiology, (hopefully most of) a pandemic, and of course, several (or more) lighthouses.

Yes, yes. I’m fully aware that other people have blogged every day for much longer. But they’re not me. I did this and that’s why I’m crowing about it. I’m quote impressed with this achievement.

And I haven’t been keeping track. I just spotted this upcoming anniversary when someone asked back in September – with some degree of incredulity and dismay in their voice – just how long I’d been doing this for.

But the real suckers heroes are you guys who come and read this stuff. Thanks for being here, commenting (when that was a thing) (you can still do it on the Facebook page) and just generally being supportive.

And of course, huge thanks to The Guru for all his patience, expertise and technical support. I couldn’t have done it without him, which gives you all someone else to blame for this.

Here’s to ten more years.

Possibly.

The record has gone

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Terrible news. Awful. Tragic.

My several (or more) years long record of publishing at least one blog post a day has slipped. It’s gone. (B)eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that although I have managed to keep it up (careful now) for a considerable length (careful now) of time, including many (if not all) of the days over the last few years, I haven’t managed to publish a post today, Monday 6th January 2020.

The plans were always there to get a post out today. A bit of tidying up, a spot of breakfast, a quick walk along the beach before packing the car and heading back to Cape Town…

…and then writing a blog post.

I just don’t know what happened. The tidying, food, walk, packing and drive home went really well. It just seems that I never got around to it. Even as I’m sitting here now typing this, I’m wondering how on earth it got away from me.

I’m mystified.

There will, of course, be an enquiry. Questions will be asked and answers demanded. Heads will roll. This cannot go unpunished.

In the meantime, though, please accept this 200 word lament as a post for today, Monday 6th January 2020.

 

 

 

Hang on a second…

Pre-planning

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It’s not long until our trip abroad, and I have been doing plenty of pre-planning (see here and here for examples).

I’m lucky enough to be well used to the odd weekend away and in the week leading up to my trip, I often plan blog posts for the couple of days that I may be out of internet range, writing time or indeed, any sort of inclination. I’ll normally pre-post a couple of short blogs which are carefully constructed (lol – like I ever “carefully construct” anything on here) not to have too much current content in them, simply to ensure that they’re not wildly outdated by the time they pop up.

It might seem like a silly thing, but I feel that there’s some weird value  in keeping this record of a blog post every single day since… ag… whenever it was. Also, there’s no going back once you’ve broken that run. And I’m not prepared to do that just yet.

Anyway, all this preamble is just delaying our arrival at the point of this blog post, which is that I don’t have a couple of days to pre-blog for for this trip: I have 3 weeks.

Yowzer.

And so the plan is this: preserve the precious record by writing and scheduling a few posts now, and augment the overall content when and where possible when away, with exciting missives from Burgundy and correspondence from London. (A better writer would have magically managed some amazing alliteration here. Not me.)
That way, you might get more than you ever bargained for when you log in while I’m away. (Although I know you weren’t bargaining for much.)

If you have anything you think might need blogging, which will work despite having been written a few weeks early and which fits the overall character of 6000 miles…, you’re more than welcome to get in touch.

Next year

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I think we’ll go for the post a day thing again in 2011. It went well last time I did it, although it was sometimes a little tough to get something down every day. My home life suffered a little.
On that note,  I haven’t told my wife yet, but maybe she’ll read this and then she’ll know.

I think I’ll know when she’s found out, anyway.

We’ll start bright and early (well, bright anyway) (possibly) tomorrow with a review of some of the Cape Town tourist attractions on offer for the remainder of this summer holiday.

Until then – Happy New Year to you all from Chez 6000. We look forward to having you on-board for another roller coaster year of ups, downs, regular screaming and concerns over potential metal fatigue and insufficient maintenance.

Last ditch

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With VIP guests arriving in Cape Town from all over the world for the FIFA World Cup draw on Friday, my parents are also popping in for 7 days “on their way” back from Australia to the UK. The it’s “on their way” excuse kind of works if you are flexible and fold the map to make Australia look closer to Africa with Perth and Durban merging to form one megatropolis called Purban or Derth or something. Last time they were anywhere near a World Cup event, back in France ’98, my Mum was mistaken for Prince Charles at Boulogne and there were huge issues with her Visa card being in the wrong name. Since Prince Charles is (as far as I am aware) wholly unconnected with the goings on at the CTICC on Friday, I have high hopes that they will have an uneventful stay, credit card wise.

I’ve worked damn hard today preparing the house and garden for our visitors. After all, it’s not every day the heir to the monarchy of Great Britain comes to stay with you. Wait – I’ve got that wrong again, haven’t I? Anyway, lawns were cut, flowers were planted, some painting was done and then I went out to a birthday party and drank 6 Peronis.  I know. You’re amazed I can even type straight, aren’t you? So am I, although currently of course I only have my perception of what this looks like. It could actually be complete gibberish. I may well look at this in the cold light of morning and wonder what I was thinking. Actually, that often happens, if I’m honest.

Once again, I’m making excuses for not blogging earlier. Experience has taught me that you get less readers to posts that you write late at night under the influence of Italian beer brewed in Johannesburg (one of the lesser known outposts of the Roman Empire) and that some of them don’t even read to the end of the third paragraph. Thanks if you’ve got this far – I really won’t keep you much longer. The reason I’m blogging at all is to keep up my almighty task of a post a day, which began on January 31st and was originally  just going to be for the (short) month of February. That I have kept it going on in various guises for a mighty 302 days so far has cost me readers, my sanity, several hundred hours of sleep and virutally all that remained of my reputation. That I still feel it necessary to come and document my feelings just before midnight and just after 6 Peronis smacks of OCD.

That you’re still reading  probably means that you have completely finished the rest of the internet and now only have a choice between So You Think You Can Dance and this. Incidentally, though I’m not a big fan, SYTYCD is actually pretty entertaining after a couple of litres of beer.