A few random blog thoughts

I hope Thanksgiving Day went well for any American who reads this. I wonder if you ever wish it was in – I don’t know, maybe April - so as to space out the turkey holidays a bit? Why is it at this time of year, anyway?

A couple of months ago, Daughter 1, who knows about things (including, probably, why Thanksgiving is when it is) installed a visit counter for my blog. Then, cruelly, she abandoned us for married life in her own house. So – not being technologically very advanced – I didn’t realise till some weeks later that one can click on all sorts of lists and get fascinating details about where people are who visit one's blog.

I’m sure everyone else knows all this already, so I apologise for being boring. But I’m amazed every week by various things. One is the numbers of countries from where people visit. Abu Dhabi kept popping up for a few weeks, though clearly the Abu Dhabian got bored since there’s been no sign of him/her recently. Someone from Geneva features quite often, and an Amsterdamer also seems to keep an eye on me. A couple of German blog-readers. And a Canadian or two. There are also various people, who I assume are the nice people with whom I exchange comments, in places in America, Australia and New Zealand. Somehow (why?) it seems odder that there’s an occasional visitor from nearer home, for example in Salford and Norfolk.

Hello, all you mysterious people.

Mind you, last week was a bit of a bumper visit-week, while the figures are a bit down this time. (If I were a BBC programme, I’d be getting axed.) And there are always some people who, according to the little lists, visit for 0 seconds. How does that work? I can understand someone clicking on the “Next blog” button, finding me and thinking “I don’t think so” – but how does anyone do that in 0 seconds?

It’s jolly fun, though, and all for free. To be picky, I could do with a bigger world map on the screen. My geography of the Antipodes is terrible and I keep meaning to get an atlas and look up those places mentioned on the “Location” list; the blobs on the map must cover several hundred square miles.

It’s the weekend. Thank goodness.