Last week we passed a milestone. We knew it was coming – and then we passed it! Last week was our 300th blog since we started on 17th December 2017 – about six and a half years ago.
If you look back at our first blog, you will see that we were hoping for conversations with ‘our’ people, some of whom have been in our lives for more than 50 years now.
‘Conversations’ may have been rarer than we had hoped but we’ve certainly had a lot of treasured contacts.
We have been delighted – and sometimes surprised – about who has sent written responses to our weekly scribblings – some of them on the blog itself – we’re grateful to the people who respond there because they offer our readers something which they may not get elsewhere. Probably most responses come on Helen’s Facebook page which we both read and are always very grateful for. We’ve also been equally amazed at various gatherings when unlikely people whom we never hear from tell us that they read our blog regularly – or irregularly probably!
Of course we do look at the viewing figures as anyone can do on our blog page. We are fairly sure we are regularly getting more views than we did at the beginning and maybe a few more reactions. It’s clear that later visitors read earlier blogs so the long term figures are interesting but we’re not likely to make any decisions based on them. We refuse to respond to Wix and Facebook telling us that we should do more to promote the blog – we’re absolutely not in this for money or fame but simply to keep in touch with people who matter to us. If, by personal recommendation, we get a few more views...that’s great – but it’s not our major goal.
What have we learned? Not much beyond the news values that Helen used to teach her journalism students. Big Personalities get the most viewings – the death of our colleague and friend Harry Leonard garnered the most viewings we have ever had. If we write about our family tragedies and triumphs people also seem to like that. Sex and sport or as seasoned journalists used to say, ‘cricket and crumpet’ always bring ‘em in! When we write about sexuality, such a burning question of the day, people of course, are interested. ‘The royals’ as the tabloids prove have an enduring interest. Mental health too.
We both enjoy writing and think it’s worth carrying on. Are we going to change direction? That is a question we talk about all the time... We’d really like to do a slightly larger project to answer people’s questions about how we got to where we are in our beliefs – but we’re fairly clear we can’t do that in a weekly 500 words!
Some of the Olympic athletes inform our conversation. The ones who bring God into their sport. British breaststroke swimmer Adam Peaty lost his Olympic title by 0.02 of a second. Before competing, he had asked God to ‘show him his heart’. The loss of the title, he said, was God’s answer, and he was content. Neither of us are able to work with that much certainty! American gymnast, Simone Biles, carries a rosary to all her events. Many athletes have been openly making a connection between their performance and their faith, Christian or otherwise - pointing skyward or crossing themselves before or after a race.. We wonder whether this is a superstition or a coping mechanism! More generously, they may be trying to live a life that tries to integrate religious values in a secular world. The space between sainthood and cynicism - that’s what matters to us most!
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