Goodbye Sweden, the alien game and a bit of mindfulness

Blog Stats

Well, that was decisive. In my previous blog post I wondered why my blog was receiving thousands of visits from Sweden. Within two days of posting it the visits started to tail off and have now stopped completely. My stats are back to their normal level with not a single visit from Sweden over the last seven days. 

I had been wondering if these visits were some kind of automated bot that was not actually registering the contents of my posts but now I've changed my mind. Someone, somewhere in Sweden has been viewing my blog... viewing it thousands of times a week!! They have obviously now seen that on 1st August I called my post 'Hello Sweden' and talked about them. Apologies to Mr/s Swedish Blog Post Viewer if I have shocked you into going away but you have to agree that your vast number of visits were a bit strange.

The Alien Game

Mind you, this is a very strange world. When we were kids we used to play the game of pretending we'd been visited by aliens. We took it in turns to explain something that we perceived as normal like making a cup of tea. Did everyone play that game or was it just me and my group of friends? We'd laugh at how the aliens would be shocked that we were heating H2O up until it turned into a gas, mixing it with tannin-enriched dried leaves and adding the juice from a cow's udder. The game would keep us amused for hours. 

This image is a small section of a photo I took when Daughter treated us to afternoon tea in a posh London location.

Mindfulness

Aliens would consider most of what we do to be extremely strange - sometimes so do I, especially if I stop my daily busy-ness and make a conscious decision to look, listen and notice things around me. I'm doing a mindfulness course at the moment and this includes mindful walking. How many times do we walk to arrive? Sometimes it's better to slow down, think about the movement of your body as you walk, be aware of details around you including smells and sounds. It's different - relaxing and satisfying, especially when you notice something that has always been there but you hadn't noticed it before or you look at it in a different way. I really am trying very hard to slow down and notice what I'm doing rather than always working in autopilot mode. A note for those who know me in real life - if you see me reverting to my old autopilot ways then you have my permission to give me a prod (but only a gentle one!)  

Hello Sweden

I don't think I know anyone in Sweden but if any Swedes are reading this then please say hello back because you've been visiting my blog an awful lot recently. 

I realised something strange was happening to my blog stats a few months ago. They have soared from an average of 300 to 400 visits a week to around 4,000 visits. On closer examination I discovered that the exceptionally high numbers are coming from Sweden. But why is Sweden interested in my blog? 

I spoke with my blogger friend Vallypee who blogs at Rivergirl. Val, like me, uses Blogger to support her blogs. We had a chat about it and she loaded up her blog stats to investigate. Sure enough, exactly the same thing was happening to her blog. 

Here is a screen shot of the hits on my blog for the last 7 days:

Val and myself noted that none of these additional viewers have opened any of our blog posts so were they scanning blog titles or was it some kind of bot? I'm very confused. What would a bot want with my blog? I rarely mention politics or religion and even when I do there's nothing there that could have a major effect on International relations, life and the universe so what on earth is the bot activity all about - or if it's people scanning my titles then what would be the purpose of doing that?

My stats figures may show Sweden as top but for quite some time Russia has been up there with the top countries to visit my blog. I might not know anyone from Sweden but I definitely don't know anyone from Russia. It's all very strange and, although it does me no harm whatsoever (well none that I know of!) if anyone reading this can throw some light on it for me then please do. I'm starting to get obsessed with my stats figures and that's never a good thing!

 

Cat news

Betty and Sophie have been with us for over two months now. Betty has just about healed from all the flea bite scabs that covered her poor little body when we collected her from the rescue centre so that's good but they do both have some very odd ways. 

Betty has so far refused to join us in the living room. She is happy to go into the garden, dining room and conservatory but she is acting as if the rest of the house is out of bounds. It's a great shame because she runs full pelt to join us if she sees us sitting in the garden or conservatory. She loves the company and yet she has this self-imposed isolation when we are in the rest of the house.

Sophie also has a few odd quirks. She refuses to eat anything other than dried food. I've never had a cat who won't even eat a piece of cooked salmon or chicken and she panics if we go to pick her up, even though she loves having her ears and tummy tickled and her panic levels soar if anyone visits. Hopefully she'll grow to trust us given time. She spends most days sleeping in an unidentified part of the garden - we've yet to discover her hidey-hole. We only know that when we search for her she emerges from somewhere near the house - a proper little Mrs Mistoffelees.

These cats have history and the sad thing is that I'll never know what happened in their lives before they came to us. (They're both seven years old.) One thing is for sure, they're loving their new garden and I think they're starting to realise that they've well and truly landed on their paws.

Sophie is the patterned puss.
Betty is the one in the black suit and white tie.

Warning: This post rambles...

A few days ago I spent a number of hours writing a blog post, checking it and viewing it on Preview to make sure it looked presentable. I then had an odd feeling... a kind of deja vu. I did a search on the title, Onion, and realised that I had produced an almost identical post two years ago. I have put this down to the general confusion of multiple lockdowns and Covid anxiety. It has nothing to do with getting older, nothing!! I just did a bit of a Google search and found a mental health site that said I need to do a variety of activities including new activities in order to keep my brain healthy - groan.

On the subject of getting older, and while writing the above-mentioned duplicated blog post, I started to think about my Dad and his electrical prowess. In the early 1960s the only way to listen to music at home -  apart from on the wireless which is what we now call the radio - was to play records on the record player. Records were fragile. The really old 78 rpm records were heavy and would smash if dropped. They could also be heated up and turned into fruit bowls if we got bored with the song! The light-weight vinyl 45 and 33 rpm ones got easily scratched which meant all our songs had a background of clicks and so Dad made us a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He made it from a kit and it worked perfectly. Now we could borrow records and record them. We could also record music from the wireless but that was illegal so I'm not going to mention it here!! No one else I knew had a tape recorder. We were lucky.

It wasn't long before those tiny cassettes took over but the cassette players used to chew them up and then CDs appeared with pure sound and no clicks or chewing ups. Today we can listen to any song we like with online streaming. I would have loved that as a teenager.

In order to take seriously the suggestion from the above-mentioned mental health site I have just gone into the garden and taken some nature photographs. Here is a rose. You can even see a rain droplet on it. Isn't it beautiful! 

New clothes and bring back hats!

I have nothing to wear. This is not a stereotypical female whinge. This is for real. I have spent over a year slouching about in old joggers and sloppy tops (I bet you have too). Those joggers and tops are now only fit for the recycling bag. I need some smart clothes, ones that fit me. I can't be the only person to have changed shape slightly over the last year and a half! And so I am trying to decide what to buy. 

Skirts: I'm fussy about skirts. Fixed waistbands drive me crazy but elasticated-waisted skirts tend to be uninspiring. Above the knee length looks tarty on me these days, mid-calf looks frumpy and full length often means full width too and so I drown in volumes of material.

(While I'm on the subject of skirts, why do some men wear kilts? And while I'm on the subject of men's clothes what is the tie all about? Why would anyone wear a strip of cloth tied round their neck?)

Dresses: Same problem as skirts re length and don't get me started about the cost. Dresses are so expensive.

Trousers: I have five pairs of smart jeans hanging in the wardrobe. Can't get the zips to do up on any of them, even if I suck my stomach right in. I have several comfortable trousers but they look like pyjama bottoms.

Hats: I do wish hats would become fashionable once more. (I think I've moaned about this before but it bears saying again). I want to wear a different hat each day of the week: beret, fedora, cap, pill box, sombrero, cloche, panama... I feel elegant in a hat. I know I am perfectly free to wear whatever hat I fancy but I'm not confident enough to totally go against the fashion of the day.

Fashions from the 1950s were so elegant and back then my Great Auntie Alice made clothes for all the family. She didn't need to use any kind of pattern. They were all in her head. What a shame I was too young to benefit...

Oh well, back to searching those online fashion pages...

New cats, first hugs and a personal struggle

New Cats

Last week we adopted two cats. Our old cat, Mabel, died last December and it's been very quiet here. It's not quiet anymore! According to their chips they are both seven years old. Their owner was an elderly man who died so we don't know anything else. It's early days for them - not allowed out - two litter trays - constant whiff in the air. It's a good job we're still not having house guests! 

Sophie has discovered the joys of the settee but Betty is obsessively staying within a few feet of her food and, in the words of Desperate Dan, she could eat a cow pie... the whole time:

First Hugs

On Sunday we did something that we hadn't done since December 2019. We met up with Son and family. I have to admit that there were tears. We met at a halfway point, Cromford Mills in Derbyshire. It's a fascinating historic site where Richard Arkwright developed his idea for spinning cotton using the power of water but we were almost too busy catching up on chatter and hugs to take it all in. It was a very special day, it was beyond lovely and I never want to go that long again without seeing them.

My Struggle

I don't often talk about my health on this blog but it was mental health awareness week recently so maybe it's right to say something especially as a lot of people who know me outside this blog think I'm totally self-assured and 'together'. 

As a teenager I suffered from bouts of agoraphobia. It has never completely left me. I'm always aware of the struggle to keep it from taking over BUT I always manage to get out and do the things that I want to do. I force myself. It's hard work but preferable to hiding away. I've tried all manner of counselling and hypnotherapy but it's always there - always.

Lockdown was a safe place to be which means that now, after over a year of hardly leaving the house, I am finding it seriously difficult. My stomach churns and my legs tremble at the smallest of outings. Yes, I managed to get to Derbyshire on Sunday and I will continue to get myself to places but my body is constantly in full fight/flight mode and it is exhausting. 

Sorry to moan and thank you for letting me share that. 

Antecovidian!

Antecovidian

I think I may have invented a new word but if you've seen it used elsewhere then do let me know. This all came about because I keep referring to things that happened, 'before the pandemic'. It made me think of the word 'antediluvian' - 'before the flood' - and so I decided that the word 'antecovidian' would be extremely useful over the next year or so. 

Now I shall use my new word...

I used to have a rail card for antecovidian train travel. I was about to use it to go to London when the first lockdown hit. The rail card has now expired and although I'm not planning to go anywhere by train at the moment, (there seems to be a major problem with our trains, something to do with cracks in carriages) I was hoping to use the train some time during the summer. It would seem that, although we were told by the government not to travel, there will be no carrying-over of rail cards to compensate. 

This is not a major issue, it's not life or death, but it is yet another thing that makes me feel dissatisfied as I try to come to terms with our strange face-masking, hand-gelling world. 

And now I shall use my new word again...

Antecovidian appointments with the GP almost always involved going to the surgery, sitting with other ill people in the waiting room, catching goodness-only-knows-what from them before being called in to see the doctor. This was an experience that I always dreaded.

Now the system has changed. Consultations take place over the phone or on video call if the GP needs to look at a particular part of you. For many things this is good but they say that a lot of serious conditions are being missed. They also say (not sure exactly who 'they' are!) that there are not enough GPs to see all their patients in person any more. I'm not suggesting GP practices return to antecovidian days but surely there must be a compromise to be reached.

I shall now sit back and see if my new word can find its way into regular parlance. What fun!!