Five

Thanks to Susan Marie Ward who nudged me on Facebook last night – this blog is five years old today. Thanks to all of you who’ve been around from the start – there’s a lot of those – and all who joined me along the way.

It’s not the oldest blog in these parts by a long stretch – think that one goes to The Stymaster, who definitely inspired me.

It’s been hard at times, but it’s a fun thing to do, and I love to find stuff to challenge and interest readers.

2,256 posts. 13,976 comments. 1,355,596 hits (355,596 of those since the beginning of last December). A great community of participants and commentors, and an awful lot of stuff.

Thanks everyone. I first registered the blog end of April, 2009, but it took me a few days to get my head around. I then started carefully, reblogging Politics Penguin.

Two days later, I started finding my feet with a ride into the Peak District (it was a century, and I never mentioned it). Then Mark from the ubiquitous, wonderful YamYam found me – and I found his site. The rest is history, and you can see the first month here. Most of it makes me wince with embarassment, to be honest; but I can see the start of several threads that grew into what’s here now. Local history. Chasewater. A bit of local current affairs. The genesis of 365daysofbiking was clearly in there from the get-go.

My style evolved, I got better with images, and maybe writing. It’s odd reading that stuff now, I can tell you.

All I can say is what I said on 365daysofbiking a few weeks ago: I never thought I’d still be here today. But I’ll keep it going as long as there’s interest.

Thanks for coming with me.