One Year Blogging Birthday! (and a plea)

 

 Once upon a time there was a girl who loved to watch classic films, read classic books, do crafts, and listen to music, and she had a lot of opinions on all of these things. She would sometimes think out articles in her head about these opinions, but never wrote them down. She knew that blogs existed, but had never read one off her own bat; occasionally, she thought that she might have a blog in the future, but she never thought of having one herself right now.

One November evening, she was watching My Fair Lady with her sisters and mother. Half-way through, the others went out to make hot chocolate, but she stayed in the sitting room to finish the row of her crocheted blanket. 

We'd got to this bit, I think

She didn't finish the row, because she was thinking about other films she liked and she remembered the 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. Idly, she wondered what anyone else on the planet thought about it. There might be people who (perish the thought) actually disliked it - but maybe they had interesting reasons for doing so.

Calling through that yes, please, she would like marshmallows, she searched something random: "sense and sensibility 1995 review and opinion". There were a tonne of results. Lots of them were from websites like IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes, but somehow, she wasn't satisfied with any of the things she found. On the fourth page, she saw something that looked more personal and more relatable - a website called Starlight and Saucepans. 

Oh, it was a blog! And it looked pretty and vintage, so that was also good. She read part of the review, and then she had to stop because they were starting the film again.

When they stopped watching the film, she took another look and liked what she saw. The lady who wrote the blog was Catholic and liked vintage things... definitely worth saving the webpage.

She had to go to bed. The next day, she spent lots of time when she should have been studying reading the archives of the blog. There was more - and more - and more. She realised that if you clicked on the names of people who commented, you could find their blogs (magic!) and that was more to read!! Lots of people, she found, liked watching old films and liked vintage things and liked Tolkien and reading and had opinions on books and interesting things. Lovely!

Eventually, she mustered all her courage and commented on the blog. Then she realised that one could subscribe to the blog, so she did so. Then she began to follow the blog avidly, along with several other blogs she'd found.

Sometimes, though, she had more thoughts than could decently be put into a comment, so she thought about starting her own blog. She procrastinated, and then Christmas happened, then January happened; but her blog didn't happen until the evening of 7th February 2025. She was babysitting for some neighbours and the book she had brought was boring... On an impulse, she opened Blogger and, having agonised over a name for a while, plumped for Craft, Coffee and Cake, pressed Publish, and there I was, with a brand-new shiny blog!

The title of the blog gave me some qualms. You see, though it's technically correct in Britain, the number of commas is wrong in American English, I think. Also, what about Oxford commas, which I generally use anyway? But I had to publish it sometime, so I just went for it.

One thing that makes me chuckle every time I think of it is that for the little sentence that goes above the comment box, I wrote, "I'd love to here your thoughts", didn't notice the typo, and kept it like that for three months. When I realised, it made me squirm... now it just amuses me.

Anyway, I love blogging and I never want to stop (famous last words...). I've learned a lot of technical things, I've published some of my opinions about books and films and crafts and music, and most importantly, I've met so many lovely people! At risk of accidentally forgetting anyone, I'm going to list them because you should check out their blogs, people!

First of all, my sister, who goes under the name of Caroline Bingley. She helps me to come up with ideas, she proofreads some posts, she makes me publish them (I think she once actually leaned across and pressed "publish" when I didn't want to do it!). Thanks so much, Caroline!

Then Lizzie - thank you for being such a chum and for suggesting I rewatch '05 P&P! (And having such a lovely blog and reading my stories!)

And Emi for your happy blog and our conversations about English vs. Canadian weather... (and other things, of course xD)

And Hannah for judging my story so kindly...

And Liz for doing my tags when I was possibly tagging people too often...

And Ruth for having such a lovely blog on which I have not commented nearly enough...

And Julie for your stories...

And another Julie for tagging me and making up very fun tags...

And Autumn for her beautiful blog and artwork and her lovely newsletter!

And everyone else who reads, comments, and follows! 

So it's been one year! I didn't call it a Blogiversary because, while I personally consider that to be a very expressive word, I bow to the superior judgement of my sister and mother, who consider it to be made-up. I will refrain from pointing out that all words are made up. I will merely call it a "Blogging Birthday". Very snappy.

Ahem.

Some statistics are usually the next thing here. Here we go then:

• I've published 48 posts
• I've had 467 comments (including my replies)
• I have 13 followers 
• Overwhelmingly most popular post with 440 views
  
• 10, 089 views overall
• I have viewers from all over the world, including Germany, Vietnam, and Hong Kong (I'm not creepy, there is a thing on Blogger that tells you this)

Now, I had various little ideas about what I was going to do to mark this occasion, including an ask me anything post, a quiz, or similar. Much though I'd like to do the former, it's being going on a lot in the blogiverse recently, and I don't really enjoy quizzes that much, so I had a little idea. 

I can tell from the stats that I get lots of different people reading the blog. I'm curious - how many will read this post? So if you're reading this now, even if you don't usually comment, could you drop me a line in the comment box below? Just a wave? It would be very fun to my tiny mind to see how many of you do this. If you're feeling extra fun, tell us something about yourself or a post you'd love to read in the future...

Which brings me on to the next thing. Is there a particular post you'd all like to read? I have lots and lots of ideas and nearly fifty drafts of posts (Blogger might mutiny soon, I think), but I like to write all sorts of things. Please do drop a comment if you'd like to read something. No promises, but I'd love to here from you. Hear from you, I mean. I still can't believe I did that... Would you like to read stories? Reviews? Dream casts? Some of my controversial convictions and opinions? Faith-based posts? 

Anyway, thank you for reading my blog and being here for me. (That word is looking wrong but it's right. I've got it on the brain now.)