I’m celebrating today, albeit quietly at home while I drink tea and wait for the washing machine to finish. Happy tenth blogging birthday to me…
(Don’t worry, this isn’t a long post, more of an acknowledgement published for prosperity.)
The best happy birthday traditions make ten-year-olds feel as special as they deserve to feel on their birthday. So how about a blog? You might think that I’d use my birthday as an excuse to climb a hill or go on a slightly silly adventure (the photos you see on this post were taken on a short climb up Cleeve Hill yesterday afternoon). Actually no, over the years I’ve used my blogging birthday as an excuse to make and easy a tasty sweet treat; I’ve had jelly and ice cream, brownies, flapjack, funnel cake, peppermint bark, and even attempted to make my own marshmallow. This year I’ve gone for what can only be described as a “chocolate orange thing”, a favourite recipe in our house that looks like a cheesecake but is made very simply from melted chocolate orange and mixing with whipped double cream and icing sugar, set on top of a buttery biscuit base. It is sweet, creamy, chocolatey, delicious, and definitely befitting a tenth birthday celebration.
I guess that in the world of blogging, ten is quite old. By the time they are ten, blogs have generally gone one of two ways; they have either fizzled out because their owners have moved onto something new (nothing wrong with that), or they are somehow part-time wage-earning beasts with big followings, high influencer ratings, associated e-books and events, cool merchandise and at least two awards on their homepage. I know I’m neither of those two. I am not about to abandon Splodz Blogz, and I certainly haven’t broken into the world of the big bloggers, and that’s good with me – Splodz Blogz is my own little corner of the internet where I can write about things that please me and share them with anyone who fancies reading.
And let’s face it, I have been able to do some amazing things thanks to this blogging lark. I’ve had bucket list ticks I never imagined would be possible, and an outdoors gear cupboard that means I can keep having adventures as often as I like. I did wonder if I should do a roundup of my ten favourite “because-of-blogging” experiences from the last ten years, but I’m not sure if that would be interesting – maybe if enough of you let me know you’d like to read that I’ll put something together…
I should probably have got myself organised ahead of time and sorted a cool giveaway with fabulous outdoorsy stuff to celebrate more widely. But you’ll have to make do with this little note at the bottom of a written-for-prosperity post instead. Thank you to everyone who chooses to come here and read, it makes blogging much more fun knowing there are people who enjoy what you put out there.
I guess I’ll just quietly mutter “happy tenth birthday Splodz Blogz”, staring at the chocolate orange thing knowing I shouldn’t really eat it for breakfast, drinking my tea and waiting for the washing machine to finish. It’s okay, I’ll have a big slice with a can of Root Beer a bit later.
Want to give Splodz Blogz a birthday present? Comment, like, share, tweet, follow… you know the drill.