Hello – and a very big welcome to my 200th post!
I know it’s true, but I’m still having to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming. That’s because I never really planned to have a blog, let alone write 200 posts for it. Instead it just sort of happened.
Me and Mum had been on a trip to the East Riding of Yorkshire with our lovely friends from Red Bus Days Out. We’d visited Burton Constable, an Elizabethan house with beautiful grounds designed by Capability Brown in the 18th century…
and Hornsea where we sat in the sun, watched the sea and enjoyed an ice-cream…
Then on the way back towards Thirsk the coach turned a corner – and suddenly I saw a load of flying saucers heading towards us.
To be honest, I was a bit scared in case they were coming to abduct us. Mum was looking in the wrong direction and so I grabbed hold of her hand and told her to turn around – and that’s when she laughed and told me that they weren’t flying saucers at all. Instead they were unusual cloud formations, known as lenticular clouds, and we were very lucky to see them.
That set me off thinking that it would be nice to share some of these experiences with other people and by the time we got home that evening, the idea of a blog was firmly fixed in my head – I’d even decided that, because I’m a bear, I was going to be Wilf The Bear-Faced Blogger – and everything just grew from there.
Mum said she’d help me with the writing and we recruited our friend Ali to do the technical bits. Then we were Team Wilf – though I was the Team Leader, of course, because it was my blog.
And later we adopted Ali’s mum as an honorary member of the team because she loves me to bits and has made me some lovely clothes…
Because we didn’t know if the blog would succeed or not, we decided to try it for six weeks and see what happened. Then, as we got quite a few views, we decided to make it three months – and then we just kept going.
At first I thought I’d just tell you about some of places we’d been to and things we’d done – and I thought it might also encourage Mum to start writing her own stories again after a very long break. But, as you know, our plans don’t always work out.
Though 2019 was a fabulous year for us and we went on lots of trips and adventures – most of which I’ve told you about – none of us guessed that Covid-19 was gearing itself up to bring our adventures to an abrupt end in the spring of 2020.
Our last adventure was a trip to visit the Yorkshire Cat Rescue shop in Skipton on the Friday before the first lockdown began in earnest and we had a very good reason for going there…
You see, as well as having lots of visitors from the UK, my blog was also getting visits from people from all over the world – and not just from countries where we had friends or family. I was so thrilled about this that I’d persuaded Mum to donate £10 to charity for every country I was viewed in – and in March 2020 we got our 50th country (Bangladesh) and decided to hand over our cheque for £500 to Yorkshire Cat Rescue.
And, as it was probably the last time we’d get to eat out for a long time, we also went to the nearby Cake ‘ole cafe and enjoyed some yummy cake.
Since then we’ve not been far beyond our village, but I’ve managed to keep my blog going with stories of Granny Betty and Grandpa Graham, as well as tales of my mum, the story-teller. I’ve also been viewed in another 37 countries – the latest is Azerbaijan.
So we’re hoping that things will get easier for all of us as the year goes on and we can get out and about more. We’re also hoping that my blog’ll be viewed in 13 more countries so we can hand another cheque over to Yorkshire Cat Rescue.
In case we don’t go very far, however, Mum and Ali have promised to make me a lovely garden, next to my house. They’ve already bought me this garden seat…
…and Mum has bought some yarn and promised to knit me a throw and a couple of cushions so I can sit in comfort while deciding what to write about next.
To celebrate reaching my 200th post, Ali’s promised to help me set up my own Facebook account very soon, while Mum’s going to help me write a special bonus post to tell you where I came from and how we met – and, of course, I’ve still lots of tales to tell.
For now, however, I’ll just say a Very Big Thank You to all of you for taking the time to read my posts and make kind comments about them…
Take care, stay safe – and look out for more from me soon!
Follow my next blog: 201. MUM AND ME
19/05/2022
Wilf the bear-faced blogger 