All posts tagged: WordPress

Blog tales for the Over 50s with positive ageing, dating & relationships

400 Followers at last, so good. But why?

Published by

I made it. I’ve been hovering at around 395 Followers for a couple of months, partly because I delete new suspicious ones. Do you ever? Why would a 30yr old Indian IT guy who’s never engaged with bone&silver suddenly follow me? Or a twenty-something Moroccan personal trainer? I’m not interested in fake. So anyone who follows me gets a curious drive-by, if I’ve never had any Likes or Comments before. [Whaddya mean I’m a control-freak? Shucks, thanks for the compliment]. Anyway, I wanna ask YOU why? Why do you read my posts? Which ones are your favourites? I mainly blog about a few topics: My hilarious & smart teenage son (short n sweet, I love these, especially as I don’t really have to do much) Relationships/Attachment theory/long distance romance updates (one of my best friends says she likes these the least, and just deletes the email. I still love her) GPMs: Generalised Personal Musings (politics/social commentary/introspection) Health/food/dance stuff Creative writing (I’ve not done so many of these lately but am hoping they’re going to return) Travel, …

I just spent 30 mins fighting with my smartphone, & met an Elf

Published by

The Scene: Palm trees swaying, blue sky shining, ridiculous rainbow-coloured birds squawking, plus me, dozing in bed in Australia, in that moment before being fully conscious. Me: Mmmmmmmm, I think I’m awake. Evil Elf Who Lives In My Brain And Synced To My Smartphone (now known as EVIE): What time is it? Better check your phone. Me: Nah, today’s Sunday, and I’m having a tech-free morning. EVIE: What!? When did you decide that?? Dumb idea. Just check your phone. Me: No. I’m simply going to lie here, listening to the birds. PAUSE EVIE: How hot d’you reckon it is? Maybe you should check the weather app? Me: NO. PAUSE EVIE: Maybe you got a late text from ’17’, and he needs picking up soon? Or what if ‘H’ sent something romantic/sexy first thing? Me: True. But they’ll still be there after I’ve had a pot of peppermint tea and meditated. I just want a peaceful tech-free hour. EVIE: An hour! But… but… don’t you need to check your WordPress stats? Me: Nah. It’s Sunday, and …

The ‘rainbow bar’ comes from an Australian engineer; here’s a screenshot

Published by

In this crazy time of hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes, I just want to celebrate a little human caring. This is for all you fabulous Americans/Canadians/UKs/Kiwis etc etc who (after my previous post HERE) commented “I wish I had one of those!”: I’d sent that post in to ‘Discover’ on WordPress, not to get ‘Discovered’, but just to try and let WordPress know how impressed I was. I fast got this email back from the Editorial Team: “Hello GG, Thanks so much for sharing your kind words about the rainbow bar with us. One of our Australian engineers conceived this idea and put it together to be able to show WordPress.com and Automattic’s support for marriage equality. I posted your note and I know he’ll appreciate your support. As a Canadian, (where we’ve had marriage equality since 2005) I wholeheartedly hope Australia votes YES. Let love win! All the best…” And I’ve only had 2 negative comments, which I trashed, and removed as Followers of my blog. Love and let Love indeed ❤  

When a rainbow appeared in my blue WordPress sky…

Published by

It was a few days ago; did you get one? I suddenly registered that there was a rainbow band across the top of my blog, on every page, incl the Stats and Reader. It’s not on my actual blog site, but firmly everywhere else. I couldn’t see it on other blogs though, so last night I Googled it: ‘Why rainbow on WordPress blog?’ Google offered me 2 other people who’d asked the same question of WordPress, both of whom were cranky, saying ‘get this rainbow off my site!’ Here’s the WordPress reply: Australia will be holding a national survey on marriage equality over the next two months. To show our support for marriage equality, we’re showing the rainbow bar to all our Australian visitors. You can read more about the marriage equality campaign here: http://www.equalitycampaign.org.au/ We cannot remove this banner for individual sites. We understand it looks a bit different to what you’re used to, but it’s here for everyone. We absolutely respect your right to publish the content you choose to your site, but the …