A WALK ON THE WET/WILD/WARM SIDE

I spent a wonderful day yesterday with my very good friend Trousers. We have been walking together now about every 6 weeks, for the last 18 months.
The deal is I bring the sandwiches and coffee and he brings the chocolate and we walk wherever I've decided to go.
Yesterday we parked up in a wonderful village called Hartington in the Peak Park and walked to the river Dove, and then went beside it, there and back for a total of 8 miles.
The weather was almost different every five minutes, warm sunshine, pouring rain, billowing wind, and then start the cycle again.
We managed to have our picnic between storms, sitting on a log listening to the river gush and gurgle past us.
And as ever from the minute I picked him up at the station, we never shut up. We get on so well on so many levels, from the really daft to the soul searching serious stuff. The only thing we really don't have in common is our taste in music, but we're prepared to indulge each other in their odd tastes!!!!!!
We spent some time talking about blogging, which is how we met, he was the first person to ever comment on my blog nearly two years ago, and he'd also recently started blogging then.

We've both been in a difficult place about it recently, and it was good to know that the stuff going on in our own worlds was also going on in someone elses..... Always good to know we're not alone.

One of the things that has been perturbing me about blogging is my blog roll. I actually take blogging seriously..... it could be that I need to get a life,of course! But those people on my blog roll, get read and most times get commented on, as I think based on how I feel, it's important to have our words acknowledged. Otherwise why bother blogging, just keep a journal instead.

But for me there has to be a reciprocal thing going on, and some of the people on my blog roll, just get my comments and never respond back to me about my stuff. So in the interests of my feeling ok with this, I'm going to reduce my blog roll only to people who want to play in my garden sometimes, as I do theirs.

For those making comments, as you often do, I don't expect you to write every time I post. I post such a lot. I know you come and go as your lives take you. YOU are not the people I'm talking about and I wont's be taking any of you off my blog roll anytime, as I consider you to be my friends.

If however you do ever comment on my stuff, be assured that I will come over to your site and leave a comment, it think it's the only way to behave. And if there then becomes a mutuality of visiting then you would go on my blog roll.

Whilst I'm on a roll here..... Followers, what is this about? You get a collection of nice little pics, and the knowledge that, at least once they had to have visited your blog, but not necessarily ever again after they have put the little pic up.
On the one hand I love getting new followers it makes me feel good. But on the other side of the coin it frustrates the hell out of me when the person never bothers with me again.

Now I actually do know where all my feelings come from on this, and how my childhood relates to my perceptions as an adult and I also know what I need to do to feel ok within myself. So if the followers list disappears don't be surprised. The people who I love/like/know will still be there on my blog roll. But the one time hangers on, unless they communicate with me are going.

I am sorry if this all seems a bit harsh, but for my own reasons I need to do this tidying up of my blog to keep me in a healthy place about it.

The photographs are from yesterday by the river Dove when the sun came out for odd moments.