Blog Chucking and Giveaway Date!!

I feel I have been remiss; I have had very little time to read blogs lately and it's just not good.   I love reading them and I'm itching to catch up on what has been happening but alas, sometimes kids, work, house and social lives take over.   I always stop first at those people who come to visit and then manage another few each day, sometimes a lot more, if I take a morning off.   It's always lovely to know the blogs I read are all there waiting for when time is easier.

Bearing that in mind, I was rather surprised to get an email from a bloggy follower telling me I was chucked.  Yes.   Chucked for not spending enough quality time with her/him.   She/he had left me.   Sob.   Having only ever been chucked once in my life before I've led a semi sheltered life...., I started to ponder what this bloggy chuck meant and what is the correct decorum in these situations?   Should I cry into my keyboard or should I go on the hunt for five bloggers in one night, aggressively pursuing them and hoping they'll love me in the morning?

All joking aside, I felt bad that I'd upset someone enough to get such a strong reaction from them and was all set to albeit confusedly profusely apologise.   Now of course you're wondering why I would be so public about it.  Well, y'see, I started to get a deja vu feeling.   Something didn't seem quite right....

Feeling a wee bit ashamed and guilty after the eyeball rolling at my  "Dear Helen" letter, I went to the blog in question and looked round.    Something wasn't quite right, right enough!   It was puzzling me.  I looked at the last ten posts, posts which seemed......strangely familiar.   Wait.   Hadn't I actually read these?   There was the post on...oh, and then there was that post......   Yes.   Yes I had.

Not only that, I'd commented.   I'd commented rather a lot.   Had the blogger failed to read the comments?   Was the blogger a bloggard?   I looked round the site and found responses from the actual person in question, responses directed at me.   What was wrong with this picture?

And then it hit me; the posts were old my friends, OLD.   The blogiot hadn't posted for over 9 months.   NINE MONTHS! What the...?  I chuckled with barely contained glee and flexed my fingers before typing a reply.   I waited for a response and none came.   Email silence.

Tumbleweed.

I sent one final response and eventually I got a reply.   The blogger had started a new blog without closing down the old.   She/he had assumed that I was still on their list as I am on their email address book under bloggy love of course!   She hadn't thought to tell anyone that she had moved to a completely different format and many not just me eventually, obviously stopped coming by.   The blogger was very contrite and I shall refrain from calling her/him anymore bloggy names because it was a mistake and we're all allowed at least one.....

Bloggy friend, you know I'm posting this as I said I would, I'm only partially joking, I'm sorry and I forgive you at the same time!

You know that giveaway I've mentioned every now and then?   Well, it's happening next Wednesday, 17th March in honour of St. Patricks Day and my niece's birthday.    The more comments you leave, the more chances you have with every follower automatically entered.   The 'prize' will be one of my homemade dollies or one of my paintings.   You get to choose and even customise!.   Here are a few samples....

 Just tell me once what you'd like to win and why you would customise it, i.e. a little boy painting with a blue shirt or a dolly with a pink ribbon etc. and thereafter, for every other comment, just mention the word 'giveaway' at the end.

Edited to add, as per comments: open to all, worldwide.  No discrimination here. ;O)

There will also be a travelling dolly, a wee tartan minx who will wind her way from blogger to blogger with a little journal so that her adventures can be noted.   If you are interested in taking part, mark 'travelling dolly' on your comment too.  More details to follow.

I would like to leave you with the cake of the year!   My lovely friend Pauline had a request from her son to make him an eyeball birthday cake; once she stopped pondering why, she rose to the challenge and then some.  

 Aren't they delightfully gruesome?