Third blog anniversary

Wanna go for a wintry walk?

[ soundtrack : Assedic - Les Escrocs - Pomplamoose ]

****

I published my first post here on Substack three years ago. Since then I have written 266 articles of very varying quality, but at least they’ve all been free to read. I will keep it that way — both regarding the quality and the money :-) I make my living by woodworking, not by collecting small change for sharing what my heart is full of.

This time of year I usually write an anniversary post. This is that. Let’s go for a short walk around the block; it’s been a bit too cold for snow, we’ve only had a dusting so it’s mostly dry underfoot.

I can show you a nice copper beech (Fagus sylvatica purpurea) — we call the blood-beech here.

Isn’t she a beauty?

A strapping lass! You can almost feel her strength ripple under that sleek bark.

And well rooted, too. My kind of gal.

Beech trees are a bit too heat-hungry to have spread widely in Norway; you only find them in quantity close to our southern coast, in topographical ‘heat-spots’ — or as sheltered park-trees in towns, as here.

Last year was not that eventful, yet I did many things — some of them well. I worked, ate and slept. I read, wrote and listened to great music. I learned something new but forgot something old. I was often foolish and sometimes wise. It’s a contented life, on a suitably small scale. I have no need to save the world.

I also started using Substack Notes. I’m in two minds about that. I have found some good stuff there, but it seems to come with an avalanche of self-absorbed drivel, virtue signalling and neuroticism. If you don’t count YouTube, I’ve never used social media before and there’s a reason for that; I find much of our online world shameless, transactional, phony and/or disgusting. I don’t need or want that in my life, so I restrict my digital diet accordingly. There is so much worthwhile content online, there’s no sense in me wasting my time scrolling down a sloppy feed like some dumb animal. Discernment and discrimination — unfashionable virtues!

Time to return home, have a glass of wine and write this before dinner.

The world begins at the end of my street, just hoist your sails and be away!

****