I had a completely different picture and story lined up for today but I ditched them in favour of this photo and a much less nice story.
This photo is of a very rare sight (well, in my experience anyway) – a money tree flowering. I’m not sure of the botanical name for a money tree, it’s some kind of succulent that is a common house plant in the UK. For all I know it grows elsewhere in the world like a weed so forgive me if this photo is of something mundane where you are from. I’ve been ‘looking after’ a couple of these plants for my good friends Steve and Cathy who are living in Thailand at the moment. Cathy said she couldn’t think of anyone else here who’d give them a better home. I was touched and flattered by that.
I have never seen one flower in all the years I’ve been around these plants so when I popped into my conservatory today and saw this it seemed appropriate to record it ‘for posterity’. It has cheered me up to a degree because I’ve been a bit gloomy today.
Why? Because I’ve had one of those comments. You know, the ones that we all get from time to time on our galleries and that for some reason are credited to ‘guest’ or ‘friend’. These people aren’t friends of mine, if they were, they’d be proud to put their name to their comments. This isn’t anything like on the scale of the abuse of Ian and his family from last week but it’s distressing and depressing nevertheless.
When I started this diary I realised I exposed myself to abuse by being so frank but I decided to go ahead anyway because it’s something I believe in passionately. I wanted to tell a story – it may be an ordinary story, it’s often mundane and trivial. Sometimes it’s bloody annoying I expect to many of the readers. I took the view that it would always be an honest reflection of how I feel about life and the world around me. I’m sure my views on some things rankle with many readers.
Since the start, I’ve been growing in my confidence that people want to read the pages and I’ve been developing many of the recurring themes. I get such a huge buzz when I get contacts from people who like reading it and like what I set out to do. Only this week, I’ve noticed a comment from a lady called Teresa elsewhere in PBASE commenting on someone’s photo. Teresa has been coming to my pages since just after Christmas and has clearly been enjoying reading them. She has spread out from my own gallery into others on PBASE because she got interested in people who’d left comments on my gallery. That’s brilliant. I love that. She seems like a really nice person. I love the fact I inspired Carolyn Bekhor to start to write again.
Equally, I love the friendships of the PBASE community. Meeting Ray was so special – what a complete gent that man is. I can’t wait for the next couple of weeks to be over so I can meet David off that plane in NYC (even though I’m completely terrified about going to New York alone and having to find my way around) and we can spend time with Jill, Jeanne, Lara and Mark, seeing a bit of their world. That will be so special. I have shared hopes, dreams, fears and loves with the three girls and Mark is a gem! How brilliant is that? Next stop….well, who knows, time and money will dictate our next PBASE meeting. I wish we could spend more time there and see Ann, Angela, Carolyn and all our other transatlantic friends but that's not possible on this visit.
What baffles and disappoints me though is the nastiness that exists within a few people in the internet community. Last night, I had a comment on a very old photo from my 2003 diary. You can probably guess what’s coming. It gave me a good slagging off for my standard of personal hygiene and, bizarrely, my taste in shoes. I can’t see the point in that really. The posting couldn’t have been offensive to anyone – it was a piece about hating shopping, buying new shoes and the photo was of the shoes I’d bought that day. The poster described me as filthy and having appalling hygiene because I’d photographed the shoes on the sofa. It even went so far as to suggest that guests in my home ought to be warned of its unsanitary status. Even more weird was the fact that it was totally clear from the posting that the shoes were brand new. Why would anyone do this? I’m sure I have no idea whatsoever.
Interestingly the photo is one that gets hit a great deal. I’m certain it’s not because of it, its title, its content or the text. The reason it is still getting hits is because it’s next to ‘Jo, the naked housekeeper’ which of course shows up in the PBASE search. I think people search on naked, see the very lovely Jo then click ‘next’ to see whether there is more of the same on the next page. So, this person probably (though of course I can’t be absolutely certain) got to the photo in the first place because of searching for naked women.
So, I’m a bit fed-up. It’s not the first time – on several previous occasions I’ve considered moving my diary elsewhere on the net and then changed my mind when I’ve had a really nice comment from a complete stranger.
Like David, I love the fact that I see the beautiful Icelandic scenery, Alaska, Turkey, India, Canada....well, everywhere really....even floradoragirl’s Oxford – she makes me homesick for Oxford regularly. I love the friendship with people close to home and far away.
I’m not going to disable my comments because the good far outweigh the bad but I’d like to pose a thought…… do people ever strive for something or feel motivated to change because of negativity and nastiness? No – I thought not. People respond to kindness, warmth and encouragement. So to the person who left the comment – if you can’t say anything nice about my diary, then don’t say anything at all. I don’t want your comments here.
As for the rest of my real friends - please do continue to post messages. I love getting them and really appreciate you all.
