The-Eversdens.co.uk        August 2006                                                                         Tail Corn Reports

The graph of visitor numbers continues its gradual climb. It’s fascinating to think that The World has such easy access to The Eversdens. Recently I have been struck by how frequently people visit the pages about The Hoops. I wonder who – and why! Other very “well-thumbed” pages are the picture galleries. There must be many exiles out there.

I suspect that increasing numbers of people are making the computer a necessary communications and entertainment centre in the home. A computer that fits in with living-room décor (nice flat screen and a tower that’s almost tucked away) encourages this practice – and has the great advantage of being in open family view all the time. It’s just the printer that’s an eyesore, isn’t it, although there are ways of making the printer work in another room out of sight. Checking the site and your emails becomes an easy routine if you don’t have to banish yourself to a far corner of the house and grapple with plugs, cables, and switches.

The Simba saga has been good fun. Sharon and Alon (formerly of Wimpole Road) have entered into it. Simba (realising he owes them a letter) has recently been busy penning a reply to them in Guatemala. The slot for children’s writing has not done so well. Abbi’s excellent poem has so far spawned no other budding writers. Perhaps writing is a Winter thing. The World Cup (especially the Tennis Club’s great competition) captivated lots of visitors until England sank without trace. However, Eddie’s deflating robin is still visited most days.

I am trying to keep the front page picture clutter-free and seasonal. One problem is that the picture has to be a particular shape with the right amount of sky to accommodate the wording. I know some who have www.The-Eversdens.co.uk as their homepage move on quickly so I try to have something topical there to make even a fleeting visit worthwhile. Incidentally, I am finding Little Eversden difficult to photograph (while respecting privacy and security). Any suggestions?

Almost every day someone stays on the site for two or three hours! Sometimes they trawl through the pictures of past events, no doubt looking for pictures of relatives and friends through the last six years. I go browsing myself sometimes and rediscover some of those fascinating sites Alan Huddleston introduced years ago – such as the webcam view of Mont Blanc (it’s raining there today!) or the video of Titan flowering (and drooping) in the Botanical Gardens hot house. It’s all very beguiling.

The counter is sometimes precise and sometimes very vague, depending on the visitor’s server, I suppose. Some servers identify a town or city while others name just the country. It can only record visitors who allow cookies (your guess is as good as mine!) so the figures are only a guide. However, it tells me that we are nearing one thousand visitors a month! About a third are first-time visitors. The free counter keeps a running total even though it only reports details of the last one hundred page-loads (upgraded to 500 in 2007. DF). Distant places again feature. Below is a list of visitors’ locations that I caught  in the last three months.