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www.The-Eversdens.co.uk – January 2010 Well, it happened - on 17th October 2009. The ten free 25 Mbs webspaces that the village website occupied began to overflow. My request for an 11th brought this response from my Internet Service Provider: “Free webspace service discontinued”! Panic-stations! No alternative but to find a new BIG webspace, finance it, and, scariest of all, remodel the whole site so that the links worked for just one integrated webspace.
Things happened very quickly. The Parish Council agreed to stand the cost, a local company provided a 500 Mbs space (thanks, Diarmuid), and I hibernated for two days to rewrite the site. With our pathetic Broadband speed, it took hours to transfer the new site from my computer up into that big computer in the sky – but the mission was accomplished and hardly anyone noticed. I still occasionally find a link that I missed and a little square that should be a pound sign – otherwise, so far so good. Google sometimes points to the old location but you don’t have to look far before it finds the new one. For my part I can’t believe that I put up with the old site’s mind-boggling complexity for so long. I am glad I was forced into the exercise. One or two of the redundant spaces will come in handy for the Eversden Players’ website (which is still under 25 Mbs) to grow into. I will let the others go.
I put a long scrolling line of your greetings to distant friends and relations on the Christmas front page. I am not sure how many of them were seen but there was a little surge of visitors from across the world. (Most needed reminding to look in.) Between 23rd December and 1st January a total of more than 500 people visited. Even passive communication is strangely reassuring. Popular pages were (and still are) the Youth Band, Christingle, Nativity, snowscapes, and Quin pictures. (Jill Marshall contributed the Christingle and Nativity pictures as well as the lovely front page shot of St Mary’s. It stayed until the snowfall on 18th December demanded a snowy picture. All the pictures that have ever appeared on the front page can be found in the website.)
I don’t know how many more angles of the villages I can find to photograph without straying off the public highway! The 5 year pictorial chronicle of village life and landscapes I am collating has drawn my attention to the cycle of seasons and events. There is comforting repetition but also subtle change. The resulting slide/video DVD (to be sold for village hall funds) will mark the end of my first (!) 5 years with www.The-Eversdens as well as the end of The Noughties. It is a five-year “snapshot” drawing on pictures of events in the villages - fetes, festivals, fun and suchlike - set in the context of the seasons. Nothing happened? You will be surprised!
David Farnell |