I Entered the A to Z Challenge in January

Last year I could not be bothered to enter the A to Z Challenge. I had too much life stuff going on to be a nerd for a month of April. In any case, on previous occasions I had convince myself I would do a quick and easy, only to be bogged down at 11 p.m. the night before.

My experiment with freedom was brief. The A to Z challenge is like a circus. Like Nellie the Elephant I had ran away but it came back to get me. Once you have been a trapeze artist, it's hard to forge a living on Civvie Street. These are not transferable skills. I told myself, I was there at the inception in 2011 so surely I had a right to return to the high wire.

The button for the first one in 2011

Other than that I am a ho for hits and in recent months by blog's analytics have looked like the chart I presume Joan Rivers had at the foot of her bed. The only way is down. Now I don't spend every hour of the day looking at my blog's ailing stats but the long term trend makes depressing reading, particularly when we remember those feelgood articles we read half a decade ago written by someone whose blog started small but is now living in a beach house in Malibu off the proceeds.

Right now, I would settle for a beach house in Virginia Beach. Or an apartment that's a bit warmer.

We may not all be able to call on someone to massage our cold feet at 4.29 a.m. But when all hope is gone and the night is as dark as a big dark thing, we can thank our lucky stars there is the A to Z Challenge.