As faithful followers of this blog may have noticed: I’ve not been here lately. There is a reason of sorts. There may be signs of spring outdoors, but indoors my brain has opted for deep hibernation. I’ve had nothing to say. And there is too much gloom and mud for interesting forays with my camera. So there we have it. No posts since January 31st. And only five posts this year.
And strange to say, this does not appear to matter ‘views’ wise. In fact my rising Word Press stats from January have me deeply puzzled.
It’s true that early in the New Year, WP featured a December post in Freshly Pressed: ‘Winging it: chance encounters with aerial kind’, and the views of that particular post have risen over succeeding weeks from the original 60-odd to 213, but does that explain the big jump in daily ‘views’ – whatever these ‘views’ may be.
Already there have been 31,508 in 2026. In seven weeks. On February 12th there was the first big spike of 2,500. But the next day, – Friday the 13th – and this is what started me looking – there were a whopping 15,000, spread across that day and mostly from the USA. Since then, views have averaged around 350 a day, but with odd spikes of 800 – this when daily views used to be 50 or so.
Back in the autumn I also had several weeks of elevated stats, China being the source of the uptick, generally around the 200s. But then China tuned out at the end of last year and hasn’t been back since. I remember several other bloggers reported stats oddities around this time.
So what’s going on? Are beings from another universe thinking of visiting Shropshire and checking out the geography? Or are AI bots harvesting posts for their own educational purposes? It certainly looks like it. On any one day this year, scores of my back posts are apparently being viewed several times over, including ones ephemeral and passingly obscure, i.e. those relating to long past photo/word prompt challenges.
In an unhinged moment I thought I’d ask A.I. what it knew about me. Here’s the short version of what it had to say:
Tish Farrell is a writer known for her engaging stories and reflections on various topics, including gardening, travel, and personal experiences. Her blog often features her thoughts on life and nature, along with her photography.
Well! A glowing testimonial surely? But do I actually need a writerly reference from some mechanistic confection; do I even admit to a flutter of appreciation when I first read it? Blood and sand! What is this brave new world that’s being foisted on us? It’s enough to return me to a state of blogging silence.
And so back to the more pleasing contemplation of rain drenched crocus. This view at least is of something real. Tangible. Growing. Actual. Not contrived, conjured or manipulated. I experienced the flowers’ existence a couple of weeks ago in our town’s ancient graveyard, and took their photograph. And now, along with the crocus, I feel an urge to sink my soul’s roots deep in the good soil of Planet Earth. Isn’t this the version of reality that most of us cleave to?
I think I’ll start a meme – if someone hasn’t already done so:
#IAmNotACrop
copyright 2026 Tish Farrell
