New Blog Layout and Theme

You can't have failed to notice that I have changed the style of Albert's blog. I decided a little while ago that I would go for a three column blog with a suitable background. There are lots of blog backgrounds out there that reflect interests in many spheres, many of them freely available. However, none appeared to particularly suit canal boating.

I therefore took the bull by the horns and developed my own background. After some deliberation I went for a canal decoration theme. Using Photoshop I took some images of the rear cabin doors of Albert and made them into the green border decoration you see behind this post. The original decoration (that is "Roses") were crafted some years ago by Maggie.

Below are the door panels when they were being painted back in 2004. Maggie also did the "Castles" on the red outlined block panels. Tony Lewery recently pointed out on a TV programme that we should really call them "Castles" landscapes. Enjoy.

Albert's Rear Cabin Door Decoration

Blog Milestone Again

Since installing the site counter in November 2006 we have had 35,000 hits. Not a large number by some standards but interest in the blog continues and lots of it is international. Hit 35,000 was from California and the entry page was my post about the English canals article in a 1940 National Geographical magazine.

Thanks for your interest!

Boating Blogs

I see that according to the UK Waterways Ranking that Granny Buttons is no longer top of the waterways blogging heap. Once again No Problem is the most popular. Presumably this is because Granny hasn't posted for nearly two weeks. Andrew must be very busy with Waterways World. Albert has never ranked very highly, mostly around 25, but it is interesting to see what gets readers.

Blog Milestone

So in just over 4 years Albert's blog has today achieved 30,000 visitors. As I have stated before, we don't appear to be getting huge numbers of visitors but it is still nice to know that our blog has readers. We only got to 10,000 visitors two years ago so our visitor numbers are increasing but then canal blogging is now more popular.

The 30,000th visitor appears to have come from London, but the 29,999th did come from India reflecting the international interest in canal blogs.

Thanks to those who have provided links on their sites to Albert.

Another Blog Milestone

Today we reached 25,000 hits since I loaded the site meter counter in November 2006. Not a huge number but it is good to know that there are people out there reading your output. Thanks!

Albums Update

It is some time since I revised our web albums. I have just posted a link to our third web album (Even More Journeys with Albert) and added all our Thames Ring images from our spring trip this year.

I have also updated the header at the top of the blog to show Albert with her latest signwriting and colour scheme.

A Minor Milestone

I don't think I ever considered that our blog would reach the heights achieved by the Granny's and Sheads of the canal blogging world, but today after 40 months of record keeping (via Site Meter) Albert's blog reached the 20,000 visitor milestone since November 2006. Many thanks to all our readers, wherever and whoever you are.

By the way, Albert sucessfully negotiated her Boat Safety Certificate test today.

Thank You Granny!

Today I was very pleased to find our blog site mentioned very favourably on Granny Buttons, the UK's top canal boating blog. Andrew Denny was reviewing the development of canal blogs over the years. He mentioned three blogs he reads regularly whose style he enjoys and one of them was Albert!

I suddenly found myself in the company of bloggers who are far more active and who are certainly more highly rated - Albert rarely gets above 40 in the UK Waterways sites rankings. It made my day! As Sarah from NB Warrior said about her blog being mentioned, this is "the endorsement to end all endorsements".

Andrew's comments were:

Another great blogger is Steve Parkin, who writes some excellent pocket-reviews of second-hand canal books on his blog Albert. His post Rude Place Names and Victorian Class Warfare on the Thames, a review of Time on the Thames by Eric de Mare, induced me to seek out and buy a copy of the book myself online.

Many thanks for these very kind comments, they will inspire me to do more book reviews. I have been reading a few interesting books recently so I will post my reviews of them over the quieter (boating-wise) coming winter months.

Reorganising the Blog

I have just spent a while splitting our web links into boating blogs and other links. I had to do it manually (i.e. no cut and paste). It should make navigation a little easier.

Updating our posts

We have just been updating our blogs with images. Looking back we had some great days. If you want to see all the uploaded images you will have to go to "older posts".

UK Waterways Ranking

Decided to take the plunge and join UK Waterways Ranking. The icon below gives Albert's current ranking.

I didn't expect it to be high, since most of the high ranking sites are from continuous cruisers, but with the list of sites signed-up growing daily Albert has been slipping down the rankings!

It is interesting to note that the ranking site itself is number 10. Presumably the hits are from those signing up and then checking who else has joined and where they are on the "hit parade".

Albert's Blog passes a milestone

Since November 2006 we have been running a sitemeter on our blog. This week it passed a milestone - our 10,000th visitor. We are not exactly a big hitter in terms of canal/waterways blogs, but most of the really popular blogs are published by continuous cruisers.

We got a lot of hits courtesy of Granny Buttons when Andrew Denny ran a feature about the conversion of NB Lion. Also, we recently got some heavy hitting when Andrew used my You Tube video about locking techniques in one of his posts. Unlike someone who recently left comments on Granny's blog complaining that Andrew had stolen his video, I was very pleased. It appears that Granny is very influential. More power to Andrew's elbow.

So what of the 10,000th hit? It appears to have originated from Holland.

Best wishes to all for Christmas and the New Year if we don't manage to get on-line again.

I have it in mind to write about a couple of other old cruising books I have recently read, but we might go boating over New Year if ice doesn't come. We're thinking about a grand cruise of the North this coming year.

New header for our blog

In an attempt to brighten up our blog, I decided to add an image to the header. In doing so I found out why Waterways World, and other canal magazines, have to be particularly careful when choosing their front covers. I ran through loads of our photos before I finally got an image where I could have the title clear against a light background (sky), featured the boat and had a strong "landscape-style" content.

The image I finally settled on was taken on the Upper Thames in August 2007. It was shortly after the floods, we were moving on yellow boards, and you can see that the river is still in spate. During the Summer 2007 Floods the river reached half-way up the trunk of the tree on the right. Somebody helpfully fixed a marker to the trunk.

Steve