Not Blogtober

Today is the first of October, and the start of blogging challenge Blogtober. A year ago, I noticed it was a thing: a month-long challenge to blog every day. I’ve previously tried NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month, a similar challenge that takes place in November. This isn’t as well publicised and the hashtag isn’t as popular, so I decided at that point- October ‘19- that the following year I’d try Blogtober instead. 

Then in February, COVID-19 hit our shores, and the following month the country went into lockdown. Word at the time was, it would last until mid-April. Now, in October, there are still certain restrictions in Greater Manchester and other places, and they’re likely to tighten up. My plan for Blogtober was to focus on beermats. I’ve got a box full of them, donated from The Prairie Schooner pub in Urmston. I could easily bash up 10 of these every day for the month of October, and call that the project. But what good would that do? What kind of challenge is that? I wanted to mix this in with visiting pubs across Greater Manchester, and to recruit friends to pick up mats for me. I’d also swap mats with other Instagram tegestologists, many of whom are mutual followers. I’ve also got some vintage reprints to go up too. All of that has gone to shit now, so for the time being, I’ll just stick with this absurd reading and splits project, with which I’m making sad, slow progress. The books are brilliant, though. Beermats can continue to go up once a week.