I know that before Tuesday, I've been gone awhile here. Sorry about that. It's been a combination of busyness, server connection problems, busyness, an online Scrabble tournament and busyness. I don't think Blogger likes me very much at the moment. We'll see if this one posts - so much over the last month has just refused to connect to the server. No posting. No commenting here or on other Blogger blogs. Very frustrating.

Recently, I've been discussing whether online friends are any different to offline friends. The general consensus among the people I know is that they are better. That said, and I know that I may be in a minority of one, but, I just don't get this whole social networking thing. I can just about keep up with the few blogs I read - if I had to add full time Twitter, Facebook et al to the mix, I’d never have time to do anything else but sit at the computer.

Maybe my desire to consume 'friends' is about the same online to offline. I have space and place for only a few very carefully chosen examples, to whom I am fiercely loyal and fiercely protective, and most of whom I have known a long time. I have lots of acquaintances, but few true friends. I suspect that most people confuse the two terms and call people 'friends' when I'd call them 'acquaintances'. Plus, it's also fair to say that, without exception, my offline friends are as unconventional as me, in some way or another.

Whimsy social fluff fluff just isn't me and I can't be bothered with people who have hours to spend in pointless discourse. I'm not the sort of person to ever want to sit around in coffee shops for hours and I am constantly amazed by some people's stamina and ability to maintain conversations based on absolutely nothing of substance for hours at a time. But, I'm usually quite a self-sufficient sort of person, and if people start being unexpectedly and undeservedly nice to me, I tend to be very cynical and extremely suspicious of their motives.

I don't have enough time in a day to do all the things I want to do, so why I might have time to sit around tapping out text messages into my phone to inform people I've never met and whom I will probably never meet of what I'm doing, I have no idea. And, really, there are enough distractions around me already without everyone else telling me what they are doing every ten seconds. Perhaps it would be different if I lived in a city or spent lots of time travelling on public transport with nothing else to do.

I was talking someone who got their first laptop last month. She told me that she gets in from work at 1.30am every night, and had to go and see her doctor this week because she was too tired to function because Facebook keeps her up until 6am every day. The doctor gave her sleeping tablets and Prozac. That’s a life?

On the other hand, I DO love blogging. What I put into it directly determines what I get out of it. It's there as a permanent and tangible reminder of things I've done, or seen, or thought at any point in time. But, it's only there when I choose to access it. I hate the idea of other more intrusive or transient forms of social networking. Maybe it's the control freak in me?

I'd say my online networking is pretty much like my offline networking. There has to be a point to it, and I have to think that I'd enjoy spending time with the online people I engage with, face to face, and would share interests, or philosophy on life. Actually, I have met up with a number of online friends and with only a single of exception (which, in hindsight, wasn't really that surprising anyway), I haven't been wrong in my assumptions.

I don't think my online persona is very different to my offline one either. I have no desire to be schizophrenic. What you see is pretty much what you get, and if I don't like you I simply won't engage with you on any level. As someone said to me last year, it's not so much that I don't suffer fools gladly, it's that I choose not to suffer fools at all ;)

But I'm happy to engage with my little feathered friends. I've taken to feeding the local ducks and conning myself into thinking that they might actually like me. This, based solely on the fact that they recognise the food in my hand me as I approach. But before I do that, I have to convince the reluctant dog to come along with me. It's never easy to crowbar her away from the sofa, but eventually she comes out and answers the call of nature.




Once that is over, and a mere 30 seconds after leaving home, she is determined to head back to the comfort of the warm, fluffy blanket on the couch. In an effort to convince her, I show her that it's just a short, straight walk about 300 metres to the pond near the copse of trees at the end of the path.




She eyes it suspiciously, internally computes the distance to be the equivalent of 90 km in tiny, mincing dog steps and decides to vote with her paws and head for home. She tells me her food bowl is calling her name.



But I'm made to sterner stuff - and I'm considerably bigger than she is, so I shortened the leash and half dragged her to the pond. And yes, she complained the whole way. Can you hear her?

"I'm going to report you for dog cruelty"

"My paws are cold. It's all right for YOU. You've got boots"

"Why haven't I got a woolly hat?"

"I need sunglasses, too!"

"I want to go home"

"Carry me!"



Honestly, whoever said that dogs have masters has obviously not met my dog, who is very much in control. She has full time service staff. And like all long suffering servants we have to put up with her cheap, nit-picking, fussy ways.

Eventually we arrive at the pond and as we near, the ducks come pouring out to greet the bag of food me. Yes, I know there are two large bags of goodies there. Don't tell L-G, but I've been buying food especially for the duckies as there are so many of them and they need something to keep them going in this cold weather.



I love listening to them as they gather around, quacking excitedly. At least it drowns out the complaints from the poodle princess, who is straining at her leash and begging to hot foot it homewards. I'm careful and watchful to include everybody who is there. Several of the bolder ones, both males and females, come right up to me and pull at my leggings. But most simply wait and look up with expectation.



These are just the ordinary, very common gräsand or mallard which one can see everywhere. The striking, almost iridescent green ones are the males, with the females being the pretty speckled brown ones. They really are so beautiful and friendly and they allow me to get very close to them, so I feel like part of the flock. Some of them even eat out of my hand. You have to watch them all and share the food evenly or it could all quickly degenerate into a rugby scrum.



Ducks are rather companionable in the winter. Sure, they want the food I toss to them, but maybe they just like my company too. In the summer they don’t waddle up to me, quacking hello, and lifting their faces to take a good look at me.

They’re far too busy in summer. And to be honest, we’re also too busy to sit down and chat. In winter, however, the pace of life slows, and I can concentrate on the little things, like ducks. In that mood of companionship, I turn to the ducks after I've shaken out the last of the food, admire their cute, smiling faces in the winter sunshine and say "Ska vi kramas?" ("Shall we hug?")



And they immediately take off and fly away. Leaving me bereft, L-G killing himself laughing and the poodle still carrying on with her whining monologue.

Maybe next time....

And speaking of hugging, the big news here in Sweden is that the Crown Princess (Victoria, not Princess Lambi this time) announced her engagement this week to her long time boyfriend (and commoner) Daniel Westling.



No doubt, the Swedish equivalent of New Idea will be salivating with joy. The wedding is set for the summer of 2010, so they have 18 months of speculation about the wedding dress to fill their frothy, silly magazine. My mother-in-law would have been thrilled. She just loved the aristocracy and I know she would have regaled us with the latest gossip on the preparations.

While looking for an article about the engagement to link to, I came across this one, which contains an unintentionally hilarious mis-spelling of Victoria's fiancé's name. Wrestling??? What a hoot. While I knew that the king was not too happy about his daughter's choice for a partner, I hadn't realised it had come to this :-)