You Were Invited to my Tea Party to Celebrate
Here I am, sitting in my conservatory, surrounded by flourishing palms, looking out onto a quintessentially English country garden with a neatly trimmed lawn, tulips in full bloom and birds chirping their hearts out. I have a tea tray set with a teapot, a milk jug and two bone china cups and saucers, behind which I am sitting, poised to video myself so that you can join in the celebrations.
“Hello and welcome to Rosy’s Ramblings,” I say, smiling warmly. (Keep the setting in mind). I carry on with my well-rehearsed script.
“Two years ago today, I wrote my very first post on Rosy’s Ramblings and since then, I have posted over 160 articles, short stories and poems, including 56 chapters of my novel, The Mysterious Disappearance of Marsha Boden, which is set in the village where I live.
Substack has a neat feature which tells me that Rosy’s Ramblings is read across 19 US states and 21 countries around the world. How fantastic is that!” I get quite animated at this point and nearly spill my tea. I continue, “So, let’s help spread the word and share this post to see how many more countries we can reach.”
I would dearly have loved to have shared my tea party with you - I even had some McVities chocolate digestives laid out on a plate - but I couldn’t work out how to flip the video/camera around so that you could see me, Rosy Gee. The ‘flip screen’ button had disappeared and refused to play ball. Try as I might, several (now cold) cups of tea later and many, many attempts at getting it just right, it ended up being a complete disaster with the last video, instead of panning out professionally and then zooming in on me, trailed off across the glass-topped table finishing with a shot of a fossilized fly which had become trapped underneath. Not the slick, celebratory anniversary video that I was hoping for. I felt quite deflated, utterly exhausted and extremely frustrated.
I tried, I really did. I’m not comfortable with technology - I know, it’s only a video - but still, it stymied me. There, I said it. I feel bad because I was so excited to introduce myself to you but I will post a video. One day. I promise.
In the meantime, I’m afraid you will have to make do with my words on the page instead and one day, (hopefully with some help from somebody more adept at filming than me), I will post a video of me talking to you, my loyal supports who I feel have become my friends.
Thank you for being here and it’s great to see our community growing with almost ten per cent of you kindly pledging your support by becoming paid subscribers.
As an anniversary gift, I am offering 20% off an annual subscription valid until 4th May.
Please leave a comment and let me know where you are reading Rosy’s Ramblings - I would love to know which country or state you are from.
In the meantime, I won’t be posting on Sunday as I usually do because I don’t want to bombard you, but I’ll be back next Wednesday, hopefully not feeling such a failure in the filming department, so have a great Bank Holiday weekend if you’re in the UK and a restful weekend wherever you are in the world.