One Year Old and Counting

A couple of days ago this blog hit its first anniversary. This is a significant moment for any blog, to have survived its first year not only intact but thriving. In the first year it has received over 42,000 page loads (28,000+ Visitors) which is both amazing and humbling. Thank you everyone for your support. During the last year I've managed to write a staggering 435 posts and here are a selection of my favorites and some of the most popular pages.

• In January one of my first big articles was about Lead Rot, Myth or Reality. I was very happy with the way this article shaped up and it has proved a consistently popular page, receiving hits throughout the year.
• In February I posted pictures of my completed Hannibal Barca model. I still consider this my best work of the year and the model has pride of place in my display cabinet.
• In March I posted a series of article leading up to Salute 09 called The Seven Days of Salute. To date no series of articles had proved to be as popular and to have generated as many hits as these.
• In April I managed to visit the Bovington Tank Museum just a few days before falling seriously ill with an infection.
• After a four week recovery period I finally got back to work and back to painting. In so doing I decided to write about my new found love for Windsor & Newton Brushes. Another extremely popular post from May was Dungeon Floor Tiles. I also wrote about my good friend Dave Stokes and his art blog.
• June brought a local wargaming show, Rampage 09, and multi part photo report of the event.
• In July I posted an article about Writing a Campaign Journal which I was very happy with. I also attended one of my favorite wargames shows at the Eastborne Redoubt.
• I usually visit a Living History event during the summer but in August I went to one I had never done before, at Damyns Hall in Rainham. This was only its fourth year but was excellent and I will definitely be attending again this summer.
• Before the kids went back to school in September we visited the Royal Engineers Museum in Chatham. I also wrote a review of Das Reich by Max Hastings.
• October saw the return of the SELWG show after a two year hiatus due to maintenance work at its home in Crystal Palace. Also in October I posted a review of the excellent book Band of Brigands about the development of the Tank in WWI.
• I did my Last show of 2009 at Dragonmeet in November. My daughter also went to Ypres with the school and wrote a Guest Post for me which attracted some nice feedback.
• I wrote a well received post on recruiting new players at the beginning of December as was my article on The Golden Age of Gaming.

All in all its been a very successful and very busy first year for this blog and I'm hoping it will continue to grow and develop over the next 365 days.