Let me introduce you to each other.

I've been told that adult recreational skating simply doesn't exist in some countries. There skating is for kids for fun, or competition track kids. So when I started this blog, I expected to see readers from the US, UK, Canada and Australia.

For those of you who have never run a blog on Google, let me explain its crude STATS function. You can tell what posts get a lot of traffic (so you can write more posts like it); You can tell where traffic is coming from (Google, other blogs, twitter); and you can tell where readers are from (actually you can tell where the servers are from, usually the readers are from there too). That's about it.

Most popular post: Skate Bags. Twice the traffic of any other post.  I guess to drive up traffic I'll now have to do posts on  Skate Socks, Skate Jackets, Skate Gloves.....just kidding.

Where most traffic is coming from: Xanboni. Second most: Skating Forums. Xan of Xanboni writes the most informative posts on figure skating from the coach's point of view. Skating Forums is 800 adult skaters. If you have a skating question that can only be answered by other skaters, that's the place to go. They have a strong Ice Dance community, and a weekly practice thread.

But this is the part that's interesting, despite the fact that most countries don't have an adult skating community, there are a brave handful soldiering on. In addition to the bulk of traffic from the US, UK, Canada in Australia,  I see some countries consistently coming up in the stats.

Hello, skater from Ukraine. Welcome skater from Germany. Pleased to meet you, skater from Italy.  Latvia, Singapore, Belgium and Denmark, please find yourselves welcome.  How you found out about this blog, I'll never know. Everybody say "Hi" to our guests!

Now, take a seat,  have a virtual holiday cookie and some virtual holiday hot chocolate.  For the next few weeks, my blogging will be irregular due to the holidays. Check back in to see if I've posted something new, feel free to rustle among the older posts to read something you missed. Happy Holidays! Enjoy the great crowds at public skate!