Count up and Count down

The main number that is of interest to me at the moment, is the temperature! Yes, I know that seven degrees centigrade is not proper cold, but the wind is rather unfriendly!
I looked outside earlier, viewed the almost bare trees, through rain-streaked windows and came to the conclusion that winter has begun. I then checked Google to see I could find any other opinion to back up me up. According to the met office -
astronomically winter begins on 21st December, meteorologically it all kicks off on December 1st.
I will take the meteorological option!

Feeling in the mood for figures, I decided to check out the stats on this blog. Now, I never know how much credibility to give the figures that come with Blogger.
If you are interested, you can view a country-by-country analysis of where your readers are located. Mine are usually pretty unexciting, with the UK being the biggest source, followed by the USA - thanks to online acquaintances, with a liberal scattering from across Europe, and a few views from the far east and down under.

To my great surprise, my mediocre musings appear to suddenly become very popular in Germany, as Google decided that 86 Germans read my blog around 6pm GMT - either that or one German read 86 of my posts very quickly.
Another possibility is that someone has decided I am fake news...
I am also currently of interest to the Russians - no idea what they make of it all! Maybe they were researching daffodil bulbs and clicked me by mistake!
However, a mysterious country has appeared on the rankings, which I had not heard of before - Unknown Region.
I do not even know which continent that is on!
A logical person would just say some folks have got effective filters hiding their location. However, the romantic in me prefers the idea of that aliens have been dipping into Daff's Deliberations -  imagine luminous green beings from Mars, bookmarking the page... I blame that spacecraft In Sight...

Numbers become extra important, as we enter the season of Advent and I will once again fail to burn the Advent Candle to the correct point each day.
The church has to wait until Sunday to begin celebrating Advent, but chocolate lovers everywhere will be opening the first door on their calendar on Saturday morning, and trying to decode the strangely shaped chocolate they have carefully extracted. Just do not do what I did one year, hang the calendars above a radiator, and then wondered why all the chocolates dropped down to the bottom of the box... I still have no real idea how that happened. No doubt there is a scientific explanation... I wonder where I put the KHT's calendar...?

Meanwhile, the hedgehogs appear to have hibernated,
and so has a friend.
Maybe I should join them...
but would I really want to miss
the adventure of Advent
and all the craziness of Christmas?
Nah!