It’s a horrible wet day here today. Definitely not the best day to set out and choose a Christmas tree today. It’s slightly fraught, anyway, because I always insist on doing Christmas the German way. While in Ireland the Christmas trees are set up at the beginning of December, I follow the old tradition of only putting it up and decorating it on the morning of Christmas Eve. By the time we get around to choosing out tree, the best ones are already gone and we occasionally have struggled to even find anywhere that still sells Christmas trees. Today we managed to track down a tree market and made our choice while standing in a deserted car park during Yellow Weather Warning rain showers. It’s only worth-while if it hurts, right? But the tree is bought and is now resting and drying in the garage, ready to be set up next Tuesday.
Despite the continuing rain, I braved it again in the afternoon as I had to put a junk journal order into the post. And because I needed some replacement candles for my advent wreath arrangement in the kitchen. While Mr Guylty treated me to a hot beverage in a café afterwards, I received good news. Another step on the way to the renewed RAnet site has been taken. The developers have the bones of the site in place and granted me a first look. It’s not fully populated yet, and I need to tinker with the menu, but here’s another glimpse for you of the site as it may look.
Still recognisably RAnet, I think. I have kept Ali’s ongoing News page that infinitely scrolls down for old items, rather than turn it into a blog with individual posts. The other menu points are self-explanatory. Header image is the same, and I don’t know where the banner on the landing page comes from, but I like it. Exciting!!!
Guylty Pleasure 
We don’t know if RA follows any of this, but back in the day he used to communicate with Ali, didn’t he? So maybe he does know…. He’s gotta be flattered and amazed at the care we lavish on him, don’t you think?
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I don’t think he ever really communicated with Ali. But yes, he certainly knew the site, and he followed RAnet on Twitter. Hehe, he should definitely be flattered that his fans are putting in a concerted effort to keep this virtual shrine to him going 😉
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He did mention Ali by name when he thanked her in pre-Hobbit times; it seems like aeons ago! Anyways, I’m chuffed to see Standring front and center, as he’s our perfect fandom husband. Thank you for being the keeper of our RA memories. 🤗♥️
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In one of the pre-Hobbit Christmas letters, maybe?
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Maybe we can check on Ali’s website. Oh right. Not. But soon!
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You still can, Besotted! The old website is still online at the address where it always was!
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I noticed Standring, too – center stage? Hehe.
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IIRC he had more interaction with Lisa in the very beginning, I think Lisa was the first person who created a fan site.
I am hoping for a Christmas message this weekend.
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Thank you for that info, Yve – I was thinking that it might be a nice idea to have a little “history” of the site in the “About” section, giving credit to all the people who actually built it. I knew that Ali took it on from someone else but because that happened before my time, I was not sure who it was.
Christmas message!!! Yes!!! It’s time for the Christmas message…
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First glimpse is looking good!
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Yep, slowly getting there!!
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It looks nice. It didn’t let me like the star in the box under the post, but did on the individual replies. Then they kept going back to blue. I know they’re probably still kinks to work out.
I never knew getting a tree was so complicated in Ireland. 🎄🙃
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You mean the “like” star here on the blog? Hm, that’s weird. It seemed to work for a number of other users.
As for the trees in Ireland – nah, that’s just complicated because I am always buying it so late. If you get it in early December, there is plenty of choice available 🙂
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When I grew up we always waited to put the tree up on Christmas Eve. I have put it up earlier but not as early as others here, day after Thanksgiving. Until my youngest son was born I would put the tree up on my grandmas birthday December 15th. The year my son was born I got everything done before he was born as I was having a C-section. Now we wait until after December 19th (he is 19 this year) so he can have a birthday without running into Christmas and not feeling like he has his own day. I do put up other decorations earlier. This year as he is the only son left at home I let him choose the time the tree would go up and he told me after the college semester was done for him (December 18th for all of his classes), so Friday or after we will put it up. My husband picked out are tree on December 18th and he also had the problem of not may to choose from. The big thing thing for us is not to get a Spruce as my oldest is allergic to them, the year the youngest was born we got a Spruce tree and had a son with head to toe hives. My husband thinks he got a Balsam but thinks the top don’t look right, if so the oldest will have to stay away from the tree. I have yet to look at it.
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That’s such a good idea, putting up the tree later in order to give your son a proper birthday feeling. (I always feel for those whose birthdays are close to Christmas – it feels a bit mean, as all the focus is on Christmas. Your way of organising it, is a great solution to the dilemma!)
I had no idea that you could be allergic to particular types of Christmas tree. Hehe, I think my husband is allergic to Christmas trees – of the decorated variety *haha*…
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It’s looking good! Very exciting. I like the idea of the infinite scrolling too.
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The infinite scrolling is how Ali set it on the original site. The news section is a “page” as opposed to a “blog”, i.e. the news items are updated in a page that consists of continuous text (although the updates are always marked by the date as a headline) and not in individual blog posts. I quite like that, too, because I don’t think that the site should get the look and feel of a blog but really look and feel like a proper website.
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🙂 I am happy that lot of busy-fan-dwarves are digging into this new blog! Hope you will find a living🎄 to plant back later in the ground…
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That’s a great idea re. replacing the Christmas tree.
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