Well, yeah, survived the challenge for the 12th year. Which Google Chacha tells me is called a duodecad. So I'm a duodecadal survivor. I thoroughly enjoyed getting back with properly researched, immersive posts for the A-Z. I left a lot of stuff out, which I knew I'd have to, because textiles comprise a range from carpets to shawls to towels to turbans to dupattas to handkerchiefs, from little socks and underclothing to tents and sails and sheets and quilts. Even though I resolutely left all of that out and focussed on the saris only (I had to leave some saris out too, Bomkai, Arni, Ilkal, Dharmavaram, the list goes on) - it still made me feel awful - Pashmina shawls! Kashmiri carpets! Assamese Gamusas! Bandhej dupattas! - how can they be excluded?? The non-saree textiles can make an A-Z theme by themselves.
I read widely but not as deeply as I wanted, that is an unreachable target. 'Wide' this year meant less than 200 blogs, I was reminded of Alex saying that was what the challenge was like in its first year. I wasn't there for that, I joined in the 3rd of 4th year I think. Deep reading always comes at the cost of deep writing, I've learnt that from my first A-Z experiences. So that's that, c'est la vie.
Thank you to the hosts and all those who visited, read, commented and generally kept things lively and interesting.
Will I be back next year? A cautiously optimistic yes - circumstances permitting. Hopefully, see ya next year, same time same place.
