Tag Archives: boring day

Reasons to be Cheerful

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As I have become older, I have become more soft-hearted. this is comparative, of course. I am soft-hearted compared to a farmer, but a murderer of innocents to a vegan. Last night, I added two more deaths to my conscience. No rats were harmed in last night’s trapping, but two mice paid the ultimate price. It wasn’t an ideal result as I am after bigger vermin, but it does show that the traps work and that I reset them properly.

Daffodils in Nottingham

Today I have been to the doctor already, had a relaxed breakfast of bacon cobs from Greggs, watched an episode of The Sweeney on TV and attended to the blog. I am now ready to start work, but it also time for lunch and I will need to prioritise. It is a hard life. A little light writing, I think, and a slightly delayed lunch.

And after lunch . . .

The steam seems to have gone out of my day. I have pottered and fiddled and moved things about, but not much has actually happened.

Blossom at Wilford

Julia’s wedding outfit was delivered (it’s actually a jacket and a pair of trousers but “wedding outfit” shows I’m taking it seriously) and I received a three month supply of arthritis injections. The delivery man took my sharps bin away. That’s about it. Not one of my more exciting days.

I assume that if I checked the internet I would find more stories about warfare and politics, but I don’t want to. I am able to live without knowing all the details. I presume if WW3 breaks out Julia will let me know. And if she doesn’t, an almighty flash and mushroom cloud will do the job.

Narcissi

Spring in the Mencap Garden

One thing I don’t need to worry about, as Julia pointed out, is losing my hair due to radiation poisoning.  Even in the midst of so many worries about Armageddon, there is still a bright spot if you look.

After the Lord Mayor’s Show…

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…comes the dust cart. That is one of the versions, anyway. There are others.

I’ve been having a good time recently, with a good selection of medallions for eBay and some interesting history to learn.

It all came to an end today when we found several hundred coin sets shoved at the back of a cupboard. They are the sort that come in card inserts inside plastic cases. Over the years the cases have been damaged and the coins they contain don’t seem very popular. The answer is to take the coins out and put the empty cards on eBay.

They sell well.

In fact they sell so well that one of the cards I put on today has sold already.

That is some recompense for the boredom of the day, and for the coughing and sneezing as I sorted the dusty cases.

I would add some photos but I seem to have left my camera plugged into the computer at work.

You’ll have to have a few photos from Clumber Park instead.

Walking in Clumber Park

Walking in Clumber Park

 

And finally – more ducks.

I Invent a New Poetic Form

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Well, it’s been a thought-provoking day.

It started when I wrenched myself from bed and took Julia to work. The mornings are already significantly darker than they were a month ago. By 6.15 I was taking photographs by the roadside and at 6.30 arrived at the services ready to collect Number Two Son. He was supposed to be off shift at 7.00 but nobody turned up. Eventually he was relieved at 8.15 after ringing round.

 

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I tried to pass my time profitably, by writing haiku and watching people. The people-watching didn’t go well as there was nobody interesting to watch, apart from a hairy middle-aged man wearing only shorts and flip-flops. Even that wasn’t really interesting, just an anthropological footnote.

The haiku? They soon degenerated into my favoured format – the clerihew. I didn’t produce  any of note this morning but this one has been hanging round in the drafts for a while. It features a Japanese word so it’s a hybrid form I just invented, the haiklerihew.

Martin van Buren,

was au fait with shitsuren,

and, stressing ideology over personality,

opened an era of boring banality

It’s a niche market and I can’t help feeling I may have written more haiklerihews than the world needs.

Now I just need to use canicular.

 

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Sunset – Trent Valley

Then I did laundry, shopped, snoozed and picked Julia up from work. We had salad for tea. We were going to have roast vegetables and belly pork but I fell asleep in front of the TV and it was a bit late to start cooking.

I can’t help feeling I’m not using Sunday to its full potential.

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Strange clouds over the Trent Valley

A boring day, and how I amused myself

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Had a lie in, wrenched myself from nice warm bed, dropped Julia at work (she starts at 11.00 on Saturdays, in case you were wondering how this fits with the lie in), took some books to a charity shop, bought some books from the charity shop, made sandwiches for lunch, checked bird reports, checked WordPress, checked Isle of Mull, checked telescopes and digiscoping, picked Julia up from work, made corned beef hash (with mashed root veg and stir fried cabbage), ordered a bokashi bucket on-line, cancelled order when they messed me about at the checkout, went shopping and, finally, wrote a long boring sentence about my long, boring day.

That’s the bare bones of it. It’s also the longest sentence I have ever written. One hundred and nine words. According to the experts that is enough words for four or five sentences. I’m pretty sure that it will be considered difficult to read. There is a figure I’ve seen somewhere that indicates most people can’t follow a sentence past 30 words.

I’ve just put a sample of my writing through a readability calculator and come up with the following –

Flesch Reading Ease score: 70.7 (text scale)
Flesch Reading Ease scored your text: fairly easy to read.
Gunning Fog: 11.3 (text scale)
Gunning Fog scored your text: hard to read.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 8.6
Grade level: Ninth Grade.
The Coleman-Liau Index: 7
Grade level: Seventh Grade
The SMOG Index: 7.8
Grade level: Eighth grade
Automated Readability Index: 8.4
Grade level: 12-14 yrs. old (Seventh and Eighth graders)
Linsear Write Formula : 12.1
Grade level: Twelfth Grade.
Readability Consensus

Based on 8 readability formulas, we have scored your text:
Grade Level: 9
Reading Level: fairly easy to read.
Reader’s Age: 13-15 yrs. old (Eighth and Ninth graders).
I always thought I was easy to read. I’ve certainly always tried to be easy to read. I’ll take “fairly easy”, and try to make it simpler. But to see myself graded as “hard” in one of the scales seems a bit tough.
If you want a go, you can find the calculator here.
Next time I’m bored I may try housework. Housework wouldn’t be keeping me awake worrying about my writing style.