Young starlings gather on a neighbour’s TV aerial

Two days ago, I wrote a post, left it and never resumed it until it was past midnight, thus missing a day. Again.

Yesterday, on posting it, I found I had a new badge – for a palindrome post. It was 434 words long. Is this really something worth celebrating? Would it not be better to improve the system rather than develop a fatuous reward system?

As I struggle to keep up with the “improvements” and find the money to pay for them, do I really need to be treated like a child too?

I had another a few days ago – “Got carried Away”  – for writing a comment longer than the post. It was either a six word story or a picture with a short caption. They weren’t specific regarding which post it was (it could have been either) , but either way, it doesn’t take much effort to exceed the length of the post and even if it was worth mentioning, it’s not a significant number of words.

Dunnock on the fence – a study in brown

After writing the words above (using my new, efficient and quiet keyboard) I went to read up on the so-called “achievements”. I found a way of switching them off, or thought I ddi, but, as usual, couldn’t manage the instructions. Then, as you will already know if you are reading in order, I decided to finish a draft from 2018. I was amazed to find I have 75 drafts as I was sure I kept clearing them. Obviously I kept some. I will be culling the rest soon as most of them are going nowhere. Some, in fact, are just titles that I decided to save, but have never used.

It looks like those “achievement” badges have got under my skin and made me do something. Curse you WP!

As for the keyboard, I took it out of the box, removed the plastic bag, thought of waste, and plugged it in.

Female blackbird – nature lies to us again – it’s brown!

Did it all go well?

No, of course not.

Am I going to tell you what happened? Yes . . .

. . . in my next thrilling installment.

Photos are Julia molesting topiary – she can never resist it – and some brown bird photos. Life can’t be all about woodpeckers.

And again . . .