Tag Archives: change

Web, Mesh or Net?

After a week or so of opening on a different page WP has now gone back to opening on a page I can actually use. By the standards of modern doublespeak this is probably the “new and improved” version. Take something away at random, reinstate it, and, if asked, tell people it is an upgrade.

I had an email about a similar thing. I can, it seems, pay for Jetpack to give me a search function. I already pay enough for a product that is worse than it was when I started, and I thought I already had a search function. First we had lying, then we had marketing, now we have people on the internet who try to sell you stuff you used to get for free. It’s a gradual decline to moral bankruptcy that we already see in our politicians and TV stations (you know – the ones that now call it “Plus 1” when it used to be called “repeats”).

It’s 8.36 and I decided I would have ago at starting my day with some focus. It nearly worked. I have read my emails and a few blogs but mainly fixed my mind on writing this post. Later I will send a couple of submissions off and then do some housework. Yes, there is so much debris on my writing table that I can’t see the lower edge of the computer screen. I don’t need month old blood test results, used padded envelopes or notebooks from last year. The results will be recycled, the envelopes taken to work (for reuse as packaging) and the notebooks can go into a box until an American University puts in an offer for my papers. Or until Julia makes me throw them out.

That’s good, 8.53. The advantage of having no structure and no research is that blogging (by which I mean dumping the contents of my head on a page) can be quite quick.

This is in contrast to submitting poetry, where I am about to spend twenty minutes deciding whether to use “web” or “mesh” or “net” . . .

It’s not easy being a poet.

Thoughts of Change

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I’ve been thinking about blogging. I know I’m not the only one that feels this, as I’ve read a similar post today, but I’m feeling stale and uninspired and wondering where it is all going.

At one time, when we were on the care farm and we had lots of visitors, plenty of time, loads of nature and a multitude of new subjects, it seemed a lot easier. Of course, I then go back and look at it , and it really wasn’t as good as I remember. The typos in my old posts can be quite upsetting and the quality was patchy, to say the least. Fortunately I didn’t have much of an internal editor at the time. Once I got past the thought that writing down the dull days of my life was rather self-indulgent, I didn’t have much to hold me back. That came later when I started doing more writing of other types.

Things are gradually improving again and I now have ten haiku to send off. As I have a deadline in nine days and two more at the end of the month it’s about time I did get back into the rhythm. I am becoming a bit too much like our plum tree in the garden – a year of plenty followed by a year of sparsity. However, I know what do do with the plum tree – pruning and thinning – two jobs I don’t do. I skimp on pruning, and haven’t actually done any for two years, and I always wimp out of thinning, because it seems a waste to remove fruit when it is forming. I know that in theory it is better for the crop, but I just can’t do it. I keep saying I’ll look for a recipe for green plums, which might be the impetus I need. Something similar is needed with my writing.

I’ve tried to change the way I blog before, but I always drift back to the same old style, maybe today is the day I change. Well, tomorrow, actually, as this is today and it’s more of the same old rambling diary…

The opening picture is a Shilling of George II – 1731 – quite a pleasant coin. It leant itself well to the “drawing” setting on the camera. The closing pictures of the coin are how it actually looks. No, I don’t know why they always dressed like Roman Emperors for their coin portraits. It’s a King thing…

George II Sixpence 1731 Obverse

George II Sixpence 1731 Reverse

Change is Easy…

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I’m giving the new editor another try. I don’t particularly want to, but I do want to access some of my older photos and I can’t do that in the normal editor. Anyway, it’s time I started embracing new technology.

Julia has had an adventurous day, first cutting herself whilst trying a spot of woodcarving, then melting a hole in her fleece when she transferred her attention to pyrography. Well, I say “attention”, but if she’d been paying attention she wouldn’t actually have melted the fleece.

I’m now going to put some photos in, if I can. The new editor doesn’t seem keen. I’m already remembering why I switched it off and went back to the old one.

This, hopefully, is a selection of my favourite photos from the last year.

I’m not finding it as easy as the old editor because I’m having to load one large photo at a time.

Change is easy, as they say, but improvement is hard.

Saturday, books and snow

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Saturday stretched ahead, with nothing to do and nobody to do it with (Julia was at work as usual). It was a lovely day, not at all suitable for staying in doing housework, and so I decided that a visit to a bookshop sounded good.

When does a visit to a bookshop ever not sound good?

Bookshop – Brierlow Bar

View from Brierlow Bar

View from the bookshop

There’s an element of irony in driving 40 miles to look at books on nature and sustainability, but I can live with that. I can live with most things that allow me to visit a bookshop. Anyway, I’m giving up meat two days a week, grow my own veg and make compost so I’ll allow myself a little backsliding.

It was a patchy journey, mixing sunshine with overcast skies. It improved steadily until I reached Cromford and turned off on the A5012. It’s a minor road, as you can guess from the number. It also runs through a narrow wooded valley, which makes it picturesque in summer (possibly even “bosky”). In winter, it has a tendency to shelter snow and ice in the shadows.

It is known locally as the Via Gellia as it was built in the 18th century by the Gell famiy. They are said to have built it around 1790 to connect their lead mines to the new smelter at Cromford, though it may have been built to serve their quarries as early as 1720. It still has quarries along its length, and large lorries can be a bit of a hazard at times.

Part way up there’s a lay-by with several dozen bird feeders. Someone has obviously made a lot of effort to make and maintain the feeding station. The light was going by the time I stopped, so I couldn’t get any decent photographs of anything that moved, but I did see a variety of birds – Chaffinches, Great tits, Blue Tits, a Coal Tit and a Goldcrest. Somebody is doing good work here.

Bird feeders, Cromford

Bird feeders Via Gallia, Cromford

Bird feeders – Via Gellia

The bookshop, for once, let me down. Stock has been moved and the nature section seems smaller. I don’t like it when things change. Doesn’t make it a bad bookshop, just one with a cafe, a smaller nature section and a sense of panic when I can’t find things where I normally find them. It will be better next time.

If it isn’t better next time I will have to develop an interest in military history or art, or even the birds of countries I will never visit. There are many ways of working round a situation.

The photographs were taken using my old camera, please ignore the black splodge in the top right corner. As you can see, as I progressed in the journey (and gained height) it became more wintry.

Peak District

Boiling a frog

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We had a power cut yesterday, starting just after lunch and lasting until we went home. At times like that you realise all your work is on computer, and when the wireless connection goes off everything grinds to a halt.

Julia had just started a meeting about The Grant (it is taking over my life to such an extent that I now think of it with capital letter) when everything went dark. Fortunately she had her laptop and a fully charged battery so she was able to carry on.

I filled my time usefully by reading the paper outside on the decking and by taking photographs. That’s when I found another problem with having no computer – I had nothing to view the photos on. It’s so much easier using the computer screen for viewing; the small screen on the camera just isn’t good enough.

When, I asked myself, did I become computerised to the extent that I can’t function without electricity?

And when did I start referring to the verandah as “decking”?

That’s how it is with change (as exemplified by the tale of the Boiling Frog) – it just creeps up on you without you noticing it.