Today is the first day of the new regime. I have celebrated this by using a picture of dawn from the free photo library. It was easier than getting up early to take a less impressive photo.

Smaller portions, more exercise and earlier rising are three key points in the new way of life and have just been forced to add another – no internet quizzes. I’ve spent the last 20 minutes pitting my wits against Merriam Webster vocabulary tests and once again, my wits have come second. I’m good for my age, according to the calculator, but rarely make it to the heights of the top ten. Part of the trouble is that my computer is a bit slow, which loses me points. Leaving that excuse aside, the main problem, of course, is that I get words wrong. It’s amazing how many words I’ve never heard of. This sounds like a continuation of yesterdays post, but it isn’t meant to. It’s a lot less surprising to find a new word than to find a new idiom.

I’ve also given up doomsurfing, which was one of M-W’s new words for today. I started it a few weeks ago and gave it up last week. This week I learned the new word for it.

There is a fine line between keeping informed and wallowing in bad news. I started spending too much time looking at news and statistics and this invariably affected my outlook. This may or may not be linked to the way I lapsed into becoming a TV fixated jellyfish, sitting staring at the screen most of the day. However, in the few days since I stopped looking at bad news, I have felt better.

Going back to the second paragraph, 20 minutes of internet quizzes is 20 minutes away from productive work. There is no point in replacing uselessly staring at a TV screen with uselessly staring at a computer screen.

I am now going to check up on the word “doom”. M-W covers it, telling us that it originally meant judgement, but it doesn’t talk about the church wall paintings. Like so many things, I’ve always meant to search some out, but never got round to it. I’m fascinated by them , and by all church wall paintings. In fact, by all wall paintings. I have, more than once, had tea in Newark by a wall that was still decorated with Elizabethan wall paintings (though I believe that tea room has now closed). I like the idea that something has survived for hundreds of years. This is particularly true of the church paintings as they were targeted for destruction during the Reformation. I find the whole story of the Reformation and the rediscovery of the paintings under coats of whitewash, to be fascinating.

Doom painting, from St Thomas’s Church, Salisbury

And for my Suffolk readers – the Doom from Wenhaston Church, which, as the link shows, has a very interesting story.