Tag Archives: lack of progress

Trivial Conversation with Myself

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A whole day stretched out in front of me this morning . . .

I had pretty much the same thing yesterday too, and that didn’t really work out that well. I seem to have done a few things, but nothing that makes me feel good.

Today I go up, read WP, did comments etc, had breakfast, read and wrote some trivia before making lunch (Julia is at the tearoom this afternoon so we eat early), watched TV, drifted into a nap, dreamed about a gang of monkeys taking over the world, woke in the middle of a nature programme and decided to use the small hoover. It is currently charging as it was flat. Washed up and now, waiting for a charge in the hoover, I am typing trivia and thinking “I really must get a keyboard where the “t” works.”. It’s irritating going back to insert all the missing letters.

The original blog post was slightly more bitter than the one you see here but I decided to lighten the mood. It’s alarming how short a factual account of my day can be, and how simple it seems in hindsight.

I’m currently trying to access my comments, but I can’t. This is just another example of how WP are perpetually tinkering and perpetually making life harder. I’m seriously thinking of going back to a free blog rather than paying for irritatingly fault filled services. I would miss the photo storage but I don’t take many photos these days so probably wouldn’t miss it. People often worry about losing all their words, but to be honest, I probably wouldn’t. To a large extent, my blog is just disposable words. Any pride I have in the blog is in my ability to keep it going for so long and the fact I have attracted a dozen other bloggers of distinction to become regular readers.

I pressed the blue bell and nothing happened. I tried again. I refreshed the page and a shadowy version came down, then disappeared. Repeat. And again. Eventually I got them. Why does it take three attempts to access something that used to be there reliably for the first ten years I used it. Why do I have to press more buttons to read other blogs than I used to? Why do they now blank out the side panels when I am writing, I can write with things down the side. Probably “an improvement” I didn’t need in the first place.

Then I had trouble with the photos . . .

Why, why, why, why, why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Sudden Panic Begins to Grow

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This morning I made a special effort – omlette for breakfast, made Julia’s sandwiches, did the washing up . . . then I tailed off. Finally, i managed to write the prose section of a haibun. As I made lunch (cheese on toast with tomato relish) I was struck by more inspiration and my lunch went cold as I typed two more. It’s hardly comparable to actual work, but I did feel that I’d made a breakthrough, and celebrated by falling asleep in my chair as I watched the news on TV after eating cold cheese on toast.

Considering  that I haven’t written anything new in the poetry line for three months, two of my recent acceptances date back to last October, and some are probably older than that, this is a promising  move forwards I have written some Facebook pieces for the Numismatic Society and quite a few blog posts, though even there I have been far from firing on all cylinders.

Visit of the Russian fleet to Toulon

Centenary of the Railways

I am also trying to do some longer pieces on collectables for the blog. It’s practice for magazine articles, which I intend to write when I retire.

Reverse of the Boy Scout Medal

Then there’s the presentation in September. That’s actually very close now and I have done nothing for the last two weeks. I am now feeling scared about that – it’s only about three weeks now and I’ve been frittering my time away without noticing. Three weeks is nothing, considering that I’ve changed the emphasis of the presentation several times and still don’t have a proper idea of the way I want to do it.

Miniature medals of Superintendent Tacey – Nottinghamshire City Police

Better finish this and get working again . . .

Day 58

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The header picture is the roasted vegetables from a couple of nights ago when we had the cauliflower cheese. The roots have cumin sprinkled on them and the cauliflower has smoked paprika on it. The effect was mainly cosmetic in the case of the cauli, as i didn’t notice any change in flavour. However, it did look more interesting when it came out of the oven and after over 30 years of making as little effort as possible, I was happy just to cook something that looked a bit more interesting. Thirty years and I’ve graduated to smoked paprika. Who knows what dizzy heights I might achieve in another 30 years?

Apart from that it doesn’t feel as if the last week has brought much in the way of progress.

I’m getting back into the swing of things with writing, but even that is feeling like more of the same, rather than moving forward.

It looks like I am going to have to go back to writing lists of things to do. I know that some people disagree with them but I have always found them useful. However, I do tend to sloth, drifting and procrastination and I need something to combat that.

As long as I start with (1) Make a list of things to do and (2) Drift off to make cup of tea and check eBay I will at least get two things a day done from my list.

This is my resolution for the coming week. In the meantime I am going to go and make a cup of tea. We have shortbread biscuits and they aren’t going to eat themselves . . .