Tag Archives: plans

Failing to Move On

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Mute Swan – Rufford Abbey

I did some of the stuff on my list this morning, walked round the house, had a cup of tea and some porridge, had a rest (I’m trying to pace myself back to full speed) and watched a bit of TV. This became Bargain Hunt, a bacon sandwich and more TV. So far, I am being very successful at the elements of my plan which stress rest, relaxation and not rushing back to full production too soon.

If I’m honest, the parts of the plan which involve being more industrious and more productive are not progressing quite as well.

Mute Swans at Budby Flash

And that, I’m afraid, is where the blog post comes to a natural end. Ninety nine words. I’m not exactly brimming with creativity today.  This is a shame as I was hoping o show steady progress each day now I am recovering, but it hasn’t quite worked like that. It’s gradually sliding around to submissions time, and the clock is ticking on my medallion talk and I am grinding to a halt when I need to unleash my creativity and pounce on each day with vigour.

We had a goldfinch in the garden this morning for the second time this week. That’s three sightings in two weeks so they may be returning from wintering in the south. That’s the advantage of noting things down, patterns build up.

I just did the shopping – I will have to write a menu before I finalise my shopping list, but it’s started and I have my time slot booked.

That really doesn’t seem like much success to report for a day.

Swan at National Arboretum

 

Another Day, Another List

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Badge and fob of the Cyclis’s Touring Club – probably 1920s or 1930s.

Before going to bed last night I wrote a list of five things I had to do this morning. Number 1 was read the comments on the blog and Number 2 was to read my emails. The first one was additionally noted (Once) and the second was noted as  (Twice – start and finish). That is intended to streamline my time at the desk by stopping me constantly going backwards and forwards to check emails and comments. I never get anything that needs an instant response so this seems sensible.

The ill-fated list – note the dental appointment was 10 minutes too soon for humour

Number 3 is to get the script done for talk I’m giving at the Numismatic Society and Number 4 to write another article for the Facebook page. There has been a temporary glitch and nothing has been posted for a couple of weeks even though I had sent something in. I thought it was because he was busy with something else, and he thought I ‘d  stopped writing. In fact there was an article in his email box which he hadn’t spotted. Normally I would have written to check but I knew he was busy and he’s a volunteer so I didn’t want to start chasing him with questions. When the kids played rugby I was  given a regional prize for my work as a coordinator of volunteers, so I like to show appreciation and a light touch. It used to annoy me immensely when people tried to treat volunteers as employees. Particularly when they were people who quite clearly not fit to employ people. But I digress.

Shopping List – note the reference to Rat is an abbreviation of Ratatouille

Number 5 is to write a blog post, which I just did.

I also have to get Julia to wood turning and pick her up again. It’s now time to eat breakfast so I’d better get that done.

The numbering system could do with some work as I seem to have missed those important bits out, but it’s getting there.

Note that his only occupies the time until lunch. I should have added “Make plans for pm” to the list.

List v2

The first two were photos that cropped up when I searched for “lists”. Why is cyclists easier to find than “list”. I found lists by searching for “list”. It’s a whole new subject . . .

For the second post of the day, and the result of my planning, try here.

The Reality v The Plan

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Potato & Chickpea Curry

A quote from the previous post.

I will be preparing a vegetable stew, a Chinese rice and a mushroom curry tomorrow  while Julia is at the tearoom. We will eat one for tea, one tomorrow, and freeze the third. Soup will also be on the menu. Cauliflower and broccoli soup, then leek and potato

The reality is hat after doing more writing (or, struggling to write, if I’m honest), I watched TV with Julia on her return, ate crumpets (with proper butter), shared the last slice of Ginger Cake and, eventually wrenched myself from my seat at around 6pm. I now have a vegetable stew, a portion of veg for making hash and a mushroom curry. I don’t have the Chinese rice I planned, or any soup and I had to ration the leeks to leave enough for the soup. It’s not quite as organised as I had hoped, but on the other hand it’s better than  nothing and the floppy veg are all being used.

I did think about pudding but most of the bread is in the freezer and, with builders expected tomorrow, there’s a chance we may be needing the milk for making tea.  I also crossed rice pudding and quiche off the list due to the milk situation.

Iranian Vegetable Stew

The medallion post I struggled with has been sent off and the next one is under way, but is resisting me. This often happens when I run my stock of articles down to the last one. It’s why I try to keep at least two weeks ahead with the Numismatic Society. At one a week, you need to keep on top of it. I had hoped that if I could keep it going for a year, some other people would have a go, but it hasn’t happened. When I’m also trying to write poetry and articles for other societies my stock of articles soon disappears.

I chose two easy subjects to get a couple of articles in the bag, but even that takes time and my resolve to avoid getting sucked into doing too much research soon weakens.

Julia is just doing the dumplings for tonight’s stew, using vegetarian suet, so I will soon be back to eating, watching TV and snoozing.

Tomorrow we are expecting builders.

Chorizo and Bean Stew

Chorizo and Bean Stew

 

 

Planning

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Peacock on crocus

Today, I messed round on the fringes of poetry. I am no closer to submitting the December poetry than I was a couple of days ago. However, it is familiar territory and nothing to worry about. It is not a matter of life and death. Tomorrow I will make a decision on whether I submit or leave it. I prefer to make a decision rather than just let it drift. Then I must get next year set out, listing all my planned submission dates.

I did, however, do two short articles on medallions for the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire Facebook page. It’s not great literature, and doesn’t solve any mysteries, but it keeps me out of mischief and keeps my mind engaged.

Crocus at Nottingham

Today, apart from this, was uneventful. We had brunch (which included leftover sweet potato fries) and an evening meal consisting of a ham sandwich with a variety of leftovers – including frozen chicken nuggets left over from Christmas Eve and various wrinkly salad items. These two meals allowed us to feel like we were cutting back, and still left time to eat shortbread biscuits.

The sunflower seeds in the garden feeder are going down at a satisfactory pace and the fat balls are showing signs of avian attention. The nyger seed, however, remains untouched. We will probably use it to mix in with other things at a later date. My plan is to replace it with a peanut feeder. I think we have an old one hanging about, and peanuts seem to be an attractive food. Meanwhile, I have plans to plant teasel and sunflowers in the garden to provide natural food. We also need some more berry-producing shrubs.

Daffodils

When mum and dad moved into the bungalow, I produced a planting scheme which allowed for cover, security, bird food and year round interest. Their gardener (they had him for years at three different houses) removed most of my shrubs and substituted the normal boring mix he always relied on. They have a variety of shrubs but nothing with spines or berries. I’m going to start making changes, but you should always spend a year in a garden before you start work on major things.

Daffodils

My first project will be to check for the presence of bulbs, once the flowers start. I’m fairly sure that I will be able to get some snowdrops in, if nothing else. After that, it will be a question of waiting for autumn to plant more bulbs. Bulbs, like me, are simple things. I really should have planted some pots of bulbs in the autumn, but there was so much to do it escaped me.

Irises at Wilford

A Day Brimming with Promise

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All those lovely vegetables

I’m hoping it’s going to be an industrious day today. I dropped Julia off at work and was home by 9.00. It’s 9.53 now. I have made an Italian style vegetable mix to use in a pasta bake for tonight. I have also had a cup of tea, watched my computer upgrade itself, read my emails, looked at the Numismatic Society Facebook page and read the comments on the blog.

I’m hoping the rest of the day is going to be as productive, but I doubt it. These things have a habit of either petering out or just coming to a full stop as I watch a bit of TV and fall asleep. However, I will try.

The next thing is to stir the Italian vegetables and check they are cooked. Then I will make tomato soup. I’m torn between tomato soup or bean soup, in fact. As I have quite a few small peppers this week, and because I fancy a change I may well go for bean soup. I will still use celery, which I have been using in the tomato soup, because we have some that needs using, so it will be tomatoes, peppers, beans, celery and onions. It’s strange to think that when I started cooking I used to follow recipes as if my life depended on it. Now I just throw in whatever I find in the fridge.

I will be making yellow broccoli soup tomorrow, because I found a head of yellow broccoli in the fridge when sourcing the ingredients for the pasta bake.  No, it’s not a new variety, it’s just the colour that broccoli turns if your wife puts it in the back of the fridge and piles stuff in front of it.

I used to run the vaccine fridge at work. Millions of doses of vaccine that cost a lot of money, and which needed using before it expired. It teaches you about stock control and how to stack a fridge. Unfortunately Julia never had a job like that . . .

Bubbling away and steaming up my lens

 

 

 

Disorganisation and Disarray

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I bought two items yesterday (it doesn’t matter what) and honestly intended writing about them on the blog and the Numismatic Society Facebook page. However, as usual, both of them, when I sit doen and think, need other things photographing as part of tyhe article. Frustratingly I cannot find either of the other pieces that I need. I may have some of the pictures I need on camera card, but finding them will involve sifting through thousands of images on half a dozen cards and being lucky. Both articles, as a result, will be delayed. This is why I don’t get stuff done.

However, as I wrote those words an idea seized me. I now have one of the extra items I require. No all I need is information and inspiration. I have Wikipedia for the former and hope that my new sense of urgency will see me through with the other.

Blue Iris

Despite this stroke of luck I still have a long-running problem. I write about things rather than people and events, and I need to own them, and know where they are, I have been thinking about the ownership aspect, because I have been noticing more and more articles written by people who have borrowed the items to photograph. I actually saw an article where the credits indicated that two dealers had provided all the the photographs, and a small booklet, where all the (impressive) illustrations came from a museum collection. If only I’d thought of this years ago. Of course, “years ago” does take us into the days of film cameras and developing. That was a whole different ball game. In those days dealer’s lists rarely had photographs and auction catalogues had few illustrations (which were all paid for by the vendors). Even eBay, in the early days, had fewer photos, and the ones you used (mainly scanned rather than photographed) had to be uploaded using File Transfer Protocol rather than by today’s drag and drop method.

I remember the time consuming struggle to upload a day’s photographs, and the nervousness at whether it was going to go wrong (again!) and leave you with hours of remedial work on top of all the initial work.

The Good Old Days, as I often have cause to reflect, would be unrecognisable to anyone under the age of forty. I wonder what Jane Austen would have made of it.

Pictures are from past Mays.

Alyssum – grows like a weed and comes back every year. My kind of plant.

Late Nights and New Plans

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I spent last night, and a large part of the early morning, paying the price for poor time management. Having snored my evening away in front of the TV I started preparing submissions a little before midnight. The original plan had been to produce five submissions in the month of March. It ended up as a plan to make two submissions in the last two days of the month. I say “plan” but there wasn’t much planning involved, just a recognition that I was going to have to scurry around and get a couple of submissions done. I did it with hours to spare.

I am at work now, after snatching a few hours sleep, and though I could probably submit something tonight, I don’t think I will. I have very little to send, and submitted a couple of poems last night that had only been written twenty minutes before sending, which is considered bad practice in writing circles. You are supposed to let them mellow before writing the final draft. Larkin, I believe, took years over some of his poems. A book I read last week recommended two weeks, which I don’t really think is enough. However, I’ve been struggling to write, as you may remember me mentioning once or twice, so I didn’t have much to offer and, wanting ten pieces for a magazine, I wrote three to make the numbers up. The proof will be in what happens next.

Later . . .

Back home, sitting at the computer, I have just finalised the shopping delivery for tomorrow. As usual, I have a lot of things to do and the first thing I will do after finishing this will be to start work on submissions for April. As the days grow longer and the trees fill with blossom, it’s probably a good time to start writing poetry. It’s also time to reflect on the fact that I rote the majority of the blog in a fifteen minute gap in my pre-work hour. After dropping Julia at work I usually arrive early at work and just start packing. I really am a model employee. I think, a part of my time management I may start spending 15 minutes preparing the day’s blog. It does make things easier.

 

Changes

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The recent arrival of my pension documents through the post were a bit of a shock. Retirement, is becoming real. It was, in my thirties, a far off myth, a bit like Avalon or Narnia. In middle age it became the subject of daydreams, where we would wander off, hand in hand, into some fuzzy place where we would do things we had been putting off. Later, it became a place of dread, as my delinquency in failing to make proper pension arrangements came home to roost. Finally, the time has arrived.

We now have to start putting plans into action, and make some decisions. At one time I would have had no problem with this – I would simply have set a date and done it. Theoretically it’s easier than when i was younger, as there will be no employment to work round when retirement comes.

In practice, there’s a lot of physical and mental clutter to work round. It’s time to declutter on an epic scale, and face the fear about what I will do when i have no job to add form to my life. I also have to face the fact that a lot of my plans aren’t going to happen. I won’t be walking miles across salt marsh looking for Bitterns, and I won’t be writing any best-sellers in a late-blooming writing career, because I’ll be watching Countdown. I may be old, but I’m not senile, and can see the writing on the wall (which is what Countdown is all about). . No matter what I may wish, the habit is set (as discussed in my last post) and despite all my good intention I am likely to go to the grave with the song still in me.

Unfortunately for the construction of this post, Thoreau actually said that most men lead lives of quiet desperation. The good bit, the bit about going to the grave with the song still in them, is a misquote. Isn’t that always the case?

Quotes are never as good as you remember them being, which is a quality they share with much of my life.

 

Plans, Poetry and Popes

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Two days ago, I had plans. Roast veg and gammon for tea (ensuring we had extra roasted veg for soup), a pre-prepared vegetable stew for Tuesday night, soup for tonight and Paste bake for Thursday. The beauty of winter weather is that our fridge always works better. It can chug a bit in summer and things don’t last as long. It was a brilliant idea at the time, and still seems impressive in hindsight. It would, of course, be more impressive if I’d actually done anything about it. The kitchen just seemed a bit nippy and the living room, with the fire, TV and company, seemed so much more attractive. That’s why, as mentioned in yesterday’s post, we had sausages for tea.

I’m a great planner, but I haven’t quite mastered the other bit, the part where I actually do things.

I have also failed in my plan to write three passable tanka a day (I wrote two yesterday and fell asleep in front of the TV), my plan to write my February presentation for the Numismatic Society and . . .

Sadly it’s a long list and the year is only three days old. The motivational book I just read seems to have changed nothing. With it being on Kindle, I can’t even burn it to keep warm. On the other hand, I can’t really blame the book for my lack of application.

Pope Benedict XVI – the other side of the Newman medal

It’s a coincidence that I’ve used a medal showing the late Pope, but also timely. I wanted a decent medallion picture, as I had mentioned medallions in the post. and this was the first suitable one I found. I try to avoid religion and politics as subjects, but if something like this crops up I’m happy to go along with it.

(Sorry about the erratic timing of the posts – this was planned as a second part for yesterday, but time ran away with me so I altered a few things and made it the post for Wednesday, though there may be another.

A Deviation from Perfection

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“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.”

It was one of Scotland’s greatest writers who said that. Not Tootlepedal this time, but Burns. As I said in a reply to a comment about the last post, things did not go to plan.

Recently I have started ordering pies from the supermarket because it allows me to do my normal roast veg and throw a pie in the oven at the same time. Adds a bit more variety to the menu and still keeps things quick and easy. Unfortunately, this week, I ordered frozen pies and Julia didn’t notice as she put them in the fridge. I had selected on price and not noticed the blue snowflake that denotes a frozen item. There is a lesson in this.

Instead of being 20 minutes or so, this meant that pie took nearly an hour to cook, despite being thawed. We ate late and we had a pie with floppy pastry. Not my finest hour and yet another lesson in links between price, convenience and not reading the details.

Tomorrow will be pasta bake (prepared this afternoon) then pie and veg again on Tuesday (will try to think of a way to cook the pie properly this time) then vegetable soup for Wednesday lunch using leftover roasted veg. Wednesday night we will have vegetable stew then on Thursday night I’m not sure. Number One Son will be home that night and I have run out of ideas at that point. Then we have a delivery on Wednesday night (I missed all the good Christmas delivery slots and we should be good for the holidays – just need a bit of bread and milk, and thanks to part baked baguettes, long life milk and the freezer we can probably stay indoors until 2022 if we are careful. A nice low maintenance Christmas.