Poppy
Today’s work – dropped Julia off at work, made two abortive phone calls to the dentist, wasting half an hour hanging on, booked a flu jab, did 400 words on baseball in Derbyshire (it should ideally have been more like 300 but to paraphrase Mark Twain, I didn’t have time to write less), wrote five clunky tanka and made cheese on toast for lunch.
It’s little more like a proper working day than recent days have been, but it will go in the could do better column of the ledger, where it will fit in nicely with the rest of my life.
Oh, I did half an hour on an Open Learning Unit too, but that’s not going to make a lot of difference. Actually, I also cleaned up my computer a bit, shifting files around and deleting some rubbish. It’s not suddenly become better organised, but it’s a bit less likely to bring on feelings of despair when I look at it.
I’ve also ordered rechargeable AAA batteries and a charger. None of my chargers will fit that size, they re all for AA and various configurations of camera battery. When people look back in years to come, will they wonder why we made so many chargers and cables? At least we have fewer choices in cables these days. In the past I bought of adapters, about six, I think it was, to ensure we could always charge our phones.
Hoverfly on Orange Poppy
The batteries themselves are manufactured without harmful chemicals, and by the time we’ve had them a few years will have repaid the initial cost. We only use them in the TV remote control and my illuminated magnifying glass but even so, we use about eight a year. It’s difficult to tell, but I think I’ve reduced my carbon footprint with this choice.
Do you remember the days when you used to have to get up and walk to the TV if you wanted to change channels? On my desk I have a laptop, a mobile phones and two digital cameras. Thirty years ago I was daydreaming of buying an Amstrad word processor, had a pager issued by work and had to have film developed (which took a week and always resulted in disappointment).
Times have changed.
On the other hand, we are on the verge of war with Russia, worried about having an actor of pensionable age in the White House ( though with hindsight he looks like a safe pair of hands), and were seriously concerned about drug use in the Olympics.
Perhaps less has changed than I thought . . .
Poppy and chamomile
