Tag Archives: time

Time and Motion and Veggieburgers

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Today, I decided to keep a check on my time. One entry in the diary is ten minutes for sorting out my phone, which went black and refused to open up or restart. It seemed like a lifetime but it was only about ten minutes. Unfortunately I couldn’t time it, as that was how I was timing things, and I couldn’t tell when the writing ended and the wrestling with technology began.

I’ve had two unwelcome emails since last writing. One is a rejection. It wasn’t unexpected, and it was nicely put (and basically bounced right off my carefully cultivated shell of resilience) but it was still not welcome.

The other is from a woman asking if her email has got through. How do you handle that? I don’t know her, I don’t recognise the name and a quick Google search turned up nobody that seems likely to have sent it. I would have searched Facebook, which seems to be the best source of unknown women wanting to make contact but couldn’t see how to search . Probably best not to try.

So I blocked it. Then I unblocked it, because it might be genuine. As I read the message “Please let me know if this comes through!” I decided that anyone who really wanted to get in touch would have added some sort of explanation, and as I dithered, I decided that I don’t want to get in touch with someone who would use an exclamation mark there. It just isn’t necessary.

I could run through endless possibilities, but I just think a mystery woman emailing out of the blue definitely requires blocking. I’d like to hand out a lecture on the etiquette of making contact over the internet, but that would answer her question. I’m not sure what shows up if you are blocked.

Ah well, I was making veggie burgers for tonight’s tea before I decided to blog, so I’d better get back. I was leaving the mixture to stand before gauging how wet it is, so I need to start forming it into recognisable burgers. and have no more excuse for sitting round typing. This time I will brush them with oil, the spray technique I used last time was not a success.

When I was younger I imagined life would have slightly more to offer than this . . .

And more photos – sorry about the repetition.


Four Hours

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Feathers and Water

The day is slipping by. At 6.48, after one of those nighttime visits my age demands, I decided to go back to sleep. The postman woke me when a heavy parcel fell to the floor with an emphatic thud, and 8.02 I rose. After checking emails (nothing of interest) I answered my WP comments and looked up butterflies on websites. The USA has 750 species, Australia has 420, the UK has 55. I feel, yet again, that I am the poor relation.  Then I wrote a poem. It is now 9.58 and mid-morning approaches, signaling an end to what I always feel is my most productive time.

The “poem” that I wrote is far from complete, but it is a promising start. In human terms, I have the skeleton in place, and mostly in the right order. Some of the limbs have flesh on.  More a zombie than a human, and more a grotesque pile of words than a finished poem, but it’s a start. Every journey starts with a single step, every pearl with a grain of sand, and every poem begins when you put a few words together to form a thought or picture. They aren’t always the right words or in the right order, and they don’t always appear in the finished piece, but it’s a start. It’s already on its second title . . .

I’ve been worrying about my poetry recently.

View from Bangor Pier

it’s 10.22. I have eaten cereal and fruit, drunk tea and watched birds. At one point we had 16, possibly more. It’s difficult to tell when they are milling about and perching inside shrubs. It is a great advance from the handful we used to get when we moved in last winter. How much of teh change is due to a gradual build-up, and how much is due to seasonal changes, we don’t know. I will have to look up kaleidoscope in the dictionary.

Invented by a Scotsman, patented 1817, it seems to have been regarded as a serious bit of scientific kit in its day, rather than the child’s toy it became. See, I wanted to look up a word to use in writing about a whirling mass of birds, and ended up reading about Scotland, science and the Disruption of 1843. That’s where my time goes.

Another view from Bangor Pier

Back with my poetry thoughts, I’ve been worrying that I have become one of those poets I used to view with suspicion – friendly with editors, prolific and widely published. But have I written anything of merit, or have I just found myself a groove where I churn out the equivalent of greeting card verses for poetry magazines?

That’s something I will be thinking about over the next few weeks. For now, as the clock nears 11am, I will add tags and photos to this post and think about what comes next.

Coffee, sorting books and worrying about the direction of my creative life.  It is enough.

Pictures are from July 2019

Hoverflies on an orange poppy

My Theory of Timing Submissions

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REsettling the plough

As it turned out, yesterday’s grand plan ground to a halt. With just sixteen days until the end of the month I need to start looking at haibun and tanka prose. I have, as usual, plenty of prose sections, but finding the right words for the haiku and tanka can be tricky. I have just about got enough for four submissions but |I need to get on with it as the final few short lines can end up taking a long time.

Just as I thought it was all coming back the hard facts indicate that I don’t have enough poems, and the ones I have, aren’t far enough advanced. There was a time when I used to have all my submissions queued up at the end of a month, waiting like caged greyhounds to hit the ground running as the new month  My theory was that if I was borderline but got in first, the later poems would have to be better than me to displace me and just being equally good would not be enough. Better, I thought, to be the first poem about getting old than the second, third or fourth. Poets are notorious for churning over the same few subjects, so if you can’t be original, or best, try being first.

Detail of the mouse

Now, as my energy declines, I find it hard enough just to scrape a few poems together by the end of the month. There is an advantage to this – the decisions seem to be faster and you have the rejects back in time to use them again in a timely manner. Using this system I have sometimes had a decision within hours, and the poems have been out again in a similar time span. I once had a poem that was rejected, submitted elsewhere and accepted within a space of days.

However, as things stand, I need twelve poems of usable quality. Time moves on, and those twelve are now my priority. The great recycling project will have to wait. editors often remark on the number of submissions they receive, but it’s also true that there are more editors out there than I can submit to. I just can’t write fast enough. October is a month with no haibun submissions planned, so the recycling can start then, as can the production of the next batch of haibun.

Two sizes of wheatsheaf loaf

Pictures are from September 2016 this time.

Traffic, Tests and That Soup Again

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Last week it was unpleasantly cold. In the space of two nights it changed to uncomfortably warm. This may be a sign about my lack of adaptability rather than global warming, but this a diary and I can only write what fate flings my way.

This morning I was wrenched from sleep by my alarm as it’s one of the days when I take Julia to work. The news was tedious. Traffic was dense. I suspect this might be because they are starting work on replacing part of a bridge over the Ring Road. It is going to take a year. This sort of thing always seems to have a knock-on effect as people look for different routes, even though it doesn’t seem that close to us. If I were still working it would be a nuisance as it was on my route between Julia’s work and the shop. I was actually in the queue that formed when the original damage occurred. An excavator on a low loader (which clearly wasn’t low enough) hit the bridge and then fell into the road. I hope the company responsible is paying for the work. I also hope that the contractors display the phone number and email address of the offending company next to the queues of traffic as they carry out the work.

That meant I arrived home with too much time to go straight for my blood test and too little time to do anything useful.

The blood test went OK and I came home. I used the scales while I was there, and though I haven’t lost more, I haven’t put any on. This is good.

Currently I’m typing and drinking tea as I decide what sort of soup to make. I can do broccoli because, guess what, I have broccoli that needs using up. Or I could make some variation of tomato and red peppers because I’m now building up a lot of peppers. I think the broccoli wins, because I have stalks too, and it always seems more virtuous to use them rather than compost them.

And finally, Princess Anne, who sustained head injuries from a horse a couple of days ago could have a  “serious” problem according to one internet headline. However, in keeping with the low standards of journalism you expect from the internet the diagnosis of “serious” comes from a “royal biographer” rather than a doctor. Enough said. She’s never done me any harm, so I wish her well.

Traffic

 

Where Does All the Time Go?

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I’ve watched TV, napped, answered quiz questions, read a poetry magazine, eaten  massive plate of vegetables, left eBay feedback, read and replied to comments and suddenly it’s late. And I still have a post to write.

I really don’t know what happens to the time. It’s probably something to do with TV – I seem to be able to spend a couple fo hors watching without really noticing the passage of time. Then there’s the internet browsing. I rarely notice it, but I’m fairly sure that I spend too much time doing it. Sometimes it has a purpose, but often I just realise I’ve drifted off subject. This after noon at work I was researching a pilot who was injured in 1917, and somehow drifted on to TV personality Fearne Cotton. She’s a distant relative of the band leader Billy Cotton. Billy Cotton was a pilot in the Great War. However, there must have been several stops along the way of my journey of discovery, none of which were useful to the job in and and few of which I can remember.

We are having a new set of coin designs to celebrate the changing of the monarch. We have some on order but there is an eight week wait for delivery. They are going to release them for circulation about that time too, though I’m told one has already been seen. The video shows them producing proof coins. The ones fro circulation are produced a lot faster and you wouldn’t want to get your fingers anywhere near the machinery.

This may get people interested in coins again. I’m sure the Royal Mint is hoping so because it makes a lot of its money from sets for collectors rather than just making loose change for the nation.

British West Africa 1/10th of a Penny

Header picture is some of the Alphabet design 10p coins they made – a real damp squib in marketing terms. They didn’t make enough and they didn’t develop the series. They actually ran an advertising campaign when they had already ensured, through low production and tightly controlled distribution, that there was no stock to sell. If a shop assistant can spot the faults you’d think highly paid marketing executives could do the same.

I Have a Problem

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My positive thinking campaign has paid off so far. I have written more and have submitted to two magazines that I have a patchy record with, one that has always turned me down and one I have never submitted to before. So far, two have replied and both accepted something – one senryu and one Haibun. These were, to be fair, the magazines that had published me before, even if it was not a regular thing. I’m now waiting to see what happens with the other two. It could be months yet, as neither are particularly speedy.

Unfortunately, though I’m doing more work, I am also finding myself bogged down by admin. Some of it is out of proportion to the increased workload. I could keep track of most stuff I was doing with just a brain and a piece of paper but now I’m picking up the work rate and increasing the submissions I am having to keep better records. My brain is marginal at the best of times but give it four new magazines, and the  30 extra poems and I am struggling to keep up.

So far this year I have made 38 submissions. By the end of the year it will be about 50. It’s a long way from the hundred I used to talk about as a target, but it’s near enough one a week, which seems quite a lot when you are the one doing the writing. I don’t know how the woman who wrote the article managed a hundred.  I just looked it up. She was actually aiming for 100 rejections a year. However, all she got was  43, and five acceptances. Lightweight! Makes my submission record, in a lazy year, look quite good.

Today has been mainly taken up with sorting out two submissions, working out my paperwork system, cookery, reading blogs and  drinking tea. Well you need some relaxation time don’t you? I think I have things sorted now, but it’s been a struggle.

It’s now time to complete a blog post telling you all how hard I am working.

Ooops! I just realised that the first meeting of the Numismatic Society is taking place on 11th and I wanted to put on a small display of some local items. I hve the items (mostly) bu I now have a week to do the research. It’s going to be a bit tight.

The Numismatic Society starts again. Can winter be far behind?

Oh, the problem? Time. It’s always time . . .

 

 

Robin - singing

15 Minutes

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The title is the time I have allotted myself to write this post. I have been using my time to sit with Julia in the evenings rather than sit in the dining room typing. It seems a slightly better use of my time at the moment. After 33 years of marriage you start to think (I do anyway) about the barren wasteland that would stretch out in front of you if you didn’t have a wife. So, as I’d like to stay married I am being a caring and solicitous husband. It will pass, but until it does I am finding it difficult to fit blogging in. Sorry about that, I will answer all comments by tonight.

I watched a programme about Victoria Wood last night. I’ve seen it before, but it was better than most things that were on, and it finished at the same time as Forged in Fire began.

In the old days we had two Channels. They were in black and white and apart from Watch with Mother at lunch time the only daytime Tv was school programmes. Somehow it seems, looking back, to have been far more enjoyable and better quality than the multitude of stations and repeats and “reality TV” we have today. Personally, I’d be happy to spend much of the evening with it witched off but Julia puts it on for background noise and we never seem to switch off. Some of my best days recently were the ones in out early married days when the aerial was struck by lightning and the TV blew up. We did without one for 18 months (endured a number of letters from the Licensing Agency about not having a TV) and only got one for the start of Julia’s maternity leave.

I’ll leave it there as my time is up and the shop beckons.

 

Day 140

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I’ve just been looking at a recent haibun, which I had thought I might reprint it in the blog. When I looked at it I found that, despite it being accepted and published, and despite my various edits and improvements before submission, it still has faults. It’s strange how that happens. There are at least two corrections needed in the space of 200 words. I suppose this will always be the problem with written work. It seemed finished when I submitted it, but the faults are clear and jarring.

Looking at it with fresh eyes shows more clearly what an editor may see when looking at my work. They aren’t even complicated faults – one being a fault with rhythm and one being a repeated word.

The piece I have used, could be better, and I have had a couple of thoughts for improvement, but nothing leaps out at me immediately. I’m now wondering about the idea of leaving everything for an extra three months before submitting it.

 

Quiet Corner

As a child, I attended a village school where the playground shared a wall with the churchyard. On one side of the wall we played and shouted. On the other, a line of small mossy memorials marked the graves of babies. Having grown up knowing that I had a sister who had died before I was born, I accepted, as did most people, that babies died. Years later, staring in wonder at my firstborn, I would think about those stones again, the tiny bodies that they covered, and from a new perspective, the parents.

snail shells
the song thrush uses gravestones
for an anvil

First Published Blithe Spirit February 2022

Wednesday Morning and Procrastination is in Full Swing

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On Wednesdays, our day off, I traditionally get up earlier than Julia and go downstairs with thoughts of making her breakfast. This thought never gets past the computer, as  I can never resist using a bit of quiet time to write.

Today I sat down, checked emails, read and commented on a number of other posts and settled down to write this. They last ninety minutes seems to have gone in a blur and has covered polio, books, A A Milne, a famous England cricketer in the shower, academic redundancies, several poems, an article on whether Covid has killed our ability to socialise and an anecdote about bird feeding. Plus a few  bits and pieces as I replied to comments on my own blog.

Though I always feel bad about not reading other blogs properly, I do find that time only stretches so far. I may have to stop watching so much TV. Quiz programmes are probably good as a way of keeping my brain active, but they do tend to blur into cookery (which isn’t so mind enhancing) and popular culture (which I am sure reduces my ability to think).

A Robin singing in the fog

The sky outside my window is what Julia refers to as a “Simpson’s Sky” – bright blue with lots of cloud-shaped white clouds. If you have watched the cartoon you will know what I mean.  They don’t have cirrus in The Simpsons.

This sort of sky, when accompanied by a lot of movement in the shrubbery and tree tops, and by temperatures cold enough to require heating in the house, is a clear indicator that it is one of those “brisk” spring days, rather than a day for picnics. However, as it’s considerably better than a  a day with grey clouds and drizzle, I will accept it and allow it to raise my spirits.

Wow! I just noticed that it’s 11.00. Julia has made breakfast and I have been reading more blogs. I must get a grip on time.

I’ve been to Crowland, seeing it through the eyes of a visitor. I have written about Crowland several times. Four times, I think. My blogging life was about more than lockdown, bacon sandwiches and arthritis at one time. But time, as thy say, is a great wrecker.

Crowland Abbey

 

 

What happens to all that time?

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Over the last few days I’ve found myself sitting looking at a computer screen in the evening wondering what has happened to the day.

Twelve hours pass, and I look at the jobs I’ve done and wonder what happened. (Yesterday was washing up, shredding two lots of paper, taking Julia to work and picking her up, blogging, writing a few haiku, reading a few haiku and making soup and a stir fry.) Even with a snooze and some TV it is hardly a full day.

Tomorrow I will sort books out because once the charity shops open again and customers start coming back to the shop I can start moving them on again. The car boot is absolutely crammed and there are bags of books in the back floor wells too. I also have them piling up at home.

It is a sad thing, but they had taken over and life is, I confess, more relaxing without so much stuff in the house. As a bonus, when we move (which is planned for some point in the next few years) we won’t have as much stuff to sort or move. We will be moving 150 miles, so the less we take, the better. I will probably have to give the kids our new address as Julia seems to want to keep them, but apart from that I’m aiming for a fresh start.

Country Life sent me the normal weekly email and, as long as I can manage an immoderate lottery win, I think I have found just the place for us. I mean, a library by Rennie Mackintosh, a herd of Highland cattle and fifteen bedrooms. That means you can have clean bedclothes every night for a fortnight before you need to start doing housework. If only it wasn’t just 500 yards away from Loch Lomond. I seem to recall it being famous for midges. and after my last experience with them I’m not sure I want another go.

That was how I used to organise myself as a bachelor- fifteen sets of everything and then do the laundry once a fortnight. It’s a good system.

However, talking of Lottery wins, it’s going to have to happen soon, as I’m going to stop buying Lottery Tickets. I never win so I might as well save the money and buy something useful. As of January 1st I’m going to drop the money in a jar and buy Premium Bonds.  There’s still a chance of winning a cash prize and you can actually get your money back when you want it.