New Years Eve
I woke in the early hours of the morning with a cramp in my right calf, leapt out of bed and hopped around the bedroom like a demented one-legged race partic...
I woke in the early hours of the morning with a cramp in my right calf, leapt out of bed and hopped around the bedroom like a demented one-legged race partic...
I’m sitting in the quiet of the junk room at home, listening to “On Green Dolphin Street” by Miles Davis. I’m going to blame a good friend on the internet th...
It is done. I have just paid for this blog to be hosted by Ghost for the next year. I guess the goal now is figuring out how to engage readers without sellin...
Yesterday began at 8am in our household - with everybody taking turns through the shower, brushing their teeth, and pulling on variously smart clothes for th...
It’s the last working day before Christmas. Half an hour left, with a long weekend stretched out ahead. While not working I’ve been grocery shopping, put two...
Somehow we’re halfway through the week before Christmas. Only a few days left. I could swear I lost a day this week already. Being honest, I could probably s...
I’m just taking a break from work, sipping a coffee, and listening to some music on Spotify. A friend mentioned Eva Cassidy earlier, and she’s been rattling ...
Have you ever invented something without inventing it? Have you ever designed a hugely complex solution to something, without designing a huge complicated so...
You might think a social network acquired by an egomaniac billionaire that has become unsustainable after advertisers collectively ditched it would be playin...
In the normal scheme of things, if you place one foot in front of the other and keep doing it you tend to move forwards. The normal scheme of things doesn’t ...
It turns out I can sit on my hands for roughly 48 hours. That’s how long it took the thought of building a better blogging castle to ferment, and grow into a...
Over the last few years I’ve walked away from one blogging platform after another - leaving Wordpress, Medium, Tumblr, and Blogger along the way.
On Wednesday I travelled to a restaurant for the work Christmas meal. A relaxed lunch with co-workers I rarely see. It was quite the experience.
I had one long, continuous dream last night. When I woke this morning I played through it in my head - recounting the various twists and turns of the story m...
I cancelled my subscription to the Medium partner programme a few days ago. I suppose it says something about the power of suggestion, and my own suggestabil...
I threw some photos of myself at an “artificially intelligent” application earlier today, and it resulted in the most surreal few minutes of my life - as I w...
The annual “Christmas Market” arrived in town this evening. The main route through town was closed off to all traffic, and the road filled with stalls servin...
It’s been a day - and that’s all I want to say about that. The washing machine has done several loads, the kitchen has been turned into a laundromat, and wor...
For the last several years I have been soldiering on with a little Amazon “Fire Tablet”. It’s been my go-to device for reading in bed and watching movies and...
After battling my way to the end of an unexpectedly lengthy day at work, my other half wandered into the dark of the junk room and suggested “shall we go out...
After a slow start this morning, I wandered into town with my eldest daughter. After quite some deliberation, we ended up at Starbucks. Armed with a cappucci...
We were invited by friends to a charity fund-raiser quiz-night at the local football club last night. We met them under a street lamp at the end of the road,...
After drinking the kool-aid, and spending several weeks trying to convince myself that running my own blogging castle on my own blogging island was a great i...
I have become my own worst enemy, but at least I ‘ve caught myself while sliding into the abyss. I should probably explain.
Over the next few days I’m going to find myself in a curious state of limbo with work - as one project comes to an end, and the next ramps up. Only it won’t ...
That s it. I ve had it with drinking. Or at least, I ve had it with alcohol - until I forget how rubbish I ve become at dealing with it. While watching t...
I almost overslept this morning. I m going to blame the strangest dream I ve had in quite some time. None of it made any sense, but it stuck in my head all...
Watching the slow exodus of users bleed away from Twitter over the last several days has been interesting. Who would have thought that an eccentric billionai...
I almost overslept this morning. I m going to blame the strangest dream I ve had in quite some time. None of it made any sense, but it stuck in my head all...
Sunday morning is rapidly vanishing in a storm of washing up, clothes washing, tidying up, and avoiding block-printing mayhem in the lounge (our youngest dau...
I m not entirely sure where the last few days have gone. The word relentless comes to mind - both to describe the working day, and the evenings.
The sky fell this morning. Cats and dogs. Curtain rods. It fell last night too. I will admit to feeling sorry for the young children “trick or treating” for ...
While tinkering with this and that this morning, I stumbled upon the blog of an old friend. Somebody I really shouldn’t have lost touch with, but somehow had...
I spoke to a friend on the internet this morning - the first contact with anybody outside my family for a couple of weeks, and we both found ourselves wonder...
I spoke to a friend on the internet this morning - the first contact with anybody outside my family for a couple of weeks, and we both found ourselves wonder...
How has it been a week since the last time I wrote in the blog? How does this keep happening? In the past I wrote almost every day. How is that possible? Wha...
You know how sometimes life continues on for months on end, without anything in particular happening? The last few years have been a bit like that. And then ...
A few years ago (actually quite a few years ago now) there was a popular twenty something TV drama in the UK that made stars of it’s cast. It’s still on now,...
The clock is ticking towards lunchtime, and I’m yet to really get started with any meaningful work. Most of the morning has been spent sitting in the doctor’...
You find me sitting in the dark at 1am again. I’m not entirely sure how this keeps happening. One minute I’m washing up the things from dinner - the next eve...
I opened the word processor at 8:35 this morning, with every intention of writing a blog post before work started. One thing after another cropped up through...
It’s been a strange few days.
Do you ever feel like you’re drowning in the various projects you’re involved in - but also realise that you started each project? I suppose you could say I’...
We went out last night - to help a good friend celebrate her birthday. We met at her house, summoned a taxi, and had the best night out in quite some time. A...
As the title suggests, the clock is whirling inexorably toward midnight once again. I’m sitting in the dark of the junk room, watching a pretend aeroplane wh...
I continue to struggle finding time to write. A window of opportunity opened at lunchtime, but before I knew it one thing after another conspired to slam it ...
A scene from the first Narnia movie has been tumbling around my head all day - where the children are approaching Aslan’s camp, and the fallen leaves of near...
There’s a moment in the book “The House at Pooh Corner” that has always stayed with me:
As a few might have noticed, I’ve returned to Wordpress. This had absolutely nothing to do with platforms - more about separation of concerns. I needed to us...
Queen Elizabeth II was buried today. It seems fitting that I write something to mark the day. I’m not a royalist, and never have been, but I appreciate a lif...
Tonight (or this morning) I’m taking a leaf from a good friend’s book - and asking myself “if not now, when?”. I’m talking about the blog of course, and writ...
Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated (if indeed there were any). I can’t remember the last time I let so many days go between blog posts. It’s ...
I’m not entirely sure where the last few days have gone. In-between chores, work, running, writing, more chores, more running, more work, more writing, and e...
Alexa, the curious daemon that lives within an electronic gadget on the bedside table burst into life in her metronomic way once again this morning - filling...
I won’t lie - there was a feeling of dread at 7am this morning when the alarm clock filled the bedroom with an internet radio station. I drifted in and out o...
This morning I have been dipping a toe into the Twitterverse. It’s a strange word, isn’t it - “Twitterverse”. The Twitter Universe. It really is a universe o...
We got home on Wednesday. It’s now Saturday. The washing machine is still going. I think we can see the end of the washing mountain now though (thankfully). ...
We left my parents house in Cornwall mid-morning. The final hour was a huge game of backwards Jenga, where our belongings (and various acquisitions) were re-...
After booking a restaurant table last night, we visited Fowey today (pronounced “Foy”) - across the estuary from the small village we visited so often in my ...
The weather has taken a turn for the worst over the last few days - so we’ve been rattling around my parents house. This afternoon we’re escaping for a few h...
After a slow day rattling around my parents house, we escaped to the beach yesterday. A day of sun, sea, sand, and ice creams. We guessed that Saturday may b...
After a slow start yesterday morning we set off to walk the coast path towards a nearby fishing village together - with the promise of lunch in a pub danglin...
I started writing this post yesterday, while packing bags ready to travel - and then realised I had nothing to write about that hadn’t happened the day befor...
The day began with a shower, a shave, washing up, tidying up, and a valiant attempt to pick a few things up in the living room. I’m not quite sure why I both...
Two weeks to think about as little as possible.
Late last night I wandered into the living room, looking at my phone, and interrupted my other half who has been binge-watching “The Mentalist” for the last ...
I woke early this morning, moments after a radio station filled the bedroom with music from decades past. After spending several minutes watching light patte...
I’m having the quietest of quiet days today, and counting down the days until I stop work for two weeks. In-between all the usual household chores, we will e...
Today has been a difficult day. A work project suffered a setback, and while nobody in particular did anything “wrong”, you can’t help wondering if there was...
The greater part of my family travelled to Wembley Stadium today, and witnessed England win the European cup. While the game was going on I checked in on the...
The week is finally slowing down - affording me the chance to write a few words.
I’ve had the strangest feeling recently - that I’m in-between. Not just work projects, or chores, or whatever else. Something bigger. Something you can’t qui...
As I grow older a realisation of sorts has happened - that the world will continue on with or without me, and that my participation in it is largely inconseq...
A very short post this Friday afternoon that will mean very little to very few. My blog posts originate from an account at Substack, and are cross-posted aut...
It’s been a bit of a week.
If news reports are to be believed, the temperature here is going to reach 38 centigrade by tomorrow afternoon. I can’t see a lot of work getting done someho...
We live on the corner of a green - surrounded on all sides by sprawling suburbia. Among the various families living in those houses we have made wonderful fr...
In the book “The House at Pooh Corner”, Christopher Robin asks Winnie the Pooh what he likes best in the whole world. Pooh answers:
Today has been a good day. A long day, a tiring day, a draining day, but also a good day.
I think somebody broke the temperature control knob on the sun this week. We’re into day three of temperatures that I can only describe as “hotter than balls...
Today has been a quiet day. A quiet day was needed. A day to rest and collect thoughts.
You find me sitting in the study at home with a cup of coffee between my arms while I write this post. The only sound in the room is the clickety-clack of th...
It’s Friday morning - or at least I think it’s still Friday morning - and I’m taking a break from work for a few minutes. I’m actually thinking about abandon...
It’s day five since the symptoms of COVID arrived like a car crash, and I’m back working. My brain is been in a bit of a fog for most of the day, but to be h...
Based on the very unscientific method of counting back to when the aches and temperature first appeared, this is day four of COVID, and my body appears to be...
We went out for dinner last week to celebrate the end of college for my eldest daughter. She seemed a bit under the weather, but soldiered on - then over the...
My middle daughter officially finished college yesterday.
In recent months I have often found myself writing blog posts in the dead of night. Perhaps it’s a reflection on the number of things I’m trying to juggle at...
After work yesterday evening I pulled on my running shoes and went for a run around town. It seemed like a good idea at the time - but I had completely forgo...
Since stepping back from posting ‘every other day’ to the blog, I’ve discovered a paradox of sorts. While I thought having a few days between posts might con...
It’s “Father’s Day” in the UK today. I have mixed feelings about it - knowing that it was invented in the US along with “Mother’s Day” in the early 1900s (Mo...
How is it Thursday already? Where do the days go? It feels like my feet haven’t touched the ground all week. Take today as an example - somehow I’ve filled a...
Early yesterday morning I left the house with my youngest and eldest daughters, and travelled into London for the first time in over a year. A day of wanderi...
It’s been a strange few days.
When we got up yesterday morning, my other half knocked on our youngest daughter’s bedroom door and poked her head in to say “wake up”. She wasn’t moving und...
Invariably I try to get to a “good place” with programming before finishing for the day - yesterday that didn’t happen. Something wasn’t working, and it cons...
The four day weekend for the Queen’s jubilee is coming to an end.
Has anybody seen my blogging horse? Or was it a bicycle? I never was good at idioms and analogies.
When my middle daughter was about four years old, she loved talking. She still loves talking. She would often know what she wanted to say, but the exact choi...
I began “Week 5” of the “Couch to 5K” running programme this morning - three five minute runs, with three minute walks in-between. I could really have done w...
I went running first thing this morning - back to the “Couch to 5K” programme after a few days off after my right knee started to hurt. Fingers crossed if I ...
It’s been a few days since I last polluted the internet with any thoughts. I think the biggest surprise to me is that I haven’t really missed writing. I thou...
I’ve decided to step back from the internet for a while. Slow down.
It’s been a few days since I emptied my head into the keyboard. I’m not quite sure how that happens. It’s almost like the universe turns the tap on or off fr...
Today was a quiet day. A day filled with meetings, and a day spent excavating a rather deep rabbit hole with warning signs posted all around it. What’s in th...
Another day. Another few kilometres in the running bank. The schedule moved on to “Week 3” this morning. It’s so tempting to go further than the schedule dic...
That’s two week’s of the “Couch to 5K” complete now, and after six months doing very little indeed my body appears to be remembering how the whole “running” ...
Somebody take the keyboard away from me - I obviously cannot be trusted. While taking a break from research and development on a work project this afternoon ...
In what you might describe as an enormous re-invention of my blogging existence, I have moved the entire archive (including all manner of mangled text from t...
Throughout the last 48 hours I have been descending ever further into the federated internet rabbit hole. While trying to wrap my head around it all, the wor...
Something rather interesting happened last night. Something I want to write about so I might reminisce in the future about “the day Elon Musk bought Twitter”.
I went running this morning before work. Finally getting off my backside and doing something about my general level of health and fitness. Over the next coup...
Did you know that if you install the “Dark Reader” extension into your web browser, you can write in “Dark Mode” in the Wordpress editor? Well you do now.
How is it Thursday already? What happened to the first half of the week? Why do I have a headache? Is three cups of coffee before 11am a good idea? Is the co...
I returned to work today. Or rather I cleared the chores, had a shower, helped our youngest with feeding animals at a neighbours house, and then sat at the s...
The final day of my staycation started at 7am when I heard Miss 17 leave the house to go feed a neighbours cats (they are on holiday). She returned ten minut...
I’m deliberately staying away from the television and social networks today - the insufferable hoard of “He is risen!” folks are busy preaching to the conver...
I’m waiting for the new lawnmower to arrive, so I can begin to de-jumanjify the back garden. That’s a real word, right? It is now.
Do I get a badge that says “honorary member of the old fart club”, or something? I went shopping at lunchtime on the internet, and ordered a new lawnmower. I...
My other half is sitting up in bed today, eating porridge and drinking lemonade - a huge improvement on recent days. Apparently her body is staging a spirite...
Our youngest daughter had a quiet birthday at home.
My other half tested positive for COVID19 this evening. She has had cold symptoms for the last several days. How typical is that? She works in a school - she...
Today was the first of my “staycation”. Nine days away from work. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to fill those days with, given that we can’t really af...
According to folklore, midnight marks the time in the day when witches, demons and ghosts are thought to appear, and be at their most powerful. There seems t...
Here we are again - watching the clock slip effortlessly from one day to the next. Our marking of time is a curious thing, isn’t it - we place such significa...
Here I am again, sitting in front of the computer in the dead of night, only too aware that I haven’t posted for several days. The world just seems to be get...
I cooked dinner for the rest of the family this evening. Spaghetti Bolognese - one of the “make something quick that everybody will eat” meals that most fami...
Once upon a time I wrote some programming (I’m a software developer in the daytime) to brute-force the problem of finding interesting blogs to read.
I planned to write a blog post late yesterday evening, but somehow it didn’t happen. That seems to be the story of my life at the moment.
I read a newspaper headline yesterday parroting the words of a fringe “scientist” that the human race was well on it’s way towards extinction. I didn’t pay t...
It was “Mother’s Day” in England today. Apparently the origins of mother’s day in the UK date back to an era when people worked in service (think Downton). I...
Something rather odd happened today. Actually - scratch that - something very odd happened today. You need some back-story first though.
After a few days break from the blogging universe - during which time I built myself a rather lovely island on the internet and then quite predictably burned...
After a few days break from the blogging universe - during which time I built myself a rather lovely island on the internet and then quite predictably burned...
We are heading out this evening for a meal at the local pub with friends - to celebrate my other half’s birthday. Escaping for a few hours of sensible conver...
The two week long internet island building escapade has come to an end. While looking at the collection of supposedly more thoughtful words I had migrated fr...
Too much work and not enough play makes Jack a dull boy - or at least, that’s what the pages from the typewriter in The Shining had written on them. It tends...
Too much work and not enough play makes Jack a dull boy - or at least, that’s what the pages from the typewriter in The Shining had written on them. It tends...
This morning a gas engineer arrived to do a service on our boiler. No sooner had he arrived, the boiler started throwing error codes - triggering the most am...
Twelve days. That’s how many days I managed to stay away from publishing an almost-daily journal on the internet. If I’m entirely honest, I started writing a...
If I’m honest, I can’t quite figure out how tomorrow is Thursday. Where did the beginning of the week go? Life, work, and everything in-between seems to have...
After scraping myself out of bed this morning, I wandered downstairs and was met by our youngest daughter - who was incredibly excited at the prospect of me ...
It’s the last day of February today. Where in the world did February go? I’m sure it was only Christmas last weekend. Is this how life works? A slow accelera...
While taking a break from work this afternoon, I have taken it upon myself to begin ripping the stock photos out of my blog and replacing them with my own. I...
It’s been difficult to concentrate today given the unfolding story in the Ukraine. Don’t worry - I’m not going to write about it. I’m not qualified or knowle...
I’m sitting in front of the computer at the end of the working day, listening to a random playlist on a free spotify account. How is it only Tuesday?
My middle daughter played moved up to the “senior” rugby team today. She turned 18 back in January virtually unnoticed until the ladies team were missing sev...
After going to bed somewhat early last night, you might think I would have woken early this morning - and you would have been wrong. I slept like an absolute...
It’s an hour into the working day, and I’m taking a coffee break. I’ve become terrible recently for working straight through the day without stopping. Invari...
I’ve been sitting in the dark of the junk room in front of the computer for quite some time now - wondering where the words are going to come from this eveni...
It’s been a long day. A long, cold, windy, wet day.
I’m sitting on the train, heading east across the country towards home. Thankfully the trains and replacement bus services have connnected so far - hurtling ...
It’s the final evening of my stay with my parents. For the past two weeks my brother and I have stayed with them to help out - to take the pressure off my Mu...
Being away from my family is strange. You would think I would sleep more heavily in a room on my own, but the opposite has been true this week - usually up b...
I cut my Dad’s hair this morning. He sat in a chair in the middle of the lounge while I figured out how to use his hair clippers. He received the same all-pu...
Life happens so more slowly down here. It has taken some time to adjust - to slow myself down. Yesterday morning, after making breakfasts, washing up, and ra...
While making meals, doing chores, and talking with my parents, the television is ever-present in the background. You don’t realise you’ve started watching it...
After meeting my brother at the railway station yesterday afternoon we immediately detoured to a grocery store so I could pick up the ingredients to make mea...
I’m currently sitting on a train, watching the world hurtle past at quite some speed. After hiding in the junk room for the better part of two years toiling ...
Tomorrow morning I leave for the coast. After a short walk to the local railway station I will board a succession of trains and buses that will (hopefully) d...
Somehow there is only an hour of the working day left, and I find myself in the curious position of not having stopped at all yet. You might think - working ...
It transpires that re-arranging your work schedule to fit around an unexpected visit to the coast is more possible than one might have expected. After endles...
It’s funny how life throws curve-balls at you from time to time, isn’t it. Just as everything seems to be plodding along in a fairly straight line for a whil...
I thought it might interest others to learn how I go about this whole blogging escapade. How I write, what I use, how I post - that kind of thing.
I’m grabbing a few minutes from my day to empty my head into the keyboard. If I don’t do it now, something will crop up, and it won’t happen.
After consistently responding to writing prompts for twenty two days, I’m stepping away from the Bloganuary writing challenge today. Life and other commitmen...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What is y...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “If you co...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What is y...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “Write abo...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What book...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What is a...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What is a...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What is a...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “Write abo...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What does...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What emoj...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What does...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What are ...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What do p...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What do y...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What make...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “Who is so...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What is s...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s writing prompt is “What was ...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s theme is “Write about the la...
This year I’m taking part in “Bloganuary” - a series of writing prompts published throughout the month by Mindy Postoff. Today’s theme is “what is a road tri...
While wandering the halls of Wordpress late last night I stumbled upon Bloganuary - a series of writing prompts that will be published throughout the month. ...
So here we are. Another new year. While it’s tempting to make resolutions, to “double down” on that which was intended but not done in the past, I’m resistin...