2018/19 – What’s the Plan?
Posted: Tue 6 November, 2018 Filed under: 2018/19, Business, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Getting Out More, Health, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »As has become traditional round here, it’s time for a list of what I’m aiming for and hoping to do in the coming year. Some will be familiar (because I keep starting and not finishing) but I’m also hoping to get rid of a couple that never really happen, and maybe add a couple to replace them.
- Keep on working on losing weight.
This one is a long-term thing, and one I’ve written about before. For me, it’s a struggle – I’ve worked with a number of resources this year so far, and feel better-informed than I was, but there’s still a long way to go. If nothing else, this year so far has eliminated a lot of options and bullshit. - Keep on improving fitness/health
Linked to losing weight, I’ve had more success with this one over the last 12 months, but there’s still stuff to do and improve. - Continue doing the stuff I enjoy
Various bits here – but basically, do stuff I want to. Not as a “fear of missing out” (“FOMO”) thing, but just as in “I really want to see/do [x]” and doing so. (This is, of course, in direct contrast to ‘doing less’ in the list below, so it’s a bit of a balancing act!) - Be more sociable
I’ve realised this year that I’ve been utterly crap with seeing friends – I’ve been doing a lot of stuff, but at the same time it hasn’t been overly sociable, hasn’t involved going to see friends at all. And that needs sorting.
I’m getting rid of some of the longer-running goals. They’re still things I want to work on – I’m not giving up on the plans, just on the having them as goals – but it affects me more when I see my ongoing failure to complete/do/start them year on year.
So I’ll note them here as reminders, but they’re not part of the main “What I’m aiming for” list. See if it works better for me as advisories, rather than as targets/goals. And those reminders are…
- Writing
I want to do more writing – I’ve got the ideas, but it’s finding the time, inclination and drive to get them actually going. I hope to schedule more in – I’ve also invested in some tools that should allow me to do so – but we’ll see. - Business plans
As with the writing, I’ve got the ideas, but need to allocate time and energy to getting them to work. In some cases I’m frustrated by time, in others by funding for getting them how I want them. We’ll just have to see how things go. - Doing Less
This is kind-of related to the above two – if I could sort my brain out so that ‘doing less’ was better, then I’d hopefully have more time to spend on the writing and business ideas. - Plan Better
And the final one, which controls all of the others – make better plans, notes, and be better organised.
47
Posted: Mon 5 November, 2018 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic 2 Comments »Blimey – I’m 47 today.
How time flies, and all that gubbins.
2017/18 – What Happened ?
Posted: Sun 4 November, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, The Future, Thoughts Leave a comment »This time last year I wrote about my plans for the coming year, and the goals I was going to aim for.
Those things were
- Keep rebuilding the finances, adding to savings and so on.
By the end of this year, I’ll have completed the whole bankruptcy process, and it should be off my credit history. (As I understand it. Some people have said it only comes off at six years from the end of the bankruptcy period, which’d make it September 2019. We’ll see) - Exercise more, lose weight, improve health
Another ongoing process, carried over from 2016/17 - Complete September’s walking marathon
This imploded epically in 2017, so it’s another carry-over. And this year I’ll do some more training, and not destroy my feet four weeks before it… - Write more
Actually complete some stuff, and see what to do with it from there.
I’ve also got some tech answers to this, giving me more time and space for writing (I hope) - Do less
I’ve written about this before, but I am *really* bad at doing nothing. Lazy days do my head in, and I end up feeling stupidly guilty about “wasting” a day. But conversely, I’m acknowledging that I do need downtime for other things. So I need this as a reminder. - Business ideas
Look at completing some of the business ideas and plans, and see what I can do with them from there.
And how did I do ? Not too bad…
- Keep rebuilding the finances, adding to savings and so on.
Fairly successful – I’ve kept rebuilding, the bankruptcy is now off my credit score, and I’m keeping on rebuilding - Exercise more, lose weight, improve health
Still ongoing. I’ve been doing more, going to the gym more, and taking a lot of information in about my health, weight, fitness etc over the year, so I feel better prepared again - Complete September’s walking marathon
Again, a failure – although through lack of preparation, rather than health/foot issues - Write more
Didn’t happen. Ideas, and started a few bits, but nothing that’s been completed, let alone released into the world. - Do less
A gruesome, gruesome failure. - Business ideas
Ongoing. I’ve launched a couple of smaller things, and been working on a larger project (as well as some stuff I’m working on this week) so it could’ve been a lot worse. (But could’ve been a lot better, too)
Next… What’s the plan for 2018/19 ?
Staying Put. Again.
Posted: Mon 29 October, 2018 Filed under: Domestic, Single Life, Thoughts Leave a comment »This is the time of year where I decide whether to move or not. And this year (as with the previous six and a half) I’ve decided to stay where I am. Again.
It’s weird in many ways. This is the place I’ve stayed in the longest since leaving school. I think I’ve now been here in this one house for longer than any of my relationships have lasted.
Some of it my staying here is voluntary, and some of it is less so. During the bankruptcy process, it was easier to stay here and not have to go through the hassle of explaining to estate agents and tenancy checkers what had happened, or to get blocked at the first step (having paid a couple of hundred quid in non-refundable fees) because of credit-scoring. It’s been a lazy way to do things, but sometimes even I just think “You know what, I don’t need that hassle in my life”.
Additionally, as I’ve said before, the best bit about where I am is how easy it is to get away from it. I can cover a huge swathe of the country in a two hour drive, and I’ve done so. It makes everything else in life easy. If I were stuck in the back of beyond, where it took an hour just to reach civilisation, I’d probably have moved several times.
Alongside that, I kind-of like my little house. It’s almost a hermitage in that there’s really not the room for visitors – certainly nothing that would allow friends to stay for a weekend, or whatever. That suits me, and isn’t a complaint – it’s just a fact of this place. It means I go and see friends, they don’t come to see me. And that works OK for me.
And so far, while I’d like to move on, there’s nowhere that’s particularly calling me, nowhere that’s making me think “Yep, I want to be there”. I’ve got two or three potential candidates in mind for my next location, but as yet there’s no real decision, no absolute “That’s the one” feeling.
And without that drive, well, for now I might as well stick with what I know.
I want to move on/away. I just don’t know where to, and don’t really have any decent reason to move, except for just “I want to”. And at the moment, that’s simply not a good enough reason. I suspect that next October, it might be.
Already Booking
Posted: Fri 26 October, 2018 Filed under: 2017/18, 2018/19, Day Trips, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel, Write More 3 Comments »Every year I say “I’ll do less next year“. “I need the downtime“, I say. “I can’t keep on living like this” (or, others say to me “You can’t keep on living like this”) Every damn year.
And then every year stuff starts happening from October where I go “Oooh, I’ll book that“. And suddenly I discover/realise that I’ve already got at least one thing booked in per month through to this time next year.
Plays, shows, activities, exhibitions, travel. It’s all in there already.
There really is just no hope for me.
Laziness and Safety
Posted: Wed 24 October, 2018 Filed under: Cynicism, Driving, I Don't Understand, Laziness, Parking, People, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »I regularly drive through Woburn, and at least a couple of times a week I’m amazed at how lazy people are, even when it comes to their own safety.
In the case of Woburn, there are two zebra crossings within a very short stretch of road. There are good reasons for this – the road is usually busy, and fairly fast. But people still cross away from the crossings, where it’s apparently “more convenient” rather than walking a tiny way to the crossing where cars *have* to stop for pedestrians…
The first one looks like this…
This is where most people cross – and you can see the markings for the zebra crossing at the top of the photo (the zig-zags, for non-UK readers) Note also that this is just after a busy crossroads, so has any number of vehicles coming round corners and paying far more attention to other vehicles than to pedestrians. I measured it on Google Maps – it’s 30 metres from here to the crossing. Not even a minute’s walk. (I’ll also note that all the people avoiding the crossing are able-bodied, so it’s not like they can’t walk that distance.)
The second one (slightly further up the road from here, after a tight choke-point and just round the corner so out of view from this one) looks like this
This one is a bit harder to see – it’s a bit further, at 45m from where people actually cross – but it’s still there, with markings visible across the road. Here, people cross from the pub to the hotel and back – and again, with parked cars on the right, an extremely tight road with drivers focusing on squeezing through rather than on pedestrians, people trying to park (or turn into the various lanes and archways along this bit) rather than walking that 45m to be able to do so safely.
I know people in general are lazy bastards and so on, but really, it utterly amazes me just how many (and even more so at school times, as there’s a school just back from where this shot is taken) are prepared to ‘save’ time waiting for a space in traffic and then risk their all to cross the road, rather than walking that tiny distance to do so safely (and actually usually more quickly than waiting for that gap!)
I don’t know if they don’t see the crossing, that they’re blinkered to just going straight across the road instead, or if they’re all just fuckwit examples of Darwinism waiting to happen. Either way, it is (to me) a gobsmacking way to live.
Troilus and Cressida, RSC
Posted: Mon 22 October, 2018 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Reviews(ish), Theatre, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »As part of my ongoing education about Shakespeare plays, I went with my friend M to see Troilus and Cressida at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon on Saturday.
As usual, I knew sod-all about it beforehand – I’d figured some of the basics (that it was around the Trojan war and so on) but that was it.
It’s an interesting production, with extra percussion and sound created by Evelyn Glennie, and in some ways feels like it’s a mix of Stomp and Shakespeare. (Which isn’t a bad thing, in my own pantheon of opinions/preferences) It’s also a fairly modern staging, with shipping containers taking the place of tents and so on, whereas the costuming (and in some cases lack thereof) is more traditional. So it’s a bit confused, but in a way that I liked.
I was, to be honest, less taken with the play itself. It was interesting enough, and enjoyable enough, but at the same time I don’t know that it’s one I’d make a big effort to see again.
Weirdly, Troilus and Cressida themselves aren’t really major roles within the play – they’re on stage a lot less than most of the other primary characters.
All told, there’s a lot of focus on political intrigues and deal-making as well as the war itself, and it makes for a complicated script and set-up that can sometimes be confusing.
So yes, I enjoyed the entire thing and I’m glad I went. But there are other Shakespeare plays I’d prefer to see before seeing Troilus and Cressida again.