Fiscal Alterations

Posted: Fri 10 November, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: 2017/18, Bankruptcy, Cynicism, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Rebuilding, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Over the coming year, there may well be some interesting changes in the finances, although I don’t completely know yet whether they’ll happen – because no-one is willing to give a definitive answer.  Needless to say, that’s frustrating. But hey ho.

The change, if it happens, will be significant. Basically, come August 2018, it’ll be the full six years since my bankruptcy was declared.  In theory, that means it should come off my credit score, as all things do after six years.  The thing is, no-one can tell me whether it’ll happen. It might be that it won’t come off for a further year, because while it was declared in 2012, the official bankruptcy period lasts a year, so it remained ‘active’ until 2013.

Even when I’ve asked financial advisors and debt counselling people, the best answer I’ve been able to get out of any of them is “It depends”

If that’s the case, it won’t come off my record until August 2019. It’s still livable with, and there’s nothing hyper-urgent or anything about clearing the record. It’d just be nice to know.

Once that’s off my record, then it’s a case of onwards and upwards. I’m doing OK already, but really it’ll be nice to have the clear record. Indeed, for now it’s the only thing that’s holding things back, so I’m looking forward to having it gone.  But only time will tell when it’s going to happen.

Already Taken

Posted: Wed 8 November, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: 2017/18, Art, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Sculpture, Thoughts, Travel | Leave a comment »

This morning I came across something that sounded really interesting – Yorkshire Sculpture Park are doing a “Room to Breathe : Four walks in four seasons” event, walking and talking around the park, similar to outdoor/walking therapy.

(Facebook event details here, which includes the dates and so on)

Then I looked on my phone at my diary. Oh cock.

So… despite the event being on four different dates through 2018 (right through to September) I’ve already got stuff booked in on each of them.  All four, already taken. *sigh*

You know when I said that one of my targets for 2017/18 was to ‘do less’? Yeah, look how that’s already working out…

803

Posted: Mon 6 November, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: 2017/18, Change, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Health, Thoughts, Weigh Less | Leave a comment »

Yesterday, I got an email from Runkeeper, the app I use for tracking most of my walks.

According to them, in the last year I’ve tracked 803 miles – which isn’t bad, but does still “only” total an average of 2.2 miles per day for the year.

So I did OK (and I’m aware that there’s a lot that Runkeeper doesn’t track, for a number of reasons) but still, I know I can do much better than that…

Come this time next year, it’ll be interesting to see whether I have done more or less than this year’s 803…

Challenge, as they say, accepted.

2017/18 – What’s Next? The Coming Year

Posted: Sun 5 November, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: 2017/18, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Health, Own Business, Rebuilding, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »

As is traditional round these D4D parts, I lay out my hopes and/or plans for the coming year on my birthday. Like New Year’s Resolutions (and as likely to be completed, it seems) but on a different arbitrary date. Because why not? It’s as good a day as any.

That list for last year (2016/17) wasn’t massively successful, mainly due to my inability to get out less, so I’m hoping to be slightly more realistic this year…

So, the plan for the coming year is…

  1. 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)
  2. Exercise more, lose weight, improve health
    Another ongoing process, carried over from 2016/17
  3. 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…
  4. 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)
  5. 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.
  6. Business ideas
    Look at completing some of the business ideas and plans, and see what I can do with them from there.

And for now, that’s it.  I’m hoping it’ll be a bit more successful than last year’s list!

2016/17 – What Happened ?

Posted: Sat 4 November, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: 2016/17, Bankruptcy, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Health, Introspective, Rebuilding, Single Life, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

So, a year ago I listed the following as the plans for 2016/17…

  1. Continue rebuilding the finances, and keep boosting the savings
  2. Exercise, improve health, lose weight
  3. Complete September’s walking marathon – ideally in under seven hours. (My target is more ambitious than that, but I’ll be happy with 7 hours)
  4. Write more. (And ideally complete/publish some)
  5. Do more of the ideas around my own business
  6. Get out less.  Ideally, some kind of middle-ground between being ultra-quiet/sensible, and the idiocy of the last year
  7. Look more at some political ideas, and see how that goes. (This one’s the random ‘maybe’ one, I don’t know if anything will happen with it or not)

How did it go?

  1. Finances : Yeah, not bad.  Not at the totals I wanted to be at (which is a familiar theme) but I did what I wanted to, so I’m happy with that one
  2. Health : Less so. I haven’t gained any weight, but nor have I lost much. Good intentions have been undermined by an utter failure on Number 6, and life getting in the way of things
  3. Walking Marathon : Failed utterly, as I’ve wittered about at length.  But I’m already signed up for the 2018 one…
  4. Write more : Failed utterly. There are ideas, but as with Health, I’ve been abysmal at doing less, so yeah. Bugger.
  5. Own Business : Kinda. I’ve written out more of the plans, got some ideas in code, and been looking at other stuff. But actually done? Nope.
  6. Get Out Less : Also an utter failure.  I’ve been out loads, and in many ways have kept even busier than I did in 2015/16 – less Michelin-starred restaurants, but more things
  7. Politics : Looked at the ideas, but in the current political climate of Brexit and so on, getting involved on that score strikes me as…. less than wise.

So what’s on the list for 2017/18? Well, we’ll cover that tomorrow…

Situation Standard

Posted: Wed 18 October, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: 2016/17, Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, London, M1, Single Life, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Yet again, I appear to now be idiotically busy over the next few weeks – well, really ’til the end of the year, what with one thing and another.  I still don’t quite know how I end up doing this to myself, but it’s pretty much standard behaviour these days.

I’m not complaining – in general I like being busy, and prefer it to days doing nothing  – but every so often I look at the calendar, and the board that holds all my upcoming tickets, and think “Lyle, you really are a bloody idiot“.

So, just in the next six weeks, and in no particular order, I will be…

  • Seeing Sir Ian McKellen as King Lear in Chichester (and staying overnight, possibly stopping off in Oxford on the way back)
  • A one-day conference in Birmingham, which may or may not happen, depending on other work commitments/stuff
  • A day-trip blitz run to Sheffield
  • A day in London doing a food festival in the morning, and a play in the evening
  • followed the next day by a day-trip run to Middlesbrough and Durham (for reasons I won’t go into now, as it’d identify the dates I’m away)
  • a weekend in Newcastle (which is, of course, not the same one as being up in Middlesbrough, despite proximity and so on)
  • A day trip to Cambridge
  • An evening in London, via Oxford (there’s reasons, but yeah, still idiotic)
  • And at least two other visits to London (with another one in early December)

Not just those travels, but somewhere in there also needs to be

  • Finally getting the starter motor on my car replaced (a hassle/fight that’s taken way too long, and will get written about some other time)
  • Seeing a number of films, which I’ve already got tickets for
  • other (more local) food things
  • Working (of course)
  • And finishing off two other projects.

In short, all a bit mad.

I know I’ve said it before – but for next year I need to start doing a little bit less, not being so booked up, and allocate some downtime for myself.  I just need to get some perspective on it all – because ‘downtime’ for me is also car-time and driving-time, it’s time where I can just float a bit, figure things out and so on.

Mind you, that’s also what I’ll be doing over the next six weeks, so I can figure bits out and what I want to do (and how) in 2018…

Fancy Footwork

Posted: Fri 6 October, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: 2016/17, 2017 Inspirations, 2017/18, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, London, Single Life | Leave a comment »

[Caution : Contains a post about semi-manky feet.]

Following on from my foot woes two weeks ago, yesterday I went to a podiatrist to find out what the hell had gone wrong, and what could be done to fix it.

Happily, while the damage is unpleasant (you know that when even a podiatrist says “Oooh, that looks nasty” – fuck being someone who has to look at feet fot a living. *boak*) it’s not long-term or massively serious.

Indeed, what it looks like is that basically the whole ball of both feet was covered by a layer of corns and calluses. That was, in general, fine. However, when I damaged them at the end of August, the blisters disrupted a lot of them.  And the healing process added a layer of hard (but effectively brittle) skin over the corns and callouses. So the walking in the marathon attempt split that brittle skin completely, reopened the mostly-healed underlying wounds, and generally made things a whole lot of Not Fun.

So yesterday she spent time taking off the layers of corn and callus, which has left them a bit sore and raw, but also feeling a lot better.

I’ve also got a treatment plan for improving my feet and hopefully not getting a recurrence of the same problem.  But if they do recur, I’ve also got the plan in place for going back, getting them sorted again, and establishing a timeline for how long it takes to happen.

All told, I feel pretty positive about it all.  There are a couple of other smaller foot issues that I’ll be working on sorting out at the same time, but the primary problem appears to have been sorted.

It’s also been a far more optimistic resolution than I’d been expecting – I’d had visions of needing two or three months worth of treatments, but thankfully that now doesn’t seem to be the case.

I’m still going to try and take more care of my feet, and carry on finding out more about what I need to do for next September’s re-attempt at that Marathon distance…

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