Tag: blogging

coming up empty

They say that one of the best ways to actually ensure you carry out a commitment is to make it public, which is presumably why there is always so much fuss and discussion of New Year’s resolutions: the theory is that if you tell everyone you’re giving up drinking or going on a diet, etc., you’ll lose face if you fail to follow through.

Perhaps it’s true, too, that if you make your aspirations public and tell everyone how high you are aiming, they may be supportive and try and help you achieve your aims.
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looking ahead

It’s New Year’s Day, so if I intend to continue with my aim to update this blog at weekends and on public and bank holidays, I’d better find something to post.

I should probably clarify that that isn’t a New Year’s resolution, it’s just something I’ve been trying to do for the last few years. But blogging takes time and commitment and doesn’t reap much of a reward. I’ve been writing here for ten years now and there are nearly twelve hundred posts – more posts than followers! – including heaven knows how many original poems and photographs.
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habits

Humans are creatures of habit. And yet it sometimes seems very difficult to build a new habit into our lives, even when we know that it’s a good thing to do or the results will be beneficial. Maybe it’s a medicine that needs to be taken at a specific time of day, a morning exercise routine that we know will ease our aching back and bring long-term relief, or a regular phone call or email to a distant relation that only takes us a few minutes and brings them genuine pleasure.

None of these things are exactly difficult or onerous, but until the habit is formed, it’s very, very easy to forget.
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creature of habit

The tagline on this blog describes it as “(mostly) first person poetry, prose & opinion” but in reality the main topic seems to be a repeated complaint that I don’t know what to write about. I think the secondary topic is probably another complaint – that I’m too busy to write very much.

Then there are the fairly repetitive floral photographs and the re-posts of old poetry.
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educational

I’ve said before that when we used to go on family holidays my parents always found room in the suitcases for a few books.

Specifically, there was always the Collins Pocket Guide to British Birds and the Collins Pocket Guide to Wild Flowers, and I must have spent hours identifying and listing the new species we found. (Perhaps it wasn’t just me who had this task – it may have been a more familial activity, or perhaps we even had a competition to see which sibling found the most – but my memory is only of my own lists.)
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