to continue...

OK, that has been a long hiatus - I think the only valid excuse is that I let the habit drop, and reverted to web-surfing, and leaving comments on Guardian articles - 'disgusted of Gretton' would be a good username.

It's been quite a winter for birds - we chased the waxwing in Kettering...redwings stripped the holly berries at home, an last Friday I saw my first-ever goldcrest in the holly tree. Plus a kingfisher along the Welland near Stamford a few weeks ago.

In future - I may start a separate blog for walks - I guess it would be a handy reference.

And I did - aliwalks

Procrastination and all that

http://www.slate.com/id/2190909/

a whole load of stuff including why Truman Capote didn't finish his great novel Answered Prayers. Just the thing to browse through when you're trying to put something off.

There's even an article on the compulsion to play Spider solitaire and Freecell. Oh, the hours, the hours.

One from three years or so ago:

SOLITAIRE
(Wasting time)

On my computer screen
I deal out the cards
Three two ace , ace two three
I make patterns,
Jack queen king ,king queen jack
I connect chains,
black red black red black red
I build up suits
Clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades
I order the screen world
I win some I lose some.

On my television screen
Instead of cards I see
Disasters , murders, bombings
One two three, three two one
Warlords presidents party leaders
King queen knave, knave queen king
Different cultures opposed
Brown white black ,black white brown
And shades in between
The world is disordered
Some win, and most lose.

Clear the decks...

All this sorting out is a great way to put things off. Clear the decks for action. If you're lucky it'll take all day. Too late for action now. Go on, you deserve a game of Scrabble.

However, I've got back as far as March 2006 in my sorting out.

I found a silly poem I wrote then in response to the topic 'Heat' . If my brother stumbles across this blog it may remind him.

HEAT
Mam sent us to t' chippy
to buy us some fish.
Dog 'ad to come wi' me,
Not what I'd wish.

'Ey up,' says t' lassie
as served me wi' food,
'summat smells a bit queer.'
Says I, ' 't's a bit rude.

This dog is a bitch, and
to be short and sweet
I've sprayed Antimate on 'er
You see, she's on 'eat.'

Frivolity and intellectual rigour?

For some reason this morning I am in a frivolous mood. Maybe because I've scrubbed the kitchen floor and feel in need of a reward. So I have wavered between online banter, playing Scrabble, and investigating concepts like 'fourth person plural' , which really exists as a concept in the Algonquian languages, spoken by some native North American peoples.
Didn't I say I'd stop procrastinating tomorrow?

Happy New Day

It's foggy, and I don't think it's post-firework smog. Onward into the fog of the future...

Resolutions? There are only two I remember making and keeping. One was to drink more wine after a sober couple of years.

The other wasn't even a New Year's resolution. I knocked myself out falling off my bike, and, when I recovered, I resolved to grab life by the scruff of the neck and stop postponing stuff. No, I'm not perfect at this even now, but I'm better at it than I was.

Happy New Day!

Procrastinate...

An article in the New Scientist today talked about procrastination, and distraction from work and annoying tasks. Of course, once I'd seen that I forced myself out of my torpor, and managed to get a few jobs done. Jobs, I call them - like buying the Christmas cards I need, and a present.