I’m devastated to report that Merlin was hit by a car and killed early this morning.

Kitten or Puma – you decide. Note : when I sit on that chair my feet don’t reach the floor completely.

I do live in the most glorious place. Even on a dull Winter afternoon the vistas from the Surrey Hills can be sublime.

One need not be a chamber to be haunted.
One need not be a house.
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

I’ve been wrestling with a range of electronic personal organisers for some years now. I began with a Psion, went on to a range of various Compaq iPaqs, a Sony Clie, a couple of Nokia mobile phones that has a sync suite that worked with Outlook and most recently a couple of iPhones.

I used to have a reputation for being very organised and never allowed myself to forget birthdays, anniversaries, etc as I carried around a fat Filofax full of addresses, dates, accounts and just about all the details of life that I could possibly need.

Having my handbag stolen from my place of work in London some 13 or 14 years ago now gave me a bit of a shock as that Filofax went and for months I was explaining to people who called expecting me to be somewhere at a certain time that I’d lost my diary and oh, could I have their address and telephone number please?!

After that I got a bit obsessed with backups and electronic organisers seemed to be the way to go. I had a long, long struggle with them where they duplicated/deleted/added appointments, contacts and reminders almost at random until I got to the iPhone which actually does what it says on the tin as opposed to the other devices which made lots of claims but did not deliver.

I’ve stayed with the iPhone for a long time, synching with Outlook 2010 and backing that up to a Seagate FreeAgent drive which has been working well. However.

There are some people who don’t like to read books from screens, they prefer paper. There are people who need to print documents if they need to read them carefully and some who can read from screen with no issue. I’ve never considered myself one of these people but, to my own surprise, I’ve just recently bought a load of Filofax inserts and pressed my old leather Filofax case into service again. Why have I done this?

I think it has to do with how information gets entered into my brain. If I type something, it seems that it is “recorded” into a different area and treated in a whole different way than if I write it with a pen. There is also still no personal organiser that I know of which can display in such clarity the contents of a week and the entirety of each entry, I think because of the size of the screens. I find it so much easier to visualise and remember things that I have written in my organiser rather than things that I have tapped into a tiny touchscreen.

It’s also quite nostalgic to have all the old sections and diary format again which doesn’t seem to have changed substantially for over two decades! I have sized and hole-punched some lovely postcards and scattered them through the pages. Also, it’s saved me a shed-load of money as I don’t think I’ll be in the market for an iPad now.

Very exciting development this weekend. The garage has been turned into a bike stable and today I got back on my trusty Jackdaw and rode! Only for a mile or so, but it’s a start, and I have thrashed out a plan to slowly increase my cycling over the next few months whilst carefully checking for any damage caused. At the same time, I have thought out and started a “nutritional improvement” (!!!!) plan at the same time that will slowly ramp up. Here’s to health and fitness improvements. Onward and upward!

It turns out that learning the guitar (again), planning a book, trying to hold on to a job, raising two heavenly kittens, occasionally seeing family and friends and spending quality time with the hubby is just about enough to keep me seriously occupied.  I wonder why. 

Just upgraded WordPress from a very old version so forgive me if it hops offline from time to time.

My Hotmail account got hacked so I removed all of my contacts to prevent you all from getting spammed so drop me a line if you fancy a chatter via Messenger.

I have stumbled across some artwork which I find particularly inspiring.  Please click on the pictures to visit the artists’ websites – I’ve posted these images here not to pinch them or infringe any rights but to encourage visits to their sites.

I have to be honest – now my time off is nearly over I’m facing the coming events of the next few months with more than a little trepidation. I have given myself another good talking to – I know, if you always do what you always did, you always get what you’ve always got. I think that this my 40th year will be my most challenging yet if I try to go through it with the burden of my current mindset.  

Having thought about it a good deal, and being fed up of dreading going back to work tomorrow I need to do a bit more than I have before because I’ve realised now – if you always think what you’ve always thought, you’ll always do what you’ve always done.  I’ve heard people in the past say that you create your own reality and have agreed with them without really thinking about what that means.  In a very simple nutshell, two different people will react completely differently to the same event purely based on their own internal dialogue and what it’s constantly whispering in their ears, like a personal demon or angel, depending on the content. 

I’ve been trying over the last few months to work on changing this as I realise that this is the most powerful and direct thing that I can do to, literally, free my mind.  I don’t understand why I’ve become slowly so self-destructive but I can see where it started and how it’s progressed and the damage it has done.  This is going to be something that it very hard to change but will produce rapid and dramatic effects as I do.  Carving out the time to think and weigh things before reacting is going to be my hardest task as always. 

I’ve enjoyed this break although poor Ian’s been laid low with a chest infection.  I’ve seen the whole family and had a lovely Christmas Day with them, plus a magical visit to Romsey Abbey late on Christmas Day.  I’ve played guitar until my fingers are sore, have worked through more ideas and plans for my book, have watched a lot of trashy and enjoyable TV and cuddled the kittens every chance I get.  I’ve had quite a few late mornings in bed and sleep and although it’s still the depths of Winter I feel refreshed.  

I will take the time each evening after work to have a good think about the day and remind myself of these goals and monitor whether I’m staying in bad habits or doing well in heading towards a more positive way of living.