What Kind Of Year Has It Been?

Posted: Wed 31 December, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2013/14, 2014/15, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Reading, Seeing Films, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »

(With apologies to Aaron Sorkin for nicking/appropriating a title he’s used in every series he’s written)

2014 hasn’t been an easy year, with some real ups and downs. Some of the downs have been pretty bloody down, and back in August/September was about as low as I’ve been in a long time, with the finances right back to Ground Zero. The last couple of months of the year have been a massive improvement, a real resurgence that’s left things on a very positive note, and that’s nothing but good.

But man alive, there’s been a lot going on.

Work

I’ve had two spectacularly bad jobs – both permanent roles – this year, the second of which took three months to escape from, cost me a buggerload of money (the owner decided to arbitrarily cut my offered salary by £10K, a drop of just under a thousand a month, with no warning or notification) and affected me a lot more than I’d ever have acknowledged.  In small ways it’s still ongoing – I’ve invoiced the dickhead for the money he screwed me for, and my New Year’s present to him will be a claim through Small Claims Court (well, now Money Claim Online, but who’s counting?) so that should be fun.

I’ve also had three contracts (plus one that over-ran into the start of 2014) with two being OK and one being less so. That one was an easy life, which was more about being a bum on a seat “in case anything happened”, rather than actually doing stuff. Easy, but not my kind of thing, as has been written about elsewhere.

The final contract of the year – which flows into the start of 2015 – has been the catalyst for getting things on a more positive footing. It’s been work that suits me, as well as being one where I’m able to work from home for the majority of the time, which also suits me.

Finances

As per the work notes, the London job cost me a lot of money, with the savings I’d made up ’til then getting used for keeping things afloat while I still believed that The Dickhead would actually pay what was owed. Even while everything was down at lowest possible, I still got through – no borrowings, no late payments etc. So it’s not as bad as it could’ve been, and yet again showed how far I’ve actually come – but it’s still annoying to have been knocked back after a year of being successful on it all.

I’m back on the up now, things in credit and so on. I still need to build up the funds again, but that’s happening, and will continue to do so through into 2015.

Creative / Writing

This year’s writing and so on hasn’t been great – because of everything else going on, it just hasn’t happened as much as I wanted it to.

Writing-wise, I have done some stuff. I’ve entered some small pieces to some competitions, although without any decent results. However, at least it’s been about getting things done and submitted – which is more than I managed in 2013.

Photography’s been a lot slacker. Along the way I’ve got out of the habit of carrying a camera all the time, and it’s proving harder to get back into doing it. I love the SLR I’ve got, but it’s a pain in the chuff for most of the time.

The daytrips of late have been partly about taking photos again as well, although they’ve all ‘only’ been taken on the iPhone, but at least I’ve been taking photos again, and they’ve been pretty decent.

Summary

So while 2014’s been a ropy old year in many ways, it’s ending up with a lot of promise, and lot of optimism for 2015.  Whether that will be justified or not, who knows? But I’m going to give it my best.

And really, what more can anyone ask than that?

 

 

Obsessional Issues

Posted: Mon 29 December, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2014/15, Creativity, D4D™, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Time, Weigh Less, Write More, Writing | 1 Comment »

For the New Year, and as part of the whole “Write More” part of the resolutions etc., I’m trying hard to get back into writing – and other aspects of creativity – on a regular basis. (Which explains why D4D™ has become a bit more busy this month too!)

2014 hasn’t been a good year for my writing in general, although I have been able to get started on a couple of things in the last three months, and want to continue building those up, making progress.

The thing is, I’m not really good at the whole “writing obsessively” thing – or indeed doing anything obsessively. For whatever reason, I just don’t possess that obsessive section of brain/emotion. I’m a crap collector, because while I don’t mind building up sets of things, I don’t care/obsess enough about it all to get the rarities, the things that true collectors always dream of. It doesn’t matter whether that’s books, stamps, music, or anything else – I just don’t care enough to obsess about the rarities.

As a result, it’s work to write etc., and that’s what I’ve been attempting to build up over the last few months – generally successfully.

With D4D™ I’ve been writing more, but pre-dating some of them, so I’ve got the time. But it’s building up a writing routine.

In the same way, I’ve been forcing myself to get out and do walks round the village a couple of times a day, just to keep things moving, and to get some exercise. I do that whether the weather is good or bad – and actually enforce it more when the weather’s bad, because then I’ve no excuse when it’s good.

So I’m working more on building up routines, getting used to doing these tasks and activities, and making them part of the day. The writing is part of that, the things I have in my head to write this time round aren’t essential brain-splurges of healing ventage, they don’t *have* to be expelled from my brain for my own health and sanity.

I’m getting there, and 2015’s looking like it’ll be an interesting time…

 

Travel Costs

Posted: Fri 26 December, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2014/15, Domestic, Driving, Finances, Getting Organised, Public Transport, Travel, Writing | Leave a comment »

Currently, I’m in a dilemma about a bit of travelling I’m doing in April. (See, told you I was feeling all organised)

Come the end of the next contract in mid-April, I’m treating myself to a weekend up in Edinburgh. It’s not a proper ‘holiday’ as such – but it’s a break, and it’s something I want to do. I haven’t been up there since the days pre-D4D™ and I want to go back.

The dilemma is about the method of travel. Looking on Google Maps, it’s about a six hour drive – on a good day, with no jams etc. A Friday afternoon/evening is not going to be a good day.  So I’ve also looked at train times/costs – and they actually pretty much balance out.

The full journey will be pretty much two refills of the fuel tank, which’ll be around the £65 mark each time. The train, looking at current prices, will be £120.  It’s close enough in price to make no real difference – even less so when I also factor in car-park costs – and the timing is much the same for a direct run.

I haven’t done a long train journey in ages – really not since doing the regular run between Manchester and Bracknell – so it’s pretty tempting.  Plus it’ll give me the opportunity to look out the window and appreciate the views without the hassles of driving – and perhaps even the chance to write more.

It’s just that whole “Paying the train company to do it”. I don’t know why it’s an issue in my head, but it is. I’ll figure it out and make a decision, it’s just annoying at the moment.

Writing Tools

Posted: Mon 22 December, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2014/15, Cynicism, Geeky, Technology, Thoughts, Write More, Writing | 3 Comments »

Many many years back – before D4D even started – I used to have a couple of palmtop computers. I started off with the Atari Portfolio, then ended up with Psion devices, a 3a and then a Revo.  I used to love these things – they made things easy, and gave me a lot of time/ability for writing.  Of them all, the Revo was the best for also having a decent keyboard.

psion_revoThese things were tiny – far smaller than today’s tablet devices – but had enough power to do general organisational stuff, and plenty of writing along the way.

In 2015, I want to do more in the way of writing, and I’ve been looking for something similar to the Psions of old – the main requirements being small size, and a decent keyboard.  One thing I hate on tablets is the “on-screen keyboard”, which is nigh-on impossible to touch-type on. There’s no real feedback, and it’s hard to type clearly/cleanly/correctly on the poxy things. When one is wanting a device primarily for writing/typing, that’s hardly ideal.

There’s a couple of smaller tablets that also have decent keyboards – but then, if I’m looking at that I might as well get just a small/compact laptop. Mind you, a laptop (even a small one) is still larger than I was looking for.

Ideally I’d like something the size of the old Revo(ish) with a decent keyboard, and better connectivity. Doesn’t seem like much to ask for, does it? Particularly when you consider that such a device was in existence more than a decade ago. But it just doesn’t seem to available.  The best alternative seems to be something like the Typo2 keyboard for my phone – except that then negates the case/battery-pack I’ve already got, and also buggers up some of the other phone functionality. Which makes it a bit more pointless.

I feel the same about “smartwatches” like Apple’s iWatch and so on. Sure, there’s a lot of things that are cool on them, but when I think of what Casio used to do with digital watches back in the 90s – watches with calculators, databanks, thermometers, barometers, heart-rate monitors and so on – then the smartwatches are actually pretty dumb.

It’s just annoying – it seems that for all our technological advances, in some ways the devices we have now are less useful than those from a decade ago.

Bizarrely Chilled

Posted: Fri 19 December, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2014/15, Change, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

Thinking about things, I’m actually really quite contented as we come to the end of this year. No bad thing, considering that this year has been – variable, to say the very least.

But here at the end of the year, things have been going well, and it’s looking positive for the start of next year.

I don’t know quite why it’s all clicked into place over the last six weeks, but it has. I’ve suddenly decided to start going out, and spent time doing so. It’s a bit random still, but that’s fine. Even more interestingly, I’ve started making some plans for the new year, including addressing a couple of the things that freak me out. (Of which more later/another day)

I suspect a lot of this is all due to feeling a lot more sorted, with finances, work and so on being really pretty organised. It’s not perfect yet – the finances in particular still need some more work to get them to where I’d like them to be – but it’s a far far more positive outcome than the year-end situation I thought I’d be in six months ago.

I don’t know what 2015 will hold – but I’m aiming for it to be a good year, and a much better one than the majority of this year has been.

 

Brighton Images

Posted: Tue 9 December, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2014/15, 2015/16, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, M1, M25, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment »

On Sunday, I trolled off down to Brighton for the day. I haven’t been there in years – the last time was a flying visit five years ago for an interview, and before that it had been a number of years too – but realised it’s just about the same distance as Felixstowe is (they’re both a two-hour drive time) to get to, so what the hell.

I don’t know Brighton as well as I should, and so having a wander around was also appealing. It’s on the list of ‘places I could re-locate to at some point’, so seemed like a worthwhile explore – and I was right on that score.

Being December, it was pretty blowy and chilly – although less cold than a December Sunday would suggest – but that’s never bothered me all that much. I lived by the South Coast for a couple of years before, and have no real issue with cold. That was the flat where the freezer shut off because it was colder outside the freezer than inside it, and where more than once I woke up with frost on the top of the duvet. Sunday, by comparison, was almost summery.

Brighton Beach

As it turned out, the weather made it ideal for what I actually wanted – waves, and the sound of the sea on shingle beach. Walking along one of the groynes/piers (not one of the Proper Piers, but the little jutty-out ones) was a joy, just for getting out to be where the waves were hitting the beach.

Brighton Waves

And then the sun came out, and it was even better…

Sunlight hits Brighton

All told, I think it’s a place I’m going to go back to a lot more in the coming year. It’s an easy run, and I think I could really get to quite like the place.

There’s others still on the list too – something I’ll be writing about at some point this month, I’m sure – but yeah, Brighton is definitely now more of a destination, and pretty high on the possibility levels too.

Coastal – Brighton

Posted: Sun 7 December, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2014/15, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), M1, M25, Photography, Travel | Leave a comment »

Following on from last week’s day-trip to Felixstowe for coastal stuff, today I’m off – assuming vaguely decent (or at least non-abysmal) weather – down to Brighton for similar reasons.

I realised afterwards, looking at maps, that actually the two places are a very similar drive-time (and indeed mileage) away, so sod it, go for something different.

I haven’t been to Brighton in yonks – well, I had an interview there a few years back, but that doesn’t really count – so it’ll be fun to go back, and have a wander around, plus spend some time on the beach (I know, it’s stones rather than sand) and see how things go.

That’s the plan, anyway. I’ll update later/tomorrow with how it goes, and any relevant photos etc.

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