Posted: Tue 16 June, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Driving, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Sociable, Thoughts |
The last couple of months have been pretty manic and busy for me, as has been shown (kinda) by the paucity of posts round here. Thankfully, it’s now slowing down a bit, and should be considerably calmer over the next while. I hope that’s the case, anyway.
Since the start of April, I’ve been to :
- Somerset
- Edinburgh
- Newcastle
- Manchester/Stockport (3 times)
- Brighton
- London (3 times)
- Oxford (twice)
That’s as well as working during the week, and at least one trip to Chesham per week for work purposes. There’s probably also other stuff I’ve forgotten about, too. (Hell, I know there’s stuff I’ve not listed, which is other more local sociable stuff etc.)
This coming weekend should be the last busy one for a while – and I can’t deny, while I’m going to enjoy it, I’m also looking forward to some down time, to having some anti-social space for a bit.
I’m still going to be busy and doing stuff, but I’m fairly optimistic that it’ll gear down a bit as well.
And from there, well, it’s more about sorting out some of my own odds and sods – some jobs round the house, that kind of thing. (And yes, I know, it’s a rented place – but there’s still a couple of things that need doing by me!) With a bit of luck, there’ll be more writing time too, both here and on Other Projects…
Posted: Mon 8 June, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Day Trips, Domestic, People, Sociable, Travel |
Yesterday was a warm and rather relaxed and pleasant day. All very surprising.
One of my friends is involved in the organisation of the World Pooh Sticks Championships, which was held yesterday at a new venue for the first time in thirty-odd years.
She’s also recently bought a new dog, a Cavachon (Cavalier King Charles mixed with Bichon Frise) who’d had her final jabs and was finally allowed out in the world. So it seemed like a great idea for getting her to meet lots of people and dogs, and see how she did. And that was my work for the day, which was obviously a real hardship.
And it was a good day all round. The competition was a success in its new venue – with loads of people visiting and watching – and Pooch was excellent. She’s had a really positive first Big Day Out, and was knackered by the end of it.
Now that is what weekends are for…
Posted: Mon 27 April, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: BurgerCrawl, Day Trips, Domestic, Food, Getting Organised, London, Reviews(ish), Sociable, Travel |
Over the weekend, I took part in a very silly event that I’d discussed and come up with – a Burger Crawl in London.
It started off with a conversation about alternatives to pub crawls – I can’t even remember why it came up – but it seemed like a fun idea.
Originally it was going to be four of us as a trial run, but two dropped out, so it ended up just being one friend and me doing it, but that was fine.
Because it was the first one, and my idea, it ended up being my plan for where to go. So I made the choice that it was going to be all new places, nowhere we’d been before, and all in a similar area of London, rather than roaming all over the place.
As it turned out, it almost started badly. The place I’d picked for the first one – breakfast at Honest Burger‘s place near Liverpool Street – wasn’t open, they only do breakfasts Monday to Friday. So, a bit of a trip on the first hurdle, but we had other places on the list of possibles, and went for one of those instead.
So the final list was
We did well – much more food and it would’ve involved exploding stomachs – and was a brilliant day with all the new venues being excellent. I plan to return to all of them – just maybe not all in one day again.
Oh – and we covered a fair amount of distance as well, which probably helped in dealing with the amount of food…
There will be more BurgerCrawls in the future – and we’ve had a couple of other related ideas too – but for a first go, it all went really well, and definitely a success.
Posted: Wed 8 April, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Sociable, Travel, Weirdness |
This month is actually quite busy for me outside of work.
Last weekend, I ended up doing a daytrip to Somerset.
This coming weekend I’m in Edinburgh – I may have mentioned that before
The weekend after, I’m in Manchester.
The weekend after, I’m in London.
And then it’s May.
I’m not quite sure how that’s all happened, but it’s going to be fun.
Posted: Mon 19 January, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Introspective, Own Business, Sociable, Thoughts, Work-related |
With the way work is going this year, I’m going to be looking again at renting some office space for the time being.
Last year I rented a desk in a shared space for a while, and that worked fairly well, but wasn’t perfect for a number of reasons. So while that’s still an option, I’m looking at stepping things up a bit this time round, and actually doing a proper office.
As with all large towns, there’s a number of options available in both Milton Keynes and Bedford, and I’m looking at my first one tomorrow. It sounds promising – designed for small and start-up businesses, monthly contract, central Milton Keynes and so on – but I need to see it and figure out the necessities. I’ll write more about it in the coming days, I’m sure.
Why do I need some space like this?
Well, I’ve got a lot of work coming up, and while working from home is OK, I find that it’s occasionally difficult to keep up motivation when there’s no real push to be “at work”. Also, I find it’s suddenly very easy to not actually interact with anyone for several days a week, and that’s not ideal either. I know I could easily become very hermit-like and insular, and I don’t actually want to do so.
So renting an office space will at least give me back a commute, a journey to/from work, and because the building is shared with a number of others, it’ll probably allow me to make some connections and interactions along the way. Never a bad thing.
Renting a desk is OK – but limits me to the times the main office is open, which I found more restrictive than it could’ve been, and limited the available hours I had. I’m hoping that a rented office will give me more flexibility, enabling me to do longer hours when necessary and so on.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens and how it all shakes out. I’ll know more by the end of Tuesday…
Posted: Thu 1 January, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, 2015/16, Business, Creativity, D4D™, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Photography, Resolutions, Sociable, Thoughts, Travel, Weigh Less, Work-related, Write More, Writing |
As regular readers know, I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions. It’s partly my knee-jerk response to the whole “Everyone else is doing it” ethos, which means I won’t. But also New Year is just an arbitrary day for making plans – and I tend to do it from birthday to birthday, for no better reason than that it’s an easy day to remember as a start/finish date.
Anyway, with that said I do have plans for 2015. Sometimes plans work better on a calendar year instead of birthday-to-birthday – although there’s also a couple of ideas and plans this time that would also work better to a fiscal year, April to March. But for the sake of argument I’ll stick (for now) to my usual resolution/plan structure, while also acknowledging the whole 2015 thing.
What I won’t do is go into reams of details – I know what I want to do, and I’ve got most of it written down in to-do lists and the like – but it can all be summed up in four key points, which can be summarised as:
- Create More – includes writing, photography, and web-based work/business plans
- Do More – includes activities, day trips, longer weekends, and perhaps even a holiday or two.
- Save More – working to rebuild finances, build up some backup savings, and restore the credit score.
- Weigh Less – the goal is to lose another two stone in 2015, which is what I also lost in 2014. So it’s feasible.
And that’s “it”. Obviously there’s details, sub-plans and sub-goals in there as well, but they’re the key points. They’ll do me for now.
I’m hoping that 2015 will continue in the positive direction that started in the last quarter of 2014. I’m quite sure there’ll be some hiccoughs and roadbumps along the way – that’s realism rather than cynicism, my life is never a truly smooth process – but with any luck at all it’ll be a positive year, and lots will get done.
And if not, if things go wrong, then I’ll just do what I can, and keep on in the same way as I had to with 2014.
But I do hope that 2015 is positive and constructive. That’s the intention, at least. But we’ll see.
Posted: Sun 21 December, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2015/16, Change, Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Introspective, New Year, People, Personality, Single Life, Sociable |
As I’ve said many times before, I’m pretty comfortable with being single, with living my own life, and not really needing any company for a lot of things. I’m happy going to concerts on my own, and to the cinema – indeed, doing most things like that. It suits me and the way I am.
However, there’s one thing I don’t like doing on my own – and get your minds out of the gutter, please! – which is going out for meals. I don’t know why it affects me more than other things – there’s not really any logical reason for it – but it does.
So, in 2015 I’m going to be addressing it a bit, and forcing myself to do it. There are places (both local and further away) that I really want to go to, and so this coming year that’s what I’m going to do. There’ll be a list of places I want to visit – which I may put on here, or may not – and we’ll see how I do.
And I’m starting the way I mean to go on. Earlier this month on Twitter I saw a New Years’ Eve menu that I *really* fancied at a place in Cambridge, and I’ve been wavering on it. But having decided to get my arse in gear with this, I got in touch and booked myself in – and I’m really looking forward to it.
It’s also the first time in *cough* years that I’ll have been out on New Years’ Eve – although it’s quite likely I’ll bugger off before midnight, because I’m still an antisocial bastard who doesn’t like people all that much…
