Like a Phoenix from the ashes
Well, here I am again. My old blog hosted on the Wordpress platform was laid to rest about a year ago, as it was costing a fortune in hosting and domain name costs for nothing in return. It was a bit of an outlet, and created a stir occasionally among it's 2 regular viewers, but mainly it acted a s a conduit for thousands of spammers to post bizarre comments comprising of strings of gibberish, which was some form of recognised means to attract web-visitors and search engine inclusion. I digress. Blogging is a form of creative writing exclusive to those people who have fuck all else to do on a daily basis - the long term unemployed (Doleys), the under-employed (creatives), retired folk with computers (Boomers), and people with huge egos (wankers). You can have a guess at which one I was. Today, I ceased trading for the first time in my 15 year photographic career due to government restrictions placed upon businesses in an attempt to fight the uncontrolled spread of the horrible Covid 19 virus which is tearing through the very fabric of our society, and bringing the economy to it's knees almost instantly. We all have an obligation to take part in this fight, and my small part involves sacrificing my income for an indefinite time. To be fair, it's already been sacrificed for me, as my main client has closed its doors, pulled up the drawbridge, and cut any meaningful contact despite owing me about five grand, which would probably see the business through the next 3 months without having to head into deep debt. I'd not see much of that money, as my overheads still have to be paid despite absolutely nothing coming in, and those lovely folk at HMRC will only defer self assessment payments. It all has to be paid six months later. The banks don't care if you live or die as long as they get their chunk, and the telecoms/web hosting services/insurance firms/car financier etc have absolutely no interest in giving you a break. So....challenging times ahead, which call for a change in thinking. I can often catastrophise situations, and it drives me into dark places. Sitting in a makeshift office in a cupboard under the stairs wasn't doing me any good at all, so I've relocated to my bedroom - in front of a glorious bay window overlooking the garden. I might even get a glimpse of the 72 year old wifey in her nightie if I'm lucky, although she is our landlord, and takes 75% of my wage every month so I'd best not rock the boat.
Anyway, now that I have bog-all else to do, and am essentially a Doley, I can begin to reinvent myself for the millionth time - having been forced to do so many times before because of interventions by a universe intent of destroying my life. Here are my main aims for the next few months:
* Stay healthy and infection-free.
* Keep the kids educated and looked after during their enforced school-closures.
* Maintain financial stability.
* Revive the blog, and load all the previous hundreds of entries into it.
* Learn Photoshop Java scripting.
* Fix and streamline all my gear.
* Get the garden sorted.
* Reach my 65kg weight target (70kg now)
* Get my diabetic HbA1c reading down to under 40 (no mean feat without meds)
* Start up my Twitter and Instagram feeds.
* Look at getting some bigger work so I can ditch some of the small-scale real-estate stuff, which sucks you dry.
* Write my kids book - "Newton The Moo
Plenty of stuff to get on with there then. Time to make tea for the nippers now, and I'll get started with loading up the blog entries. I'll distribute updates here and there. Maybe I'll get 3 regular readers this time eh?
