Six months ago, I wrote a blog about what I hoped would be my goals for the next six months and whether I had achieved or stuck to them. I wanted to simply look back and recap on what they were and the results.
- I grew some lettuce and planted some onions and carrots. The lettuce was an outstanding success and the carrots and onions are still in the ground but have grown poorly. I have not received any harvest from them. From this, I intend to lauch into tomatoes in pots next year.
- The swimming was stopped for while and my aim is to return soon. I can still swim on my back but haven’t made any further progress. However, I have had little opportunity to go into the pool over the past few weeks.
- Transition town activities kept going right on into the summer and we attended a big launch garden day and were fully active. However, since then we have stopped going for personal reasons but kept in touch with some people who still attend.
- Working on family relationships has been ongoing and only last week, since my Father had a stroke and one of my best friends diagnosed with cancer has it really sunk home how important those ties are. This is a renewed goal and one which will have even more focus in the next coming few months.
- The history of the arts pursuit had a lazy start but has probably been one of the most significant goals achieved. Having seen the series Desperate Romantics, concerning the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, I then went on to visit the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle in August where Isabella and the Pot of Basil by William Holman Hunt was exhibited and then to the Tate British to see more of the whole brotherhood’s work. I read the book accompanying the TV series by Franny Moyle, and then visited the Fitzwilliam museum to see a Darwin exhibition of art. This was excellent.
- I have made some progress on the gardening and am trying desperately to still decorate the house. This is due to start any day but illness from the summer and other busy events has meant it just hasn’t happened.
- My relationship with money is still fraught more times than not, but I have continued to save and are financially “better off” than I was six months ago. I try not to worry about money so much but still feel that my finances are on a constant elastic band. Just stretched out to maximum all the time with no slack. Still, have negotiated a better mortgage and hoping to cut some work hours soon.
- I have continued to develop my English skills and had one English lesson from a friend. On the whole though, writing and blogging has had to be put to one side over the summer and I haven’t written as much as I hoped too. I want to work on that still
- I nearly got to visit FORWARD and had the AGM on the calendar and booked. But sadly my Dad had a stroke and he was the priority. I still haven’t made it there yet and this was the third year running something had come along to stop me going. This is disappointing. I plod one with my efforts in my causes. But I am now running and hope to raise money next year for charity by taking part in the GEAR race in King’ Lynn.
- The photography is coming along, all be it a bit slow. However, the arrival of Photoshop and a mate to help me out with it has been invaluable. The photos are starting to progress and I did have a wonderful photo shoot with my Sister-in-Law in the summer.
So there you have it. I don’t think it’s too bad at all. Some success at least. And a very worthwhile exercise to do this was. There has been one more significant thing to tell, and that is I have enrolled to study with the Open University next year.
I will now think about my next set of goals for the next six months. Know what some of them are already, like changing my job. Let’s see how they shape up.
For those of you who know me on Twitter, I am concerned and passionate about climate change and what is going to happen to our planet if we do not reverse the trend of consumption, increase in green house gases, which most of us have heard as carbon dioxide, and reduce our waste and “carbon foot print”. That means how much each of us is contributing to global warming by the way we travel, live, by, bin as rubbish, recycle our waste and use our natural resources.
I enjoy walking and decided on my evening walk tonight to express a few thoughts as to why I enjoy this form of exercise. You know how you just do a thing sometimes, thinking you know why you enjoy it, but have never sat down to fully explain why to yourself, let alone to anybody else.
Yesterday evening was very exciting. I nearly didn’t go. It had been a surprising up-hill week in someways. It shouldn’t have been. I had only been working since Wednesday. But that was the problem. Having enjoyed a lovely long weekend, I just could not get back into work.
At first we were hoping to go away for the weekend but for various reasons that was not on the cards. Then Mr E saw an advertisement for a sustainable living exhibition at the Forum in Norwich and he wanted to go there instead for his birthday day out.
Funerals can sometimes have a weird and unexpected effect upon me. Even though I knew little of the person whose funeral I attended today, it evoked a moist eye and reflective response. It brought back times of another funeral I attended about three years ago. This generated a huge grief response from me. Again, while I was not closely related to the diceased person, the experience left me numb, frozen and in tears.
I thoroughtly enjoyed creating the pictured floral wreath for a funeral tomorrow. It felt pleasing to have not lost my touch since my floristy training over 10 yrs ago. There is not much time to do this kind of work very often.



