Apologies for Absence

It has been a long time since I have posted anything on my blog and there are two main reasons for that. Firstly, the end of 2013 got a little bit crazy – things going on at work; things going on at home. Some of it was planned and pleasant; we finally got around to completing the patio and creating a pond in our back garden. (With the rain we have had in the past weeks the entire garden is beginning to look like a bog and the pond seems like an unnecessary addition!) Some of it was unplanned and unwelcome. Most of it was trivial and taken on its own would not have mattered in the least but combined they robbed me of a great deal of time and energy. We have had problems with our plumbing and electricity and a whole catalogue of problems with cars. Annoying, inconvenient and costly but none of it insurmountable. But a couple of things have been more serious and caused me some distress. We have been through a major restructuring at work. Initially, I did not know if I would be amongst those that were made redundant. Fortunately, I was not but it was stressful waiting to find out who would be affected and upsetting to say good bye to friends and colleagues. Things are beginning to settle down now but we are still trying to work out how we are going to organise ourselves with a 30% reduction in staff.

I am hoping that a new year will bring a change in fortunes and the run of bad luck is over. It hasn’t actually started out that way - my stepson’s car has now broken down and needs a major repair and another potential problem is looming. Still, I mustn’t complain, many parts of Oxford have been flooded and we have been spared that nightmare; no one was hurt or injured!

Now that I have a bit more time and energy, I feel inclined to start blogging again but this is where I am hamstrung by a second obstacle. I like to write things in chronological order but, at the moment I don’t feel inclined to write about things that happened 6 months ago. I want to write about things that are more current and seem more relevant. This is creating a mental road block and preventing me from writing anything at all. I’ve been waiting, hoping that the urge to write will return and then I will produce a steam of blog posts in one creative outburst. It hasn’t happened – except that I have spent the past couple of evenings writing an article for our company newsletter and now this. Maybe, just maybe, these are the first drops that will lead to a flood.

In order to overcome my mental obstacle I have decided to give myself permission to ignore my self-imposed constraint and write ‘out of order’, even to leave things out if I don’t find the inspiration to blog about them! My next few blog posts, if I do indeed get around to writing them, will be RANDOM. Those who know me well, will know just how radical that is!

Happy New Year.