Day One

A well earned day off :-)

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Barbara

Having completely industrially cleaned my living room and hallway yesterday, re-arranged the whole place, and then helped Peter start our MASSIVE garden project, we decided we needed a day off 🙂

The house is looking much better, the garden has been transformed, we had a huge bonfire & got rid of loads and loads of junk & weeds & brambles. We fixed the fence between our house and the soon to be re-occupied council house next door. (when we moved her we had amazing neighbours, Dorris aged 78 & Gordon aged 80. Gordon died earlier this year at the ripe old age of 92 & Dorris’s family have put her in a home. She was very sad and lonely without Gordon, so hopefully she will be happier there. They were married during the war aged 18 & 22, and had been together since Dorris was 14!! Will find a photo & tell what I know of their story on here sometime soon. They have a nice 3 bed house with a garden, so we are expecting a young family. Maybe some babysitting for the girls? Who knows.

Today summer has finally arrived! We have come down to our boat which was moored on a buoy in Langstone Sailing Club, and we have moved her to Emsworth Marina, probably for the rest of the summer so we can have more access.

Sitting on deck, sunbathing, listening to the tinkle of masts & the birds & ducks all around us. About to set off for a long walk back to Langstone Bridge shortly to collect the car along the foreshore 🙂 Just wish I could find my camera!! Oh well, if there is anything amazing to photograph I will have to have a go with my phone.

This one of the boat I took with my iPad

Posted in Boats, Life, Myrtle, Photography, Water, Wilson | Tagged boat, Chichester Harbour, Colvic Countess 28, Egeria, Langstone Sailing Club, Myrtle, Slipway Marine, Summer, Wilson | 8 Comments

… Myrtle is Missing!

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Barbara

It was a lovely hot sunny day today, so while I was in the middle of reorganising the entire living room as a part of my hoovering frenzy, I thought myrtle would like a spell in the garden

Later Peter asked me to help him with a massive clear out we have been putting off for ages in the back garden, so I went and did that too…

We forgot about Myrtle for a while, and when we went to look for her she was nowhere to be found! I looked for ages in all of her usual haunts, but I couldn’t find her 😦 Hopefully she will be ok overnight as it is lots warmer than it was a few days ago & no rain is forecast!

Help!

Posted in Myrtle, Pets | Tagged Greek Spur Thighed Tortoise, Missing Tortoise, Tortoises in the garden | 6 Comments

Just for Today

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Barbara

…. I will have a plan. I may not follow it exactly…..

I have always had ‘to-do’ lists. I am dyslexic, I can not stay focussed on the task I am currently doing let alone keep track of all the things that I absolutely must do before the end of the day! While composing this blog I have also started downloading photos from my camera, hanging out some washing, setting up an iTunes play list on another computer & am currently resisting checking Facebook!

As I progressed in various careers, my ‘to-do’ lists became more important, and missing out things left me playing catch up at weekends or in the evenings. Soon I found myself getting in a real mess, always putting off the things I really needed to do until last, and procrastinating until the very end. Sometimes those big important things were things I didn’t know how to start, or how to do…. but they began to loom over me and I used to suffer from anxiety attacks and poor self esteem as I felt that I was working non stop but didn’t seem to manage to ever get anything done.

Then I found a great solution that really works. Every day i looked at my ‘to-do’ list and found the one thing that I really had to do that day, and that became my to-do list. Just that one thing. All day, whatever I was doing, i knew that I had to do that one thing. Some days i procrastinated all day with lots of other little (and big) things that were also on my ‘to-do’ list, but as long as I did my one thing, then I would congratulate myself & feel good about the day.

It works!

Today my ‘One Big Thing’ is to hoover downstairs at home thoroughly. I have been putting this one off for some time, waiting until I have finished work. Now I have, this is my one big thing for today!

So far I have had a lovely long lie-in, sorted out a months clean laundry, collected my daughter & her friend, hung out some more washing, tidied my shoes (a whole other blog), picked some food for Myrtle (tortoise) in the garden, and now I’m writing this….

The hoover awaits!

Posted in Life, Pets, Photography, Wilson | Tagged dyslexia, housework, one day at a time, procrastination, saturdays, to-do list, to-do lists, Wilson | 2 Comments

Wilson, the Dog of my Understanding

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Barbara

Today I have finished teaching for this school year,
finished working at my school,
and am about to embark on a new era;
I am becoming freelance, self employed, an independent consultant, a specialist;

I am a Maths teacher, a great one, and I also love working with children, teenagers, who can not, or will not for whatever reason, fit into ‘the box’. I am really really good at working with these disengaged children, through the medium of Mathematics.

I am skilled at helping them overcome the barriers that they have built up to education, and have had some great successes in helping them begin to love the challenge of maths, and the greater challenge of heading into adulthood with self belief and the understanding that they hold their future’s in their own hands.

Today I look to our dog Wilson for guidance as I step into the great unknown (for me) of self employment!

Wilson lives every moment of every day as a brand new start, every morning he wakes up with such enthusiasm about what might be in store for the day.

This is how I plan to approach my new way of working. Every day will be day one. I have so many things I want to do ‘in my spare time’ ‘in the holidays’ ‘at the weekend’ ‘when I get time’. So many things I need to do to get this new venture off the ground both in theory and in practice. So many other bits and pieces that I keep putting off ‘until the summer’ ‘until it gets warm’ ‘until I have a day at home’ ……

This is it. Today is that day!

Let’s go Wilson!