Category: writing

End of the Year 2023

On By TontowilliamsIn Annual Review, books, Dog, Film, Garden / Allotment, Life, tv, walking, Wildlife/Nature, Wilson's Story, work, writing2 Comments

I couldn’t decide whether I was going to sit and write one of these this year or not. I’ve done something like this most years but the latter part of this year I’ve not been really feeling the desire to blog or write my newsletter or even be on the socials much. Some of this is because in the case of the site formerly known as twitter it’s pretty much a horror story these days and unless you’re paying for your account you’re unlikely to show up in anyone’s feed, so why bother. Most of it though is because I’ve just not felt much in the way of creative energy to write, I pushed through AudioMo because I do genuinely enjoy it but the energy just hasn’t been there since April when we lost Wilson.

He was 13 and hadn’t been well for a number of years, one thing on top of another was finally too much and when he stopped eating and drinking it was obvious. I try and remember the good times, but I miss him terribly and genuinely struggle some days.

I am hoping that I will be writing more in 2024, and probably here rather than anywhere else. I think that perhaps my newsletter has run its course, and I have more control over what happens here than anywhere else. I’ve heard some people talk of a resurgence in blogging since the demise of twitter, I’m not sure if that is likely to be true or not but I’d rather set out my shingle here than anywhere else.

So what else has been happening in 2023? Let’s see shall we?

Books
I’ve read a lot this year, at last count 109 112 books, more than I’ve ever read in any year previously that I’ve got a detailed record for. You can check them all out on GoodReads here. I’ve been continuing to read some old favourite series such as Simenon’s Maigret novels and discovering some newer ones too. I also finally managed to read all of Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” probably ten years after it came out and I bought it in paperback. I actually enjoyed it too and have been enjoying a bit of a King renaissance this year, which I’ll probably continue next year, along with a couple of other authors. A couple of stand-outs for me though were some of the most troubling books that I read. “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” and “Berlin Diaries” by William L Shirer. I wanted to read the former with a view to seeing if what happened 80 – 90 years ago bears any resemblance to what is happening in the world now, and in particular is reflected in some of the politics of this country. Whilst what happened then might be remembered as being some extremes of humanity, it didn’t necessarily start that way and I think we would be well advised to remember the times before the world was at war and what was happening. It’s a slippery slope and there are certainly examples of gaslighting and lying and reinforcing those lies in our modern political discourse that are exactly the early behaviours seen then.

We can and should be better than that and as nations and governments are too good at ignoring the facts because they do not fit the narrative that we want to tell, rather than being honest about them.

Watching
I haven’t watched much of anything this year, hence why I’ve had so much reading time. I did enjoy the final season of Jack Ryan on Amazon but other than that I haven’t watched much. There are several things that I would like to see, the new seasons of Foundation and Slow Horses on Apple TV+ but we stopped our subscription to those as we weren’t watching. I also have a stack of things recorded that I should try to watch or delete if I’m not going to. I was planning on doing some of this over the Christmas break but I haven’t managed it yet.

Work
This year started slow, but picked up a lot of pace in the latter half of the year. Overall I’d say it’s been a successful year for me. Some old clients and some new ones, and some interesting projects that blurred the lines a little between work and personal projects (in a good way).

Gardening
There is always more I could have done this year in the garden, but I think I’d say that I’ve pretty much hit the minimum targets that I had and a few additional things. Next year I am hoping to devote more time to the garden generally and now we’ve seen it through a full year that means we have a better idea of some the things that we want to achieve next year.

Outside
I’m still walking between 5 and 6 miles most days (a bit less when it’s raining hard) and it’s a delight, it has helped to keep me balanced mentally and physically and it is not something that I am planning to pull back from next year. I’ve kept notes pretty much everyday of the things I’ve seen and heard and want to double down on that particularly next year.

To 2024
As I said at the outset I hope to be more present here in 2024, but please don’t hold me to that, I need a certain amount of mental space to be able to write these posts and ones similar to those I have before and during a good chunk of 2023 I just didn’t have it. There are a couple of big changes that happened at the beginning of December however that were bigs things for me to have removed from my life and I hope that now gives me the mental space and more importantly the time to be able to get back to writing more.

Black Swan Smackdown – TWTW # 21

On By TontowilliamsIn Birds, books, Dog, Garden / Allotment, The Week That Was, Wildlife/Nature, writing2 Comments

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I feel a little like I’ve been running around a lot this last week. Ruled to some extent by the timings of appointments with my Mum’s doctor and with our vet, for Wilson. Just one of those weeks, and the upcoming one is looking like being a little similar, although with a different set of appointments and people to see and places to be.

On Tuesday I walked down to the creek to see if the Mute Swans that nest there had hatched any cygnets yet, and I was treated to a bit of a surprise. Here’s what I wrote on Instagram:

This Black Swan got a little too close to the nesting Mute Swan pair, and kept coming back despite being chased off by the Cob a couple of times previously.

The Cob eventually went all in and pursued the Black Swan up on to the mud where he pinned it to the ground and then proceeded to attack, pecking at the back, neck and head of the Black Swan. It was brutal to watch and went on for several minutes. Here’s the last 30 seconds where the Black Swan managed to escape and appears to be okay.

Nesting Mute Swans are very territorial and won’t tolerate other swans on their “patch”. The female is still sitting on the nest, no sign of chicks yet.

The video is below, it’s a bit blurry because I was so far away, but you get the gist of what was going on.

I’ve been watching Jo and Michael’s travels on their narrowboat on YouTube for a while. They posted this video yesterday of their crossing of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (best watched full screen).

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I’ve been reading “The Sixteen Trees of the Somme” by Lars Mytting this week. It’s probably one of the best books I’ve read this year so far and I thoroughly recommend it. It’s a little different to my normal fair, and although there is a mystery at the heart of the story it is much more about the characters and the people.

 

 

 

img_20190607_155746699I also got sent some surprise back-catalogue books from my friends at Elliott & Thompson Books. I haven’t had a chance to properly look at them yet but hope to get to them later this coming week.

 

 

 

 

How do authors earn a living

Six Weeks, One Hundred Miles of Walking in Japan

That’s about it for this week, I’m hoping to get my tomatoes set-up in the potting shed this week at some point, and there are several other things that I’d like to get done in the gaps in my diary. We’ll see how that goes!

 

Pineider Ink Filler – Demo & Review

On By TontowilliamsIn Gadgets, tech, Video, writing1 Comment

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I was given a Pineider Ink Filler (portable ink well) as a birthday present a couple of weeks ago. I’ve had a chance to use it a bit and I have to say for the price (about £20), it’s a great bit of kit. Only downside I can see is the top stopper and how durable that will be in the longer term.

Mine was purchased from Cult Pens but other stationery suppliers are available.

Now that I’ve used it a bit I thought I’d do a short demonstration and review video. You can find the video below.

Still Posting Daily

On By TontowilliamsIn writing1 Comment

I started this post-a-day thing, back on December 11th 2016, with the initial intention of going until the end of the year, but seem to have managed to carry it on to this point at least.

There have been a couple of days when I’ve been posting quite late in the day, and have nearly broken the chain, but I’ve managed it so far. Some posts are written a few days in advance (this is one of them), which helps me with scheduling and other things happening, and others are more spur of the moment.

Making no promises I’m going to keep going for now and just see what happens. I don’t want to feel forced into writing daily (and I don’t at the moment), but I also have the little voice in the back of my head telling me not to break the chain!

Unbroken Chain

On By TontowilliamsIn Life, writing1 Comment

I seem to have tripped over the point of a month of continuous blog posts without realising. My original intention was to go until December 31st 2016 and stop, but I kept going. There were a couple of days when I thought I’d stop and didn’t, and the chain might break tomorrow. I have no idea.

If you have been reading, thank you.

Post A Day Review

On By TontowilliamsIn Life, writing12 Comments

I’ve been doing this post a day thing for nearly three weeks and I wanted to take stock of some of the things I’ve learned, and review where I go from here. There’ll be a final post tomorrow (my fourth quarter review), and probably one on January 1st, what happens beyond that I’m undecided.

I know a couple of bloggers / writers who post everyday, and mostly what they post I enjoy reading. Although I’ve managed to find something to post myself everyday for the last three weeks, it has felt a little bit forced on some days – like I’ve had to find something to write about because I said I would – so I don’t think it’s been my best writing. Although I like the discipline of making myself write / post something everyday.

Some days I’ve fallen back on posts that would happen anyway e.g. Quick Links, which go out every Monday anyway, and I’ve been quite glad of them, although obviously those are written too.

I’ve often written posts a day or two before they actually go live, so it’s not been as spontaneous as I would have liked, but it was the only way I could actually make a post a day. Although I like knowing that a scheduled post will appear around 7am (GMT) everyday.

I’ve posted things that I might otherwise not have made it onto the blog. Mostly I think this has been good.

I’m erring towards not continuing to post everyday, but perhaps posting more frequently –  e.g. three times a week – than I have been. I’m not sure though whether I can be disciplined enough to do this though, or will forget. For now I’m just going to see what happens, rather than try and force something that might end up being less than perfect.

What do you readers think, let me know via the comments below, and in the meantime I wish you all a very happy New Year.

 

A Ban On Petrol And Diesel Cars

On By TontowilliamsIn work, writing5 Comments

A short piece that I wrote for LinkedIn yesterday:

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On Friday (9th December 2016), The Independent published a story that Jeremy Corbyn is considering a ban on petrol and diesel car sales as a future policy of a Labour Government, amongst other things.
Could It Actually Happen

Now obviously this is a long way from being the policy of any government but let’s just say that in 2020 a new government comes into power and this is a keystone policy of their manifesto; a ban on all new fossil fuel car sales within 10 years and let’s also assume that the legislation achieves Royal Assent within a year; so some time around May 2031 you won’t be able to buy a new car that is powered by petrol, diesel and probably LPG as well.

A big ask? Yes. Impossible? No.

It’s obviously not a simple issue but leadership from government is likely the only way it would happen. It would need a considerable amount of discussions with many groups – car makers, petroleum industry, fuel sales and local authorities to name a few – and that had better start now, otherwise there’ll be issues at the ballot box, so don’t forget the car owners either.

Infrastructure

Assuming it happens, what about infrastructure. For electric vehicles it’s going to need far more that the current minimal level of charging points, and possibly a shift towards inductive charging in many places because plugging that many vehicles in just isn’t going to be possible. Think for example of all those “on-street” vehicles that are parked each night, and not necessarily outside of their owner’s home, but if the street had an inductive charging plate underneath the tarmac and with compatible vehicles – not a problem. Although what about the underlying infrastructure – the power that is required to feed those charging points? The local grid operators will most certainly be looking to upgrade to meet demand, and spikes in demand (when everyone comes home from work and parks their car) will require some balancing. Smarter grids, and delivery of associated technological advances are also going to be needed. This isn’t just a simple policy centred in one area i.e. cars, it has massive implications for many sectors.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and gas from biodigesitble waste (as mentioned in the article) would be less of an issue to refuel and could be achieved through adaptation of existing forecourts, but would still require a massive infrastructure shift in order to generate the fuel in the first place, but diversification by current providers could provide solutions if they were willing or a massive opportunity in the market for others.

Car Sales

So what about car sales. There are currently about 90,000 electric vehicles on the road in the UK, just under 30,000 of these were sold in 2015 (these figures include hybrids and plug-in hybrids and also includes some light vans), compared to a total of 2.6 million new vehicles sold in 2015 i.e. just over 1% of new vehicles were electric. So how do you go about moving this trend totally in the other direction, and what impact is it likely to have on the second-hand car market, particularly the newly new and under three years old vehicles, particularly around 2031? Also what exactly is going to constitute a car – anything with 8 seats or less or will it include small commercial vehicles as well?

What Next

Well I could go on, but I have been and would continue to be speculating, and this piece is already long enough. This is one report in one newspaper and political scandals have been made of less. So let’s wait and see for now.

Personally if it’s true I think it is the sort of bold policy that is required in this country but it needs some proper research and discussion before anyone should actually include it in their manifesto.

The contents of this post are the views of the author alone, and do not represent those of any employer or client that the author is working for, either now or historically.

Export Highlights From Your Kindle

On By TontowilliamsIn Kindle, tech, writing2 Comments

I highlight a lot on my kindle, particularly when I’m researching a particular topic or just to highlight particularly inspiring passages for future reference.

Now there’s a great “new” feature on Kindle which now allows you to directly export your highlights via email, and receive them as both .pdf and csv files. There have been ways to do this via http://kindle.amazon.com for a while now, and your highlights are still stored there, but this is a more direct service.

Firstly you need to make sure you’re running the most recent version of the kindle OS on your device (I’ve got a Kindle Paperwhite, and it’s now running ver. 5.8.2).

In a book that you have highlights, tap at the top of the screen to bring up the Menus, then tap “Go To”:

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On the next screen tap “Notes”:

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Then tap “Export Notes”:

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And then finally tap “Send”:

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As you’ll see from the image above this sends the notes to your Amazon email address, and you should end up getting an email that looks something like this:

Screenshot 2016-08-24 08.57.02

The pdf is a nice little document in it’s own right and the CSV file, allows for easy transfer from a spreadsheet to other places e.g. the research folder in Scrivener.

This is a great feature, and one that I feel I will be using a lot, particularly for background research.

First Quarter Review 2016

On By TontowilliamsIn Annual Review, Being Positive, books, Film, Fork To Fork, Garden / Allotment, Kindle, Life, redundancy, Self-sufficient, tv, Video, writing3 Comments

Each year for the past few years I’ve been doing a year end review; books I’ve read, films/tv programmes I’ve watched and other things related to work and the allotment. You can read the end of 2015 here, if you’re interested.

The problem I have is trying to remember stuff (that might be an age thing). I guess that the things that were really good, tend to stick in my mind, as they should, but some of the things that were okay but not outstanding, tend to get forgotten.

So I thought I’d try doing a quick review of each quarter of the year, during 2016; rather than trying to remember everything in December. We’ll see how it goes, and hopefully I’ll remember to do ones at the end of June and September!

Work

Last year I went from being an employee to being self-employed. It was a significant moment for me, and started out well. Although the first three months of this year have been quieter than the tail end of last year, there’s still be a steady flow of work and this has also allowed me to think about goal setting for the year, and also work on some other projects. I don’t want to talk about those other projects at the moment, except to say that they focus more on the allotment / growing / fork-to-fork side of things, and although they are unlikely to make me rich (not that I ever particularly want to be rich), I hope that they might eventually generate some income, and perhaps give me a better quality more sustainable lifestyle. We’ll see.

I’ve also started much more consciously sharing my work side, posts on this blog like the Quick Links that are appearing on Tuesdays, and some new pages are a step in that direction. If anyone has any feedback on those things or any questions, then do please leave a comment below.

Allotment

As you might expect the tale end of winter is a quiet time on the allotment, and although we’ve been continuing to harvest brassicas, leeks and a few other small things, not much has really been happening, apart from the bits that link to work (see above), and I hope I’ll be able to share more on that in due course.

Things are starting to pick up now though, as the weather gets warmer and heats up the soil, the risk of frost decreases and the days get longer. Soon things will be in full swing. I’m looking forward to what I hope will be a good, productive year.

Books

So far I seem to have managed to read 14 books in the past three months, which I am quite surprised about. You can see what I’ve been reading here. Of them, there are a couple that stand out for me. Colter by Rick Bass is one and The Road To Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson is the other. The latter speaks to me because it touches on some of the things that I feel are going wrong with this country, and without wishing to get too political here and now, it was refreshing to read that I am not alone with my thoughts and perceptions. The former of the two was by a new author to me, and I’ll say now if you have a problem with hunting for food, you might want to give this one a miss, as Colter is a German Short-haired Pointer that is the author’s hunting dog, and a lot of the book is devoted to hunts. With that caveat I’d recommend both.

Films & TV

A few things here. Firstly the second season of Bosch, has just aired on Amazon Prime. I mentioned the first season in my review of 2015, and I’m pleased it was commissioned for a second season, and hopefully there will be a third. Although it was only released at the beginning of the month, I have already managed to watch all ten episodes and loved it! I’d thoroughly recommend to anyone who likes crime drama

I’ve also watched the most recent Bond film – Spectre when it went to DVD, although I enjoyed it, I don’t really want to rave about it as it was okay, but not that outstanding. If I was writing this in December I probably wouldn’t even mention it.

A final mention though for A Walk in the Woods, adapted from Bill Bryson’s novel of the same name. Again another DVD watch, but one that I really enjoyed. My only criticism is that it came to a somewhat abrupt end, and was over before I felt it really got going. Robert Redford and Nick Nolte were excellent.

Life In General

Is pretty good I think; we managed to have our first holiday in about three years in March, another benefit of being my own boss now and not having to worry about the threat of being made redundant. I’m enjoying working from home, and setting my own goals and timetables. I have lots planned for this year, and things I want to get achieved. So far so good though, looks like I’m on course.

My Review of 2015

On By TontowilliamsIn Annual Review, Being Positive, books, Film, Garden / Allotment, Kindle, redundancy, Self-sufficient, Wildlife/Nature, writing2 Comments

As 2015 winds its way into 2016, I thought I would sit and review a few bits of my year.

Work

On the work front it’s been a significant year for me. About 12 months ago, I was working out numbers and calculating where I might end up if I accepted a voluntary redundancy offer. By the end of July I had gone from being an employee to being self-employed and my own boss. I wasn’t quite planning things that way, but so far my new business has been going well enough to keep me working and provide an income, as well as allow me to do some other development work, but there is still much more for me to do, and whilst I need to sit and do some planning for 2016 and how this is going to work for me, I don’t really know what next year will bring on the work front.

This change in my work, although probably one of the biggest steps I’ve taken in my life, and potentially very stressful, has given me a much better work / life balance than I had before and maybe have ever had. I don’t know how it’s going to work out in the longer term, but I feel like I’m generally moving in the right direction.

Allotment

This year has been one of my best years on the allotment. We’ve pretty much been self-sufficient for vegetables from late spring, all through the summer and into autumn, only have to buy things like mushrooms and peppers, which I didn’t grow. Next year, I’m planning on growing peppers, so that should change as well. I’ve also enjoyed my plot more than I ever have. I know that sounds a little odd, but I’ve really gotten engaged in what I’ve been doing and been keeping much better records than ever before in a pocket notebook, so that I can look back and see how things have been. As the winter has approached I’ve kept a few things going and we’ve had a supply of winter vegetables as well. I’m now looking forward to next year, with even bigger plans.

Books

Last year was a poor year for me, finding time to read, and at the start of this year, I set my sights relatively low, not anticipating reading many books. In the end I’ve ended up reading nearly 50 books (I might actually achieve 50 before the year is out), which has quite surprised me. You can see what I’ve been reading on GoodReads, here.

My book of the year has to be Common Ground by Rob Cowen it’s an incredible book, which I’ve now read twice, and still dip into again and again. It’s made me reconnect much more with urban wildlife, as Rob tells the story of his “edgelands” and the wildlife near Bilton in Harrogate. It’s full of vivid descriptions, and stories putting the reader in the place of the wildlife as well as being a really personal account. I look forward to reading more by this author in the future.

My other highlights are also all natural history books, including H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald, The Peregrine by J A Baker, Claxton by Mark Cocker,  and Notes From Walnut Tree Farm & Wildwood by the late Roger Deakin. I could name more, and probably I’ve enjoyed nearly everything I’ve read this year. I just hope that 2016 brings more of the same. We’ll see.

Films & TV

I can’t say that I there was anything really memorable to write about here. I enjoyed the final Hobbit movie, but otherwise I don’t really remember what else I’ve watched this year. On the TV side there have been a few things, but the one that I really want to mention is Bosch which has been available on Amazon Video. This has bought Michael Connelly’s character from over 20 books to the small screen – Harry Bosch. It’s been a great series and I’m pleased that there is going to be a second season, probably early next year.

2016?

As for next year, I don’t know what I want from the year yet. I need to sit and do some planning, both professionally and personally. Set myself some targets and goals. I might come back and share this in due course.