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As if we haven't had enough snow already this year!!
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I've forgotten what day this is on my 365 photo a day project.
it's not very often we get a chance to visit relatives as a family. I usually work on weekends so when we do get a chance to go out as a family means a lot to me.
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Somebody asked me what person do I think I most resemble? Here is my answer.
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Forgot to post yesterday so posting 2 photos today to make up for it. Here I am at work. I'm in the yard tonight doing shunting duties. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

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Up early to take my son to his 1st day at canto
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After the hectic return to work this week it is nice to have a day to kick back and relax! This is sluggy falling asleep on my knees so I can't move!
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Not posted for a while. Back at work now after 6 weeks off. This is my typical work diet!! Must do something about this to make it healthier. Trouble is I can't be bothered sometimes to make an meal on a work day!! Too knackered.

I'm toying with the idea of posting a photo and a comment here every day that sums up my day or my thoughts and feelings at that moment in time. I wonder if it would work.

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The first thing to address is my fitness level. This has been concerning me for over a year now and it is probably the easiest part of my life to change and I hope will inspire me to tackle the other sucky areas of my life.

Being off with a bad back for so long has severely limited what little exercise I was already doing. The first thing to do is to get out in the daylight and get fresh air, so I am going to find time for a daily 30 min dog walk. Then I am going to start back with going swimming on my days off work.
my son also wants to join a gym so I will join with him. Going together will give us both the encouragement we will need to keep up with this.

I intend to start all this on monday. I will write on here about my progress, good and bad. Let see how this goes! Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

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So, I want to be a writer. But I'll never be a writer unless I actually write something!  I seem to waste most of my time reading other people's blogs and thinking that I could never do that. I'm too lazy, not talented enough or that I don't actually have anything that I can write about.

Well, the only way I'm going to find out if I'm any good at writing is to actually write. Merely thinking about it will get me nowhere. So, here is my 1st serious attempt at writing a blog entry with the hope that other people may be interested enough to read it.  Ok, so my grammar sucks, my spelling is a bit lousy (I hope that by the time you read this I will have caught all the typos) and my subject matter isn't going to rock the world.

What exactly is my subject matter for this blog going to be?  I haven't decided yet. I don't want to become another "self-improvement" blog. Becoming a diary blog won't attract any new readers. At the moment this posterous blog is used for  random ramblings and photos that reflect my current mood.  They may bit a bit too random for most readers I guess.

 I  could blog about my wish to completely change my lifestyle. At the moment I am in a dark place regarding my life. There are quite a few things I want to change. We have a big house that soaks up the majority of money our household earns each month. I work in a relatively well paid job, but I absolutely hate it, however, I am trapped in it because of the mortgage we have to pay each month.

God, that sounds really negative!! But to understand where I am coming from you need to know it. Here is our plan for 2010:

• To sell up and move somewhere less costly to run
• To quit our jobs and "drop out" of the rat race
• To be debt free by this time next year

Now, we have a few plans. 

• We would like to find a small-holding and be as self-sufficient as possible.
• My wife Claire would like to open a tea shop where she can spend all her time cooking for people using produce from our small-holding. (She is of Irish descent and you know how much they love their food!!)
• I would like to make a go of becoming a professional writer
• I would also like to make a go at becoming a PC repair tech (self employed)

Our ultimate aim is to life a life that is as stress free as possible while allowing ourselves time to actually be with one another.

I guess many of my blog posts will be concerning the steps we are making towards our dreams. Perhaps you have already done what we are dreaming of doing. Any tips? 

Anyway, if you haven't fallen asleep reading this post then well done and thank you!!  Please comment on it, even if it is only to say hi.

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Showing the results of my son's snowball target practice!!
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I am a professional worrier. I worry about everything, will I make it through the night at work on only 4 hours of sleep? What will happen if I don’t take the dogs out today? Will my writing ever be good enough to make a living from?

Sometimes this worrying is useful, such as making sure the house is secured before I go out. Making sure I give plenty of time to get to that appointment. Mostly, though, it is a handicap.

I drive lorries not because I want to but because I believe it is the only thing I am any good at doing.  It is the easy option. As a result, I find myself in a rut. I have a well paid job but I don’t enjoy it. I need this high level of pay in order to meet my bills each month. To change careers to something I enjoy at my stage in life would be financial suicide.  As you can see I am a bit stuck, despite vowing never to allow myself to fall into any ruts. I am good at helping other people to sort their lives out but seem blind when it comes to sorting my own life out.

There are two areas I have always had an interest in and would have loved to have built a career in. 

The first is computers: I can build PC’s and I am reasonably good at troubleshooting them. I am currently learning about programming and this is an area I am interested in developing. At the moment it is a hobby and I guess it will always be that way, after all 45 is a bit late to be starting a career in I.T. it is a young person’s game where they can start at the bottom and build a lifetime career. I would need to start halfway up the career ladder in order to match my current wages. I don’t suppose anyone would employ me now.

The second is writing: from a very early age I used to write short stories and English was always my favourite subject at school. Often, when we were asked to write an essay or story as homework I would get carried away and write more than I really needed to. I was recommended to pursue a career in journalism at school, so naturally I went into the post office!!  

In adulthood my writing, like my computer hobby, took a back seat as I got married and started a family. It was not until my first marriage ended 14 years ago that I resumed writing (and computing).  In the 16 years between leaving school and the end of my first marriage my imagination had dried out somewhat as I learned how to be a serious adult. 

I have many story fragments written that just need developing. Writing, such as this post and stuff I put on my old blogger account, are like practice for a fantasy future in which I can sit here and earn my living in my dining room while the rest of the world battles with traffic and soulless offices!! 

Anyway, who knows what the future holds?  Hopefully not any more navel gazing and depressing blog posts like this one and my last post eh? :-)

I promise that my next post will be about something more optimistic, like what I want to achieve in 2010 and what sort of year  2009 and even the last decade have been for me. I may even post some photos, after all this account was meant to be my random, no agenda blog where anything goes and there doesn’t have to be any reason for it.

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I’ve always wanted to be a professional writer, right from an early age. Many of my teachers at school used to say I had a good writing voice and some even went as far as to say I should consider journalism when I leave school.  I really wish I’d listened to them. But I was far too weak minded in those days, I didn’t think I was a good enough writer to even consider it as a career. After all, look at the books I was reading, C.S. Lewis, Watership Down, Enid Blyton to name but a few. How could I possibly ever be as good as them?  I didn’t even stop to consider the option that they all must have had stacks of drafts of their books that sucked and probably had tons of notebooks with unused sketches and snippets of story ideas in them that they never used because they were not happy with them!

So, I quietly slipped into adulthood thinking myself only good enough to do unskilled manual work, first in a shoe shop, then at the post office.  Then came marriage. fatherhood and Bills took over my life and before I realised, I had slipped into a predictable rut of just existing rather than actually living.

And here I am, 27 years later and a lifetime of unfulfilling jobs later with only fragments of a dream to be a writer staying with me.  However now I find myself in a position to have a go at actually writing something and trying to get paid for it! Here I sit, off work with a bad back, unable to do my full time job of lorry driving just in case I put my back out again. This leaves me with a few weeks of spare time which I have decided not to waste in browsing the internet or playing computer games. This time I have given myself two projects I want to try while I have the time: 

The first one is relatively easy. I want to learn how to write computer programs. I have a book on the basics of programming and when I finish that I will get myself a book on C++ and learn that.  That is the easy bit because this follows a structured lesson path for 2 hours each day which I can alternate with dog walks to exercise my back ready for my eventual return to work.

The other project is not quite so simple. I have laid myself the challenge of re-discovering my writing skills. But I want to go further than that. Before I go back to work I want to have been paid for a piece of writing. Not only does this mean I have to re-learn how to write. I also have to research the writing industry and find out where the writing jobs are advertised and what sort of writing is in demand at the moment. Then, of course there is the tiny matter of getting someone to pay me for a piece of my work.

Ok, these are my 2 challenges. I’m guessing I will be off work for 2 weeks, which will have me returning to work on the day after Boxing Day. This gives me eleven days to try to achieve these goals in.

Wish me luck I think I’m going to need it!

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