annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take Two

So here I am writing in Word so as not to accidentally delete it like I did last night. Honestly, it was the first time for ages that I thought it was a good, interesting post, rather than me just wittering on, but never mind.


I did explain about Photo A Day in some detail, after a question in the comments, as I think it’s brilliant, so I’ll repeat all that. It was founded ten years ago by Chantelle Ellem, a young Australian woman, who set it up for her group of friends and it's gone on to spread out over the whole world. Checking in for the ten year anniversary she discovered that over 4 million photos have been posted under #fmspad. The fms is for Fat Mum Slim, her user name, and a nod to our local boy made good, Fatboy Slim (she includes her real name too, I'm not being indiscreet). She posts a list of daily prompts every month and after that it’s up to you. The only thing that’s not tolerated is using other people’s photos. You can post the pics online on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, using the general #fmspad tag, but also one for the day’s photo and you can click on that tag to see what others have posted. I tend not to do that until after I’ve finished as I can’t think for myself once I’ve seem other people’s pics.


What it’s given me is a creative focus to stop me ruminating on my problems. I’m not as unwell now as I have been, often for long periods, and then it was amazing to be able to go out with my phone and take masses of photos around a prompt – they’re usually pretty open, like today’s was ‘something blue’. I’d sometimes take mad numbers of photos, like forty, then come back and tweak them for ages till I finally found the best one. My pics were pretty basic to start with, but over the years I’ve developed skills, in composition mostly, but I’m also far more observant, far more appreciative of my neighbourhood. I notice all sorts of things now that I never did before. Some months I do every day, sometimes I opt right out for months on end. Some months the prompts get on my nerves – especially ones about emotions when Sammie was really ill, so then I found a really old month and did those prompts instead. There's no one keeping track - you can do what you like. As you can see, I love this and I really recommend it and I’m adding the most recent list of prompts in case you fancy it – you don’t even need to upload them, if you just want a little creative project.


 


padprompts


The other thing Dangerspouse asked about was kitemaking – that was a thing for the recovery centre but it ended up being a big pisser so I’m not going to repeat all that, but here’s a photo of some of the kites we made out of photocopies of artwork we did during lockdown.


kites


Today has been a bit flat. I have therapy tomorrow after a longer gap than usual. Only two weeks, but it’s too long, it all drifts away and I fall back into operating on auto-pilot, not remembering to check in properly with myself. Like all the grief I’ve been giving myself about the walking – setting up targets then giving myself a hard time for not meeting them, when for fuck’s sake I’m an old woman with a dodgy leg – if I fail to walk miles in January in sub-zero temperatures and a howling, icy gale, I’m not lazy or useless, I’m making a fucking sensible decision given the circumstances. Meh. So I was looking forward to seeing my therapist tomorrow but now her daughter who lives with her might have Covid. She’s testing negative, they both are, but four of the people the daughter spent New Year’s Eve with are ill and have tested positive and she has similar symptoms. She’s done a PCR test but is waiting for the results. So therapist tells me all this and says she’s fine to go ahead if I am, up to me. At first I say yes, then I see the figures – 218,000 new cases today, and that when there’s apparently a massive backlog of PCR tests waiting to be anaylsed in some labs, due to staff absences, due to Covid, and you can’t get a lateral flow testing kit for love nor money, so God only knows what the real figures are. Then I start to think, all these people have behaved in ways that they almost certainly thought would probably be all right, so why am I even thinking of doing the same? My sister-in-law has it, every fucker has it, and I still don’t want it. In my last text I suggested maybe meeting in the park but no reply so far. I have logs and a fire basket...


Today, though, I am grateful for  a warm log fire on a freezing cold night. Happy birthday to Flood and I hope all the rest of you are making good decisions, and keeping AS SAFE AS FUCK, ya hear? Night night xx

11:42 p.m. - 04.01.22

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next

latest entry

about me

archives

notes

DiaryLand

contact

random entry

Desking about - 10.01.22
Winner winner - 09.01.22
Saturday night - 08.01.22
You can't make me - 08.01.22
Cat Hat and That - 06.01.22

other diaries:

jim515
manfromvenus
jarofporter
blueisnotred
orangepeeler
strawberrri
stellarrobot
marywa
blujeans-uk
life-my-way
newschick
narcissa
SWORDFERN
dangerspouse
stepfordtart
ladyofjazz
outer-jessie
joistmonkey
annanotbob
simeons-twin
melodymetuka
ottodixless
floodtide
boombasticat
aliannmil

Site Meter