A real blog post

It’s nearly the end of April’s photo challenge and I’ve missed writing properly here. One day I’m going to record how many words I type in a week because it’s insane. Over the last week alone I’ve written eight blog posts (the shortest being 500 words), several content pages and spec documents, probably around 50 tweets, various commercial and personal Facebook and Google+ updates and discussions, countless emails, pin descriptions and various other things. I spend most of every day writing, but as usual, Blossom gets pretty much ignored.

This time last year I had a couple of websites, and now I’m actively working on many more. It’s hard to scale up, and even though I’ve cut back on client work significantly, I still don’t have as much time to dedicate to my own sites as I’d like. It’s one thing to have multiple revenue streams, but quite another to be spreading yourself thinly. Not to mention that forty hours of my week is eaten up by my ‘real job’, and I also have a million and one other things I need to do. Having said that, my mum is staying with us and helping out massively by cooking and so on. I absolutely hate cooking anyway (baking is an entirely different story), so it’s a real blessing.

What’s not such a blessing is the weather. It’s been alternating between showers and pouring down, and as I’m writing this it’s hammering down on the conservatory roof, scuppering my plans to go to the gym (a 2 mile walk each way means I’d be a drowned rat with soaked jeans to my knees by the time I got even halfway there). On the other hand, today the rain is a plus as it means I can get my head down and finish up the last of a client’s work for the month without getting distracted. I might try and get to the pub for Sunday lunch, or I might finish off the leftover lasagne. It’s nice to have easy decisions to make for a day, and a lot less cleaning to do than I used to. I’ve done the washing up, hoovered downstairs and cleaned the bathroom, so my share is done. Since our housemates moved out about three or four weeks ago, there’s been a lot less cleaning and tidying to do generally. And since my mum moved in, there’s been no running around at 7am or 7:30am in the usual mad rush to shower, get dressed, feed the cats, water the plants, put laundry away, do the washing up, make some lunch and sort the recycling before I leave at 8:40. Do it another time? Give me a few more hours in the day and I will, gladly.

The other main change is that we’re spending a lot more time in the house. Previously we ate out a LOT, easily four or even five times a week. Now we mainly cook and eat at home, and my bank account is the healthier for it. Our kitchen is tiny and never seemed to be free, and having to wash up a whole load of stuff other people used before we could cook – at a time that was usually too late for me to be eating let alone cooking – was usually more effort than it was worth. Far easier to go to town at a reasonable time and pay someone else to do the hard work. The bills will also be a hell of a lot cheaper moving forward as well, on account of how we have ten minute showers rather than hour long ones. There are fewer computers running, and the TV isn’t on as much. The killer is really the council tax, which is £120/month that I get practically nothing for. I haven’t used the police or fire brigade since I moved here. I’ve been to the hospital once for something very minor. There is no street lighting on the walk to work, the bins are always overflowing, and our road is private and maintained by the residents. The only thing the council does for me, other than charge extortionate bus fares, is collect the recycling and rubbish on alternate weeks. Which they proudly informed me via leaflet a few months ago costs 72p per week. I’d live in the council library to get my money’s worth, but they’ve started charging to use the Internet. It’s a joke.

Anyway, enough ranting – I have work to do! So, what did you get up to this weekend?