Portentous Day! Here’s to the future.

Spring! It has indeed arrived, the sun has risen, hidden behind sister moon, reappeared bravely to warm us, then hidden once more behind rain and wind and cloud. Then appeared again. Such is the nature of Scottish weather, all seasons are perfectly capable of adopting the other three, welcoming them into their fold before once more casting them off. I love this — being prepared becomes second nature when you live up here.

The sky gave a great view of the eclipse, here’s a photo of mine to prove this statement:

And here’s one of the eerie and peculiar light which accompanied this (I was strangely pleased with this one, as the light was so different, so alien, as to be perhaps more important to me, personally, than the actual sun and moon themselves).

I have been working on a different blog piece this week, one all about trees and my relationship to them, but that will not be shared until Tuesday. It is long and needs reworking, but I think I like it.

Think of today as a bonus blog. I think Tuesdays and Thursdays are the likely candidates as to when I shall try and post here. I have several other writing commitments but, as I said in my last brief note, I want to start to fill this place with my words.

Tuesdays should, in theory, be the day I post longer scribbles and, again in theory, Thursdays may well be shorter or more visual. One thing you will soon note is this is my blog and, therefore, my rules. I am going to try and stick to this schedule — not for you, selfish that I am — but for me.

This year has been one of introducing good habits, slowly, steadily and even stealthily. I am making the most of my calendars and diary, dividing time into blocks, then subdividing further. This last week has seen the commencement of a big pink twelve week block centring around exercise and I can already feel it. I am lucky in that I am one of those people who can shed winter fat quickly with minimal effort — yet this will not always be the case, I am sure. I need to start working out how best to use the time I have left, rather than watching the years drift. Being fit and healthy is but a part of this. Focus is the future.

I am building my life upon a foundation and skeleton of words. Various projects are coming to a point where they should (indeed, will) make me some money, and others are being fit in amongst these to ensure a steady flow of fiscal remuneration.

There are many things I want to talk about here. Ideas — half-formed, chewed over, or whole — fill the binder column to the left of the Scrivener project I have named “Online Presence”. Many are almost fully fledged, others mere titles. There will of course be themes, such as my relationship with nature or the written word but there will also be topics which appear to stick out as one-offs, accidental inclusions. It may in part be a form of journal, it may be a notebook, it could even be a place to test some ideas which I may flesh out further for actual-real-cash elsewhere. The future is yet to be fully decided (as all future should be, of course).

I suppose in some ways this piece is a warning — you will like some of what I share, tolerate other parts and perhaps even dislike some (I hope not though — I will not be trying to shock, offend, or hurt, that is not who I am).

As well as this blog I will be putting links to the other places I can be found across the internet, some old haunts, others new. Another task for this weekend is to try and fill in those new places, pepper them with brief-biography and apt photography. Linking them all together seems wise, if time consuming at first.

I will leave this here, the sun has re-re-reappeared, after a brief shower of what seemed to be heavy rain mixed with hail. Tomorrow I have much to do — giving Orlando the Sprocker his first trim of the year, watching the last day of the Six Nations, getting down another two thousand words for the draft I’m working on, editing my tree piece and playing with some plugins and sites.

Happy equinox one and all (I will not say spring, as I know a number of people from the southern hemisphere also occasionally drop by here), I feel this year may be destined for much excitement…