My Corner of The Internet

Things To Make Me Smile (and a few things that annoy me)

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about

As I type I’ve hit 50 and can see it start to recede into the distance I’m now on my own, as I’m cat free, but still living my best life. I love to craft, photograph, read & watch TV. This is to be the place that makes me smile.

  • Decisions

    This is just a small follow up from the post on the 25th of Jan – It’s time to nuke my X/Twitter accounts – I’ve two – one where I’m me and one where I’m not me and therefore a little bit more me. Yes I know that makes no sense whatsoever!  So a quick explanation – on my This Is Deirdre accounts all over the internet – there is a social circle of people I know and they know me (they think). but the thing is I have very thin skin and find ribaldry difficult.  So if I say that I like something and somebody takes the mick and makes fun of that – I’ll just never mention it again because I just don’t want to have to put up with that.  So in order for me to like what I like without have to put MY head above the parapet, I found another name and that profiles likes the things that i like without the fear of ridicule from my friends and acquaintances.  Funnily the ridicule of strangers doesn’t bother me – I just think who the hell are you – and Blocked.  So I have ME and a me in a few places. For now it’s X that’s getting targeted.  I know lots of people have deleted their accounts – well we’re all on Bluesky so a sidestep and keep moving forward – actually Bluesky (https://bsky.app) is waaay better!  I’ve kept both X accounts for different reasons – the ME account – I’m not sure why I just haven’t – I suppose it’s ’cause there are people on there that I like to follow – so yeah I’ve been reluctant – I’ve had the account for YEARS – just checked – I joined in 2009 – now in fairness I’m not a prolific user so my absence won’t make an overall difference.  I’ve had the me account since 2013 – and that was even less of a user – but this one was kept because of one single tweet I made and didn’t want to lose.   Sentimental isn’t even in it!! For the past few weeks I’ve been watching the absolute CarCrash that is America and I just can’t be part of X.  I just can’t.  Everything I’ve read has just given me anxiety – I really think that there will be boots on the ground before his 4 years are up – and the 22nd amendment will have been shredded – I hope I’m wrong – I hope I’m very very wrong.  Last night I decided it’s time – X has to go and so this morning I’ve requested my data and while I’m waiting for that to come in – I’ll go through my follow lists and see if I can find folk elsewhere.  Once my data is secured, the accounts and the apps are all going to be deleted. Like I said in the overall scheme of things it makes no difference – however it does mean that I can look myself in the eye and know that I’m taking a small stand. I’ve also downloaded all of my books from Amazon so that they are mine and not under the control of somebody else’s decisions as to what is and isn’t appropriate, what cover should be on it etc.  I think the only time I’ll be using Amazon for shopping will be to source something and go directly to the shop or the author etc to purchase.  Jeff Bezos doesn’t need my few quid (again not exactly a prolific user) but it soothes my soul.  Mind you the ebooks might be a bit of an issue – I’ll work on it. I’m also contemplating jettisoning my gmail accounts – the me & ME – so I’m investigating alternatives – for my I’m looking to go a bit more Eurocentric ’cause I’m not liking the way the Tech bros are all queuing up.  It’s making me feel a bit queasy and uneasy – so right now I’m looking at what https://european-alternatives.eu/  has to offer.  I think I don’t mind paying a minimum fee and having secured rights.  Again like I said – it’s all being looked at. Is this all a knee jerk reaction – possibly. Is it an exaggerated reaction – no I’ve long wanted to make my internet a little bit more Europe based/Europe Sponsored so it’s time – it’s the push I’ve needed.

  • Encounters

    Why did I let my neighbour erode my joy? Ok – scene – my apartment faces out to a carpark – that’s a spot of exaggeration – my apartment is built behind a row of houses and all the houses have their parking spaces at the back – so the view from one side of the apartment is all cars.  So headlights going on can blind you if you look the wrong way at the wrong time.  By now I’m used to it. Anyway – last year I said to a neighbour, if she sees me taking a photo of her car, I’m not really – I just like the way the headlights catch the light on the road after the rain.  If she thinks I’m being weird, don’t worry.  Now between the light changing and the weather not being what I’d like, curtains being pulled and not having a camera at the ready, I simply haven’t taken the photo – despite looking out the window several times and thinking oh that would have been nice. YESTERDAY! Yesterday I spotted that she had come back and then went out – which meant that she’d be coming back and it had been raining.  So I ran to get my camera – couldn’t get it to do what I wanted so decided the phone was probably the handiest, and all I had to do was wait for her to come back!  She came back and I grabbed my chance. As I finished she beeped, and I went out to her.  She asked what was I doing?  Of course me taking the photo means something to me – me telling her, I’ll take a photo of something, it’s not going to stay in her memory because it’s of no consequence.  So she insisted on me showing her the photo and looked at me as if I was making problems and told me I was crazy and repeated that as she walked away with an annoyed demeanour. I felt at a loss, to be told you’re crazy as in wacky fun etc is ok but to be told you’re crazy like it’s a bad thing, is not nice- it bothered me for the entire evening.  To make matters worse – it was also a rubbish photo – even by my standards.  It’s encounters like this that tend to make me go into myself, to hide away, to hide my interests, to hide who I am, to hide what I like.  So my next challenge to try and not let it upset me too much (- I won’t kid myself and say at all) I don’t take many photos for various reasons but I do love it, I wish I was better at it, in so many different ways – so the trick will be to continue to try to do the thing that I love. I know it’s just a misunderstanding – her of me and most likely me of her. This is the best I could do, out of sorts and just not feeling the love –
  • Slow Sunday Morning

    Slow Sunday Morning

    It’s been a relaxing morning I woke up had a look at the weather forecast and decided that comfort was going to be the order of the day. I eventually got out of the bed and went to the kitchen and blended stuff to make a smoothie type thing.  I’d previously bought a smoothie thing from Lidl and had a fight with it every time I tried it – so I went back and bought the nutribullet thing.  This morning was my first time giving it a go and it worked without any fuss or persuasion. While I was drinking my yogurt, blueberry & banana, I put a coffee on to brew and a pain au chocolat into the airfryer.  I love the treat of it all. I took the coffee and pastry back to bed, put on some jazz to plink away in the background and decided to read the Good Housekeeping on the iPad – it’s pure decadence! Outside I can hear a bit of wind (it’s actually the trees rustling) and the rain is hitting the window, so I have a feeling that the rest of the day is going to continue in this vein

  • Moving Over

    The past evening or two I’ve been going through the list of folk I follow on X and looking to see if they have made the jump to BlueSky. Some have and some haven’t, some even got skipped, and that it possibly the part that made me happy.
    Looking at the list and the batches of people – I can tell what I was watching or what was popular at the time – it’s like strata. However I’m a polite hoarder – and while I was interested in some folk at a specific time they have moved on, as have I, and the interests diverged.  My problem is that I find it difficult to unfollow after that – not impossible though – but it just feels like I’m being mean.  I know – totally weird!
    Anyway – I could say that after the latest exploits of Mr Musk, I’ve decided to jump ship, but given that I was a poor user of the app in the first place, I can only say that it’s given me a bit more impetuous to move house to BlueSky.

    What I like about BlueSky is the different feeds – and the different manipulations you can have.  I have friends that repost a lot of things and some of it is outside of my interest base, so I can jump to an only posts feed that shows only the posts that they have written something in – yes it can have repost in it –  but it gives a context as to why it was reposted.  Or there’s the Mutuals feed where you see the posts of the people you follow, that follow you back.  There’s also feeds for interests that doesn’t only contain the people you follow – it is open to all in sundry, introducing you to new people, ways of thinking, opinions – helps reduce the echo chamber.

    My next mission is to see who, from my FB F-list, is on BlueSky, because as with twitter I’m less and less on FB too.  I’m not mad about Meta and it kills me because I loved Instagram.  I’m a photos girl (girl – ha!  ok – photos lady) and the massive push on videos & reels is just putting me off – Why they just couldn’t develope a new app to rival TikTok – they could have used what they had as a foundation but instead they mashed out the photo aspect and it’s now all videos or selling stuff.  I’m still there ’cause I love the feed that I’ve collected.
    I can’t help but feel that FB destroyed the internet (ok that might be a bit strong) While it made is accessible to all, it homogenised it – gone are the various websites – the individuality. People no longer site hop, it’s all there in their feed. I know on Livejournal we had our friends page but each journal was created to the users taste – the different templates – (the same as here on WordPress)  – your profile where you could list things you were interested in etc. Some of that is on FB but it’s not for people to find you or you to find them -it’s for companies to sell you things, to use the information – it’s not about friends it’s about profits, Metas profits. It just gives me dystopian jitters.

    They know that people find it hard to step away from the familiar, to strike out on their own. It’s funny but moving to another app (no matter which or why) it really does feel akin to emigrating – you’re leaving all of your friends and family behind and you can just hope that some of them will find you again.

  • What do you do, when you don’t do anything?

    I want to blog or write or whatever this is – but I don’t do anything – I’m not joking – I really don’t do anything at all!  It’s like I’m still living in lockdown.

    I occasionally have an opinion on things but it’s never fully formed enough to even try to coax into words – I have been known to answer the questions “what do you think?” or “Did you like it?” with a simple yes or no.  I’m not great on expanding my thoughts internally or externally.

    I do journal – but it’s very stream of consciousness – planning what i might do in the day, what will I eat etc – or trying to figure out what is causing a particular bout of emotions that are being inconvenient.  I rarely go back and do a what i did today – I write forward rather than backward.  And you wouldn’t want to be looking for world events ’cause in the journal they don’t happen.

    Previously I said this was going to be a bit of a mirror for my social media – that didn’t happen but I think I might have to pull up my socks and start filling this with little bits and pieces – just snippets.

    So my big news is – I bought a skipping rope, gave it a try and now my left leg feels like it’s been tortured.  I’m going to try and persist with it, as it was recommended when I went for a Lymphatic Drainage massage.

    However if we know anything about me – it’s persistent and consistent aren’t always within my nature…

    Must Try Harder

  • Frosty Mornings

    For the last few days it’s been a bit cold – not as cold as it could be in fairness.

    There is something so delicate about frost, everything looks blasted and could snap if you touch it.

    This was taken this morning

  • New Year, Same Me

    Yes I’m sat on the sofa watching the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Years Day Concert and I’ve dug out the crochet that I told my Mam I’d do.

    It really doesn’t get better than this!

  • The Confusion of Dreams

    Firstly a slight back story – When I was in London earlier this year, I picked up a gift for my Dad for his Birthday/Christmas. They are both in December and the second gift would dictate whether this was going to be for his birthday or for Christmas. Anyway – I came home and dutifully put it away (Can you see where this might be going??)

    Fast forward 5 months and I was in the local shopping centre, spotted a shop that reminded me I had already made a purchase, but where did I put it? No, not a clue! it’s not in the places I thought it was – and I’m not going to lie, I am panicking! The up-side is that I still have slightly over 2 months to find it – so that’s ok.

    Last night I had a dream that I’d found the gift and it was exactly where I thought it was – how lucky is that??? I’ve gone through most of the day with a sense of relief knowing that I’ve found the item in question. Until now that is, when I’ve just realised it was only a dream and I still have to pull the place apart to find out where it is.

    I was going to make a Bobby Ewing/Patrick Duffy reference but after a conversation last week in work, I’ve realised that it’s waaaay out of date. But if you get the reference than I thank you!

  • From The Thursday Murder Club (again) to Slow Horses

    I might be making a mistake with this but it’s too late now.

    It’s September and with September comes comfort. The days are getting noticeably shorter and giving us darker evenings. The weather, which hasn’t been great to begin with, is slowly getting a bit colder. Dark evenings and colder weather mean the autumn TV schedule is about to kick in. It’s time to curl up on the sofa, with a blanket and a cup of tea and see what’s on the box, or dig out a good book to lose yourself in.  Tomorrow sees the return of Slow Horses, while next week we have the double delight of Strictly Come Dancing AND a new series of books from Richard Osman – “We Solve Murders” – This means I’m going to be sitting on the BorrowBox app so I can get to listen to it sometime this year.

    As a lead up to these delicious comforts, I’ve borrowed  the audiobook of The Thursday Murder Club, again.  With the casting complete and the filming (presumingly) commenced, I’m not convinced it’s a good idea to have the book so fresh in my mind.  For me I find it best to have a decent gap between book and film so that the finer details can fade a little and if they are changed in the film, I’m none the wiser, and I walk away feeling happy.

    I think from here on in, I’m going to try to embody Joyce, although I’ve tried and failed previously – today is always a good day to start a fresh. There is something so good natured about her and as she says early on in TTMC she’s often overlooked, which can be worked to her advantage. I’m sure I’m overlooked but I’m not sure if I can work that to my advantage unless continuing to be overlooked counts (it does). I don’t know what it is but I just really like the tone of the character – she seems to find joy in even the most mundane of things (whilst being caught up in a murder investigation…)

    Re Slow Horses, I’m going to try and leave it ’til the weekend – we’ll see if that really happens. I’m entertained by the fact that I’m delaying gratification with this for the weekend but refuse to do so with the new book coming out. I suppose that’s because with Slow Horses I can give in and treat myself, but once that audiobook hits the app, it gets booked up at such a manic pace that by the end of the first day the waiting list spans years! I fully expect to see 2030 by the end of the day. It comes away pretty quickly because you listen to it and then return it – it’s rare that you would keep it for the full 21days. So every early return whittles down the waiting times. However you still have to wait your turn, unlike Slow Horses when I can just give in and turn on the telly when I want!

    Watch this and tell me, could you postpone watching??    

  • Saturday Success

    I’ve been looking forward to the weekend ever since Thursday. That’s when the wind down started. I did my weekly food shop, and there’s only one more day of work to get through. Yesterday, when I got home from work, I changed to bedding – I also upped the duvet tog. Naturally this meant that it’s heated up again. However the notion of cosy has beaten being slowly roasted for a week or two and the duvet stayed. Saturday’s Plan was get up and get stuck in and then just relax – sounds normal.

    Well, normally, I plan to do something similar – but I get up have breakfast and the next thing I know is it’s almost midday. I get washed and dressed, have a sit down and suddenly it’s 4pm. I mean seriously – how does that happen?? Where does the time go to??

    Not today! While I was having breakfast, I washed the bedding that was taken from the bed last night (it really was too late to put on a wash), got it dried and put away. If I managed to do that alone it would have been a good day. HOWEVER, I made a list! This consisted doing a few things in the Living room, Bathroom, & Bedroom. Whenever I do a list it gets to be a meh – as if it’s all optional. This time I’ve tried to stick to it – to make sure that these are the things I get done. I think it has helped that this time I haven’t overwhelmed myself with things. Bt 4pm today, I’d tidied the livingroom, cleaned up the bathroom and picked up stuff in the bedroom – I’d even swept the leaves from outside of the front door!!

    I know this might down daft, but when I look at the livingroom – it doesn’t look that different but it still feels different. Is it the sense of accomplishment that has made the difference? I don’t know. What I do know is that I can now sit down and relax!

    Another thing I was looking forward to and this is just odd – I was looking forward to a ham,cheese & tomato sandwich for my lunch. WHY??? I think it definitely falls into the category of “notion”. So that is what I had for lunch – and it really did just hit the spot. In addition to that – I made soup – I’m obviously expecting it to get cold any minute now.

    Expecting the cold to arrive definitely explains why I have this on the telly: