So Along Presently is back, in a way. I've felt the itch to carry on blogging lately and I like this name too much to consider starting completely from scratch.
It's on a different platform, though - so click here to check it out.
It's not a direct continuation of this blog; the main difference being that I'm going to make no attempt to make the new one a daily blog, or to attempt to write about everything I'm up to. It's to be about whatever I want, and updated whenever I want. Hopefully with the pressure off I'll write more thoughtfully and less objectively. Just writing at all is good, though.
I'm also in the process of reviving my tech blog project which is called Nerdmirer. It's not ready quite yet - but hopefully I'll be able to give that a bit of attention too in the coming days and weeks.
M
Wednesday 16 February 2011
Monday 3 January 2011
The End...For Now
This is the 286th post on Along Presently. It's also, at least for now, the last.
I started a daily blog having been inspired by the likes of Richard Herring (who has now done his daily blog for over 8 years) to use it as a way of keeping my writing sharp and to be able to say that, if nothing else, I had at least written something every day. In the beginning it was fairly easy to keep up - allowing a 20 minute-or-so period in the morning to get down the previous day's events - but as soon as one day slips, that easily becomes two and three and all too often I've found myself anxiously putting aside evenings and even whole days to catch up on whole weeks at a time. This, clearly, is a pretty poor show for a "daily" blog.
Instead Along Presently stands as a record of 285 consecutive days of my life - and in that sense it's been successful, and something I can look back on proudly. The fact that I now feel unable to carry on with it is a shame (as is the fact that 285 is a maddeningly odd number of days), but it has certainly achieved its goal of getting me writing again, getting me thinking about writing and starting new projects. The main reason it has become a drag, in fact, is that it's effectively stopping me from writing anything else. I've tried and failed to properly start a new blog since I started Along Presently, and left a previously successful one to rot rather - mainly because every time I feel I have "time to write" it's spent catching up with this, rather than doing anything possibly more interesting or "useful", in a career sense.
So I'm stopping Along Presently (at least for a while) - but I'm not stopping writing. I'm going to write more about the things that interest me (football, technology, University Challenge) rather than focussing purely on the mundane details of my life. I will, however, post links on here to everything I write and every other misguided project I decide to launch. I may even develop the Along Presently idea into something else.
So that's it. Many thanks to the handful of people who have bothered to read this over the last nine months - but I'm off to do something else for a while.
Mat x
I started a daily blog having been inspired by the likes of Richard Herring (who has now done his daily blog for over 8 years) to use it as a way of keeping my writing sharp and to be able to say that, if nothing else, I had at least written something every day. In the beginning it was fairly easy to keep up - allowing a 20 minute-or-so period in the morning to get down the previous day's events - but as soon as one day slips, that easily becomes two and three and all too often I've found myself anxiously putting aside evenings and even whole days to catch up on whole weeks at a time. This, clearly, is a pretty poor show for a "daily" blog.
Instead Along Presently stands as a record of 285 consecutive days of my life - and in that sense it's been successful, and something I can look back on proudly. The fact that I now feel unable to carry on with it is a shame (as is the fact that 285 is a maddeningly odd number of days), but it has certainly achieved its goal of getting me writing again, getting me thinking about writing and starting new projects. The main reason it has become a drag, in fact, is that it's effectively stopping me from writing anything else. I've tried and failed to properly start a new blog since I started Along Presently, and left a previously successful one to rot rather - mainly because every time I feel I have "time to write" it's spent catching up with this, rather than doing anything possibly more interesting or "useful", in a career sense.
So I'm stopping Along Presently (at least for a while) - but I'm not stopping writing. I'm going to write more about the things that interest me (football, technology, University Challenge) rather than focussing purely on the mundane details of my life. I will, however, post links on here to everything I write and every other misguided project I decide to launch. I may even develop the Along Presently idea into something else.
So that's it. Many thanks to the handful of people who have bothered to read this over the last nine months - but I'm off to do something else for a while.
Mat x
Saturday 1 January 2011
Thursday 23rd December
Since K is now off work for Christmas, I head out to work leaving her snoozing, hung over, in bed. While she has a nice day with her sister planned, I spend the day frantically clicking the dreaded 'text to columns' on Excel, formatting names of authors and efficiently colour-coding literally yards of spreadsheet real estate. Not the most fun way to spend the day - but I do at least get a job finished that's been hanging over me for a while in far less time than I had expected it would take.
It also makes the day (my last full one before Christmas) go by nice and quickly - and soon I'm on my way home. K calls and asks me to swing by Iceland for nibbles to go with our fancy pre-Christmas meal of baked Camembert and home made garlic bread, so I grab a couple of cheapo bags of frozen party snacks and head back.
The girls already have some wine underway and the pre-Christmas party (a "London Christmas" if you will) is ready to go. Accordingly we exchange presents - all apart from a very few small ones that are worth taking all the way to Dorset and back. K unwraps my present to her, (a bright red retro-style record player that she had asked for well over a year ago but had seemed to have forgotten about - this goes down well) and I open some nice things from New Zealand (courtesy of K's twin) and various video games, DVDs and vouchers from various siblings and parents.
Contented, for now, we get on with the dinner - which is delicious - and drink a little more in front of the telly before Mike and Ellie wander round from Crouch End. We have fun catching up and watching Peep Show and Men Behaving Badly; until it gets to around midnight and I remember that I do actually have to be at work tomorrow. Ugh.
It also makes the day (my last full one before Christmas) go by nice and quickly - and soon I'm on my way home. K calls and asks me to swing by Iceland for nibbles to go with our fancy pre-Christmas meal of baked Camembert and home made garlic bread, so I grab a couple of cheapo bags of frozen party snacks and head back.
The girls already have some wine underway and the pre-Christmas party (a "London Christmas" if you will) is ready to go. Accordingly we exchange presents - all apart from a very few small ones that are worth taking all the way to Dorset and back. K unwraps my present to her, (a bright red retro-style record player that she had asked for well over a year ago but had seemed to have forgotten about - this goes down well) and I open some nice things from New Zealand (courtesy of K's twin) and various video games, DVDs and vouchers from various siblings and parents.
Contented, for now, we get on with the dinner - which is delicious - and drink a little more in front of the telly before Mike and Ellie wander round from Crouch End. We have fun catching up and watching Peep Show and Men Behaving Badly; until it gets to around midnight and I remember that I do actually have to be at work tomorrow. Ugh.
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