9 Years of Occasional Blogging

So last year on this date, I wrote a blog post about how 8 years earlier I had started this blog. And now it's 9 years since I started this blog. Still very much occasional blogging though. 

I've just about managed to keep up with documenting each month's photo an hour challenge and there's been some sporadic posts about what we've been up to each month. 

Pretty spring picture, just because :-)

My Dad having a stroke last August threw a bit of a spanner in the works over the autumn what with juggling caring responsibilities and life carrying on. 

But anyway, it feels like the 'blogging world' isn't really there any more - is anyone out there? I'm not sure and I suppose it doesn't really matter anyway. There's definitely seems to be a lot more going on over on Instagram and in some ways and at some times, looking at a load of pictures and short videos is preferable to reading a long blog post. 

I probably should use Instagram more and I'd like to learn how to use Instagram Stories. Like, when or why would you use a story for something as opposed to just posting a picture as usual? Perhaps I just need to have a play around with it, but then I'd probably just be posting something which is pointless and wasting people's time if they view it. Perhaps I'm overthinking it though. 

I think my favourite bit of social media is Twitter. I rarely post anything but I read a lot. It can be really interesting (depending on how you curate your feed of course) and I think I find out more 'news-wise' than just reading stuff on the BBC. I'm very much a 'the more information/knowledge, the better' type of person. I like being informed I suppose. Although I appreciate Twitter can be a bit of an echo chamber at times and you can certainly get lost in rabbit holes!

I don't really use Pinterest much anymore. I do have a Facebook page but don't post often. And I do have a YouTube channel but there's not a lot on it. I like the idea of creating short videos of where we've been or what we've done but who has the time or energy to actually do it? 

Anyway, this is just a bit of a rambling post really, musing about blogging and social media, with no real point. I suppose I just wanted to post something to mark another year of having this little space on the interweb. 

If there's anyone out there, how are you doing?

 

A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 19th March 2022

Saturday 19th was March's photo an hour date. It was a sunny day and was mainly spent doing jobs around the house and garden. 

Here's what the day looked like...

14 lovely others joined in:

Josie joined in on Instagram

Jennifer joined in on Instagram

Susie from Second Hand Susie joined in on Instagram

Naomi from What Naomi Did Next joined in on Instagram

Sarah from Sarah Rooftops joined in on Instagram

Jennifer from Pastry and Purls joined in on Instagram

Bev from Confuzzledom joined in on Instagram

Hazel from World of Joy joined in on Instagram

Catherine joined in on Instagram Stories

Lucy joined in on Instagram Stories

Denise joined in on Instagram Stories

Emma joined in on Instagram Stories

Jane from Is That You Darling joined in on Instagram Stories

Alex from Odd Socks and Pretty Frocks joined in on Instagram Stories

And myself on Instagram and on this blog post :-) 

An apology is needed as well - I don't always watch Instagram Stories and hadn't put 2 and 2 together to realise that searching #photoanhour to find out who took part wasn't going to show people who only took part on Stories! So apologies if I've missed you off the list of participants in previous months. I definitely need to learn how and when to use Stories a bit better.

Anyway, April's photo an hour date is Saturday 23rd - see you there!

 

 

A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 19th February 2022

February's photo an hour day fell on Saturday 19th, the day after Storm Eunice. It was mostly a day of doing jobs at home with one outing to the local hospital to visit my Dad. 

Here's what the day looked like...

7 lovely others joined in:

Jennifer joined in on Instagram

Josie joined in on Instagram

Catherine joined in on Instagram

Bev from Confuzzledom joined in on Instagram

Hazel from World of Joy joined in on Instagram

Susie from Second Hand Susie joined in on Instagram

Naomi from What Naomi Did Next joined in on Instagram

And myself on Instagram and on this blog post :-)

March's photo an hour date is Saturday 19th - see you there!

 

 

February at the Duckpond

So now we're into March, officially Spring!

February was a bit wet and windy down here although there were a few sunny days thrown in. Here's what we got up to...

• We had a lovely (if blustery) day trip to Teignmouth in Devon as a "mystery tour" present for my Mum's birthday a couple of weeks earlier. We had blue skies all day and managed to fit in a car picnic, a playground, hot chocolate, ice cream, a stroll along the prom, geocaching and fish & chips for supper.

• My Dad's still waiting for a nursing home place but in the meantime he's staying at the local hospital (which kind of makes it sound like he's choosing to be there when actually it's all paperwork hold-ups!). At least he's closer to our home and we've been able to go in and visit most days. 

• Good film and TV we've watched - wow, the last 2 episodes of 'Call the Midwife' were a bit of a rollercoaster weren't they? Very good though. 'This Is Going to Hurt' was excellent, as I thought it would be (having read all of Adam Kay's books) although it did leave me wondering whether there'd be a second series. A bit like my mamoth 'to be read' list, we also have a long 'to be watched' list - and it doesn't help that Netflix keep releasing things which sound great! I think we're going to watch 'The Lost Daughter' and 'The Responder' (on BBC) next. I also spotted this list from the BFI - 100 Best Films Streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime - which is brilliant but means we now have even more things to watch :-)

• Lily was ever so excited to be able to get her first COVID vaccination (due to living in the same household as someone immunosuppressed). Once the doctor's surgery had added the neccessary code to her record, we were able to go to a walk-in vaccination centre to have her jab. Our nearest centre doing 5-11 year olds was Exeter so we packed a picnic and had a morning outing down there. The staff were happy to see her; they'd just decorated the floor with chalk pictures for children and she was the first one to see them all! 

• Just because I clearly need another thing on my to-do list {laughs hysterically}, we started an Instagram account for our geocaching adventures - familyduckadventures (which is our geocaching name). Mainly beacause I often take pictures of the caches we've found but don't share them on my own Instagram account as I'm aware that not everyone is interested in it. Feel free to follow if you think it might be your sort of thing :-)

• I've just finishing reading Josh Widdicombe's 'Watching Neighbours Twice a Day' book which is very funny and worth reading if you did any growing up in the 1990's. 

• I noticed the Minack Theatre in Cornwall put their summer shows on sale and managed to book tickets for 'Hetty Feather' in April and 'Calvino Nights' in May. Both look excellent - Hetty Feather I saw a few years ago and Calvino Nights is presented by Mike Shepherd who founded Kneehigh so should be fab. And the theatre has the added bonus of being outside so much safer COVID-wise.

• And speaking of COVID, I can't say I'm that keen on this 'brave new COVID world' (with apologies to Aldous Huxley). Less/no testing plus not having to isolate when positive means that potentially every person you meet *could* be infectious - as there's just no way to tell. So what that means for us is that we do even less than we did pre-COVID (or even back when the COVID rates were low) - ie. we're not spending money on anything indoors like cafes, shops, soft plays, etc. So when journalists and others go on about the economy, well we're another family that won't be contributing to that. Ironically when the rates were low, that's when we did take a chance (in an FFP3 mask) to buy things from indoor places. There's two reasons: 1) there's an immunosuppressed person in our household but more importantly 2) none of us actually want to get COVID. And we've been incredibly lucky so far that none of us have (knowingly) had COVID - and I say knowingly as none of us have ever had a positive test or been told that we've been a contact. And that's with regular lateral flows and regular PCR's for my mum due to her hospital treatment. Although I do completely understand that we're in an incredibly privileged position; I really feel for people who have no choice to be in a place where they may catch COVID. I guess it's the whole 'learning to live with COVID' thing - it kind of implies that some *learning* has actually taken place (ie. putting in place things like HEPA filters, monitoring CO2 levels, maybe implementing masks when needed, etc) but like many things, I'm not so sure the government (and some people in society) have learnt anything. Anyway, grrr. 

• But back to nicer things, there's daffodils, snowdrops and lots of crocuses plus it's lighter past half 5 now - spring (and summer) is hopefully on it's way!

 

A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 22nd January 2022

The first photo an hour day for 2022 fell on Saturday 22nd January. This was the day Lily had originally chosen for her birthday day trip but a last minute hospital appointment for my Mum meant we had to change our plans slightly. So instead we arranged two birthday day trips - one going westwards from the hospital in Bath and one going southwards to the New Forest (Lily's first choice of destination). 

The 22nd was her first birthday day trip and we went across the Severn Bridge to Wales and on to Barry Island! Fairground rides, ice creams in the cold, a drive down Trinity Street (natch) and fish & chips by Penarth Pier. 

Here's what the day looked like...

9 lovely people joined in this month:

Catherine joined in on Instagram

Josie joined in on Instagram

Sarah from Sarah Rooftops joined in on Instagram

Susie from Second Hand Susie joined in on Instagram

Christine from Christine Lucas joined in on Instagram

Naomi from What Naomi Did Next joined in on Instagram

Bev from Confuzzledom joined in on Instagram

Hazel from World of Joy joined in on Instagram

Jane from Is That You Darling joined in on Instagram

And myself on Instagram and on this blog post :-)

February's photo an hour date is Saturday 19th - see you there! 

 

 

A Photo Every Hour - August to December 2021

Even though life since my Dad's stoke last August has been incredibly busy, I still managed to take part in the monthly Photo an Hour challenge over on Instagram. 

So here's a round-up of the last few months of 2021...

August's photo an hour date was spent at home catching up on jobs in the house and garden. Andrew spent a good portion of the day cleaning his lorry ready for the Bath and West Show the following week, which of course he didn't get to go to due to my Dad's stroke. 

September's photo an hour date happened to fall on my Dad's 69th birthday! At that point he was still on an intensive care ward so he wasn't really aware of anything but the staff had decorated his bed with balloons and given him a card. We'd prepared a 'Happy Birthday' photo to stick on the whiteboard next to his hospital bed. 

October's photo an hour date saw us visiting the brain injury rehab unit which my Dad had just moved to. In the evening we also went swimming at our local private hire pool. 

November's photo an hour date fell on one of the few carnival processions which took place in 2021. This time down in Honiton, Devon. We went down to watch the parade and collected some tasty chips on the way home. 

December's photo an hour date fell on the Saturday closest to my birthday. We'd packed a picnic and went on a birthday day trip to the seaside at Weymouth. We walked on the beach, had hot chocolate, saw Christmas lights and ate chips from one of our favourite fish & chip restaurants. 

And if you need a handy picture of 2022's dates, here you go :-) 

 

New Year at the Duckpond

So here we are, in 2022 no less. Not quite sure how we're almost a quarter of the way through the 21st century and equally, not quite sure how it's February already. 

• My Dad's still recovering from his stroke. He spent a few months in a brain injury rehab unit (with occasional trips to hospital for infections) and is now waiting for a space at a nursing home. We haven't been able to visit that often (as the rehab unit closed to visitors whenever there was a COVID outbreak) but the staff at the unit were able to help him do video calls. 

• Christmas came and went. We took Lily to a couple of outdoor events with Santa - one festive-themed session of her usual sports class and one trip on an outdoor miniature railway. Both events were much safer than being indoors and she loved them anyway regardless of having to wear hats, gloves and scarves. 

• All of us adults have had our COVID booster and we took my Mum for her 4th vaccine back in January (she was eligible for a 3rd primary dose then her 4th one was her booster). Lily is eligible now as well (due to living in the same household as someone immunosuppressed), we're just waiting to see when we can actually take her to have it done. 

• I managed to overachive on my GoodReads Reading Challenge last year. I set a target of 39 books and managed to read 70 so that was good. This year though, I'm behind! 

• Good TV and film we've watched - obviously 'Don't Look Up' on Netflix :-) Such a good movie, very well put together and definitely worth watching if you've haven't already. 'Call the Midwife' which we watch every year is just as good as ever. We're also very much looking forward to 'This Is Going to Hurt' on BBC which starts this week. I've read Adam Kay's books and we've also seen him perform live twice so fingers crossed, the series should be equally good. 'Back to the Outback' on Netflix is also brilliant. It's a children's film but is still very funny. 

• Lily turned 6 - which is both great and horrifying (where did those years go!?). She asked for a birthday day trip (which ended up being 2 birthday day trips due to a last minute hospital appointment) and we had a lovely afternoon in the winter sun in Barry Island followed a week later by a car picnic in the New Forest with the ponies. 

• We went to a theatre show - Dr Semmelweis at the Bristol Old Vic - which was a magnificant performance by all the cast and such a interesting story. It was a show I booked back in January 2020 pre-COVID and after being postponed several times, it finally had its performances from January this year. We were in two minds whether to go but a) I'd been looking forward to this one for 2 years (it stars Sir Mark Rylance!) and b) the theatre was still requiring people to wear masks and they also had details of their ventilation system on their website. We donned our FFP3 masks for the entire time and they must've worked because we came through it COVID-free. 

• I've still been doing the photo an hour challenge every month over on Instagram but not actually getting round to writing them up on here. February's photo an hour date is Saturday 19th - feel free to join in if you want to!