Exciting New Stuff

I’ve been reworking my story lately. I’ve decided to do it as a short story. I’m not happy with consistency of it, in keeping with what I now know to be the rationale to it, but I have a beginning, middle and end. I will be pleased just to actually finish one of my stories. This means I’ve been doing lots of typing. I’ve been using the laptop quite a bit and I realised I actually prefer the layout of the keyboard. It’s not something I’ve ever considered. I just muddle through with the touch typing, losing my place on the home keys every now and then. The laptop set up had a big red button in the middle of the keyboard so you stay centered. Once the idea took hold that you can get a better keyboard I had a look.

Look at this beast I’m trialing as we speak.

A clear division of hands, curved to fit the shape of your hands, and built-in wrist rests. When I get the hang of this I’m going to be way better. The one problem I’ve noted, being self taught, is that I use the wrong hand for the B. I keep trying to reach my right hand over and I’m hitting the N. It will probably be a good thing when I correct it.

It only arrived this afternoon so it’s still a bit weird.

I seem to have got back into reading again, which is a good. Sadly some of the books have been less than great. So, so, less than great. Which is a damn shame because they have had great concepts.

Another new and exciting development is I seem to finally over my latest bout of plague weakness. It was getting me down, to be honest, it had been nearly 3 weeks. So, yay!Over that. Now I’ve just got a common or garden sore throat and cold. So that’s lovely. Variety is the spice of life. I had two days without shifts allocated so I said I was unavailable and took the time off to be poorly. I’ve only got a 7 and a bit hours shift tomorrow, so I should be ok for that. Wow. You don’t realise how many B’s you use until you type every one wrong.

The weekend before last it was well windy, and I’d finished setting up all my new lines and sail on my boat, so I took it for a spin. Ha! It’s much the same as learning to drive anything else, you have to know what you are doing, and feel in control, before you can start enjoying the thrilling stuff. As it was I was just getting blown from tack to tack, without any clear idea what I was doing, while fighting the fierce gusts just to stay upright. One of them caught me. First outing of my full size, new sail (which is to say, powerful). No matter how I heeled out of the boat, turned the rudder in, or let the mainsheet out, it just kept blowing me over. The one redeeming point was it happened at such a linear rate I could see what was happening, even if I couldn’t stop it, so managed to scramble over the boat without getting thrown in to the drink, and stand on the daggerboard (small, removable keel) to right it. Like this.

Then scramble back in, without swimming. That was enough for me, though. I wasn’t learning anything and it was making me nervous. Last Sunday was blowing a gale as well so I didn’t bother. This week, if I’m not too ill, looks alright. On the bright side, when I first saw the size of the boating lake I thought it was going to be too tame for me, and I would nave to be getting out on the sea as soon as possible.

No.

Not even.

It turns out I need to learn a lot more first, and even then there is plenty of excitement to be had when the wind picks up. I don’t want to think about what that would have been like if I’d have been on the sea. Waves, fierce winds, tides… I wouldn’t have stood a chance. Skill-up, first.

With the plague weakness, which was a nasty and prolonged bout, and now this cold, I’ve not got back into training properly yet. I set the bar for my fitness on The Sufferfest, but couldn’t get it to work with my trainer for long, so did it again on Trainer Road. Since then I’ve done nothing but be weak and eat. That’s one of the worst things about it, you know the food isn’t going to help but your body is never full and always craving the sweet fix that will it stop it from crashing. When this mere bug goes away I hope to be able to train and diet again. Before I crush my bike under my blubber.

Right, that’s about it, really. I just wanted to take my new keyboard for a test drive.

Some images and twitter then I’m done.

Whipped my lines, all sailory.

Got Wendy a pillow. Not a loved prezzie.

Some insights into how a government that despises the poor and weak can get away with slaughter.

Then in one day we had the Tories attacking the NHS (trying to swing opinion against, prior to full privitisation)

moved to put themselves above the law

Strip us of patient confidentiality

and moved to ensure only official state propaganda could be viewed on social media.

That was one day in the Reich.

Today we had a government minister found guilty of taking cash from undeclared interests, so the Tories moved to change the law so he would no longer be guilty. Apparently it was Bozo using him as an excuse to change the law as he has similar charges upcoming. This is how it works

There was such an outcry that the guy has resigned and Bozo has climbed down on legalising corruption. I’ve not read the full story yet, but that seems to be the headline.

So, things are going swimmingly in the Tory post Brexit Sunlit Uplands. In no way a fascist dystopia.

Still, when you think it looks bleak and hopeless, trust the yanks to make it worse.