DV

'Want to do' - ah, there's a thing.  There are things one might yearn to do but know the opportunity might or will never arise (a friend of mine has hankered since childhood for a trip into space, but I think she will never have the chance), things that one intends to do, things one hopes might happen.  I tend not to wish for the impossible and I don't even plan ahead that much, but will take an opportunity if it presents itself.

A friend (a different friend, in fact it's Rupert's owner's mother) took a break from her job as a teacher while her children were small and, once they started school, decided to learn some new skills.  So first she learned Japanese and then photography and took a GCSE in each.  I can see the point of the exam in those cases because it was a measurable mark of success, whereas I refused to take exams when I was learning the clarinet because, if anything, I felt it would hold me back.

So what I want to do at present is -

1 Get the new blog up and running, with vast appreciation of Ro's help.

2 Take the CBT (Compulsory Basic Training) on a motorbike.  What I then do with it will depend on how much I really enjoy it, but it's a challenge I seem to have set myself without quite realising I was going to.

3 Continue with the social life and doing things for pleasure.  I've been doing pretty well at this all year, it's something that usually drifts during the spring and early summer.  I start with good intentions in the autumn (I go by school years still more than calendar ones) but, when busy, it's the things you want to do rather than the things you must do that slip first.  I have got something vital on at school that needs to be prepared for this month and done in the first half of next and I'll tell you about it in due course, but then I have two holidays booked, one with Wink and one with Nadfas and I've arranged to go and visit Badgerdaddy in October too (and hope to call on John G on the way, though I haven't let him know dates yet).  Then Wink will be having an operation and I'll spend quite a lot of time with her.  So, though I might not manage many social things at home, I'll be doing them somewhere.

4 On my 'I'm going to bloody well do this because I'm not a wuss' list is getting over this ludicrous inability to be out of my depth, literally.  Fear of water has to go, it's not going to govern me much longer.

5 At present, though it'll probably last all of another month, my nails are looking okay and I'm putting stuff on to strengthen them.  They are dreadfully weak and when they break, I neglect them in despair and then, when worrying in the dark reaches of the night, I bite them.  That is a shaming admission from someone of my age, but if Roses and Mig can stop smoking, I can stop doing something I should have grown out of half a century ago.

As is sensible with a 'to-do' list, one should always have an item that can be ticked off pretty quickly.  So, though it's not yet quite finished, here's a link to the new blog.  Which will include the whole of this blog very soon, I trust.  I might post on both until I'm sure what I'm doing over there, but then this won't be updated any longer and there will just be the link to that, though the archives will remain here too.

On the new blog, I'm afraid you'll have to register once to leave comments, but just with your chosen name and an email and then you won't have to do it again, there won't be a wv and it will be published immediately.  Hope it all works ok, let me know about any problems.  Ronan says that it's always possible the whole thing may go awry when he uploads more than 3,000 posts from here to there and he may have to start again, though he hopes not.  So do I, it's not as if this is a hobby for him and he's being very kind as it is.