I can of course only speak for myself and would love to hear from you about what influences your moods.
But here goes with mine. These are in no particular order.
1/ How I am feeling physically. Obviously an important thing as physical fitness will dominate my mood. If I feel tired and sluggish, trying to find motivation is tough. Some days I don't feel like doing much and at others I feel like going flat out and often there is no apparent reason for one or the other. I always feel energised the day after playing tennis, once I work out how to walk again.
2/ How I am feeling mentally. Again this is difficult to define. Some days I'm feeling super sociable, like wanting to be the life and soul of the party. On others I feel I want to slink away into a hole and just be on my own and sometimes I cannot give a reason for my mental state.
3/ what outside influences are around. You know how much I love sport and music. So watching or listening can affect my mood. And that's the reason why I always say surround yourself with things that matter and make you happy. Likewise surround yourself with people with a passion for life and who live and breath positivity.
Even this can go two ways. Take gardening for instance. Some days I feel like doing it and some days I definitely don't. This feeling may be decided according to weather of course. Gardening in extreme cold, in rain or in extreme heat is unpleasant. Gardening on a bright warm day van be a delight.
4/ What things I have to do and where I need to go. Suffering overload can seriously affect both your mental and physical health. Similarly not having anything to do can affect you as well but it's not always easy to find a balance between too little and too much and sometimes you can't even control the "workload" and I use that word for both people who work and those who are retired.
When I retired I was determined to keep busy and I have certainly done that. But at times things to do can become daunting and overwhelming.
Things that make me happy
Writing -Communicating with others through writing. Writing articles and books.
Photography - Taking photos as a record of life.
History and research - I find both very rewarding and comforting.
Sport - playing tennis and watching football, cricket, golf and many others.
Listening to music although I do get angry at the success of so many talentless people in today's society.
Family - although this can be demanding as well.
Travelling- although once again this can be stressful if not managed properly.
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Yesterday I wrote about local news not being local. So I monitored the first so called local news after I had published my blog. There were stories from Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Essex and Bedfordshire but not a single piece from Norfolk. So much for local news where you live. Message to the BBC. I live in bloody Norfolk.
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Buoyed by finishing our book on Le Paradis Massacre, yesterday I turned my attention to another I'm hoping to get printed, hopefully this year.
I began writing this daily blog on March 8th, 2020, which means it's been going every day for over three years. That's over 1200 blogs. There were a few false starts before that as there were with my personal diary which I have now been writing for a few months short of 50 years. It scares me to think that I have chronicled every day of my life since Christmas 1973.
I am looking to bring out a book of my blogs from the first year of their publication - that is from March 8th 2020 to March 7th 2021.
I am now undertaking the task of editing them and yesterday got through the month of March - one down, 11 to go.
I really enjoyed reading through the first month as I believe the blogs build into a social history of lockdown.
The first month of the lockdown blogs detail the ever shifting list of things being closed down along with concerns about how our life was changing.
Reading through them, I became very aware that we didn't have any real idea of how long it was all going to last once again illustrating how little we knew about it.
I talk about it lasting for days and then weeks and then months. The response I got to my early blogs, which often detailed local walks, was simply phenomenal and very humbling and I talk about this response in the blogs themselves.
I still have 11 more months to edit, so it's going to take a little while. At the same time I have my autobiography to edit. By the time you finish reading all these (if you are potty enough to want to do so) you will have had more than enough of my ramblings and witterings.