Overwhelming can be good or it can be bad. At the moment I'm on the middle of a good overwhelming because I am in the middle of so many projects that give me a buzz.
Distributing our book "Hell in Paradise" is keeping me busy. As a starter I offered the book for sale on one social media site and in this blog and as a result have sold about 30 copies.
That is very heartening and has meant delivering to various parts of the village. Over the next few days we will widen our social media coverage on specific sites and that will bring in many more orders.
We had 500 copies of the book printed and are confident that within a few months we will going for a reprint. We know who and what our target audience is and how to get to it.
If you have bought a book we would value any comments, both good and bad. It will help us in the future. In the meantime we have rather neglected the website and myself and John Head will be spending a day on that shortly as John has collected a lot of additional information. If we eventually issue a second edition of the book we might have a couple of chapters to add.
We are also looking to launch a second website as an offshoot of the first and covering memorials and what is happening in the present day.
Then I'm enjoying writing Laurie Brettingham's life story and there's lots to do on that and last night I started listening to the audio file. His daughter Viv has also recorded some additional memories for me to feature.
Today I will have to put those projects on hold for at least a morning as I start to put the finishing touches to the April edition of Hethersett Herald and very shortly it will be time to start on the May edition of Good News. Add to that gardening and the likes and you can see I am overwhelmed but in a good way.
There are numerous other projects to follow:
I am at last tidying up and minimising my study which has been a mess for so long.
I have thousands of photographs to sort through and put in order. Yesterday I found a CD with hundreds of photos of our 2002 trip to Australia. Many of them are totally out of focus and need to be erased. The reasonable ones need to be put on a portable drive with all the others properly indexed.
I have travelogues to write and put online and then there are the other books I'm looking to self publish on Amazon. These include my autobiography, my 1970s novel about a young reporter, the first volume of my blogs from lockdown and a few others that I probably haven't even thought of yet.
Then of course there's always my daily diary and blog to write, not to mention holidays and social things. So yes I'm overwhelmed but in a good way. And when I'm overwhelmed in a good way I tend to designated or allocate time to projects so that I know what I will be doing. For example yesterday I designated the morning to the cricket club (see below), the afternoon to admin re the book and the evening to Laurie's story and that meant that virtually no time was wasted between 7 am and 11 pm and that's s pretty much how I keep sane.
But you can be overwhelmed in a bad way where everything in and around you seems to be negative. Where things you don't really want to do pile up - things like paying bills sorting out new car insurance because your present supplier is attempting to increase it by 70 per cent despite you not having a claim for over 20 years. You probably know the feeling and it all gets too much if you are struggling with a virus or illness. Sometimes you just feel like stopping. Those are the occasions when I have to force myself to do even the things I enjoy doing. Those are the times when I think of chucking everything in and allocating time to nothing other than staring into space or sleeping and then I remember who I am and what I stand for and my whole countenance changes.
Even when I'm on holiday I don't actually switch off. I'm always looking for aspects of the holiday to write about or photographs and travelogues to write down on my blog. I suppose you could say I've got an overactive mind that never turns off and is always plotting something or other.
Ask me to sit and do nothing for an hour and I'm bored after 10 minutes and at the very least have to start reading a book or sorting various things out.
Oh I've just remembered, I need to do a poster for the next Friends of Hethersett Library presentation which will see the welcome return of Paddy Anstey on April 25th to regale us with more tales of his love of railways. Paddy's last talk was very popular. We have brought the start times of the talks forward to 6.30. The presentations will be followed by light refreshments and tickets will be £5 and are available on the door. No need to book ahead.
Yesterday we popped over to Hethersett and Tas Valley cricket club to help prepare for the coming season. Not just that, we wanted to have a look at the renovation and improvements that have been made ahead of the start of the season next month.
We wanted a task for the morning and found one in cleaning out the electronic scoreboard booth. It was full of mess from last year and took us a couple of hours but at least we felt useful. During the afternoon I sorted through my files to update the history of the club which began life around 1850. I think there are plans to release the history to mark 21 years since our move to Flordon.
Too much coffee. I've been drinking too much coffee. On Friday I had seven or eight cups and yesterday it was around six cups and that's far too much caffeine. I have periods when I give up coffee but it's a social drink as much as anything else.
Well I'm sure you will agree that's enough for today. Look forward to speaking to you as always tomorrow.