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dear diary :: computer malaise

In the last few days when I should have been preparing and packing for our holiday I have been sorting out computer related problems and now have come down with an attack of that modern day illness namely CFD (computer frustration disorder) for which there is no known cure.

Trying to get to the bottom of the WordPress advertising problem, then trying to find a way to get my usual monthly to do list and my cottage packing list I keep on Todoist to print out all the pages and not just the first one (a new glitch on their part which we told them about last month and is still not sorted) has seen me tearing my hair out.

Eventually we found a work around for the lists by logging into Opera browser and the print function through Opera takes a PDF of all the pages (who would have thought). But it only took us four hours of trial and error before coming up with this; and after I had scoured the internet for a new To do list provider that will do print outs at all as most of them think everyone just wants a list on a phone now! Progress!

And yes I could have written my lists out by hand in this time or use excell but Todoist was working fine for me up till now.

There appears to be no simple work around for the WordPress adverts though – and believe me DH and I have tried but because everyone has such personal settings on different devices there is no one adjustment that will fit all.

Anyone following this thread may have read all the comments over the last few days from readers and below in the highlighted sections is the email answer I had from WordPress who investigated my query about both the type and amount of ads now appearing on my site for some readers.

Please note my comments are the underlined italics at the end of each paragraph….

WordPress say “The banner ad at the top has been in use on free sites for over a year, and can be collapsed by clicking on the tab. (we were not informed of this banner)

The ad appearing directly above the sharing buttons is the original ad slot for all sites on WordPress.com, so ads have been appearing there for as long as we’ve been displaying ads on free sites. (Fair enough and I was always aware of this one and its placement and it had never appeared to be a problem to readers before).

The other ads that appear between paragraphs are known as inline ads. Those are relatively new, but they’re also supposed to be there. How many of them show varies, depending both on the length and structure of your post, and on factors related to the person viewing the ad (the latter is what determines which advertisers bid on the available ad slots – if no one bids on inline ads, they don’t display. (I wasn’t aware of these at all and we were not informed these would be added to our sites – I rarely visit my own site as a reader and if I do, because I am logged into my account, I would not see them – these ads seem to be the most frustrating to my readers).

So all the ads you’re seeing are supposed to be there, and are used to cover the cost to us of hosting your site for free. They can be removed via any of our paid plans. (The ransom notice!)

If you feel the content/subject matter of any ad is inappropriate, please click the “Report this ad” link on the ad itself to report it. We serve thousands of ads across millions of sites a day, and no two people visiting your site sees the same ads. Additionally this process is completely automated, so reporting the ad directly that way is the only way it’s possible for us to review a specific ad”. (Firstly, I never see the ads anyway so unlikely I would be the one reporting them and secondly, they are tailored to the reader so I would never see the same as them – the one I did catch a glimpse of was advertising for young girls to work at home – which seemed a bit dubious to me and I feel WordPress should be the ones monitoring this not our readers – it is too late once they have gone out.

So there you have it – WordPress have increased the amount of ads and not really mentioned this to their users and take no responsibility for the content – but well done Simone for speaking up and letting me know otherwise I would have remained oblivious to what is happening.

I think eventually because of their increased adverts WordPress will send more new bloggers to Blogger for those of us who just want a free personal blog and where you can personally choose to opt in or out of ads on your site so readers can read and comment without being put off by a bombardment of pop up ads.

For anyone who is troubled with ads on sites they love to visit, and not just for my site, you can adjust your settings to a more strict mode but be aware this can also prevent you accessing some sites as it will also prevent cookies and most sites run with enabled cookies. Using Firefox or Opera as a browsing mechanism and of course Safari with Apple will limit ad problems.

Moving forward – as far as this blog is concerned it seems I have only two choices:-

Switch to Blogger ….or

Pay WordPress the ransom money – I am presuming here that they will just keep on increasing the number of ads over time until a blogger is forced to have a paid site.

Perhaps I need a holiday to think it over!

PS: whilst writing this post something quite unexpected happened – I have been spelling WordPress throughout with a small ‘p’ but when I preview the post it has always changed automatically to a capital. So isn’t it amazing that now WordPress do not have a spell check facility for a post any longer, as mentioned by me in an earlier post, they do have some setting to automatically change their name to what they think is the correct spelling. Even though I am writing WordPress now with a small p I have no doubt when you read this it will have changed to a capital P. If it has then why can’t they have a spell check for everything?????

PPS: apologies for any typo’s and spellnig mistakes.

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feasible :: July intentions

Can it really be July already? As usual on this journey of mine I have been busier than busy this past month, whilst the weather has been wetter than wet.

Moving on to this month and better weather, I hope, I am still not sure myself how I am going to fit everything together – at the moment it looks like a jigsaw with a few pieces missing, and we all know how irritating that can be.

During the next 31 days I have to fit in our summer holiday, celebrate my birthday and wedding anniversary, entertain and look after an Aussie cousin of DH for a few days, attend Jimmy’s in Leeds (the lovely Bexley Wing) for my yearly blood tests, attend again a couple of weeks later for my results and check up with the consultant and then have Little L to stay for a few days near the end of the month.

In and amongst I shall have house cleaning, tending the garden (both of them), lots of cooking with my new oven (yeah!) and plenty of exercises for my poorly knee….oh and at some point see my dear old mum (to which I hear her say…less of the old please!).

As ever I am searching for that slower lifestyle and as ever it seems just a little beyond reach; especially when I look at what I have to do for the month, my obligations, and what I would like to do in the month, my desires….when I can fit them in. There must be a solution and believe me I am working on it.

So as usual I am setting out my intentions for the month as doing so helps me stay focused….well sometimes…. and also helps me to log what I have to do and then squeeze in what I would like to do.

We will be going up to our cottage (caravan) in Scotland soon for what will be our summer holiday. We cannot have the full two weeks we would have liked due to so many other commitments so somewhere between a week and a fortnight will have to do. Can’t wait.

But there is the packing to do and that can’t wait either!

There will be plenty of house cleaning to do (didn’t I say that last month….. and the one before, but this time I mean it). My house needs a thorough clean……. everywhere – it is in a worse state than when I was working. Somehow I have not managed to get myself into any routine as we always seem to be focused on one project or another and some of those never get finished.

DH and I had a big planning meeting a month ago and listed all those tasks we needed to do but for some reason it is taking ages to get anything crossed off the list. I feel like giving myself a C- and I hear that old teachers comment you would find on any school report “must try harder”.

I have fewer apppointments and no yoga classes for a while, so I do need to make sure I exercise during the next month, especially the ones to help my knee. Does house cleaning count as exercise I wonder?

This month with the aid of my new oven I want to focus on what we are eating and plan for better, even healthier meals, though I may sneak a cake in for my birthday

I got my sketchbook out the other day when it was too hot to do anything else and spent a pleasant afternoon sitting in the garden drawing a few flowers. I feel quite rusty not having done very much drawing for a long time.

There is always some distraction, something more pressing to do – so maybe whilst we are away in Scotland I can fit in a little painting like we used to. I will certainly be packing my watercolours and sketchbook.

I have a couple of patchwork and quilting books from the library at the moment – well you never know I might just find some time to make a start. I have a lot of very pretty flowered fabric in summery peaches and pinks left over from the bunting I made for my elder daughter’s wedding. I had thought it would make a nice quilt for her new baby, but the baby turned out to be little Freddie who I am not sure would want such a girly quilt.

Summer is always such a good month for plenty of meandering…getting out and about, exploring; and we will be doing plenty of that…as much as we can fit into the time.

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I expect that while DH’s cousin is here we will be taking him places too – I think his interests lie in cricket and gardens. The latter sounds hopeful to me as I am sure there will be plenty of open gardens to visit – but the cricket might be more tricky. Entertaining Little L will be much easier than the cousin I think and she is happy to do anything and go anywhere with a park nearby…..so the park it is then.

Well that is my month all lined up….now where did I put my mop and bucket. x

PS. Back soon with my monthly tally (yet another sticking point in my life!).

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June review

June turned out to be one of those months full of appointments and commitments; dentists, doctors and a few others. Between us we had so many that I had to rearrange my yearly appointment at the hospital in Leeds to July just so that we had a bit of a breather and could squeeze in a trip to Scotland.

And of course I have been attending the extra Yoga classes throughout June on a Friday afternoon. These have now finished as my teacher has to go into hospital this week so combined the last two classes into one. I enjoyed the smaller Friday classes (six of us) and individual attention and have learned how to breathe well and open up all those areas that we often don’t breathe into enough. Deep breathing using all the lung is extremely beneficial as I found out after only one session.

The weather here has not been very spectacular, mostly wet and dull and often quite cold (yes we had the heating on too) – some of our best days happened to be in Scotland. But the garden has started to bloom in the last week or two as the sun made a welcome appearance and the warmer weather has been so lovely. Nothing can beat cutting a few fresh flowers and herbs from the garden and bringing them indoors.

It has felt quite a disorganised month as months go – not very productive but plans have been made, plans that will help us as we move forward out of this ‘transition’ period and further into our new life of being at home and not in the workplace, of being reliant on pensions and savings and no regular salary.

So on with this month’s review – a summary of the intentions I did succeed in doing and those that got left behind.

The pantry……. mmmm…this did not happen – not even close – we have not ordered the units yet so it remains the dumping ground downstairs – though on the good side my elder daughter has taken a huge box of DVD’s and CD’S away that we were storing for her in here.

But if there has been one thing we have done a lot of this month …..well two actually, it is gardening and meandering. But why not while we have the time – both are very satisfying.

As well as planting up the pots of annuals I bought two wooden planters to grow vegetables in on the patio and managed to sow the salad seeds and amazingly they are growing well despite the wet weather.

I have been collecting and drying the seed heads of some of the flowers in my garden.

I hand printed these tiny seed packets for my daughter’s wedding when we gave away some wild flower seeds as favours and they will be perfect to put the seeds in when collected.

Lean – one of my intentions this month was to look at my wardrobe and pull out and wear some of my least favourite clothes that often just linger in there. I think we all have a few, if not many, that are unworn for a variety of reasons. I particularly want to avoid buying anything new this year as this will give me a chance to wear what I have as well as simplify my wardrobe.

The aim is to only have enough clothes for my needs, have them mostly hanging (save underwear and socks etc) as they are easier to see and select this way, and to have all the seasons in one space. So that is quite a reduced collection but every item will be one I love to wear.

I have already made a start on this – it is a work in progress though and I must say that some of the items are feeling rather tight which is a good indication that I need to eat less or watch what I am eating and lose a few extra pounds. My only two purchases this month have been a pack of trainer socks from Primark for £1.50 and some Skechers trainers bought in the sale to wear in the house as slippers but give my feet the additional support they need.

As it happens I have had little time to go shopping and having a bad knee has also limited the amount I can walk up and down shopping malls so this has been a bonus really for saving money.

Clean – not a lot of cleaning got done in the house this month – I blame my bad knee but as you might expect it didn’t stop me from doing the gardening, so a lack of motivation was probably the real reason. And I must hold my hands up and admit that my house at the moment is not a very pleasant sight and I feel like Mr Messy has sneaked in and been….well messy….and left me a few piles of stuff everywhere.

We spent a whole weekend gathering information ready for our appointment with the financial advisor – a free appointment for which they normally allow up to 2 hours but ours lasted for almost three in total and he thoroughly reviewed our current financial situation and advised on a plan of action.

I was extremely impressed as our advisor delivered good honest advice tailored to our circumstances and we agreed that the action we need to take could be done without his help thus saving any fees for his time. At no time during the meeting did he try to sell us products or suggest moving pensions. Our finances are not particularly complicated but until I can draw my state pension next year money is tight unless we delve into our savings. He did say that stocks and shares are more worthwhile when you have a longer investment period than we have and therefore would only advise using our savings to buy shares if we had spare capital to play with and didn’t need to rely on having any of the income from dividends.

When we have a better idea of our day to day living expenses and any immediate capital expenses (like our new kitchen and pantry) then we can start to look at longer term investments for our future bearing in mind that one day we may need to pay for a care home or carers.

We also discussed ideas we have been thinking about for our little cottage and have spent a great deal of time this month focusing on this to get our plans moving again. I cannot go into details yet but at least there has been movement.

Mealtimes had become a real chore with my old unpredictable oven so bringing the one down home from the cottage was a good idea. I can now cook confidently once again and look forward to making new things too. I have a collection of recipes I want to try as time allows to build up my ‘repertoire’. I will be able to practice on the Aussie cousin coming soon!

Of course the highlight of any month for me is always our meandering…we have done lots, much more than I have had time to tell you about but I will do a post soon on some of the places we visited; exploring interesting alley ways and passages, up and down enticing flights of steps, through secret doorways, round open gardens and discovering tiny places along the Ayrshire coast.

Looking back June has been a great month, maybe not such great weather but it does not appear to have stopped us doing very much and maybe it has been more productive than I first thought – that is the best thing about a review it gives you a better perspective.

Here’s to a wonderful July and warm summer days. x

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seasons :: sweet summer

The pleasure of a perfect summer’s day…. the warmth of the sun, dappled light falling through a canopy of trees creating cool shady spots beneath, an abundance of colour and scent in the garden and the taste of all summer has to offer with freshly picked fruit and vegetables.

An air of excitement and romance. Summer, for me, definitely has the feel good factor.

And it is Picnic weather. Eating outdoors is one of my favourite activities in summer, especially if I can take along my little trusty camping stove and whistling kettle to make a cup of tea, and not to forget a pile of picnic rugs to lie on and a good book or my sketchbook. All these things, but especillay that distinctive sound of the whistling kettle, brings back so many childhood memories spent in a state of absolute summer bliss.

I have all the necessary ingredients available to pack up a picnic at a moment’s notice and also make little treats that I would not normally indulge in; so a good stock of plain vanilla ice cream in the freezer is of prime importance for creating simple quick desserts using fresh fruits.

Yesterday I bought lolly moulds for £2 from Ikea – I will need to find some old fashioned wooden lolly sticks though as I am not keen on the plastic ones provided with the set. When Libbie comes to stay in the school holidays I thought she might like to make ice lollies, I think I might like to too!

Filo pastry is so easy to use and I have a number of recipes where you just beat up some eggs with a little milk, sour cream or fromage frais – whatever is to hand, add seasoning and pour it over any mixture of lightly steamed summer veg spread over a filo pastry case. Then add grated cheese – here I just used cheddar but hard or soft goats cheese, parmesan or a blue cheese would be just as good and finally a sprinkling of fresh herbs to suit your taste.

I have herbs growing everywhere in my garden – freshly picked herbs added to any meal are delicious. Chopped mint on Jersey Royals with a knob of butter, torn basil leaves in tomato dishes and rosemary scattered over a tin of roasting vegetables.

The vegetables and salads I am growing are not very far on this year with all the wet weather and lack of warmth and sunshine. I am so envious of all those bloggers displaying ripe red tomatoes already but hopefully mine will soon make up for the late start.

Having a working oven again is just brilliant – to turn it on and find it heats up (and quickly) is an absolute wonder. I am excited again about cooking and already delving into my pile of recipe books.

Thank you for all the comments on my previous post about the adverts – I am finding out from WordPress if these are their usual amount of ads – if so and nothing can be done I may buy into their ad free plan. As a reader myself I would not want to be bombarded with them and I always have an ad free read myself on other blogs because I more often than not read blogs through the wordpress reader and my own PC browser settings are set so that hardly any get through. I will update you all more on this soon.

Today we have no firm plans, maybe a bit of gardening or perhaps we will make a picnic and go off for the day. I will let you know.

Finally welcome to all the new readers …enjoy the journey but most of all enjoy summer while it lasts. x