Instagram Splurge

Had a bit of a mad one on Instagram lately. Gone a bit nuts and chucked up loads of stuff. I undervalued it before now, but I'm beginning to see the light. My moniker is herodtheswiss and and here's a small selection of shots:

Another week

Going up north again. Only as far as Llangollen and Oswestry this time, but I'll be away four days or three nights, however you look at it. Had a good couple of hours with the dettol yesterday, hanging out in my painting area. Didn't do a jot of painting but got the place looking hot. Now it's so tidy I'm feeling sad about leaving it, even if it's so under-used. Freed up all of my paints as well. Next step is incorporating my modest, unpainted collection. A picture or two below...

Anyways, off north now, leaving family and home behind like some itinerant, wandering monk. And on the topic of monks, my company will be Cadfael, on print format. Poetic really, considering I'll be split between Shropshire and Wales.

6 months is a long time in real life

I've neglected the cathartic process of blogging for many months. I thought I'd get better at life, but it continues to have me in a half nelson. Anyway, during some away time with work, now seems a good time to pick up the process again. I may as well start with some stuff that happened (or will come to happen):

1. A big family wedding in Cyprus.
2. Decided to sell the caravan. Currently on the market.
3. Actively seeking to move a bit closer to a local village-within-the-city.
4. Agreed to do a half marathon (but see below).
5. The project I'm on in work has entered its final, frenzied few months.
6. My wife dropped to 3 days work a week to great effect.

I'm pretty sure loads more happened than that. Something about Wales qualifying for Euro 2016 - and then proceeding to electrify a nation by getting to the semis - springs to mind. Got a proper grown up telly as well. I'm not into bling and possessions, but a decent telly is a great investment.

• Paint x1 miniature per month. Guaranteed. No shenanigans. Just do it.
• Cook a new vegan dish per week.
• Do at least 6 decent mountain walks.
• Learn to use my camera in proper manual mode and look like a pro.
• Re-learn French (to be achieved in conjunction with painting).
• Jog twice a week.

To address some of my previous goals as outlaid in my previous post (see above), i have managed to paint one miniature. I have continued to push boundaries with my cooking, but probably failed with one new dish a week. I've done probably one mountain walk. The camera has gone far better, and while i don't do much with it I'm beginning to get to grips with stuff. I need to keep on with that and also develop my composition skills. On the learning/re-learning French, I had a really productive period of listening to French lessons in the car, but i need to get back on them after a period of time away from it. And then the running.... This has actually happened. Or at least it has quite recently. I even agreed to a half marathon, and was of the opinion that i could manage it until even more quite recently I had a minor operation to remove my little swimmers. That put me out of action for a few weeks, and my employment has also now started to encroach on the precious work/life balance, taking me away for some days at a time. This only looks like worsening over the final few months of the project, with trips to the north of Wales for several days at a time likely to be interrupting any routine i was building up with my running partner who, incidentally, is quite apparently far fitter than me. We'd taken our runs up to a 6 mile distance not long before i had the snip, but i fear for how I'm going to get back to that quickly enough and hit a 10 mile target before the main event that's now less than 2 months away. Add to that a constant need to evacuate my bowels whenever i run, I'm in a bit of a dark place with it all. I'm going to get back on it next week and hope for the best.

Here's that miniature i painted: