What Was I Thinking? (Stick to what you know, Rebecca!)

It transpires that I can’t actually stop writing about The Four Little Seymours, after all.
There have been complaints.

And so, in the spirit of keeping everyone happy, I have come up with a different plan…

The other page I started, I shall abandon. I may import the stories I shared there, for posterity, but in truth, they were not working. My Instagram page? I think it is already growing tumbleweed owing to my inability to be fast-paced and willing to commit.

The fact of the matter is, I need to streamline things, keep them simple. Why in the world would I choose to start a new blog? It is an achievement in itself to have kept the first one going for so long – even though the posts were -admittedly- very sporadic. The new page stressed me out – put me off blogging.

It is true that I can’t share all that I once could, possibly. But I must remember that I have always been an advocate of perspective, and if I try hard enough, I can usually find a perspective that will enable me to share my tales without embarrassing anyone. And if that means a heavy focus on my own idiosyncrasies, then so be it. This is, after all, a personal archive, a confessional. My diary, really.

I have realised that I am not in the market for reels and tutorials, TikToks and IG posts. I’d love to learn these skills but for what? Everyone is doing it and I can’t compete. Besides, things just take too darn long to finish here to maintain anyone’s interest (for example, we’ve had half a roof for seventeen months, since the re-roofing began). So I hereby relinquish any intention to try to use Instagram, but for the odd blog link! And that feels good.

Yes, I need to do more of this lifestyle simplifying, because I realise more each day that I am acutely aware of time running out. There is so much I want to do! But to accept that I can’t try everything is actually very liberating. I decided on Saturday that it would be such fun to be in a teachers’ pantomime at school! Then I realised that nobody will organise it, so I should. In the time it took me to drive to Brighton, I had planned to write and rehearse an original panto to be performed on the penultimate day of term, to a keen and enthusiastic audience of 250 11-13 year-olds. It was going to be epic! But then I started to get so stressed about the process, the inevitable resistance to the enterprise and a potential show day flop that I declared out loud to myself, as I parked the car, that I DID NOT NEED TO DO THIS THING. It is one less thing now on my list. Which is good. But also a shame.

(You see! There are at least two sides to every situation. That perspective again.)

Because I find myself almost at the limit of my technological skills right now, and most certainly, at the peak of them (as things can only get worse in that department from here on in) I realise I was mad to stop my little blog, just when I was celebrating a decade of my typed witterings. No, I may not have made the big time, audience-wise, but I had an audience, people that tuned in, commented, and said they valued  Four Little Seymours just for what it was. I am grateful to those people, and in truth, I don’t want to let them down.

My tech’ skills are an issue when it comes to fast-paced social media; I can do it, but by the time I have learned, edited, asked the kids how to add music and captions and added a filter (!) I’ve forgotten what I want to say and the exciting episode at the new funny bungalow has been and gone; the wall has been knocked down, or the shed has turned into a caravan. Facebook is much better for me, as it allows for a much more genteel pace, which means the blog is a pleasure and not a chore. The ever-advancing reach of technology has never been more apparent to me than today, when I went online to renew my driving licence. Following the instructions on the letter, I copied the link into my browser, and was led on a merry dance which involved email addresses, text codes, QR codes, a PC AND a phone and then a strobe light effect from my mobile as it linked to my PC to scan a chip on my passport which then loaded all of the information about me onto the screen and compared my passport photo to a grainy, unflattering selfie taken simultaneously. It was nothing short of amazing! And potentially quite intrusive, but impressive all the same.

And so, here I am, back to report on whatever musings I may be able to weave into short essay form, for the enjoyment of anyone who may want to read them, using a platform that I can manage. Once again, I will call myself a writer, because I am writing.

Even if it is very low-tech.

Our new acquisition: a second-hand fountain. Reminiscent of the last days of Rome, we think. There is work to do.