Monday 18 June 2018

Discoveries...

1. The joy of a summer duvet...
I realise that what I am about to say is going to make me sound very, very old but have you discovered the joy of a summer duvet yet?! Oh my! This is a recent discovery to me and Dave and it is truly wondrous. Coming in at 4.5 tog, it's the lightest, most coolest way to sleep and it's just lush. No more waking up in the middle of the night, tangled up in the massive 13.5 tog layer of thickness of our former duvet, desperately trying to just get one foot out there so that you can cool off. Nope - the summer duvet is perfection and right now, it is life. No more words are needed. If you don't have one, go right out and get one now. Seriously, it WILL change your bedtime life! 

2. David Beckham on Instagram...
The man is beautiful. Definitely falls into the category of "growing into his looks" Those wrinkles around his eyes...just oh! Did I mention he does Instagram Stories too? I'm smitten...as are the 47 million other people who follow him I reckon...

3. Looking up...
Blue skies? Red brick buildings? Few clouds dotted here and there? Quick, take a photo! I've always had a fondness for looking up but at the moment it's turning into a bit of an obsession and it's like I'm discovering Middlesbrough for the first time all over again. Have you ever actually looked up while you're wandering around there? The architecture is stunning! Heart eye emojis at the ready cos you're going to need them...


4. Call me by your name...
I know that I'm way late to the party for this one but I've finally got round to reading this book and to say I'm utterly charmed would be an understatement. You can almost *smell* the hazy summer sunshine. I'm only on to chapter three but I can feel that it's going to be memorable. (sidenote: my pile of books to take away on holiday is pretty large but there's a couple of brand new shiny ones in there so I might even do a review or two upon my return...)

5. Mellow yellow...
Last week I attended an Insights session all about colour analysis. Call it hoo-ey, call it science, honestly call it whatever you like, but I will never get over how flipping accurate that 18 page document was when describing me. I showed it to Dave and he howled his way through it, while secretly taking notes in the "how not to speak to Claire" section *chuckles* The biggest discovery for me was how much I loved doing the people watching. Don't get me wrong, there were moments when it was almost torturous to watch the people because of the nightmare they were going through (poor blues, my heart goes out to them) but it made me realise all over again how fascinated I am by body language and the unspoken words that people use to communicate. Maybe that whole thinking about Psychology as a career when I was 17 wasn't such a bad call after all...

Made any interesting discoveries lately? Do tell...

Sunday 3 June 2018

What was I just doing...?

Do you ever get that thing where you're in the middle of something, someone asks you a question, you deal with that and then you try to go back to what you'd been doing in the first place and you have no memory of it? I swear in the last year or so I've turned into a goldfish with a two second memory span. If I don't write stuff down I might as well just forget about it cos I don't stand a hope of it having sunk into my overly crowded head. I know I'm not alone in this. Our attention spans have seriously hit the deck with a very loud (and forgettable) thud. 

I wanted to talk about this today and how it's affecting blogs and overall reading in general. Be honest, how many blogs do you actually subscribe to? Do you faithfully read all their posts? My Bloglovin' inbox has reduced loads in the last couple of months and I have to be honest - it's been a conscious uncoupling on my behalf (haha, I love that phrase so much - it's so ridiculous that it's funny!). 



I don't want to be the person who says this, but life truly is too short to spend it reading stuff that isn't giving you any enjoyment anymore. Only a short two years ago I would have said that reading blogs was one of my favourite past-times but now, they just don't hold my attention in the same way. A lot of this has to do with me and my own attention-grabbing limitations, but also I just don't FEEL the love from a lot of the authors anymore. The ones I've recently unsubscribed from just don't feel genuine at the moment. The focus is just a bit 'off' and it's been enough for me to turn off. No grace period either, just to see. Nope - boom, goodbye and goodnight. 

I can't quite pin down what it is either. I think it's common knowledge that numbers are falling. The short attention span problem has hit bloggers hard and even the big names are losing page views - pretty dramatically too I think. But I definitely think it's fair to ask the question - if they're not feeling it, why should we? 

As a way-way under the radar blogger myself, it's not that big a deal. I don't rely on page views for anything at all and my ramblings are enjoyed by a small handful of loyal readers...I also can hardly tell you that I spend hours and hours writing blog posts for your enjoyment as that's absolutely not true...but it must be so disheartening when people do spend hours, and it's their income and the attention span of people is so low that they might look at the first paragraph and then move swiftly on. Ouch! 

Where was I again? Yep. It's happened again. I've written a few paragraphs and I've forgotten what my original point was supposed to be. Sheesh - the shame! 

Oh yep, attention span. Not being able to read much without being bored. Is anyone still with me? It totally saddens me to think this may be the case with books too. I will always choose book reading over any other favourite past time - it's been a constant in my life since I was born and long may it remain that way. But imagine if the teenagers coming up behind us now don't read anymore? What will happen to authors? No, I can't even start to think about it...

The thing is, I don't think there's a solution to the short attention span problem. The more information and content that is out there, the more we'll try to consume and our brains might just explode. Eep! I try to expand my concentration by spending time reading things and looking at blogs, but then I might get a notification on my phone and I'm instantly distracted. And therein lies the crux of the problem...the solution is probably to spend less time on my phone/being distracted by my phone, but I like it! The defence cried out across the land m'lud - we all like our phones...

Probably too much...

Definitely too much...

I bought a book called "How to break up with your phone". I haven't read it yet. It's got really small writing and I'm worried that it won't be interesting enough to keep me engaged...

See? We're all effed! 

Someone save us! But do we really want to be saved? 

Answers on a postcard, or in the comments below. If you can be bothered...