Sunday, June 23

The wind has died down and the sun has come out. I look at the side of the house in the sharp sunlight and become struck by the colours. Earlier I noticed the greens in the fields. Now I notice the shades of red on the wall.

My midsummer resolution

When I started this, some eight or nine years ago, I never intended to write a detailed daily diary. Recently I have decided that I no longer have a need (or a desire) to write one, and so I intend simplify the format of these pages as part of a new experiment.

I explain why in more detail elsewhere. You can read about it here.

Two things conspired to make me decide this. Firstly I noted that I had got into the habit of writing about 500 words a day here, and almost nothing anywhere else on the site. Secondly I noticed that about ten days ago I more or less wrote a movie review in the middle of a daily post.

I thought back to the various reasons I have had for writing this on a daily basis and decided to retrench to the idea of a photograph, a caption of whatever length, and some notes (like this one) about anything that crosses my mind that I feel like communicating.

Instead of writing 7,000 words here every fortnight I will attempt to write one of the essays I have never finished because of the time I have spent doing this. I will also try to return to adding frequent notes and shorter observations to the site.

I should find the switch to a shorter form fairly easy at this time of year because I will spend the next five or six weeks in Pellinge where my days will consist of eating, gardening, reading, sleeping, walking, and writing; possibly in a different order on different days, but without much other variation.

Let us see what actually happens…