Thursday, December 16

I spend the day alone in the house, writing, and ordering my thoughts. I have an interesting range of displacement activities to do whenever I need a break.

We have agreed that DGD members should get certificates when they complete the courses we have developed, and so I spent some time creating just such as certificate. I found an online template and then customised it in Affinity Designer.

Over the last week I have found myself using the Affinity suite (Photo, Designer, and Publisher) much more than I have used them before. I bought them as a bundle in an early pandemic sale and I have never regretted it. Designer and Publisher work very well together, says the man producing certificates and leaflets at short notice.

On the way back from checking the mailbox, where I found nothing, I pause a photograph a lantern hanging off the little shed where we keep our refuse bin. The sun has brightened and I walked normally to and from the mailbox for the first time in a week.

As I walked I swung my shoulders like an actor in a bad western, while looking around to check for bandits, just to emphasise how little attention I needed to pay to the ground.