TIME

I shouldn't even be here. I shouldn't be writing this right now. I am supposed to be getting into the car with my husband and going to our friends' for a bike ride, turned 'pop round for a coffee'. It wasn't even supposed to include me, I don't even own a bike! But the men in this friendship had an idea of going for a healthy bike ride and it has deteriorated (or escalated depending on your POV) into a coffee involving the wives. This is nothing new in their bike ride planning.

Tick Tock

But now, where I thought I had lots of time to do what I want to do, I don't. I took a picture of the time on the kitchen clock. You can see the problem just by looking at it. We are due there at 3. And I have started writing and my husband is having a snooze, I think, (he's been quiet, for a snooze length of time). One of us is going to have to make a move. Who will crack first?

We never know how much time we have to do the things we want to do. Not in the grand, when will I die sense, but in the every day, and after all, it is the everyday where everything happens that ends up costing us the time to do the thing we really wanted to do in the entirety of our lives.

We are told to plan our days. Decide what we want to achieve by the end of the day, start the night before and make it happen from the moment we wake.

I agree.

It is a thing that works for me. I have done it; and I know that satisfying experience of daily achievement that turns into weeks and months of success. Is it sustainable? Not in my case, because I was thwarted by external factors which I allowed to take hold and throw my routine under the bus. Along with my mental health and self belief. (I may talk about this in another blog, it is quite the story upon story).

In the months running up to our daughters wedding in September 2017 I was a master planner. It was to be held in our garden and we were organising the whole thing from food, to booze to decorations to what people would sit on. (Although I never considered hiring a port a loo so our three toilets took the weight of 60 bums). We were living in a 4 bed house on a housing estate and needed to impress (I thought so) and accommodate 60 guests. I worked full time, had four other younger children and a husband to tend to and a wedding to plan. Friday night became list night, from about two months out from the big day, and it worked.

Here is one of those very lists. Random things that needed to be done. But it got them done and we never ran out of time and we were ready for what was to become one of the best weddings most people had ever been to. Many have said.

A Friday night list

So back to making the most of the time we have, or planning better, or not putting off until tomorrow what you can do today ( as my Nanna would say).

We are all different, and depending on what the thing is that we need or want to be doing it can sway the ranking of its likely hood to be done early in the day rather than leaving it too late. When it comes to creative things for me, I thought I needed to be in the mood, to be in the zone, the flow, the thing that brings the best creativity out of me. But I have learnt something new about myself by trying something new.

I just started.

I started when the dishwasher needed emptying and the surfaces needing wiping. I started when the plants needed watering or my chin hair needed plucking. I started when things were not perfect or maybe not ready.

Today I opened up the blog page without even knowing what my subject was going to be, and I knew I didn't have enough time to finish what I was about to start. But I did anyway. And as a result I have got this blog written. It may not be the best thing you have ever read but its raw and real and actually in real time.

Well, almost.

So what is the moral of this story, what is my punch line, your take away? I think there are many.

I want to say, just do it anyway.

Even if you are not ready or you only have minutes to give. Do something towards the thing that you don't want to die without ever having done. Because like I said in the beginning, its the every day that affects what we have done by our final day.

And as a little side note to catch you up to speed. We went for a coffee with our friends, my husband cracked first and came looking for me, suggesting he had been waiting upstairs for me to be ready, yeah right. We were late, we stayed longer than we should and we collected our daughter from work on the way home, stopped off to pick up fish and chips and watched Clarkson's Farm as we ate them. I write my final words of this blog at 8.26 pm with a feeling of satisfaction and joy that I have again achieved something creative alongside the mundane, the fun and the necessary.

And just for the joy of it, here is my favourite photo from my daughter's wedding.