.And

I’ve finally shifted this blog over to it’s rightful home, so please update your bookmarks to rockshore.co.uk.

Having already bought wood and built frames for raised beds a few weeks ago, I finally picked up my Grandpa’s spade on Saturday and was able to spend the past two afternoons digging them out. A more difficult project than I had anticipated. Will need much more earth / compost / top soil to fill them in.

Having considered yesterday’s idea further and deduced that maybe Wordpress and not Tumblr would be better for developing the “mood board” style blog, I have been proven wrong. Inspire Well is a Tumblr theme which does something similar to what was in my head. Go figure.

When designing my blog I’ve always struggled with the tension between short, off the cuff remarks and long deliberated thoughts. Having jumped around from Wordpress to Tumblr, to Posterous and back to Wordpress, I’m now reconsidering Tumblr for the rockshore blog.

My previously mentioned half-finished redesign was based in Wordpress, chosen for it’s flexibility, and the in-built commenting system. It had a Tumblr-esque layout, and some lovely little design features.

My plan was to use rockshore as a personal marketing project. Blogging on life, design and anything that others might find interesting, my secret agenda was promoting Andrew Rossborough in order to promote his business SOLID. Now that Carol and I have both started blogging over at the redesigned SOLID blog, I’m less inclined to focus on the personal promotion.

With that in mind, comments aren’t so important. I’ve always liked the social aspect of Tumblr - reblogging instead of commenting - and with the integration of Facebook and Twitter there lies the ability to promote and discuss blog posts publicly, without need for in-built comments.

And so I return to my opening thought - how do I deal with the tension of short vs long posts. Can I reblog a funny comic strip in one post and write an epistle in the next? In my head my thoughts jump from one thing to the next - do I have to order these thoughts coherently to write a blog post?

I like the idea of an unordered, unstructured blog format. Somewhere that allows me to put everything in one place, whether that’s a 140 character tweet, a gallery of photos from a night out or a collection of thoughts I’ve been pondering for months. A kind of interactive mood-board, unrestricted by date or topic. From one glance at the page you could see my life.

Taking the idea further, however impractical or impossible it would be to manage, I like the idea of posts promoted by popularity. Visitors could “like” my thoughts on design or walking out the Christian life, and those posts would appear higher up the page than photos of my lunch. This would encourage me to write more about the things people want to read. I might even stop posting LOST clips. Not likely.

I’m just dreaming here. It’s likely these ideas will never see the light of day. But hey, maybe I’m onto something. I’d like to share more of my life on here - but more often than not that’s messy, disorganised and unstructured. Maybe it’s time rockshore was allowed to be the same.

Today marks the 5th day since Carol and I have ventured outside, owing to rather severe bouts of the chest-cold. I think we’re beginning to go a bit crazy…

Our sleeping patterns have developed into a go-to-bed-early, constantly-wake-up-coughing, sleep-in-till-lunchtime system. Our lack of outside human interaction is becoming worrying. Carol’s ability to watch endless dvd’s in a row is a little disturbing.

As is my way, I’m trying to make good use of my house-bound status. Yesterday, I took down the Christmas decorations, but collapsed before I could get them to the attic. I think I might try and put a picture up in the front room today - these are exciting times folks.

Carol’s penchant for sitting by the fire this has led to a shortage of natural gas supply for the rest of the uk and so we’ve decided it might be an idea to save up for a conversion to a wood burning stove. There are a number of models which are suitable for use within smoke control zones and so it’ll be a case of finding out if we can line our chimney to suit. Our wee gas fire gives out plenty of heat if you’re sitting next to it, but it doesn’t heat the room, making it a less than efficient use of our monies.

In other news, happy new year! We spent our new years eve in separate rooms - while Carol slept, I gave my computer a good old clear out. Rock n Roll lifestyle. Hope you all celebrated in much more time honoured fashion, and rang in 2011 in style. Here’s to good health and great year to come.

After the overwhelming success of my first attempt at baking
shortbread, I decided it might be nice to bake some for the
neighbours. Carol wrapped them up beautifully into little parcels of
goodness!

Download now or watch on posterous

IMG_0209.MOV (1975 KB)

Stumbled upon a model railway exhibition in a church in Bangor when we
heard the sound of christmas carols and wandered inside! We were
hoping for a carol service!