Is being organised the same as being in a routine? I asked myself this question this morning and I decided they weren’t quite the same but there was an overlap. I like a bit of routine. Wake up- cup of tea or hot lemon in bed, read The Independent on my Ipad (well actually glance through the headlines then do the word scrambler…) Get up, walk the dog, have breakfast of porridge which The Man cooks, and then he always clears away breakfast and washes up everything. He does that for all the other meals too and I cook them. After breakfast, it’s time to write. Sometimes I go shopping first or go to the post office with a copies of Dear Tosh that have to be sent off. I’ve discovered the joy of postage online so that I can pay for, and print the label at home, then just drop into the box. It saves so much time.

I write for as long as I can, interspersed with taking my turns at online Scrabble and Lexoulus which I play with a few friends and my sister Jean — she wins a lot by the way! We eat a late lunch, 3pm usually, I then take the dog out for her second walk of the day, only a short one this time. Come home to a cup of tea and a piece of cake (and at this time of year it’s in front of the fire). I sometimes do more writing, correspondence, Zoom calls, and maybe read or listen to a book. In the evening we settle down and watch something on Netflix or iPlayer or Amazon. At this point, having wandered about most of the day looking a bit lost, because The Man and I work in separate areas of our cottage, Jpeg, the dog, also manages to settle down. She likes nothing better than when we are all together in the evening The Man and I in ‘our’ chairs and she at last gets into ‘her’ bed, happy.

So this is routine, but am I organised? I don’t really think I am. I love starting a new notebook, who doesn’t? Every time I open the first clean crisp page, I am determined that I will keep it tidy and use the same pen throughout the book, but this only ever lasts for a bout a week. I have a different notebook for each project that I am working on. I then have notebooks for a Creative Writing Workshop that I run, then there’s the general notebook, then there’s the poetry notebook etc., etc. The problem is I often grab the wrong notebook when I think of something I want to jot down for later, but then whatever it is I’ve written is lost. I may come across it some years later when I’m reading through my old notebooks.

Next, I would love to have a tidy desk and tidy bookshelves. The Man bought me a new bookshelf to sit to the left hand side of my desk. It was meant to be just for poetry books but that didn’t actually happen. It now has non-fiction, novels, poetry books, files, empty ink cartridges to be recycled, a mug, magazines, leaflets. . . and so it goes on. Here’s a photograph.

My desk is also a mess this morning and it’s probably like this every morning. I assure you that I did not set this up, it’s exactly as it is while I sit typing this blog. I do tidy it…often…but it only stays clear for about five minutes as I am soon wanting to make notes, check things in some reference book or other, which I then often leave on the desk, whereas if I were organised it would go back into its place immediately. I note my make-up bag and earring box are both sitting there too, right next to the staple machine. 😂

Am I ashamed? Maybe a little, but this is how I work and I put it down to being creative. The thing is, because I’m not very organised, I do waste a lot of time looking for things and always have done. Do you remember when all correspondence was printed and came in the snail mail? Masses of paperwork had to be filed. I can remember being very bad at filing and ALWAYS having several documents left over at the end, because they didn’t fit in any particular file in the cabinet. I’m like that now with the computer. I try to file all photos, documents (pdf and word etc.,) into their little blue folders on my desktop but I always have stuff left over; things that don’t even fit into the Sundries folder!

I can be organised if I want to be. I can be ready and relaxed before receiving guests for supper. I can fit a great deal into one day if I plan ahead. I can juggle jobs and meet deadlines. So it’s not all bad. However I do remember being told by the health visitor, after I gave birth to twins —  I already had three children — that I would have to be extra organised to get through my day and to be sure all the children were cared for properly. I was also told that I when I began to give the twins solid food I should have a separate bowl and spoon for each baby…Pah! That went out the window straight away, one bowl, one spoon, two mouths. They survived and so did I. We all muddled through and that’s the word MUDDLED… far better and more fun than being organised. In my humble opinion.

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