Category: Badger Writes

Badger Writes

Hello 2023

adrian2 Comments

I’ve never really been a new years resolutions kind of boy, and yes, I know that I’ve made half arsed attempts at great self improvement promises to myself, but any changes I’ve ever made to my life or lifestyle have been incremental and never as a result of grandiose statements made in the haze of New Years champagne (or prosecco).

In fact, the older I get, the more content I am with everything in my life. I know that comes from a certain amount of privilege, but at 53, I find myself sat in my living room typing this, a fire burning in the grate, a cat stretched out in front of it. Classical music in the background, a fresh ground coffee at my elbow and feeling content is pretty easy.

But, I do have some intentions or goals for 2023 that are smart S.M.A.R.T.
smart as it Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound
(See my dearest heart, I do listen and absorb).

Knitting
1. Finish St Brigid (my current project), fully, completely and wearable. I have a terrible habit of starting new projects midway through long ones and getting distracted. I have at least three abandoned jumpers in project bags that need attention to be finished.
2. I have a huge stash of yarn, some bought and some inherited and I intend to sort through and make sensible decisions about what I should do with it. It’s been six years since my mother died and I inherited her stash and it’s way past time I stopped being soppy and be realistic about what I will actually use and what I should donate.
3. I will use the really nice yarn that is in my deep stash, the wet spun linens and cobweb weight stuff that I was given years ago and terrifies me.
4. I will not start new projects that require me to buy new yarn.

Reading
I switched to a e-reader a number of years ago, as I get older my eyes appreciate the resizable text and adjustable lights my Boox provides (and the warm light option means I can read in bed without the blue light problem that phones and tablets have with interrupting sleep). But I rarely give myself time to sit and read, so I tend to only read in bed before sleep and I read junk.
I want to read more of the serious literature I avoided in favour of my SF addiction.
I’ve been reading more Waugh and Orwell last year, I love Wodehouse, but feel regret that I never finished The Ragged Trouser Philanthropists, in fact I abandoned it to reread an old favourite. I Keep promising myself that I will start reading the Margaret Attwood novels I have, but found myself looking the violent TV adaptation of a Handmaids Tale and was deterred from opening her books, which is unfair of me, to judge her entire career based on one television adaptation. So fewer sweet treat SF novels and more serious broccoli ones, I like broccoli and I know I like decent literature if I make myself start.

Exercise
Just before the pandemic really hit, I was persuaded to join a “learn to run” course at out local community center and much to my disgust I discovered that not only did I enjoy running, I was actually good at it. We had a few weeks running together and then it was lockdown and I was stuck with running on the treadmill in our basement. So on and off and nursing a tendon injury, I’ve been running. It’s been an amazing boost to my mental health, I’ve lost weight and I feel great.

So, now that things are getting “Back to normal” it’s my intention to increase my running training and start doing the Saturday park run in Victoria Park if and when they resume in the spring. It’s a flat 5k course, I’ve walked it with the dog before and the route is in a lovely wooded park. I know I can do it, I’ve run treadmill 5ks, I just need to up increase my stamina and endurance.



These are all still self improvement of sort, but things that I enjoy anyway. Personal domestic stuff I keep off the internet, but there are house renos and boxes in the basement from our move to the new house (6 years ago) that desperately need my attention this year and lets not talk about the state of the garage.

Badger Writes

What’s the deal with all the badger stuff?

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Badger was the first online identity I chose back in the 90’s when we were first getting online and the internet was an adventure, and it’s pretty much stuck with me over the last 30 years.

Way back in the ancient mists of time when I was a mere slip of a lad, I wasn’t like other boys. I read obsessively, I never really had the knack for making or keeping friends and other kids baffled me. One of the books I was obsessed with was The Wind in the Willows (something to pick up later, but I think this may have been the seeds of my vague affinity for the interwar period/aesthetic). I loved the book, but I identified most with Mr Badger. Toad was fun, but alarming, Ratty far too sporty and far too like those boys who I liked but who were unattainable to me, Mole sweet but dim, but Badger, well Badger was a gruff kindly, loner sort, but open to pleasant company. The description of his home sang to me, (oddly much in the same way Bag End did when I discovered The Hobbit in my early teens)

The floor was well-worn red brick, and on the wide hearth burnt a fire of logs, between two attractive chimney-corners tucked away in the wall, well out of any suspicion of draught. A couple of high-backed settles, facing each other on either side of the fire, gave further sitting accommodations for the sociably disposed

The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the smoky ceiling; the oaken settles, shiny with long wear, exchanged cheerful glances with each other; plates on the dresser grinned at pots on the shelf, and the merry firelight flickered and played over everything without distinction.

Wind in the Willows, chapter IV Mr Badger

How those words spoke to the future middle aged man in my preteen heart I have no idea, but that idea of home has stayed with me my entire life. And as I sit writing this, a wood fire burns in the grate, soft classical music plays in the background, the dog lies asleep on the sofa and I’m sipping hot Yorkshire tea, so somehow, something of Mr Badger and his home lives on in my daily life, and the nature of him sits in my heart and identity.

So that’s what all the badger stuff is about, all that and there is something that I can’t help but love about the cuddly vicious little bastards, and of course there is this.

Badger Writes

A new approach and a new blog

adrianLeave a comment

Years ago, before the billionaires became billionaires from buying out everything and subsuming every way we communicated, I blogged. It never mattered if I was read, it was mainly a way for me to share my thoughts on a page, more of a personal journal than anything else.

I got involved with different green living/ downshifting fora, and got to know some great people, then Facebook arrived and ate up everything, exchanging thoughts and ideas and experiences became more about fulfilling a childish desire to show off and that showing off was rewarded and I indulged in that for quite a few years.  

Now all of that (Facebook, Twitter etc) is crumbling, and what was social media is being exposed as really just manipulation and sales, and people are leaving. I left and joined Mastodon, I discovered the Fediverse and it was a reminder of how much joy I had in the early internet, actual discovery of new things, BlogRolls and links and nothing curated by algorithms.  

So here I am again, 16 years later, older, in a different country and trying with this blog to recapture something of how I felt all those years ago on that exciting new internet.

So this is just really for me, a journal, photos of things I made or enjoyed or saw, ideas I had, shower thoughts and memes that made me chuckle.