Yesterday the day dawned bright and clear and I hope signals the start of really spring-like weather. The day started off in a little unusual fashion because the workers are arriving about an hour and a half later this morning and this meant that I had the rather unusual activity of a 'lie-in' and so I arose at 7.00am rather than the more usual 6.00am. And to compound the problem and make it even worse, I have now just received a message delaying Meg's getting up time to 10.00am and I have been forced to complain about the unacceptability of all of this which is messing up the planning and organisation of our days considerably. But I needed this lie-in because when I was up for a brief spell in the middle of the night, this spell became somewhat longer when I thought I would just process a few more files to get my study tidy. As I tidy, certain principles have started to emerge. Firstly, I try to ensure that each pile is no more than fifteen files deep. the reasons here are two fold - firstly, fifteen files just sits nicely on the shelf giving space and the ability to search and locate any particular one without undue manipulation. Secondly, in the HTML page that I am devoting to each pile, the number of 15 gives me a nice screenful of information which I can then print off and put in a plastic transparency so I know what is in each pile. I am now just about at the stage where I have sorted out all of the principal groups of files and I have finished up with about nine groups of approximately fifteen in each group. Some of these files have material that is cognate and will not requite much additional relocation. The last group of files is largely IT related content with topics such as HTML tips and tricks I have learnt over the years, quite a lot on file and website protection, some Javascript, some web server (Apache file server) commands which are a bit of a black art and quite hard won knowledge, domain name and website providers and so on. Actually, one of the most useful little tricks that I have developed over the years is to record how to undertake particular procedures such as getting a caption of relevant information onto each photo. I have a fairly large A4 sized notebook called 'What have I learned today?' and any new technique I record on the next blank page generally with the day's date on it. Then I have an index of all of the topics at the back of the book and if I wish to remember how I performed a particular technique which I had learned a year or so ago but had completely forgotten how to do, then I have the procedure all written out for me so I have not constantly re-inventing the wheel. I must admit that with Meg's illness, I have not had the time to indulge in any of these programming activities recently but my reference book remains invaluable to me. As a very real example, it has taken me quite some time to learn the exactly correct Javascript commands to insert at the bottom of each HTML page telling the viewer the date and time that the file was up[dated and posted. I now have the 'perfect for me' code which puts the days into an English format, specifies the day as well as the date, gives the time as well as the date and even self corrects for the operation of BST rather than GMT.
Yesterday morning saw a very attenuated day as one carer turned up at 10.00am and I needed to assist him for some twenty minutes until his delayed second helper partner turned up. But despite this start, we were absolutely delighted that our daughter-in-law turned up and worked like a demon cutting back some of the shrubbery from the front of the house which was becoming quite overgrown and potentially getting in the way of cars visiting the house. I have actually been pretty tired this morning perhaps as a result of being awake for an hour or so during the night. Today, we got to the part of the study where I have stored the papers I have presented to conferences and journals over the years and I threw away a fair quantity of duplicates and one or two items I had saved at the time but could now be jettisoned. I used to take some time and trouble by making my conference papers have an attractive cover by designing covers of an attractive design which were run off on my coloured paper onto a glossy photo paper. These were then covered with plain acetate sheets front and rear and after stapling the spines were bound in a black 2" wide repair tape to produce a professional looking document. Some of my academic colleagues were somewhat taken aback when I distributed copies of my papers enhanced in this way but one of my foibles was to take a pride in producing a good looking document and I hope that the contents proved to be a as attractive as the covers. The techniques of producing documents were communicated to me by the South African Asian manager of our reprographics department at De Montfort University with whom Meg and I established a firm friendship. New recruits to the university who had not heard of the term 'reprographics' for the wholesale production of documents in large quantities would some times mistakenly refer to it as the 'reproduction department' which always caused ripples of amusement all round. I now have just one of my four large bookcases left to declutter but I know that in the bottom I used to store things like computer cables and leads of various kinds that will take some sorting out. No doubt, I will discover some junk that can be rehoused and when I have completed this task, I shall have cleared some 72' of shelving all in all which has taken some doing. The pain of going through lots of material that require sorting and eventual disposal is mitigated by the occasional find of something I thought was lost and is now recovered.
© Mike Hart [2025]