This is my first ever on-line Blog-post. It must be pretty obvious to all and sundry that I don't know what I'm doing. Give me pen and paper or an old-fashioned typewriter and I'm quick off the blocks for a marathon of words, coherent, erudite, confident, ream after ream. But sit me in front of a computer and I stare - transfixed by its potential and its dangers - at the screen, the keyboard, the on-off button, the ctrl-alt-del buttons. My technophobia kicks off my OCD; because I don't understand everything, I can't do anything.
Is this Blog one techno-step too far? Through necessity since the Covid-19 lockdown, I've used WhatsApp (hijacking my husband's account as I was too scared to set up my own), skyped and face-timed with friends (with drink in hand so we call it skinking and finking), participated in three Zoom meetings, and have just registered for a Webinar with Teams. I have no idea what that last bit means by the way. I just know I've done it and, cometh the day cometh the hour, I'll see whether I've actually sold my soul to the Devil.
Perhaps my biggest techno-achievement (or techno-mistake, depending on how it all pans out) was something I chose to do rather than had to do, and that was set up a LinkedIn Profile. I chose to do it because, well, being honest, I was bored. Lockdown had deprived me of pub-nights with mates, sabre-rattling against airport expansion, HS2, Ox-Cam Expressway …. (you name the enviro-cause, I rattled against it), German language classes, choir rehearsals (will I ever publicly perform Haydn's Nelson Mass?), shoe-shopping, lunching with ladies, lunching with laddies (shush), trips to Somerset (family tree research). My full and varied life has been replaced with coping with my husband being at home 24/7 - I clean and disinfect, I cook, I sourced toilet roll, and am still chasing down bread flour. In addition I run errands for self-isolating friends, which I do not begrudge at all. A huge chunk of energy is channelled towards explaining to my 90-year-old mum that popping to the village shop every day is no longer good for her health, then explaining it again when I see her bank statement and all the purchases she has made at the village shop after the last time I explained it. This is my new repetitive - yes, boring - life.
So LinkedIn was a chance to stretch my 21st-Century skill-set to the max, to seek out new opportunities / projects / contacts. I've rewritten my Profile (again) so that it says roughly what I'm trying to do now rather than just blow the dust off an old CV. And I started this Blog to feed into LinkedIn. Not all these posts will be relevant - some will be just for my own amusement, like the odd rude limerick - I'll post selectively so as not to bore the pants off everyone.
There. I've written my first Blog. I'm sure there's a way to save it but can I find how?
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