Winter and writing weary - already!

Winter makes me decidedly lazy (and yes, this may well be another feeble excuse for not blogging). It's true, and the sad thing is, it's not really even winter! But she is definitely making her presence felt. We've had a good deal of frost here on the farmlands already and the air is far cooler, dryer and dustier, wreaking havoc with my ever so delicate skin (kidding) and sinuses (not kidding).

Clearly, it's not my favourite time of year, because not only do I feel lethargic, I can become rather crabby. This is mostly because I never get to see the sun during my playtime. Sure I get the sun - but during work hours. And all this extended darkness makes me mis. I could never live in northern Europe, where winter days clock in at under 10 hours of daylight. I think I'd end up murdering rude cashiers at the local Tesco or throwing myself into the Themes. I like summers sunshine - I really do. Summer days, mean I drive home in daylight and can regularly relish a chilled glass of wine on the patio as the last glimmers of light fade sweetly into the cool of a summer evening and the Ha-di-da's finally shut up till long after I've left for work the following morning.

Lets face it, weekends in winter are best spent in the arms of ones lover (when not making homes pretty and such). And the arms of ones lover are almost always better when snuggled under a duvet rather than sitting on the bone chillingly windy stoop outside - trying to soak up some of the Highvelds deceptively sunny winter days. Not that I mind snuggling under a duvet with my lover watching a DVD and slowly sipping some hot chocolate. Opting for that pleasure though, means the sun is sidelined for a few months.

On the upside though, when the season turns - you'll get to hear me really sing the praises of the bright blue sky's and the green shoots emerging from mother earths tilled soils. I won't get into that now - lets wait for the season to turn. In the mean time, I'll hobble along with my wintry lethargy, battling to go to gym and stay away from chocolate and other such comfort foods.

Recently, I've found myself somewhat challenged with two writing missions. OK, I lie, one's a mission, the other's a task. Lets begin with the TASK - *sighs with trepidation*

Unlike Rambler, who is involved with wordsmithery for a living, I am involved with plants. But somewhere along the line someone may have noted that I write a pretty formidable formal letter or am I deluding myself? My formal writing comes laced with pompous undertones and haughty legalistic phrasing. Hey, what can I say, when it's formal writing, one does not want to seem too casual or come over as imbecilic(is imbecilic even a word???). This 'knack' however has landed me the daunting task of scribing the entire conents of our website, including a description of our business activities; a condensed version (some 200 words or less I think) of a fifty year history as well as any other content we enthusiastically thought we might want to present to all and sundry.

Needless to say, not a word has been written yet thanks in part to the large amount of other reports and technical analysis relevant to growing plants that I've been interpreting and responding to... and of course a slight sense of being overwhelmed (by the writing task, not the reports).

I've written loads of 'corporate' stuff before - but always for dance parties and other hedonistic persuits - so this is quite a step away from a comfort zone for me. The style brief for our business's site is: "Formal, but not intimidating, almost conversational but not too chatty or light." What kind of a brief is that anyway?? Hmm, I may have to consider commissioning Rambler to help out a little. Anyone care to second that motion?

The second writing item is THE mission. It's the thing I posted about last week. Not a word has been written about that either. But I shall get it done. Alas, it's not my style to write in little bits and pieces. But as the clarity of my point develops, I shall try transcribe my thoughts into a succinct 'story'. Until then, it muddles through my thoughts, being stacked with new ideas as other pieces of information come to light....

OK - so now I'm babbling, instead of working on one of these pieces that's rather more important than this post. Off I go>>> *breathes deeply as if preparing to take a plunge into frigid water*

Ciao4Now