Author: Stephen James

So that’s it for another Ashes series & The Summer of Cricket. And what a summer…Ben Stokes, Steve Smith, Jofra Archer…

Perhaps, as well, the question of who can open for England has finally been answered.

Stepped out into our garden early this morning. There has been little in the way of bird song recently, but in the half-light of dawn, I could hear Robins singing again. I enjoy the shift in the seasons.

Well done Australia on retaining the Ashes. Moments of brilliance from England, but not enough. Sigh!

Among the dramas playing out in the current Ashes series, one thing is beginning to emerge – in Rory Burns, England may have found themselves a true opener with the right temperament. Perhaps a player whose technique is not influenced by the short form game? As Barney Ronay says in the Guardian, Burns is ‘here solely on first-class red-ball merit.’

Deleted one of my Twitter accounts. It has sat idle for over a year anyway, but haven’t been able to bring myself to get rid of it. This is part of my drive to stop using social media silos. At some point I will write about my thinking behind this.

Nature never ceases to amaze…Barn owls reflect moonlight in order to stun their prey

Beech trees – Larkbarrow, Exmoor

I realised this week that most of our swallows have left. For the last few weeks the sky has been full of their chatter. Thirty or so, maybe forty. Now just a few stragglers. There is a poignancy to migration. Time moves on.

I have long thought that journaling is a great idea, but it has never really worked out for me. There are various reasons for this;

• With a traditional paper diary with pre-dated pages there is pressure to fill that space. And if I lack inspiration it is easy to give up.
• I have tended to think that ideas should be fully formed before committing them to record. This is an approach guaranteed to fail – who ever has a new idea or train of thought that is fully formed the moment it occurs?
• I have tried to have a working system of note-taking and journaling in place before I start. Again, this is set up to fail from the outset.

Up until recently I’ve used various digital platforms for recording information such as Evernote and the native IOS Notes app, very much with mixed success. Alongside this I have tried blogging on WordPress and my efforts there have faltered as well.Last year I came across bullet journaling – late to the party, I know. This system has worked much better for me – it removes much of the friction from other systems I’ve tried, combined with that whole tactile pen and paper thing. I’ve adapted Ryder Carroll’s method to suit my needs, and I’m sure it will evolve more. I have not eschewed digital methods in favour of paper completely and this is where some refining of my method is needed. For now I am making notes on a much more regular basis, and given that this has been the aim all along, I guess I am heading in the right direction.

I heard swallows giving their alarm call over the field beyond our garden. A fox was making its way across the field – and it seemed that the swallows were mobbing it. I have never heard of this before.