Stepping out of routines

Since I have a sense that blogs are now rather last year, and quite a few active bloggers have given up or faded, it must be about time as a convinced contrarian to restart mine after a 19 month gap. In fact, I even had a problem locating it after all this time.

I suppose the point which concerns me is that instant publishing of stuff without any filtering or processing is good in one sense, but deadening in another. As a result, our processing of the present can become quite superficial. I think blogging forces me to think and to write about the present in a more considered way, "living life with eyes wide open" in much the same way that carrying a camera around makes me look more carefully at my surroundings.

Earlier in October I said that I would plan to do at least one thing quite out of character every week for the rest of 2010. I wasn’t thinking about anything quite as extreme as this suggestion list from a sibling:

· turn up at a station without any pre planning.

· Start watching EastEnders.

· Say "who cares" when someone gets some facts wrong.

· Be extrovert at a party.

· Buy some smart new clothes.

Let’s settle to begin with for extending my routine world rather than turning me into someone else altogether … but still radically breaking the Duguid clan taboos (a concept which outsiders won't understand at all).

So far we have

· 5 and 19 Oct I went to two lunchtime plays in the Traverse theatre “ A Play a Pie and a Pint series”. Might be routine for you, but thanks to Gill for poking me on this one. Still hoping to get my dad to the Birnam Institute where I am assured nothing at all ever happens.

· 18 and 25 Oct, went out for a coffee at the Metropole on a Monday morning by myself with a Guardian weekly, also an illegal activity. You are allowed possibly to meet up with a third party for coffee. You can also buy a coffee on a train. If neither of these exemptions apply, sensible people have their coffee at home.

· 23 Oct, built on this by having an even nicer coffee at Vane Farm while watching the birds on Loch Leven. Oh, and there is a really nice 8 mile cycle track round the loch to Kinross. Not only does your lunch taste better outside, but perhaps the poem you sat on works better outside too?

There are a number of these benches along the Loch Leven Heritage Way which offer an insight into the work of Michael Bruce, a famous 18th century Scots poet who was born in nearby Kinesswood

Candle on the table in the evening. Thanks to Jill for this former Christmas present, but aren't candles just for decoration? Are you allowed to burn them?

· 28 Oct was in Tescos in Nicholson Street, remember that’s where I had my heart attack 22 months ago. Checked my till receipt (OK, not to do this would be a step too far) and noticed that the cereal bars had come up as 76p instead of 72p. And I didn’t bother pulling them up, even although they would double the mistake to 8p.

Next week’s contradiction will be to go to Mull, an island I haven’t been to before, with a Munro and a Corbett I haven’t climbed, and be quite happy cycling around the other half of the island. Giving me an excuse course to go back later (but that would be to rationalise it).

And perhaps even restarting this blog after 19 months counts as another change of routine?