Time advances forward once more – and there is a surprising amount to report. How rare.

The major development is that last Sunday I was convinced by a friend to take part in his 28 mile “Yorkshire Three Peaks” challenge that he was doing with three friends, until one of them dropped out. I, foolishly perhaps, decided to step into the breach. The challenge is one week today, May 15th, for charity, of course. I’m a little bit excited, but also nervous. I’ve hiked before, but never that far…

So to try to prepare myself for the challenge I did a 5.3 mile round trip walk yesterday. A walk which went nowhere, but at least the weather was OK for it. By the end of the walk my feet felt a bit sore, but strangely they only started hurting as soon as I stopped. This morning I feel fine, which is a very good sign. Some time early next week I will have to do a 10 mile walk. If only I was actually going somewhere interesting rather than walking around urban sprawl. I suppose I could get the train out into a more rural area, but that has two problems: a) I’d probably get lost, b)  trains cost money!

After discussing all of this with my friend, we then moved on to the thorny issue of work. He has recently been made redundant from his job as a web designer and developer. I discussed the possibility of us working together on a business venture. He’s interested, but we really aren’t sure what the overlap is. I can do some web coding, but I’m nowhere near good enough. Meanwhile, I’m good at fixing and making PCs, and he doesn’t really do that kind of thing. In the end, it’s very likely to be a case of “so near and yet so far”.

In any event, we will try to discuss something during our 12 hour excursion next Friday. But for now, he has at least supplied me with a small profit as I made him a new top-of-the-range PC. And comparing it with the offerings from PC World, he still saved about £100 to get the equivalent. Custom PCs are where it’s at if you go to the right place…

Talking of business, I’ve actually had a few customers the past week. The bad news is that none of them came through the classified ad I paid £33 for. An error that will never be repeated. Google Scamwords isn’t much better. In fact, it’s worse due to its zero conversion rate. But at least I’ve covered the loss from customers elsewhere, most of which come through referrals of friends or off my internet site, both of which cost me nothing. Hmm.

Though next week I intend to try the final strategy of putting flyers through letterboxes in this local area. It could work. I’ve been told by a friend who ran a similar campaign that he got nearly all his customers in that way. Fingers crossed. It won’t cost much either as my parents have kindly volunteered to do some of the photocopying in work. Good stuff!

And then there is a new front I’ve tried to open up – something else to do. At first I thought a part time job would be good. But now I think I’ll put that one on hold, at least until I’ve completed my return to the world of politics. I’ve, perhaps stupidly, volunteered my services as admin and general dogsbody for the local campaign of the political party I’m a member of. At least it will get me out and about, mixing with other people (potential customers?) – even though most of them are old fuddy duddies. And, you never know what doors it might open…

That’s enough for now. Time to resume staring at the clock.