I’m itching to send out my new combination of newsletter and announcement about a new website. Francoise thinks that it should be sent out this Wednesday which will be a whole 14 days, two weeks, after the website was first launched on the Internet. I did not feel entirely comfortable about sending it out today Monday but I could think of no “reason” for this feeling. However, I have decided to follow her and suppress my impatience and desire for instant manifestation.

I could liken the making of a decision on your own like trying to figure out stereophonic sound listening to one speaker. One thing we lack with our pet projects is an objective view on how the other person, or the population, will take it. We need a second opinion to get perspective. Our enthusiasm can make us believe what we want to believe which can often result in disappointment and financial difficulty. “Build it and they will come” can be true but it can take a long time and they can come in dribs and drabs [‘dribs’ is short for dribble and ‘drabs’ is a reduplication, similar to hanky-panky or topsy-turvey].

I have sometimes been afraid to ask for a second opinion because I didn’t want to be told that my precious idea had any faults. It was probably not the case but there may need to be one or two adjustments in emphasis, timing or content which could make the difference between success and failure. There is a major fault in that people who are close to something assume that everyone else can grasp the context. It’s not the people are stupid, but you have to spell it out clear as day to reach into people’s mind who got a dozen other things to think about. Someone said to me once ‘talk as if to an intelligent 11-year-old and that will be about right’. I have to say that this quote is a few years old and it does not take into account the continual dumbing down of the so-called education system so maybe I should say an intelligent 15-year-old.

So this analogy may help those who have got a great idea. Just think of a combination lock. You can have three other numbers right and if one of them is wrong the lock will still not open. I think that two things should happen before you make a decision. The first one is to ask yourself if you really need to make the decision straightaway and if not sleep on it and see how you feel in the morning. The second thing is to find a friend and run it by them. The experience of speaking with them may set certain processes in your mind without them having to say a word. It may be that the idea is right but the timing is wrong.

It is not a question of the ego but a question of being sensible and seeing what’s going on out there before launching your next widget which will change the world. Watching Dragons Den on BBC TV is a really good learning experience. People spend tens of thousands of pounds, untold hours over years and yet there is an obvious flaw or fault that an experienced consultant could have spotted in a couple of hours. Is it pride that makes us not want to ask?

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Today, another rainy and miserable day as you would expect on a bank holiday Monday. On the news this morning, there was an advice that the annual daffodil Festival in Mells is discouraging cars because the field in which they are normally parked is waterlogged. The organisers had to lay on shuttle buses from Radstock and Frome. This is the problem with having an early Easter. Since most of the trade stalls are on the tarmac it shouldn’t be too bad. A temperature of 9°C would put me off as it is at the moment as I write this. For some reason, children seem to be insulated from the cold maybe by their own happiness. I see children sporting skimpy T-shirts when I am fully dressed against the elements.

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The afternoon and evening spent making further adjustments to my website, adding on bits, adding on pictures. In two days time the baby will be two weeks old.