How Long Does It Take To Write A Blog Post?

I have spent three hours editing photos and writing two travel blog posts. What takes so long?

Photo editing
Loading or rather downloading the photos from mobile phone to laptop. Deleting out of focus photos. Removing accidental photos of my feet, ceilings, and total blanks.

Putting a black heart to mark favourite on the best of three photos.

Adding names of people. Checking correct titles (such as worshipful mayor, mayor or mayoress).

Adding and correctly spelling names of places. Adding addresses and checking the numbers of the address and phone are correct.

Cutting parts of photos showing too much empty road in street scenes. Cutting blurred moving hands waving across corners of crowd scenes. Adding light so you can read names on bottles and shop fronts. Adding light so you can see people's faces in dark rooms.

Editing Layout of Photos
Inserting a photo at the right section of the text. Going to view to check it looks ok. Finding long areas of text and moving a photo or adding a photo to break up the long text.

Editing Page Layout of Text
Inserting side heading to break up the text.

Where I now have two identical sub-headings, cutting and pasting to move the paragraphs together and deleting the second sub-heading.

Labels
Adding labels. When I have too many and the post won't load and tells me I have more than twenty words, counting and deleting a couple of words.

Addresses and Websites
Adding an address and website so the reader can find more facts. Adding websites I have used in case I want to go back to them later and add more facts or pictures.

Checking the restaurant website address if valid. Finding out what it covers such as a menu, to tell the reader and add more facts to my blog post.

Adding a photo from Wikipedia. Checking whether I need to add the attribution of the photographer's name.

Signature
Adding my signature at the end. Remembering a call to action. Directing readers to other posts or blogs or websites.

Saving
Checking number of readers today, compared with yesterday. If numbers of readers are dipping, checking the nationalities of readers and which posts are favourites. If I have extra facts and photos, writing a second post.

Sharing
Sharing the post.

Break
At the tend of every hour setting a buzzer for an hour. Standing up, folding my arms behind my back to straighten my shoulders and prevent myself developing a hunchback. Focusing my eyes on a distance.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Losing your car at an airport:: what to do

Have you ever lost your car in a car park? What a worry. Is it stolen? Moved by the police? Moved by the parking people? Will you ever find it?

Who will help? How quickly? Where do you think you left it? Which car park?

What is the numberplate? The colour? The make of car?

Lost Car
A relative of mine lost their car for about half an hour on returning to S t a n s t e d airport. The driver noted the car park (three huge car parks) and the nearby bus stop for the link bus to the airport. But when they came back they could not find the car.

Trudging around a car park, although brightly lit at night, when you are tired from travelling and its raining and you are worried is not fun.

Websites
I went on line to try to help. The help lines go off at 6 pm. Nobody to call for help. I remember once something similar happened to us as Disney, I think it was the one in Florida. They had a bus to drive people around. Each car park was named for an animal or something memorable. At least you were driving in the warm. And there was no charge for the help.

Stansted
Back to the problem at S t a n s t e d. (Predictive text called it stagnated. Yes, the driver was stagnated.)

Valet Parking
Valet parking sounds a good idea. Unfortunately the cost is £45! I presume that's on top of the cost of the parking charge. If you are highly paid and on expenses, maybe.

Photos
My solution in an unfamiliar car park, at a supermarket, is to take a photo of both my care and the parking place and the exit I use. I can show any helper the car I have lost. I have a record of the number plate. I know the model of the car. I can't do what has happened a couple of times, forget I am looking for my relative's car instead of mine. If it's a hire car, I know the numberplate.

Number Plates
No good just remembering just the first three letters or the last three letters. I've done that, either deliberately or accidentally (having forgotten the beginning or could not read my writing. It may turn out that all the city's cars have that ending which happened to me (in India), or all the country, or all the state, or all the county (Middlesex), or all this year's cars (UK), or all hire cars have the same prefix or suffix (Malta).

Success
The good news is I got a call half an hour later to say the car had been found. What was the reason for the problem? Two nearby bus stops, went to the one ahead of the car and not behind it, the furthest not the nearest.

Remote Control Sounds
Eventually the driver had thought to try using the remote control door opener. The lock or unlock flashes twice as it does when you get into or out of the car. So you walk along the rows and whether the car is right or left, even a few yards away and in the dark, the remote locates it and alerts you. If you are really desperate you can press on the warning triangle which makes the siren.

Happy ending. But remember not to rush off in your haste to catch the plane, and end up delayed on your return. As the saying goes, more haste, less speed.

Remedies
At least one of the Disney theme parks has or had characters (animals) in the names and visual reminders of the car parks. A multi-storey car park in Paris has or had different colours or murals on each level.

Malta had numbers on each marked parking place.

Call To Action
If you are a regular user of an airport or have any kind of clout please write and ask the airport to address the problem and to provide ways of remembering.

I hope you will always find your car. Happy holidays.
http://www.stanstedairport.com/parking/

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, speaker and author.

Author of How To Get Out Of The Mess You're In