Changing thumbs

5 January 2025 (Sunday)

​It’s wet… wet, wet, wet… cold, though above freezing by a degree or two.  By 11am it was 10° and there was condensation on the OUTSIDE of our windows.  That temperature rise seemed to happen in less than an hour… odd!

By 8am I’d finished editing this week’s A Week at the Plot, and it’s now uploaded to YouTube, title added, description added, all the boxes that need to be checked or unchecked are, and I’ve added a new style thumbnail.  For some time I’ve thought of changing AWATP in various ways, though one I kept coming back to was the thumbnail, so finally, change it I now have.

It used to have A WEEK AT THE PLOT in a block of solid colour, in text the days at the plot as well as the dates of the start and end of the week, the Richard & Paul photo (which is rather too many years old now: note to self and Richard - need to do that photo again at some point), and of course the background is always an exported still from the upload.  Much will stay the same, even though they change each week: colours of text and text blocks change each week, as does the date and the background photo, and of course the title changes weekly too - so, these elements will all stay the same, by changing weekly!

The changes that I’ve decided to make are to move some elements around, drop two, and add a description of the main tasks I’ve done at the plot each week.  The ones I’ve dropped… our R&P photo, as it’s too old and there’s a better use of that space!  The second dropped one is the days of the week worked at the plot; they're still in the description and broken down in the chapters, and I think this will do just fine.  Some of these changes have been on my mind for months, if not years… though I’ve held steadfast in my mind that the thumbnail worked.

In reality, I don’t know if it has or not, though it’s time for a change, so…

I’ve now added brief block descriptions of what’s happened in this week’s upload - putting WHAT I’ve done now seems more sensible than WHEN.

I chatted my thoughts through with Richard and Vivi of What Vivi did next over the festive period, and these helped me take a step back and think again of what might work best for others, rather than what works best for myself.  So often we think about what’s best for us without considering how it works for others, and I realised I’ve been guilty of this with what is an important weekly thumbnail for my A Week at the Plot series.

Will it work better for the task it needs to do… to be honest, I’ve no idea, it’s a bit of trial and error.  I do think the change is right, and right for the right reasons as it will be clearer to people what I’ve done that week, and the beginning of the year seemed the right time to make a change… though, in reality, we all know not to wait for necessary changes; if changes need to happen the sooner the better, however tumultuous or not the changes may be!

So the above is the new thumbnail, and we’ll see how it goes - though I can’t see myself changing it back to what it was as the change seems right to me, and hopefully to you too.
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What do you think?  Better?  Worse?  Or maybe it doesn’t really matter as there are far more important things in life to think about?

Weather:  Cold moving to rather mild… 0° to 11° by 11am!  Wet, wet, wet…

Breakfast:  Toasted Lidl German Bread with Flora Pro-Activ, Yeast Extract & Peanut Butter
Lunch: Richard's Moussaka, HM Baked Chips, Tangy Red Cabbage Salad
Supper:  Spiced Squash & Lentil Soup (freezer), cottage cheese and crackers