When I Drove A Car

25th August 2022

After taking three bags of shoes, unused frying pans, clothes, and other stuff to the British Heart Foundation Charity shop in New Milton this morning, Jackie and I took a forest drive.

Given that I have exceeded my limit of WordPress space, some of the images on yesterday’s post have been removed, I have failed to solve my optimisation problem, and there is no way I can extend my space, I have thrown in the towel and sought help from Peacock Computers. More chats with their Engineers brought me a dearth of Happiness from WordPress.

Today’s pictures and text will have to follow when all is sorted.

When I drove a car I was fine until something went wrong, then I called in an expert instead of trying to fix it.

Elizabeth took Flo and Dylan on a Hampshire Open Studios tour this afternoon, and stayed on for dinner.

At about 6 p.m. with Jackie halfway through cooking dinner we experienced a total power cut which lasted into the night.

There was nothing for it but to dine at Lal Quilla, which is what we did. My main meal was Davedush; Jackie’s, Butter Chicken; Elizabeth’s, Chicken Shaslick; Flo’s lamb Makhani; Dillon’s Rogan Josh. Jackie drank Diet Coke, Elizabeth low alcohol Cobra, Flo water, Dillon Magner’s Cider, and I Kingfisher.

90 comments

  1. There’s a certain irony in taking a frying pan to the British Heart Foundation charity shop! Would it be possible to delete any posts from years ago? I’ve also seen the word “compress” used without really understanding it. Would that be a possibility?

    1. Thanks very much, John. I see your irony. I really don’t want to delete anything yet. I do understand the idea of compressing. I just can’t manage the process.

  2. Good morning Derrick – if it’s going to be a while until everything is with your site is sorted out, a temporary option could be to set up a simple free WP site. A link from DerrickJKnight to the free site could be created.

    Although the new free sites now have less storage space (more like starter editions), it should be more than adequate for your temporary needs until a solution for DerrickJKnight.com is found.
    I can help with the free site.

    1. Thanks very much, Sue. I think I really need to get the optimisation sorted, otherwise I’ll repeat the overloading. I’ll see what Peacock Computers can do today and get back to you.

  3. What can be done if you’ve exceeded the limit of WordPress space? Can they give you more space or you/Happiness engineers just need to figure it out how to use that photo plugin for optimization?

    1. It all depends on what plan you are on popsiclesociety. I used to have a free site. The next level up is a few dollars a month for 6GB. Now I pay a slightly higher amount and get 13GB. And so on, up to 200GB storage which is really aimed at business, but if you are an avid blogger you might be prepared to pay. But the best option is to compress/resize/optimise your images before uploading.

  4. Hang in there Derrick – and please don’t leave! A picture or two is always pleasing but your prose it always what I enjoy most.

  5. I go To My Sites, from there to Media and delete photos from years ago. I have the photos in my computer so it is ok to delete in WordPress. The Post remains only the photos are deleted.

  6. This really puzzles me. My understanding has been that extra storage space could be purchased for any blog. I suppose it depends on your plan, but with Lagniappe, I have 6GB of storage available, and have used only 30%. My free plan at the Task at Hand offers a 3GB limit, but I’ve used only 22%. I do process all of my photos before uploading, and usually keep them no larger than 1600 x 800 px (roughly, and depending on the photo). I hope you can get it worked out. One tip: always resize before posting to WP, rather than doing it on their site, as their resizing degrades photo quality. Any poor quality of my photos is due to the photographer!

    1. Thanks very much, Linda. I have a while in which to cool down as, because of the bank holiday I can’t get an appointment with my well trusted Peacock Computers until next Wednesday

  7. What a busy day, Derrick. You got to test your problem solving skills. Not sure about the WP image limitations. You have a hosted site? I better check my hosted ones, too!

  8. I too ran out of storage space a few years ago which is why my site says copyright 2016 to 2022, but there are no posts for 2016. I was forced to delete posts to reclaim space. I now have the Business plan which has tons of storage space. I hope you sort this out, Derrick.

  9. Hope you find a long term solution. Any thoughts about a new site, say part 2. You can keep the posts and photos. And for the new site, I am sure your regular readers will follow you ?

  10. I am so sorry you’ve got these problems. One option to buy time would be to export your illustrated book posts to a separate (free) site which you could link to in your posts and menu. You could then delete those pictures from this blog. There is a way of exporting a site, so there may be a way to export a category. I know that would mean you’d need to categorise those posts first. Failing that you could copy and paste each post one at a time, but would lose the comments etc.

  11. All of the family enjoyed the restaurant at night ! The menu was diversified for everyone ! Great!
    What is Davedush;?
    Hopeful, Derrick , your car is well repaired .
    In friendship
    Michel

  12. Most of my images aren’t my own and I can always retrieve them from their original site. However, some I use more than once or they are my personal photos. I keep those images on my hard drive and also I’ve backed them up to an external hard drive. I had an image overload issue with WP some ago and found I had many duplicate images. It’s a very tedious chore to clean out the Media but worth the time, IMO. Now, I use squoosh to compress images which it’s an easy process but time-consuming. Best of luck and I hope you find a resolution.

  13. Sorry you lost power and pleased that everyone had a lovely meal nonetheless. I’m glad you have back-up option other than WordPress. They can be very frustrating to deal with and keep unsuccessfully trying to improve the product with the one step forward, two steps backwards school of progress.

  14. Derrick, I hope you find a solution as I love your photos as much as your writing. I smiled at the car story – but best of all the memory of how good at Kingfisher tastes. Especially in Summer. Great choice my friend.

  15. If I may make a suggestion, Derrick: when I ran out of allowed image space on WP, I began combining my photos into slide shows, adding music and title card, converting them into videos and unloading them to Youtube. I would then simply post a link to my Youtube video which does not encroach upon WP limits. I am sure you have seen those in my posts.
    Just an idea.

    1. A great idea, Dolly, but rather beyond me, I fear. I have an appointment for Peacock Computers on Wednesday – delay because of bank holiday. Thank you very much

  16. You have got a fairly intractable problem there Derrick. I hope that you can find a way out of competing aims. My personal solution is not to be a perfectionist, which I find easy. It may be harder for you to compromise.

      1. Your are wrong about that. My motto has always been: if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly. I have been very happy to bobble along on the lower slopes of the mountain of proficiency.

  17. Your contributions to the British Heart Foundation is heartwarming. As for your contributions to the photographic and blogging community, you have been an emperor of sorts, brought to an impasse by a ridiculous moat. Perhaps it’s time your ran batch downsizing of your images before uploading to WP.

  18. I am sorry to hear about the space problems, and that the power cut out during making dinner. We have had those inopportune power outages happen here, too.

  19. I also ran out of space on my blog, Derrick. I actually went and deleted a bunch of old pictures and some of the posts too. Not the best solution but it did work for the short term for me.

  20. When my picture space gets up to 98% full, I go back a few years and dump my photos from those posts, that gives me room for more photos on my current posts.

  21. I commented to popsiclesociety before reading the other comments, so duplicated in my info. I was sure surprised to see you already on the business plan, but that explains why you’ve had so much freedom to post photos at will. I got your link re optimisation, thank you, and thanks also to Sue, who has provided the solution I really need, which is to resize photos already uploaded, rather than delete them and leave a hole in the post. Now, to find the time to do so…

  22. OK. Yes, WordPress has its limits especially with photos/media. I bit the bullet mid last year and deleted 140 posts that included photos. Mostly from 2013 to 2017. However, I did not delete them permanently until I saved those Posts with photos on a USB or 2. Some I re-posted under same dates because I wanted them on WordPress.

    Having “Categories” such as my “I’m in the Garden”, Haiku”, “Children’s Corner” etc means I can keep track of where posts are and the related photos in Media. There is a time I may need to start another blog with WordPress for just my personal posts and related photos. Thus keeping the “Percentage Used” space at below 60% on either or both blog. WordPress system can help with transferring posts or media from one blog to another without losing any.

    It’s not a simple solve and it took me 2 months to work within Riverside Peace. Thinking back now, opening a 2nd blog may have been simpler. Either way, keeping a blog going is not just in the blogging.

    I really hope you don’t give up. It’s a big task and you may tell me to go jump but perhaps start a 2nd blog “A Knights Tale” and transfer all of those across before deleting them from derrickjknight, I don’t want you to stop blogging.

  23. I’m a free WP user – and this is my 2nd time of using up “space” – the first time I deleted a decade of posts – but this time I can’t be bothered – first you need to “bin” then later you have to “bin the bin” – I can’t afford to have a paid blog site…

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