What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness?
That’s easy, waking up in the morning, looking at my wife and thinking how lucky I am, seeing my dog wagging his tail and coming at me as if he’s not seen me for ages when in fact he’s been asleep at the side of me all night, being able to go to work even though it’s not always the best of places to be, and being grateful for what I’ve got and not envious of what anyone else has.
Simple.
Next question please….
Have a good day everyone
Describe something you learned in high school.
Senior school for us in the Uk lasts 5 yrs as standard unless you decided to stay on in sixth form to take further studies. Back in my day you were pretty much pumped out of the system into the working world at the end of the fifth year, as university wasn’t really an option open to everyone as it is now.
I enjoyed my years at senior school but boy did I learn a few things beside the prescribed curriculum.
It was an all boys school
Bullying was rife. I was the victim of it and I’m embarrassed to say I was party to dishing some out myself and I sincerely regret ever taking part in that.
I witnessed homosexuality, and the awful bullying that attracted, again an individual was sexually assaulted by a member of staff, both just seemed to disappear overnight and nothing was ever mentioned again.
Assault from members of staff was at epidemic proportions, in those days it was corporal punishment but nowadays would be downright full on assault. I took my fair share of this as well.
The first three years of schooling at this level were fine for me, and then I turned. The last two years when I should have got my head down just went to pot, i rebelled, probably a mixture of what had gone on above but I scraped through. It taught me a lot about people and their behaviours, it taught me that respect is a trait that is earned not just given out freely. I learned to protect myself, I have absolutely nothing good to say about any tutor I had dealings with in this period of my life.
My tutor in my last two years of junior school though has my full respect, he shaped me and my fellow students at a very early age and taught us about respect and what we needed to do to gain it. He was the most influential man I have met in my life, he did more for me than my own father, and that is true and not just written fodder for you to digest.
Teachers have this amazing ability to shape and put students on a course to navigate life and to become a valid member of society. Thankfully I have done ok, I’ve tripped and made mistakes along the way but I’ve learned and had to take some hard knocks along the way.
Unfortunately the teachers I met in my senior years did not have those abilities and I believe failed not just me but my fellow students.
This was probably the toughest lesson learned. They were inadequately prepared to do their job in a time where strictness, bullying and harassment was seen to be the way to forcefully teach subjects. They failed my generation in that particular school.
But we’ve done ok.
Have a great day all. Stay safe.
Describe one positive change you have made in your life.
When sitting here I find it very hard to actually pinpoint a positive change I’ve made in my life. I’m sure I have made many however I find it difficult to pinpoint one in particular.
I guess if I had to choose one positive change, I would say that it would have to be that of not worrying, but that would be lying because I do worry I worry continually, it’s natural we all worry.
What I really mean is that I try not to worry about small stuff as that’s always been an issue with me. I let the smallest thing worry me I wish I could adopt the attitude of mañana just like the Spanish. Don’t worry about it until later. It’s a wonderful attitude in my eyes.
I struggle with it and it’s a constant battle, to not worry, it’s the way I’ve always been. It’s the way I’ll always be. I can only try to worry less.
This isn’t sounding very positive is it? So I guess I will just have to stop there to be totally honest. I can’t put my finger on one thing that I’ve been positive with change wise in my life.
I have failed terribly in today’s “Thoughts” I will have to try harder in the future.
That’s sad, it really is.
Happy day everyone
What’s the most fun way to exercise?
Fun and exercise, two words I wouldn’t personally use followed by the word fun. But hey that’s my opinion only. I know a lot of people get off on the exercise buzz, but in my job I easily clear 15000 steps a day so to be honest I do a lot of exercise at work and that’s not fun.
On the rare days I do get some time off I find no better way to exercise than taking the dog out on a nice walk, however as his illness is taking over these walks are now very rare and not too long in duration, both myself and my wife are coming to the reality that these journeys out aren’t going to last much longer, and this saddens us both.
I don’t knock it, if you love exercise, then you keep it up, whatever floats your boat and keeps you happy and healthy. My boats sailed though and I’ve now berthed in port to maintain a slower if sometimes more sedentary lifestyle from now onwards.
Have a great day all.
If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?
This is quite a tough one and I’ll have to think about that. I rarely read fiction so any choice I make will probably hark back to my school years.
I’ve got it. Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee. I’d have loved the life he had as he was a bit of an adventurer and an independent soul.
I know the area where he spent his childhood fairly well so could relate to some of the places he wrote of. The period of time was a much more innocent era and the characters are so well described, what they did and what he thought, all of this pulled you into the story. I read this at school and again only a year or so ago, but it meant more to me as an adult than it did as a child. I would have loved his life purely for the innocence and lack of responsibility in those hazy days of summers long past.
His follow up books of when he pretty much hiked all around Spain at the time of the civil war and then when he returned at the height of the civil war gave a fascinating insight to those particular times.
It’s amazing the feelings a well written book can stir inside you.
Have a peaceful day all.
What animals make the best/worst pets?
I’m going to be quite boring and predictable here, I’m a dog person having had the same breed of dog (Bichon Frise) throughout my married life, about 33 years now. Alf has been our constant companion for the last eleven years and is just an all round super fellow, funny little bundle of joy.
I’ve put Cats here as the worst, not that they are a particularly bad pet, but for me I have a severe allergy to them and their fur, so for me they are not a practical pet to be in my presence if I want to maintain an acceptable level of breathing. I used to have one as a pet as a youngster and that’s how I found out about this allergy.
However there is an aside to this. When we purchased this house a few years ago there was a cat in all the outside photos of the property and we assumed the previous owner had one as a pet. We were very wrong. No one owns this cat known to us as “Tabs”. She is a feral cat that took ownership of this area many years ago and we live on her property. She is not scared of any animal, absolutely loves our Alf as she knows he is a right softy.
This garden is her territory, she chases foxes and any other uninvited visitors to the garden, she is an excellent mouser and will also bring evidence to the back door to prove this, much to the displeasure of the wife. She’s fed regularly by us as a result, and she is always missed if she goes off wandering for a few days as she often does.
So really there is no best or worst here, Im basing it solely on my own selfish “health” problems. She’s a lovely cat, I can’t touch her (she wouldn’t let me anyway) so we have a mutual distant respect for each other. She’s the dogs best friend though and they get on fantastically.
The dog has been through so much with us, helped us through some very tough times just by being a lovely form of stress relief for us. His companionship is without condition and his loyalty is unique. He’s my boy, he deserves nothing but utter love and respect. A true pet lover would understand.
Have a wonderful day
What job would you do for free?
I absolutely love the outdoors. In any weather you can throw at me, either torrential rain or the heat of the sun.
Any job being a custodian of the country side would suit me just fine. Clearing paths, building shelters, erecting fencing, or just picking litter, I’m your man.
I feel happy out there, totally stress free so why wouldn’t I do it for free?
Stay safe everyone
As the listing stated:
Canon EF 28-90mm Lens Working Then Produces Err99. Reduced to sell at a bargain price will be easy fix
EBay
The dreaded err99. It’s a general error code that seems to annoy many Canon owners, and can be a simple fix or a tedious one. I wonder what it will be for me? I’ve seen a good article on Improve Photography’s website that explains some of the steps that can be taken to remedy this error, you can read that article HERE.
I now have the lens in front of me so here is what I can see. Overall the lens is in good order for its age and mounts to the camera ok. All manual focus and zoom works and the lens is clean with no sign of fungus or haze so I’m happy with that. I’m still waiting for the camera battery to arrive so I can’t really comment yet on the error code. I’m not cleaning anything just yet as I want to see for myself if the error shows on one of my cameras, if it does then i’ll start the process of cleaning the contacts which is what I would of attempted first off.
The battery has now arrived and I have now commenced further testing. I have placed it into auto mode and all seems well. I have tried the lens in 4 different camera bodies and have had no sign of the Err99 error code. The only issue I have noticed that may not be contributed to the lens is that when connected to an Eos5 body there is a fair drop in battery power. Again this has been noted in the past as something than can be connected to dirty contacts on the lens, so as a precautionary measure I shall be using some IPA and a fibre glass scratch pen to clean those up.
I’m unable to recreate the advertised fault as everything about this lens is working fine as far as I can see. I’m going to wrap this one up as complete now.
I’ve really enjoyed working on these two cheap damaged lenses that I originally purchased just to test my old SLR kit. They are now both working fine and i believe the invested effort shows in the end result.
I am extremely happy.
Thanks for passing by.
What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most?
That’s easy for me. I love the endurance sports such as the marathon and long distance cycling.
It’s amazing how the bodies of these athletes adapt to and endure such extremes of physical demand.
I’ve tried it in the past and the last Marathon I ran in was the London Marathon back in 2002. Nowadays for me it’s an endurance sport just getting moving in the morning, never mind breaking in to a trot.
Happy days all, stay safe.
How would you improve your community?
Where does one begin.
Like many large towns and cities in the Uk no one really gives a thought to other people. We are a mixing pot of cultures up here and integration is fairly low on everyone’s agenda, we all have our own little communities and it’s like we are all scared of talking to each other.
Many have tried and failed to address the issue and I guess there are still those trying now, it’s pretty much failed though and is going to take something pretty outstanding for things to work.
Maybe time will be the healer and we all sit back and wait for that to happen, but it’s not going to in reality is it?
Litter…maybe that’s where we start. I remember back in the 70’s we had the keep Britain tidy campaign and that really got me on side. Hand on heart if I ever have any litter it goes in my pocket/Bag and I dispose of it when appropriate. That’s just me though. It really grinds my gears, I go walking and take a bag with me for litter. My neighbours watch me cleaning the green area outside our houses but they contribute most of the mess, and I’m sure they do it just to keep me busy.
I’d love it if one day one of them would join me to lend a hand and show some respect of the area in which they reside.
Maybe that’s the answer, start a litter club, who knows.
In the meantime I’ll carry on doing my bit, you never know it might just catch on.
Stay safe.
Foxes Den 
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