I only ask, as being passionate in anything sometimes makes people question if you are just being obsessive in your actions.
There’s obsession in relationships that can more often than not be one sided, and lead to a number of unwanted and uncomfortable situations and poor behavioural traits such as stalking.
There is passion in your work, that can also lead to you being seen as a person who doesn’t see black and white, there’s no other option it’s your way or no way!
Passion seems to partner obsession in my opinion, maybe I’m looking to deep and need to step off the gas a little.
What am I passionate (obsessed) with then?
I’m passionate about time keeping, and competence. I simply hate incompetence in anything and it is one of my pet peeves.
I guess I’ve woken up in probably not one of the best frames of mind to answer this question. I’m passionate about a good nights sleep though, but that’s about as rare as rocking horse s**t these days.
And I’m not talking Frankie Valli and his pals, neither am I about to burst into song, you don’t deserve that.
Every season has its good and bad points for me, but I have to say Spring is probably my favourite.
My reasoning for each season is listed below:
Spring: crisp mornings but now is the added bonus of the sun poking its head out, the plants are starting to awaken and the birds seem to be singing a different song. It’s all about awakening and looking forward. This is my favourite season, as it’s all about progression, it seems positive to me.
Summer: Sun, heat all the things we haven’t had and have missed for the last five months should now be here in abundance, however here in the Uk in the middle of what should be flaming June, we have single figure temperatures and even more rain than usual. Mother natures clock seems to be out of sync.
Autumn: Nature is about to go into hibernation, the trees put on awesome displays of colour and the last sprinkling of warm sunshine takes a bow. Cold days reappear and Jack Frost starts to make his presence felt.
Winter: warm coats come out of storage, the common cold hits with a vengeance and crisp mornings and more rain appears. And then the slight dusty sprinkling of snow appears that makes the country grind to a halt, and makes us the laughing stock of the world.
A bit of overthinking and triteness here but I can happily live without luxuries of the consumer kind.
Breathing you will say is not a luxury, it’s as natural as night follows day. But when the ability to do it properly is removed, it becomes a luxury.
Asthma inhalers (Internet)
As a kid I struggled with endless breathing issues and chest infections. Bronchitis has featured heavily in my life along with Asthma and they still haunt me to this very day. In fact over recent months I’ve noticed a quite dramatic decline in my ability to control the condition, as well as other unknown symptoms creeping in. But I’ll hopefully get that looked at when I have my yearly asthma review on Tuesday.
There is nothing quite like being able to get your lungs full of fresh air and not be constantly fighting to catch your breath. But that hasn’t happened for a long time and I miss that.
I’ve never smoked but my parents were chain smokers so I guess I was a passive smoker from an early age. I personally hold them both to blame for what I have suffered over the years, and that is why i hate smoking with a passion. I had to watch my brother die from Lung cancer and that wasn’t pretty, it was horrendous. He was a smoker.
So for me breathing is a luxury that I can’t live without, yes I know you are saying that’s the same for us all – you fool! And you’d be right of course. But for me it is the quality of good unhindered breathing I miss, and that’s a luxury I’m probably never going to experience again.
Don’t poison yourself people, your body doesn’t require it, and you will definitely regret it in later life.
Enjoy that deep satisfying breath of fresh air. It really is an indication that life is good for you if you can.
What are the most important things needed to live a good life?
In my honest opinion this is truly an individual choice. However I can only speak for myself when I answer this question.
Enjoy the journey (internet)
What is the good life? Do we refer back to the old tv sitcom of the 70s with Richard Briers and Penelope Keith, when the good life was living off the land and being totally self dependent? Or is it something else?
In modern society I suspect it is something else, even though many would long to have a similar simple existence as the “Goodes” did back then.
Realistically, that life is not attainable by all so we have to resort to what we individually class as the good life. To have a good life and what I personally would class as the good life, there are a few aspects of our own demeanours that we have to make changes to.
Now I don’t have what I’d call the good life, I have a pretty good life and I’m happy with that. I’d imagine the Good life in truth contains a number, if not all of the following, that we strive to achieve on a daily basis but may not be fully versed in just yet:
Financial security
Job security
A steady relationship
A loving family
The freedom to travel
A good attitude
Humility
Kindness
Compassion
Understanding
We are all probably able to say we are fully conversant in a number of these aspects, however we are more than likely striving to attain these goals rather than exercising them on a daily basis. Just looking at these myself I can see where I fall down, and what I need to do to attain a fully “Good life” but a number of factors will probably step in and stop me ever achieving that.
So I guess I’ll just have to be content with achieving my “Best life” and be satisfied with that. And you know what? I’m content with that choice, as I’m sure many others will similarly be.
To many it probably looks a mess. To me it’s a place of happiness, it’s an art work being constantly touched up, it’s a labour of love. Six years after I started this garden it’s now finally starting to take shape and today I even had the wife’s seal of approval. And that crowns it for me.
My garden
People watch these shows on tv and instantly expect a beautiful renovated instant garden. This simply doesn’t happen.
My garden has been a massive experiment over the years. I’ve lost count of the amount of different plants I’ve placed only for each of them to fail after one season, then you have to ask the reasons why.
Our front garden is Sth facing so I have sun on that most of the day and plants like Lavender and lilac always display spectacularly, baskets and salvias love the front garden, but the front is not as advanced as my back garden, and I’m going to give it attention towards the end of this summer. I’m currently adding plants one at a time. The aim here is a typical country garden in the middle of a city. It’s a challenge.
Lavender and Californian lilac
However my back garden naturally is North facing, with only a glimmer of sunshine, so I have to plant here accordingly. Because of my neighbours, all who love concrete, and who have no green space, my garden naturally suffers from excess water run off from their properties.
I have introduced Hornbeam hedging only a few months ago that again will take time to mature, I have planted a number of ornamental trees to assist with drainage and things are looking positive. The plants I have in place are all bee friendly. We have loads of them as well as butterflies, lady birds and other insect life. I also have a small section near a small rockery area that I have left wilded, the flowers here blend in beautifully. I have a lot of wildlife in this garden, I have some small birds such as wrens going through the bushes that we have never seen here before, we have blackbirds, Robins, blue tits, finches and the pigeons and the magpies who are the antisocial members of the bird family. We also have the occasional Red Kite soar overhead, it’s amazing how the Pigeons and Magpies disappear when they are around. And naturally being the county of the Fox, they are also regular visitors.
And my garden is small, it’s only about 50ft square, and about a mile or so from the city centre.
I have a feral cat who has been a resident here long before we were, and she even chases the foxes who also enter the garden. Just take a look of her protecting the garden from a fox in this small video below:
Cat chasing Fox
The crowning glory is that we have regular hedgehog visitors. We leave nibbles and water out for them at night, we have introduced a highway through the garden with access from our property to others. We have ramps in place alongside the steps to help them about the property. Seeing we are right in the city we are probably one of only a few places of peace and serenity for them in this mad crazy town.
One of our regular visitors Highways and visitors
I really feel for those that don’t have access to a garden, it really is a place where you can lose yourself. It’s your own constantly developing work of art. I love having visitors to the garden, I love showing them what we have done and what we have planned, and I love helping people transform and achieve their little works of art. My garden has been a life saver for me, and allowed me to maintain my sanity when it all starts getting a bit too much.
Gardens should be compulsory, but unfortunately in this super high speed world, people just want everything low maintenance and that’s a shame.
Don’t even mention imitation grass to me – it should be banned.
The wife said, “You were right, you said it would take time, it looks lovely.” And that meant the world to me.
I spend most of the time with my work colleagues to be honest. Well. Truthfully it’s probably even Steven’s between them and my wife and dog, though it does sometimes feel that I’m more at work than home.
As I can’t show any work pictures on here, please enjoy this delectable little YouTube short of my dog wishing you a happy day.
There is a form of amateur radio comms that I enjoy and that is slow scan television. Here’s a basic explanation:
A literal term for SSTV is narrowband television. Analog broadcast television requires at least 6 MHz wide channels, because it transmits 25 or 30 picture frames per second (see ITU analog broadcast standards), but SSTV usually only takes up to a maximum of 3 kHz of bandwidth. It is a much slower method of still picture transmission, usually taking from about eight seconds to a couple of minutes, depending on the mode used, to transmit one image frame.
Since SSTV systems operate on voicefrequencies, amateurs use it on shortwave (also known as HF by amateurradio operators), VHF and UHF radio.
Wikipedia
In this Instance below I used a digital transceiver and was pointing the aerial in the general direction of the International space station as it passed overhead on a specific date, when the Russian section of the ISS was transmitting slow scan television pictures as it passed over. I used my iPhone to decode the signal and to produce the pictures, using an app I had installed earlier. This was all part of a day celebrating the anniversary of Sputnik, the world’s first man made transmitting satellite.
My setup was totally mobile and so basic that I just about managed to get partial scans via this technique, see the two pictures below. I was literally sitting in the front seat of my car.
The picture I received from the ISS and my radio
Even though my pictures were not perfect I was still able to supply proof that I received the transmission and as a result was issued with the certificate below from ARISS – Amateur radio on the International Space Station, find out more about ARISS Here: ARISS
ARISS certificate
There are many of these types of events that occur all year round where you can experiment with all types of equipment to make contact with distant radio stations. This is the spirit of amateur radio.
From Series 9 Episode 26 broadcast on 29/07/15 The Barrister is on fine form but will Hayley and Dave be able to walk away with £7,000?
The Chase
I was just looking around what’s on my YouTube channel and to be honest there’s not a great deal. However I saw this little nugget of Tv gold and thought I’d share it with you.
Me – on the Chase
Yep that’s me almost 9 years ago when I had most of my faculties about me, what went wrong?
I had my hour of fame to be honest and in the end myself and Hayley came away with a win. My share went towards a kitchen we were installing at the time and I believe Hayley, who was a student nurse at the time was going to put it towards her first car.
Me with Sean Wallace – The Chase
Sean Wallace the chaser was a lovely guy. Nothing like his tv persona, he came and met up with us after filming and was a right charmer. I have met him since travelling on the Bakerloo underground line as I believe he used to live in and around the Willesden area in London.
Perhaps I need to get one of those “I beat the chaser” tee shirts.
It was a fun day and created a lot of good memories.
I’ve just obtained a bunch of photo manuals for cameras and related photography items from the last 40 years or so. Close to 80 of them.
Various Photo manuals
Now I know these aren’t repairable items keeping in harmony with this site, however they are popular, and I just happen to have a few of these cameras available. What I’m thinking is that these manuals would be a nice little addition when I sell on said cameras to the unsuspecting world. It’s just that little bit extra that just could swing a sale.
The ones I have left I can just sell on as they seem to attract a reasonable price on line. Either way, I’m keeping them out of landfill and that is one of the purposes of this site.
I may even be able to make some kind of collage back drop with them or use some old photos as an alternative skin on one of my old cameras. Something arty-farty you know.
Listing them all online is going to take an age. Maybe I could ask the wife to assist in this matter. Now that will cost me a handbag at least.
Foxes Den 
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