Tag: dailyprompt

My Gold bling bike

My favourite purchase, from the days of my youth…

Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?

It was around 1984 that the Raleigh bicycle company in the UK released the Raleigh Record Sprint entry level racing bicycle. I would have been around 18-19 years of age at the time and I would have been working in central London, temping as a photographic technician at the time. I would have been working between Edgware Road and Farringdon, and would be cycling in from Bushey in Hertfordshire every day, about 25 miles each way at the time. I was quite fit back then.

The Raleigh Record Sprint

My mum at the time had one of those catalogues where you could purchase items over a period of time otherwise known in the UK as on the, “Never Never”. I loved this bike as this particular model had a lot of Gold coloured attributes, gold handle bars and levers as well as a gold chain set and mudguards. This bike really looked like, “The mutts nuts” as they say.

It was a pleasure to ride however the pot holed roads of London were not the ideal surface for a road racing bike with pencil thin tyres and narrow rimmed wheels. It gradually got to the stage where I was spending more time in maintaining the bike at the roadside, and being late for work, that I made the decision to transfer to public transportation.

I worked with a lad at the time who was mad on biking and he turned up to work one day on what I believe was one of the first mountain bikes I had ever seen. I was very sceptical at the time joking that there were, “No mountains in London” however he was the one cycling the roads of London daily with no issues with punctured tyres or breakdowns.

It turned out that Mountain bikes were the way forward on the mean pot holed roads of central London. Though, it would be a few years before I could afford one of my own.

I’ve seen many old Raleigh Record Sprint bikes since and have always considered getting another. But to be honest they command such a strong price now that to be realistic, it just wouldn’t be worth it as I’m probably never going to actually ride one again.

It was a lovely bike, it served a purpose but was killed by the potholes that were strewn across London in the mid eighties. The roads haven’t improved much since, but the bikes have, hence the amount of them you see if you ever venture that way.

Have a lovely day. Stay safe.

For me to know, for you to find out

If you want peace and tranquility. Don’t mention politics or religion.

How have your political views changed over time?

You develop political exposure from a young and influential age, mainly encouraged by the leanings towards the political views of your parents. Wrong or right, you tend to follow their views until you get out into the big wide world and see for yourself exactly what is going on. And then you realise the majority of them are all the same, all likewise little piggies with their snouts in the trough, all looking for something for themselves. All self serving little tow rags for want of a better word.

And that’s pretty much all I will say about politics. As with religion, I have very personal views on both, and as they are both probably the two most proven causes of distrust and war in this world, that is where I will remain quiet. My views, my business, and never will they be imposed upon anyone.

Let’s change the subject.

Have a good weekend.

Patience and calmness

Where has all the calmness and patience gone…

What is something others do that sparks your admiration?

I admire absolute patience that people display in their day to day activities. Not everyone, as not all possess the ability to do so.

Those people who spend time with the elderly, and those with special needs, always willing to give help and advice and not be distracted until the person requiring that assistance is content and has an understanding.

Those people are special, remaining calm and never showing signs of panic, or frustration and remaining level headed throughout.

I must admit I have only ever met a few of these people however they always have my utmost respect and admiration.

What happened along the way that the majority of people lost this ability? What have we done wrong and can we ever get that ability back again? Wouldn’t that be truly wonderful.

Wouldn’t it be a much more pleasant existence if we could all be just that way.

As you may suspect, I haven’t met many people like this lately.

Have a good day.

Worrying

Worry, it’s a draining burden, but is it necessary?

What could you do less of?

Its probably a subject matter that will be picked up on quite a bit i should imagine, purely because of the state of things in this big wide world, and because of the burdens we put upon our selves quite unnecessarily. Now I ain’t any psychologist, and you aren’t going to find a health hack here. Someone has asked the question, and I’m just giving my two penneth worth as they say.

Why do we worry? God knows, we worry about what others think when in all truthfulness they don’t give a rats ass about you, it’s something that has somehow worked its way into your psyche and it’s now programmed to pester you 24hrs a day. Just forget it they say, that’s easier said than done, it’s like a medieval soldier being sent into battle and being told, “Don’t worry about any armour, they just want to talk!” As soon as your defences are down, fight and flight appears on the scene, and that makes things a million times worse.

It’s strange that some of our biggest battles are with our own internal settings, when in our own personal little world there really is nothing to worry about. We worry about things that could happen, when they most probably will not, we worry about others, which is not a bad thing, but we neglect our own well being.

And here I am, fully loaded with all of the above spouting all this bilge out, why? Am I just replying to that prompt issued by WP? Or am I crying out for help? Probably neither to be honest, I’m just letting people know in advance that I’m probably one of life’s inherently natural worriers, and if I ever meet you I’m probably going to worry about your well being as well.

It’s probably why I’m so introverted, there’s a limit to just how much infectious burden you can bear, and to be honest I think my brain has a short circuit in that area.

It would be lovely to off load all that burden, and for once, stand without that emotional globe on my weary shoulders.

Take care, and have a wonderful day, i worry about you.

This and that

I was asked to share five things I’m good at. Well, here it is.

Share five things you’re good at.

Another list.

Does anyone read this bilge? If so, then please continue.

  • Getting up in the morning – never been a problem
  • Reliable – Never late to an appointment, to work, or a meeting
  • Useless information – I’m a specialist in knowing about everything you don’t need to know about.
  • Commitment – if I love you, you are stuck with me for life. Sorry though, as that one position is held by my wonderful wife.
  • Fixing stuff – yep. I think I can do that.

Have a wonderful, peaceful and productive day wherever you may be.

Lots of Beans for me…

I love my beans, just don’t stand too close to me at the end of the day…

What are your family’s top 3 favorite meals?

There are just two of us in this house, and I’m going to list the top three meals after I have just had a discussion with my wife, whilst in bed, having an early morning cuppa. It’s cold outside, the heating is on and there is a nice sunny glow entering the window whilst everything outside has a crisp white coating of frost.

It’s chilly today

My wife’s choices are simple, and I didn’t even have to ask her first choice as it’s ingrained in my memory banks. Whenever we go out if there is one meal on the menu, I know it will be ordered and that meal is Ham, egg and chips. She adores it. Her second favourite is Lamb and her third is traditional home made rice pudding.

For me I’m also very simplistic. My favourite go to is quite simply Baked beans on toast, I may glamourise it a bit by adding a sprinkling of cheese, but plain old beans on toast is my favourite. Followed closely by sausage and mashed potato that may or may not also contain baked beans, (there’s a trend emerging here!) and last but not least, probably due to my living in the East Midlands, I do love a good tasty Curry, not one of those blisteringly hot ones, and preferably chicken based. (No baked beans here though!)

Baked beans on toast

So that’s it really, taking the wife and I out for dinner is never an expensive outing as we both have quite “cheap” tastes. Good food doesn’t need to be expensive poncey creations, good old fashioned wholesome food is probably the go to food for the majority of people wandering around this bit of rock floating in outer space.

Have a good meal, take care and stay safe. Keep warm!

Cyprus

It’s the only place on the planet I’d happily move to

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I’ve answered similar prompts to this before therefore it won’t be a protracted answer.

Akamas peninsula- Cyprus

That answer is southern Cyprus. West of the island, Polis and Latchi to be precise.

Latsi or Latchi – Cyprus

Love the people, the food, the culture and quite simply the quality of life. it’s a fantastic place operating at a speed I can quite easily blend in to.

It’s our very happy place.

Have a beautiful day.

Stone

I always try to purchase local arts and crafts when i travel

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?

Whenever i travel i always like to purchase a piece of local art or craft as a reminder of that visit as well as it being a lasting memory.

A stone couple, from Polis in Cyprus

Without doubt Cyprus is my favourite place on the planet. Where we stay is off the tourist path and we have such a good relationship with the locals. We love the place. I always purchase, photos, fabric or locally made produce as a reminder. However this one year we were walking along the seafront when we saw probably three or four little stone sculptures made from stones off of the local beach, with a little sign saying, “ please take a stone with our love” Now who could resist such an offer from such lovely people. We took the one of a couple, as it looks as if they are walking just as we were that very day. (We didn’t have such fine hats though 😂)

This stone now has pride of place in a flower barrel in our garden. A constant reminder of warm, pleasant days in our happy place.

So simple, so special. Memories, yours to keep forever.

Have a wonderful day 🙏

Self worth

Why do I beat myself up? It’s not necessary.

What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?

I’ve never actually considered this question before, and to be honest I had to look at some other blog posts that I follow to get some clarity on what was being documented.

Now I’m not in anyway looking for sympathy or kind words, and for that reason I will make this a no comment post, but the only part of my routine I really would like to skip is when waking up in the morning, I’m always very down on myself, self flagellating if you like, over what I should have done or what I should be doing. I love putting myself down and that sets me up for a lot of hill climbing and wall building right from the moment of awaking.

Now some would put a positive spin on this and say, “ as long as you are beating yourself up, no one else is doing it to you” and that may be so, but it becomes very tiring when you’ve been doing that pretty much all of your adult life. Now I do have coping mechanisms and i have them securely entwined within my daily operation. I’m not sad, I’m happy, I’m not depressed as I try not to venture down that dark avenue, but just like most I have my good days and bad days, and I just get on, as do the majority of the people on this big old planet, I’m nothing exceptional in that case. I’m certainly not well off financially, but I’m happy and grateful of my lot. I’m fortunate to have a lot of love surrounding me, and in that case I’m probably extremely wealthy ❤️

So, in a nutshell it would be nice for one morning to just wake up and not go into fight mode with myself, I’m not going to say I’m perfect as no one is, but I deserve better, I can love others with no issue at all, i just wish I could show some of that love to myself.

Have a lovely day. Stay safe.

We were the pioneers…

We were the pioneers. We started the fire…ish

What podcasts are you listening to?

Back in the day we used to listen to pirate radio stations, in fact I even ran my own one at one point in around 1977, I wasn’t even a teenager. My brother had the gear but I had the idea, I would just talk to friends, chat, be stupid and say silly things, we weren’t hurting anyone but we were breaking the law.

We were rebels.

Fast forward to 2025 and people are doing exactly the same but now it’s legal, anyone can do it and that’s where I lose interest. They call them podcasts.

I really can say I’ve been there before, done it, got the tee shirt and been a pioneer in the podcast world.

I did get caught broadcasting back in the mid 80s when we had a setup on a large tower block in the Garston area of Watford. Just a slap on the wrist though as we were just all youngsters experimenting with radio.

But the straight answer is, no I don’t listen to podcasts, after all these years I still remain committed to good old fashioned radio programming.

I’m just an old fart I guess.

Have a super day.