If you see me running, just run after me and try to overtake me. I’m running for a purpose😂
Other than that such a thing doesn’t exist for the majority of people.
I love the attitude of the Icelandic people, they live on an island that is forever changing due to volcanic and seismic activity but they have such a mañana attitude. They know their environment and they are constantly prepared to move on out, with pretty much no real panic or concern.
One lady I spoke to who makes lovely art using glass and volcanic ash said, “ if I was constantly worrying how would I even begin to enjoy life?” And she is right you know. What’s the point of worrying about something that hasn’t even happened yet and making yourself sick over it?
The ability to get away from an incident fairly quickly is probably the best advice I’d give. But then again what do I know?
I tell you what though, I won’t be losing sleep over it.
I guess this is quite easy, especially for me to answer, and I do suppose a lot of others out there will probably feel the same. I’ll read other comments later just to confirm this. But for me I’m pretty simplistic, for me it’s just two things, comfort and silence.
I know that makes me sound like I’m some kind of Monk in training but it’s not meant that way. I could have said solitude, but I like to have company, however when the occasion suits, solitude is good.
Local park
I find the company in choosing those I want to be with, those who know me and have similar likes and tastes to me. The silence/quiet/solitude aspect is what seals the peace, and to be in that position with the company you choose to be with is what truly brings me peace.
Part of my work environment
I’m a city dweller, I work in the city and the noise is 24hrs constant with no let up, I find peace in taking breaks away from that environment. Fortunately my work allows me to venture into some of the most beautiful parts of the countryside where I can find that peace, and as I work alone I also find that solitude. But that moment of solitude is often kept as a moment of time in my memory, to share at a later date with my loved ones, and so that perfect circle of finding and observing peace, starts again.
To be totally honest at the moment, I’m focused and really excited for the future. Talk to me tomorrow and I’d probably be a different beast with an attitude lower than a snakes belly, but at the moment everything is fine. I’m curious why I feel this way.
Curiosity
As you will all possibly be aware, I like fixing cameras and I love my photography, it being a major feature throughout my life. I struggled in the transition from Analogue to digital and that was when my interest in the hobby dwindled. I wasn’t ready to accept the digital age, I was and still am really, an analogue dinosaur. But I’m curious.
I have recently delved deep, deep into the digital world, tried some really good equipment belonging to a photographer friend, and I really like it, I want to do more. I’m now interested. But is it too late?
I have also been a social media dinosaur, having had bad experiences in the past I’ve pretty much ignored everything but YouTube for the last ten years or so. I’ve regularly slated social media, and now this is another subject that makes me curious.
I’ve changed my attitude. I have in the last, few days gone back into the social media community, yes in many eyes I’ve probably succumbed to the call of this evil temptress, however, hear me out you have some learning to do regarding moi!
Im now on FB, Instagram, and Bluesky and these accounts are pretty much locked down to subjects that I want to see, and people I want to correspond with. It’s opened up communication with distant family members, old professional contacts and over the last few days I’ve even had requests from some of these old contacts to step back into the business professionally, and assist them. I just need to learn to ignore negativity if it begins to creep its way in, and it probably will.
The issue here is that I’m not set up professionally or in the position do so at the moment. But the call to return has hooked me and I am giving it immense and serious consideration. As many will know, and it’s there written there within my profile, that im wishing for an early retirement, and this could be an option that brings in a small income to allow me to realise that goal earlier than I initially intended. But like any business opportunity there is some investment required, and I’m now looking at ways of providing for those required tools of the trade as such.
This has been a positive, because of Social media that has opened up to me, but I’m being cautious.
Im always going to be here working with my old cameras and stuff though, as that’s what i love to do, it just all ties in like a great big knot of contentment, hope and ambition.
And it’s a nice, not always felt, feeling.
And I’m liking it, a vein of positive energy running through an aging body.
Long may it last. We all need dreams. We all need goals. It’s just I’ve left it so late in life, that’s the only nagging doubt that remains.
Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.
No one likes to blow smoke up their own asses and confess to these actions. I’m not going to start doing that here, today. Random acts of kindness aren’t usually discussed, because that’s seen as boastful. Most people seem to just keep these actions to themselves, building up the personal satisfaction levels in their own minds, and there is nothing wrong with feeling a bit of pride for your actions. It’s good, and should be encouraged for everyone to do, however some people are naturals, and some people just need to try a little bit harder.
I’m just going to discuss one act of whatever that both my wife and I were involved in, in the seaside town of Latchi in Western Cyprus.
We were out for dinner at a small restaurant. A couple sat at the table adjacent to us and we struck up a conversation, we had never before met in our lives. It transpired they had married that day, just the two of them, as they had no immediate family, or friends with them.
We were finished and were saying goodbye as they were about to choose a drink, we heard them talking about how expensive the wine was and that they’d stick with the water.
Drinks
We were paying our bill away from the diners when I asked the waitress to send a bottle of good wine to the newly weds table, but they were only to tell them it was paid for and not to disclose who had paid for it. I’m sure they would have known eventually.
As we were leaving, the wine was arriving at the table and from the distance that we were, I could see them looking around and best of all they were both smiling. I couldn’t see anyone celebrating such an event without being able to toast their momentous day.
Yes it gave us a warm feeling, and I sincerely hope the recipients felt the same way, knowing that not everyone out there is bad, and there is always someone looking out for you. Someone cares.
What traditions have you not kept that your parents had?
It was the one who called himself my father, and it was pure mental and physical abuse, aimed at my Mother, my little sister and me. We were his soft targets to his hard man bravado.
It was that bad, that i always viewed it as traditional, sad isn’t it? It just happened so often.
I’ve mentioned it before, I have no wish to continue this tradition as no one deserves it, and no one wants it, and no one should ever decide they are going to dish it out, no one person ever has that right to do so.
Abuse anywhere is awful, in the home it is ten times worse, as that should always be your place of comfort and safety, in the very bosom of your family.
God bless anyone suffering in this way.
I have worn your shoes and walked that mile, I do not wish to do that ever again. These “Men” have the reputation outside of the family of being “a great bloke” but at home they have a family waiting in the shadows of fear, waiting, scared out of their minds anticipating his return home, and then the nightmare begins as soon as that key is heard in the door. They are not men, they are merely weak shadows of a real man, as real men don’t entertain such levels of abuse, real men do not condone abuse at all.
I have no wish to follow that tradition. I never have, and I never will. I think I’m the bigger man, and always will be. My home is a place of peace and safety. I have grown, whereas he did not. No one in my household will ever be subjected to that fear.
I’m not about to blow smoke up my own pipe, I really do find this question hard to answer, as I probably see myself totally differently from how others view me.
And that’s it.
It doesn’t really matter how I see myself, I guess the answer is in how you portray yourself in all aspects of your life. Work, leisure, hobbies, behaviours, fears, likes, loves – you name it. I know the person I’d like to be, but I’ll never get there unless I learn the truth and change my ways.
Contentment
There’s only one person I know that can truly describe me to someone, and that someone would be my wife. She knows me better than I know myself, she sees the good, bad and indifferent in me, and to be honest it works in the other direction too. My Wife would probably say she is calm and tolerant, but I’d have to pull her up there as I sometimes see a different side to her that no one else sees. Whereas I’d probably say I’m a people person and I know she’d laugh and pull me up and say I’m the total opposite. And of course she’d be right.
How many people will answer this prompt, and truly turn to someone who knows them only too well and ask them to “Fact check” their reasoning. I doubt many will, so does that mean we will all have either a too low, or even a too high opinion of ourselves?
Sometimes it’s best to get it from the mouth of someone you know well. They don’t do it to hurt your feelings, they are giving it to you straight, it’s up to you then to make changes to become that person you truly “think” you are, or want to be.
We’ve got a few trips planned this year, and are already planning ahead for where we are venturing off to in 2026. This last year 2024/25 we took things slow and stayed at home as our dog Alf was unwell and we knew he wouldn’t be with us a great deal longer, so we decided to forfeit time away to spend quality time with him, and I’m glad we did. Sadly he left us in August of last year and since then the only trip away overseas we have had since, was when we went to Iceland in February of this year.
Alfs last holiday in Devon with us, he could hardly walk
We have had two or three further breaks away, in the UK and thoroughly enjoyed them, and I think the following year will contain a few more trips away such as those, we have a beautiful country here with so much to see that at present is unseen to our eyes, so I do think a number of our future breaks will be closer to home.
Devon
However, that said we are off to somewhere completely different and alien to us this year, that we are kind of looking forward to but not really sure what to expect. We are off to the island of Madeira. Now fortunately we are visiting with a cousin who just so happens to be married to a Portuguese national, so there will be no barriers as such and we do at least have someone with us who knows the island, and that can only be a bonus.
Then come February next year we are returning to Iceland to venture further around the island, we love this place and we are now getting to see things off the beaten track as they say.
Iceland
Later next year we will be returning to our favourite place on the planet after a hiatus of two years. Cyprus. Southern Cyprus to be precise. It’s a home from home, and the locals in the remote part that we go to, are more like friends to us. I just can’t wait.
Our little home away from home in Cyprus
There will no doubt be days and weekends away interspersed with all of the above, and they will be most welcome breaks to get us both, (especially me) away from the drudgery of shift work.
My dream of retirement sits just over the horizon and hopefully the next few years will bring that dream to fruition.
Now I’m not going to go on saying what should and shouldn’t be done as I’d only come across as another whingeing old fart. You’d kind of expect in this day and age that everyone would have a sense of what’s good and what’s not, just as we had back in the day. We were mirrors if you like, of the way our parents were brought up and we learned what was good and bad from them. They weren’t always right and sometimes you just had to make minor adjustments to your life to filter out these “not so good” bits of advice and actions.
Anger
See, as you grow you develop your own ideas and definitions of what’s right and wrong. But not everyone is the same, as I’m sure you are all aware.
Everyday the news brings us absolutely awful stories of horror, regarding the way individuals as well as groups treat others, it really is so sad and soul destroying, the depths of depravity fellow humans can sink to. How do they learn this behaviour? Why do they behave in such a way? How do we rid society of this behaviour?
These are questions that have more than likely been asked throughout every generation. It’s always been that way. Horrifying incidents have occurred throughout history and today’s atrocities are no different.
Throughout history it’s been politics and religion, that have been the cause of the majority of issues on this planet, and that is still the case today, but there seems to be no room for bargaining as one side is always right and the other always wrong. That’s how it appears to the outsider looking in.
Now I rarely talk of either, and I’m not going to go into it here, I know that having a discussion regarding either is just like throwing a naked flame into a box of fire crackers and I’m not doing that. I’m just stating the obvious.
I have my views on both and they are private views. I don’t even discuss them with family. I have my faith and that is all that matters.
Modern society seems to have a large vein running through it that often appears to rupture. That vein is anger. You can walk into any town centre and you can just see it, you can feel it, and on some occasions you are subjected to it. Everyone seems so angry.
Mix that together with the two subjects mentioned above and you have a recipe for disaster where large proportions of the population now become targets of extreme hate. Yes the worst word in the world, and one I refuse to use at all has now crept in. Hate. Hate is an awful word, it’s so inflammatory and filled with anger. Please try not to use it, hate is so terminal with no wriggle room. Whereas you can always work with a dislike of something.
My father did awful things to us as a family, that I have touched on in previous posts. I don’t hate him. I dislike and disagree of what he did, but to hate him in my eyes, is just like allowing him to win, and I’m never letting him do that. Even in death he still controls us through what he did to us mentally, but he will never win, I will not allow that.
So if there was one thing I could change in modern society it would probably be getting a hold on Anger somehow. There’s a lot of it about and it is a cancer living amongst us that needs to be eradicated as soon as possible. How? I don’t know, that’s way above my pay grade, but we can all make a start by removing hatred from our own lives. We just don’t need it.
As a child of the 60s, Tv was very much still in its infancy and has never really had a hold on me. To this day I watch very little Tv whereas my wife is the total opposite, and all those Tv subscriptions really add up.
I however prefer the radio, always have done and always will do, you can take the Tv away and I truly would not miss it for a single second.
I was brought up on radio, the excitement of owning your very own transistor radio that went everywhere with you. In bed late at night listening to those old sports broadcasts as well as walking the streets with it permanently held to your ear listening to your favourite channel, way before Walkmans and MP3 players got in on the act.
The radio I always have on in my workspace
I learnt about radio at an early age, how it worked, who invented it as well as participating in its experimental usage as I grew up, I even took the RAE exam and got my City and guilds qualification in radio, I became a radio Amateur and the experimentation went up a few notches. I think this is where my fascination in repairing all these devices comes from, an incessant, absolute thirst for knowledge and a fascination in just knowing how things work.
I sit in my little work area and have a simple radio I recently repaired, set on my station of choice, and in the Uk that is “Boom radio”. It plays my type of music and still has familiar DJs I grew up with as a child, I’m stuck in a fantastical time warp.
Radio, I use it all the time, and to me it will always be the premier medium of entertainment that i will always turn to.
Foxes Den 
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