Strange title. I know. But I had my first experience of it only yesterday. A photographic moment that I’ve never experienced before, but shall be using more of in the future.
My dear wife – totally unaware, as was i
I’m currently in the middle of repairing a Nikon Coolpix L820 16mp bridge camera. The camera has a broken rear LCD screen, and this is the only way of seeing the subject as there is no through the lens viewfinder. Whilst testing its limits and finding out about the faulty screen, I became aware that it sounded as if was working, it was making all the right sounds. So I threw an SD card into the camera to give it a try.
I was just pointing anywhere and pushing the exposure button, taking pictures of everything and nothing, I had no control on settings and functions only the exposure button. Anyway, I did this for a few minutes then transferred the SD card to a reader connected to my iPhone.
Nikon Coolpix L820
Wow, I was impressed with this one picture only, of my dear wife just finishing some lunch. She wasn’t aware I had taken it and neither was i.
This is the magic of photography.
The original was colour, I was so impressed with the sharpness, tones and colours in the picture. It’s not a particularly good picture, just a candid one of someone going about their day, totally innocent and unaware.
I love Black and white pictures, so I quickly converted the colour version via my phone.
I was in two minds as to whether I continued with this repair, as the cost of parts were rising the more I delved into it. This picture alone, changed my mind. I am going to finish the repair as this camera is too good to let go.
And I’m just amazed, that a random photo, that the photographer and the subject were both totally unaware of being taken, has come out so well. (All that has been done is a bit of cropping to align the subject)
The post for the camera referred to herein, will be published shortly.
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.
Now there’s an attention grabbing blog title if ever I saw one. Please don’t turn away nothing unsavoury to see, and I don’t normally take any pictures whilst in the Gents urinal area. Believe me this is a one off and will never again be repeated.
Unless I see better looking set of urinals than these:
Gates garden centre, Cold Overton, Leicestershire
I walked in this toilet and was instantly hit by the wow factor. Yes these beautiful sculptured ceramic flowers are in fact gentleman’s urinals. Apparently according to my wife all the hand sinks in the ladies are just as well sculpted.
I have never stood in front of a urinal before and thought, “Am I going to get told off for peeing in this” it was a conundrum that lasted two seconds as I was busting to go. I did not get in trouble, but what a charming way to equip, probably the most unappealing section of any business. well done to the design team here.
We visited the massive “Gates garden centre” in Cold Overton between Melton Mowbray and Oakham in Leicestershire. A family Member had brought us an afternoon tea for two, and as we had some time spare, what better way to spend a nice relaxing afternoon?
Tea for twoA superb selection of treats
It was a lovely afternoon some fantastic food, and there was so much cake, that we had to take a box home that we’ve passed on to my brother in law and his wife who live nearby. I love my cake, but believe me I was already getting a sugar rush with what I’d already eaten. It made sense to pass this on and not to waste it.
I love days like this, making memories. It’s all that matters.
This could also be titled, “When is a mum not a mum?”
I married my dear wife over 30+ years ago now, and to say she has been the stabiliser of my life would be an understatement, the rudder to my boat, you get the point I’m a lucky guy.
However we knew very early on in our marriage that we would not be having children, and that was difficult at the start. Not as much to me as, to be honest, children weren’t really in my plans at that early stage, but to my wife, she viewed it as if it was her duty to produce a child, she was a woman after all and she dearly wanted a child. And I’d do anything to make her life complete. However this was never going to be a dream come true in our life time as unfortunately and for reasons I won’t discuss here, we were dealt the bum deal as they say. It wasn’t to be. We were to remain childless.
Those first ten years of our marriage were an immense test of our feelings for each other, I’d come home at times and often find her crying for the child she could never have, and yes my heart broke every time, it was a very sad period in our lives. We explored every possibility, in the early days when Kim Cotton was the first in the UK to venture into surrogacy, we followed that closely and were considering the possibility of going down that same route, it was early days and there were lots of pitfalls and heartbreak stood in each corner of the decision making progress. It was fraught with problems and legal issues. We stepped away from this opportunity, reluctantly.
Back in the early 90s the adoption process was not as open as it is nowadays, we just wouldn’t have been considered, it was so selective and as we were quite young and in local government housing at the time, we wouldn’t have even got through the initial application stages, oh how times have changed.
There’s a strange feeling taking your wife to baby shops such as “Mothercare” to chose prams and a decor for the child you would never have, we knew we would never be buying but it was “fun” in a weird sense as we learned a lot about how life would have been if we were dealt a fairer set of cards.
Then the younger members of the family started having children of their own, I thought things would be worse for us as I was worried about my wife’s reaction to all these upcoming births. I needn’t had worried, as this turned out to be the point in our married life where it all changed for the better.
We pretty much became permanent baby sitters, it’s fair to say we probably witnessed more periods of excitement and firsts in their little life’s than their own parents did, it was fantastic, and we could hand the nippers back at the end of the day, even though we did have the occasional overnight stay.
That was definitely the turning point, and my wife changed when this occurred, she was accepting of the fate she had been dealt, but she now had what she wished for, children to look after.
We had brilliant days out with them kids, we did all the stuff you just do and we could now visit those shops to buy gifts for these little visitors that we had been gifted the chance to look after.
We even witnessed teenage angst
To this day those kids, or should I say young adults spend so much time with us, they’ve even joined us on a recent holiday and the relationship we have with them is fantastic. They have grown up to be beautiful souls and it’s nice to think we played a part in their stories. We still ask each other what we think our kids would have been like, and often comment that if they are just like the nieces and nephews we helped bring up, then we couldn’t do much better than that.
The prompt for this post was encouraged by the fact that even though we are the only childless couple in our family, every Mother’s Day and Father’s Day we are showered with cards and gifts, and whilst I question it every year it’s their way of showing their appreciation, and just saying thank you.
I’ve sent them all a WhatsApp message telling them what I have purchased with their gift cards, as I like them to know where it’s been spent. This year I’ve purchased some new tools and a special extraction fan for my soldering, just so I can stay around and appreciate them a little longer. They and their parents changed our life’s for the better.
I should really be thanking them. But they know I’m always here for them. I’m not a dad, but they make me feel so much like a dad. ❤️
Thanks for passing by. Stay blessed and try to be happy.
A title that sounds like an intro into the latest episode of Sesame Street, refers in reality to a question my wife has put to me over the last few days.
How many projects do you have on the go at present?
Now, she wasn’t asking how many types of different projects i get involved in, she was specifically asking due to the amount of deliveries that i am currently getting from online sale rooms and auction sites. I didn’t honestly think about it at the time, I wasn’t aware of the actual number, however i am now very aware.
A selection of outstanding repairs that I have in draft mode
And that number is 21. I have that amount of draft repair posts on this platform awaiting completion. Some are quite complex and demand time that i just don’t have at the moment, others are awaiting components that are needed to complete them. My wife, bless her has pointed out to me that rather than obtaining yet more items for repair, wouldn’t it be better if i just cleared the back log first? She is of course right, and a small selection of those draft posts awaiting attention can be seen in the photo above.
Not only do i have a back log, i also have a number of boxes that are full of now, fully operational items varying from microphones and cameras all the way through to a working music system. I think i need to break away from sentimentality and start to move some of these items on. To be honest this would be the best thing to do as it would release some funding for a few other projects that i wish to look into in the near future, and it would also create some extra space at home.
I love being busy that’s just me, knowing i have a batch of drafts awaiting allows me to spread my focus over a wider area of interest. I do pop into them all occasionally and just add a few lines here and there, or an item of interest that I’ve just remembered, so they are all in fact works in progress. I do need to concentrate on that backlog though, and maybe reduce that backlog to probably 5 or 6 repairs in total.
This whole website/ blog thing has been something that I have really put my heart into, I’m by no means an ace practitioner of blogging practices and I have never set out to be such a person, and will definitely never be one. I started this site purely for my own benefit, an extension to a journal i used to keep at home, that i may have discussed within these pages a few times previously. I’m not trying to teach anything, it’s a personal record of my failures, my learnings and achievements, and it just works just fine for me.
I really don’t understand how it has now gained a good few followers, I never expected that but I am eternally grateful to everyone who reads a post or comments upon them. That said i would still do the same if there was no one paying an interest in what is posted. Again, as stated earlier in this post, it was always set up as a personal journal. And it has worked for me. It has been a good well being tool.
So. I have temporarily agreed to cease any further purchases until I’ve got the backlog under control, and I’ve also agreed to employ a one in, one out policy in regards to all repairs and incoming projects, and believe me there are some quite complex ones to be published shortly.
List the people you admire and look to for advice…
I guess we will all at some time look to a mixture of people for different kinds of advice.
Contentment
For emotional advice there is no one but my wife who I’d turn to in the first instance. I think for her, I’d fit that bill as well, heck, we’ve been together so long we sometimes know each other better than we know ourselves. She’s my confidante and I know anything we discuss stays totally between us. She’s just such an understanding and calm influence for me. I need that sometimes. Don’t misunderstand me, when she cracks she goes full loop de loop, and is known in the family as the Rottweiler, you just don’t cross her. And when this does rarely occur I’m the one that calms her. God, we were truly meant to be together to keep each other at peace. So far so good.
At work I’m in probably the best work team I have known in all my working days. We are always there for each other, there is always support for each other 24hrs a day, and when things get a bit too much, there is always a calming elder figure to talk to. I guess that is why it’s recognised in our organisation that our depot pretty much runs itself, with no issues and no need for guidance, we self manage and are a well oiled machine in all aspects. The guys I work with are just the most fantastic, supportive and caring bunch you could ever work with. And a combined fabulous sense of humour doesn’t go unnoticed.
Work
Outside of these two highlighted above, I look to some older and much wiser friends, elders of my life if you like for that additional advice, that advice that sometimes you just have to run past someone on the fringes of your group, to see if you are thinking it all out correctly, and addressing any issues logically.
I don’t really look to anyone else in my family group for advice, but saying that it is sometimes good to discuss approaches to issues with the younger members of the family to see their reactions and ways of dealing with similar issues. Sometimes they just seem to have a less tangled and somewhat easier approach to problem solving. Some times though they don’t.
So here I guess I am saying, that I can advise the younger generation from an experienced point of view, but at the same time I must be open to learning from them. It really is two way traffic.
Advice must be listened to and acted on, if we are to learn how to deal with a multitude of problems/ issues. Taking advice and not following through with it achieves noting and leaves you empty and confused. And that is where the “What ifs” arise. Good advice can definitely alleviate doubt.
What was the most outrageous lie you believed as a child?
I remember one lie that was told to me around the early to mid 70’s by my parents, of all people. And I don’t believe that they were the only ones, as it seems my gang of friends around that time had also been told the same. With no internet on the horizon for at least the next 15 years at the earliest, I can only assume that our parents had some kind of “Parents jungle network” that they used, to actively spread such untruths.
That lie was, “If you swallow chewing gum it gets wrapped around your heart and can kill you”. Blimey. As an easily influenced 6-10 year old this would have been shocking information to receive from our parents who always talk nothing but the truth! Honestly they do!
I guess they didn’t approve of chewing gum.
It worked though, I never swallowed it, and that’s probably why in the late 70s and early 80s there was so much of an issue with discarded chewing gum on British streets during that period.
It was our parents fault 😂
To be honest it probably was not until we started doing biology in our senior school years that we uncovered the fake information our parents had given us, and when questioned about it, there was always the denial, “I didn’t say that, stop your lying.” You’d never win that argument.
Apparently it passes through the digestive tract as per normal as the body can’t digest it. However swallowing large amounts could potentially cause blockages but that would have to be some serious amount of gum.
Could be worse though, this was what one curious five year old was told by his mum. Courtesy of the Guardian newspaper:
According to my mum, when I was younger, you blow a bubble out of your bum. Why that was supposed to deter a curious 5 year old is beyond me.
Gareth, Graham UK
Enough said. Parents of the 70s – you have been rumbled.
First a little history. We live in a two bed semi that was built sometime around 1935. Yes it’s aging and has a lot of charm and character. Our neighbours on one side are quite vocal at times but that’s about it, in general life is quite peaceful. They have had a parrot in residence for a number of years who used to live in one of the loft rooms who you only heard occasionally when the loft window was open and you were in the garden. You’d be in the garden listening to all the small birds chattering, when the beauty of it all was broken by a parrot raucously squawking like a banshee with a sore throat above it all. However it was rare and totally acceptable if not strange to hear.
So innocent looking 😇
However things in the homestead next door have changed. The old fellah that used to be the head of the house passed away last year, bless him, and I don’t think he appreciated the birds presence, hence its indoctrination in to the loft space. Now he is no longer there, the daughter has placed the bird in the living room with a full view of everything at the front of the house, and he has a lot to squawk about.
This is not a major issue, please don’t judge me I’m not complaining, things could be an awful lot worse. It could be a dog constantly barking, it could be people constantly shouting, so we should really count ourselves lucky.
It’s just that the wife, even with her hearing problems will often comment, “That bloody bird” so in theory my biggest issue is keeping my wife under control and reassuring her that things could really be a lot worse.
I have personally on occasions been known to comment similarly. But I’m the only person who can control my thoughts and feelings (How very Stoic!) and I choose to remain generally unaffected by it all.
So why did I write this post?
I’ve answered all the daily prompts, and whilst I was thinking of what to post, all I could hear was Tweety pie.
I guess it was just to reiterate that sometimes you just need to accept what you have and embrace it all. The alternatives could be better, but they could also be a lot worse.
And to me there is nothing nicer than the sound of a bird even if it sounds like it has a 60 a day habit and a voice as rough as course sandpaper. 😂
Personally my biggest influences amount to no more than a few people and one profession. Let me explain.
My Mother, she went through absolute hell in a marriage where she was beaten, abused and used like a carpet. I did my best as a child to protect her and like to think I did that well. She was still being abused well into her Seventies by a horrible jealous man who masqueraded as a husband. I dislike that man, as I have previously stated in a previous post I am unable to hate, I feel sorry for him and I’m sure he received his judgement when he passed over. At least I hope he did. Mother taught me patience and kindness, i absolutely love and adore my mother, and this week was the 20th anniversary of her passing.
My wife. She has this year kept the family together, she has saved a friend from harm. She has rescued that friend from the precipice, cared for her, seen she gets helped and spoken with her four or five times on a daily basis until that friend has been repaired, and brought herself back to a place where she is happy. My wife continues to impress me and make me so proud as she is a wonderful, beautiful soul that I believe was put on this earth to help people. She was unable to be a mother, something she would have truly excelled in, but she treats every child as her own and has beautiful relationships with youngsters, she guides and protects, she really should have wings on her back as I’m sure she was put here to serve that purpose. I am so proud of her and I know I have been gifted her presence for a short while, and I so appreciate that, I am a very fortunate person. And I so love her.
Anyone who teaches. You are very special and underrated individuals who deserve so much. I was most fortunate to meet the most influential man in my life who was a teacher : My Primary school teacher. Anyone that teaches deserves the utmost praise and respect, it is these unselfish individuals that shape this world and shape individuals into respectable members of society. You make the people who will go forward and shape this world. You make the world a better place. Anyone who just offers good advice and comfort to someone should pat themselves on the back.
We all have a role in society, we can all influence someone.
Have a peaceful day, have a wonderful holiday period no matter what your faith is or where your beliefs lay. Be that better person. Peace.
Like a broken old loop from an Eastenders sub plot, lots of people will say “When I am with family”. Well that doesn’t work for me. My family were an extremely dysfunctional unit and to be honest we were probably best kept apart. My dear darling mother died on this day 20 yrs ago, she was the glue that held our family together and once she had gone the rot set in.
However, I have my own small arm of the family that consists of just my wife and I. It used to have a third member, little Alf our dog, but he unfortunately passed away in August of this year and what I always refer to as “My World” again collapsed, so now we are two.
Alfie Bichon Frise
Home is my safe place and that is where I feel safe with the only person I know that knows me better than I know myself. After 33 years of marriage I am still excited to go home at the end of a working day, and I can’t wait to see her again.
My world
I’m just scared that one day My World will collapse again, but I will not dwell on the future, I will concentrate constantly on ensuring that My World is content, happy and safe and most importantly cared for.
Foxes Den 
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