Happy

hap•py - adjective,-pi•er, -pi•est.
1. delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing: to be happy to see a person.

2. characterized by or indicative of pleasure, contentment, or joy: a happy mood; a happy frame of mind.

Well thats it.

Christmas is done, we have seen out the old and welcomed in the new. We are now well and truly in the new year and back into the mundane nine to five of our day to day lives. The excitement and joy of the previous weeks has left us and we embrace the new decade. Another year is within its infancy and we carefully take baby steps into the unknown days, weeks and months ahead of us.


Earlier in the month I had a few minutes to myself, it was one of those grey drizzly British Sundays where you have nothing in particular to do, it was fairly miserable outside and I had no plans what so ever. I was up fairly early and so took myself off to my local coffee shop and sat down with the Sunday papers. The papers were filled with the usual stories of war and famine, grief and destruction, celebrity gossip and tittle tattle. I flicked through the pages stopping to read the odd story that grappled for my attention before laying it to rest on the table and picking up one of the many accompanying glossy magazines. The entire contents of said publication had been devoted to what makes people happy. It was filled with various public figures and stories of moments in time that have made them happy, glimpses into why we think various “A listers” are happy or not, as the case may be and various anecdotes on what makes us happy.

And so there I sat, reading all about other peoples’ lives and why they were so happy. Most listed the usual things such as their children or grand children, their spouse or significant other and it made me stop and think that, for now at least I have neither of those things. The two predominate factors that seem to produce the most contentment and happiness in somebody’s life is absent in mine. I sipped at my coffee and pondered on this for a time. I must admit that it troubled me. It made me question my own happiness and wondered if I truly was happy or if I knew happiness like those I was reading about.

As I have mentioned before I have always thought of myself and have been considered by others to be a very happy person, but I have also said that I am aware I cover a lot of my sadder times with humour and my mask of happiness. And so now it occurs to me that maybe I have done this for so long that I no longer know if I am really happy or just faking it. Am I not only deluding others but myself too?
I have various things in my life that make me happy, my god daughter and her sister being two of the larger contributors, my friends and my family. I find happiness in music and theatre, in nature and in technology, in the gentle touch that makes yours hair stand on end and in the glimpsed eye contact with a beautiful woman, in the stillness before a storm and in the delicateness of a spring flower, in a child’s laugh and in the briefest of moments that take your breath away.
But most of these are just moments in time, there are no constants. There is no one thing I can place my finger on that is with me every day that brings me contentment other than the thoughts and memories of others. And so I wondered if I knew happiness at all. I looked back down at my magazine and saw, as you so often find in these publications, a self test entitled “Are you happy?” It was your standard affair of nonsense, twenty or so questions with multiple choice answers to choose from, at the end you count up how many A’s, B’s, C’s etc and you read the result under the majority chosen.

“Right” I thought, this will tell me, this will settle it for me. This two pound Sunday supplement will delve into my most inner, deepest darkest thoughts and tell me if I really am truly happy. Within the realms of the glossy pages was a psychologist’s couch ready to work out my inner feelings and troubles. I reached for a pencil that was on the coffee table and began. The questions were much as I’m sure you expect, “How do you feel when you wake up in the morning?” “How many times have you laughed today?” “When was the last time you cried?” I methodically worked my way through the questions, stopping long enough to consider the question but not so long as to over think the question but to give my initial reaction.
I was about half way through when I stopped. I looked at my answered questions and those that were still to come and thought “do I really need a test to tell me if I’m happy or not?” and maybe by the simple fact that I started the test the answer was already there.

I re-examined myself, relooked at what makes me happy and smiled.
I thought about my Christmas just gone spent with my God daughter and her sister, I thought about my New Years Eve spent with my friends. I felt the warm surge of love that I hold for them and am sure they hold for me engulf my inner sole and I laughed. I may not have what some people have that makes them happy but of all the things I do I have I would never want to be without for they bring me more happiness than any man could ever wish for.

I took pencil to paper once more and laid the magazine open at the test on the table, finished my coffee and left.


Written underneath the test were the words



“I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m H-A-P-P-Y”

When Denzel met Lara

As we all know women are incredibly beautiful creatures however they are also incredibly diverse, challenging and complex individuals. Much like a hedge maze, just when you think you are getting somewhere and starting to understand them you realise you are back at the beginning and need to start all over again.

The other day I spent the day with a bit of an enigma. I thought I understood women and their outlook on shopping, but then along came Lara to throw a spanner in the works and mislead me back to the beginning of the maze. Lara as you may already know is my very good friend Denzels’ wife. I have known her for as long as I have Denzel and consider her one of my closest, dearest friends. She has always been a bit of an oddity, but in a charming way and no more so than most women. Should you ever meet her, no matter on the time of year you will undoubtedly find her wrapped in a blanket. This is a woman that would get cold in the tropics; I have never known anything quite like it. Should she venture into the great outdoors she will adorn more layers than an Eskimo and make it the very briefest of journeys. When she isn’t wrapped head to toe in blankets, fleece and perched on a radiator you will find her meticulously cleaning her house, which with Denzel and the two most beautiful, albeit untidy girls is a never ending job. The day I spent with her in question today was our fake Christmas day and the look on her face as her prided carpet began to vanish under reams of wrapping paper was a picture, but that’s another story for another time.


Lara brings new meanings to the word fussy, (quite how she ended up with Denzel I’ll never know but that is the mystery of love) if you were to cross Monica from the American situation comedy “Friends” and Sally from the film “When Harry met Sally” you may just start to get close to Lara. There is not enough room on the internet to go into her peculiarities when it comes to food let alone everything else but to give you an example should a chicken ever be purchased for consumption in the Denzel, Lara household the kitchen will have been scrubbed from top to bottom and resemble something from a hospital theatre, I always know when we are having chicken for dinner when I go round there because before entering the house you will find one of those red hand washing dispensers found in hospitals by the front door with a big sign saying “Please scrub your hands”, gloves will be adorned and worn at all times whilst said chicken is in the house, even if you are not handling the chicken, children will be bathed in iodine and kept in a different county until the chicken has been cooked and should you happen to walk past the chicken in its raw state Lara will immediately grab you and throw you into a sheep dip. Once the chicken has finally been cooked, (not by her I might add, she still doesn’t know where her oven is) it will be dissected like something out of a high school science class and anything that doesn’t look quite right will be incinerated, (much like the rest of the chicken).

But, like I said at the beginning women are diverse and complex so none of this really contributes to her enigma status adorned earlier. What threw me today and led me back to the beginning of the maze was this. As we all know there isn’t much, with the exception of chocolate that makes a woman happier than when she is shopping, this is exaggerated further more when she is shopping for shoes. Now from what I can understand Lara had purchased a pair of shoes which had since split on her and she was now looking for a replacement on the internet. But rather than bring joy and happiness this only troubled and frustrated her, maybe it was because it was the internet and not actually walking the streets going into shops that didn’t marry well, but this being Lara I assumed the idea of shopping from within the comfort of her own home whilst being wrapped in an extra thick blanket would be the best of both worlds. Instead we were treated to a rather perturbed Lara who constantly flicked from one internet page to another in search of the illusive “just right” pair of boots. The lap top was at one point nearly launched across the room and imbedded in the Christmas pudding when she accidently clicked on the wrong button and lost one of the aforementioned pages. She finally managed to whittle it down to two or three pairs of shoes and was now trying to decide on which would be better suited and at what cost. Now from previous experience women seem to go price blind when it comes to shopping for shoes and can end up paying hundreds of pounds for a couple of straps and a tiny buckle but the price seems to have been what troubled Lara most, that and how she would inevitably return them which seems to be a prerequisite when women buy anything. Men don’t return stuff, it just sits in the bottom of the wardrobe, women on the other hand are masters at returning items they don’t want, or heaven forbid have worn for the single occasion they brought it for and then returned it for “not being quite what they wanted”. Lara actually sat down and read the terms of agreement and contract to the pair of shoes she had finally decided upon just so she could be certain that she would be able to return them.

Maybe this was all a charade put on for Denzels benefit, maybe had we not been there shoes would have been brought in there hundreds with no regard to price and suitability. But for now Lara will remain a mystery as I think all women are. Something man is never meant to understand fully but should enjoy trying to solve.


Never take a woman for granted, they will surprise and intrigue you more and more every day. Just when you think there is nothing left to learn you will find yourself back at the entrance to the maze, which is why we love them so.

Every time a bell rings...

Could it happen? Could we possibly get a white Christmas? According to the Met office the last official White Christmas was in 2004. However to be classed as a white Christmas all it takes is for a single snowflake to fall somewhere within the United Kingdom within the 24 hours of Christmas Day.
Now I don’t know about you but that doesn’t quite cut it for me. I can’t recall my last White Christmas but I think it must have been in my youth. I want the movie version of White Christmas. I want to wake up Christmas morning having gone to bed looking onto a vista of plain boring landscape only to draw back my curtains and be presented with a deep blanket of unspoilt snow. I want to throw on my coat and wellies and set about making the biggest, world breaking snowman, to take part in a global scale snowball fight. I want to walk through the park and go skating on the lake. I want to come home to a roaring open fire, to roasting chestnuts and popping corn, to mulled wine and hot toddies. I want carol singers standing on the street corner under a lantern, children playing on wooden homemade sledges and Ebenezer Scrooge leaning out of his window shouting “Merry Christmas everybody”, I want to see the Cratchit family enjoying the biggest turkey you have ever seen. I want to see George Bailey running through the streets shouting greetings to everyone and everything. I want the wizard of Oz and the cowardly Lion, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow, I want the hills are alive with the sound of music and the greatest escape. I want wardrobes that lead to mystical lands, the White Witch and the promise of Aslans’ return

But most of all I just want to love and be loved and to hold that special woman in my arms on the most special of days.

I don’t just want a single flake of snow in a town I have never heard of.
I want the dream.

Maybe I’m asking too much?

But if you don’t ask...



Merry Christmas to one and all, God bless us every one.

Quicker, faster... Better?

Man and woman are worlds apart, for all it matters we could be completely different species. I have glanced on our differences before but have noticed a few more in recent weeks. The first being at the supermarket, there are the obvious differences that always occur between us when any kind of shopping is involved, woman will go around comparing different items, checking prices and quality, value for money and brand whilst man will just throw the first thing he comes to that looks vaguely like what he came in for into his basket.

But the latest addition to the everyday supermarket which I am sure you will have come across is the self service checkout. Now before this arrived I would always walk up and down the rows of tills with my shopping trying to find the till with the shortest queue in order to save time and get out as quickly as possible. Now however I disregard all the other tills, queue or no queue and always head straight for the self service till even if it means standing in line and waiting for five minutes. And for the most part I will be waiting with other men. I will have walked past bored cashiers twiddling their thumbs, slouched over their tills looking at me, pleading with me to use their till but no, I want to do it myself. I want to scan my own items and put them in my bag, not because I get maybe 5% of my shopping bill or any other kind of monetary incentive but because it’s a challenge. I want to see how quickly I can get my shopping scanned through and bagged. Can I beat my last visit? Can I beat the man on the self service checkout opposite me? Competition is a very strong driving force amongst men. I can be stood their scanning my items with a wry smile on face as I know I’m beating the man next to me and as I hear a computerised voice from his till saying “Unexpected item in the bagging area” I punch the air triumphantly knowing he now has to wait for assistance from a spotty faced teenager before progressing. I will pay and have my bag in hand walking towards the door, casually glancing over my shoulder to see my competition chastising himself on buying the family sized box of cornflakes that slowed him down and inevitably lost him the race. I am now left looking for the winner’s podium to stand aloft, hand on clubcard as the national anthem is played over the tanoy.

Women on the other hand don’t do this; Women will park their trolley at the first available checkout and start chatting to whoever may be nearby. Woman will be on first name terms with the cashier, will know all about their holiday to Spain, what their eldest has been getting up to and all the latest gossip. She will bag her groceries methodically into her numerous bags for life, with all the frozen bits in one bag, all the tins equally dispersed amongst the others so as not to get one particularly heavy bag and you’ll never find the eggs scrambled at the bottom of one of her bags or the French loaf broken in half. She will then open the biggest purse known to woman or man and produce a vast array of collected coupons from various magazines and newspapers, all the while still merrily chatting with Margaret on Checkout seventeen. The unloading, scanning, bagging and paying of items for woman will take almost as long as the actual shopping took. In the meantime man is outside, in his car and turning into the petrol station and it is here we find the second observational difference between man and woman.

Man will pull into the petrol station, choose to pay at the pump and then begin to fill the tank. Man will now strive to fill the tank and end on an even pound, not a penny under or a penny above but a round pound. The pump will automatically disengage as the tank fills and man will glance up at the cost, now on very rare occasions it will have filled and rounded off to precisely on the pound, but please understand this is extraordinarily rare and should it ever happen man must do a little jig in the petrol station before going to buy a lottery ticket. On every other occasion man will now stand at the pump, reposition the nozzle slightly and continue to squeeze a few more drops of petrol into the tank to reach that golden .00. Inching closer and closer, mustn’t go over must get it exact.

Now when woman pulls into the petrol station she will drive up to the pump, get out, walk round to the nozzles, walk back to the car, get back in, reverse out and pull back into a pump on the same side as the filling cap, get back out, walk back round to the nozzles, check she has picked up unleaded, try to remember if her car takes unleaded, ring her partner to ask him what fuel it takes, get shouted at by the cashier for using her mobile phone on a forecourt, begin to fill the car, get frustrated with the pump because it keeps shutting off every few seconds, swear as the tank over fills and she gets petrol on her new shoes, walk to the cashier with whom she is not on first name terms with and is scowling at her, pay for the petrol before returning to the car acknowledging the cars queuing up behind her, get in, reapply some make up, adjust her seating position, put her seatbelt on, take her seat belt off, reach onto the back seat for a sneaky bit of chocolate from the shopping, glance up at the angry waiting drivers behind her inching ever closer, put her seat belt back on, take it back off again, get out of the car walk around to the fuel flap, close it and retrieve her keys, get back in the car, put her seatbelt back on before finally driving off.


So whilst men are charging through life, competing with everything and anything they can, never stopping to breathe in a moment or contemplate the hush of a whisper and thinking the quicker they can do something the better, woman will be gliding through life, unrestricted by the chains of competition and time, pausing to cherish the moment and listening to every word all the time thinking there are some things man needs to take longer over.

Twinkle twinkle little star

December is upon us once more. The month of glad tidings of comfort and joy, of giving and receiving, of nervous turkeys and brussel sprouts, of families and friends, of sparkles and decorations, of trees being brought in from the cold, of red noses and rosy cheeks. But behind all the magic and wonder, behind the red suit and the Ho Ho Ho is a suburban conflict that has raged for many years. With no end in sight, the ugly head of war will once more look above the trenches and send out a volley of power and might upon its neighbour.

I am, of course talking about the near exclusive male conflict with his neighbour.

The Battle of the Bulbs

The War of the Inflatable Snowmen

The Conflict of Comical Red Nosed Reindeers

This time of the year all across this mighty nation men are preparing to fight once more, to get one over on their neighbour, to do something bigger and better than last year, to win the latest battle. Plans have been drawn up. New improved lights have been purchased. Inflatable Santas are at the ready. Man takes the preparation and planning for illuminating the family home at Christmas as seriously as woman takes planning and preparing for the January sales and nothing will get in his way.
In every suburb, in your very neighbourhood the fuse is lit and the fallout will be tremendous. This is a war with so many casualties; nobody can escape its grasp. For some of the more fortunate ones heavy curtains will be the main defensive weapon, but for others, for those married to a front line officer escape is nigh on impossible. Children will be called up to duty, to hold ladders steady, to check bulbs and detangle lighting nets.

Every available wall socket will have extension leads running from it and further extension leads plugged into them, the pressure put on your household electrical wiring will be overbearing. You will experience power surges and dips, blown fuses and electrical fires, for those on the front line of the battle entire streets could lose power as the twinkly fairy lights purchased for the tree in the front garden purge every available watt in the neighbourhood.

A&E wards across the land will be filled with injuries from falling off roof tops to electrocution. Planes will have flight paths altered to avoid confusion and landing in the back garden of old Mrs Crewit at number 23.

And when all is said and done, when every last twinkly fairy light is in place man will stand triumphant on the battlefield and admire his victory, a tear of jubilant victory will roll down his reddened cheek. Family and friends will be forced to behold his proud achievements. Marvel at the new Santa’s Grotto with nodding Reindeer, laugh at the humorous landing lights across the roof and stand in awe of the realism brought to the whole panorama by the fake snow.

Man will stand shoulder to shoulder with the enemy and congratulate one another on a battle well fought, all the time thinking what he can do next year to beat him.
Man will not cease until his house can be observed from space, until it is listed as a wonder of the world or at the very least it makes the local news station.


To those of you undergoing the hell of war I doff my cap to you. War, in this case, is pretty.

A pink Christmas

And so the season of shopping is upon us all once more. This is probably the only time of the year I actually don’t mind going shopping, I wouldn’t go as far to say I enjoy it but I can bear it, just. I went to a large well known toy super market the other day to look for gifts for my god daughter and her little sister, as you will have gathered from previous entries I completely adore them and dote on them no end. Now I’m assuming all such toy supermarkets are much the same as the one I visited in that they are divided down the middle with girls toys on the left and boys on the right. Without much thought I went to the girls section, of course I did, I was shopping for two young girls where else would I go? So there I am quite merrily perusing the pink aisles looking for appropriate gifts and something that I think they would like, this is the opportune moment to say I am absolutely, categorically without question terrible at buying presents, I always over think it rather than maybe just going with my gut instinct on what I think people would like. This is magnified even more when buying for two little girls, I really do not have a clue. It’s all pink.


The store is fairly busy, what with it being only a few weeks till Christmas and after a short while I become aware that the only people perusing the same aisles as me are women and young girls with their mothers. Now that I am aware of the fact I become overly conscious of it. I start noticing them looking at me, a lone adult male in the girl section of a toy shop? Some look at me with caution whilst some look at me with sympathy, one woman even asked me if I needed any help, (she could obviously see how out of my depth I was). I carry on regardless, struggling to find gifts that I think will last more than five minutes or that are more entertaining than the packaging they come in I sneak peeks at the womens baskets for ideas what to buy.

As I had come into the store I bypassed the trolleys and thought all I would need is a basket, how wrong I was, I now have a couple of boxes that are blatantly too big for the basket which is now struggling to contain them, I have a third larger box precariously held under my left arm and now every time I want to examine something on a shelf more carefully I have to go through the whole rigmarole of putting the box down on the floor, putting my basket down, picking up the two boxes that have now fallen out of the basket back in the basket, then picking up the numerous other items which have been knocked off the display by my inept fumblings including a ball that has now rolled away down the aisle, I swear at one point I heard a collective “Ahhhhhhhhh” followed by sniggering from the various women around me. It was on one such occasion that I was retrieving something that had rolled away from me that I became aware of the boys side of the store. Of course I knew it was there but hadn’t paid it much mind as I wasn’t there to shop for a little boy. It was then that I found all the men. There they were picking up Transformers, Action Men, Cars and toys with lights and buzzes. Part of me was drawn to stay in the blue aisles, they looked so much more fun, but I knew I had to retrieve the pink furry bouncy ball that had gotten away from me and return to the Barbies and fluffy pink things.
But now I knew it was there. I had seen the Star Wars shelves and the displays of Scaletrix. I was aware of my fellow man in the store and every now and then would glance over to that side of the store and look on in envy of all the flashing lights, the buzzing and whoshing. It was at one such time of green eyed wanton scrutiny that I became aware that not only were the women looking at me with caution and sympathy but the men were also looking at me, however they looked on with confusion and disapproval. They could not comprehend why I wasn’t with them trying out the life size Racing Car or skidding up and down the huge electronic piano keyboard. Why was I picking up “Bratz” (and quickly putting them back down I might add, what horrible things) and why I was looking at the ponies and princess costumes. Every now and then I tried to defect across to the other side and tried to convince myself that a young girl really does want a car that transforms into a robot and can fire rockets out of its arms but every time I picked up an action figure I knew it was not an appropriate toy for either girl and shuffled back across to the cautious sympathetic women and all the pink, (do they not know there are other colours?) and not forgetting the occasional sniggering.


At one point the lights in the store sparked out and a huddle of men from the blue aisle scurried over under cover of coats and tried to rescue me from all the pink and return me to the safe haven of Stormtroopers and Army vehicles. We were scuppered by a rather large display of Barny the Dinosaur and friends, when the lights came back on I was found on the floor with a seven foot Barney in a head lock. I picked up my basket, put it back down and jammed the two big boxes back in it, picked it up again, juggled with the larger box and other items and tried to discreetly make my way to the tills. Ignoring the sniggering and without a word to the cashier I paid for my goods and quickly made my way to my car.



I’ll be back there next week having rethought my gift choices and go through the pink influenced misery once again.

Angel of Death

I have just had a nightmare, a full blown wake up sweating, heart pounding catching yourself screaming nightmare. I haven’t experienced one of them since I was a young lad. And I can remember the whole thing vividly.


It started off all very nice, I had met up with some old friends whom I have not seen for a long time. We were chatting and catching up, laughing and joking and sharing experiences. We then said our goodbyes and went on our merry way. My merry way led me home to bed, up till this point my dream had been viewed in the first person, as though I was actually there, however once in bed I observed the scene from a third person viewpoint, I was now in the corner of my room looking down at my sleeping self. After a short period of time I became aware of a very large shadowy figure standing at the head of the bed looking down at me. I started to feel very uneasy about this and felt that my sleeping half should be awake. At this point I once again became the sleeping embodiment of myself and started to awaken, cautious in the knowledge that somebody was in the room with me. As my eyes opened they immediately looked up and behind me. There looking down at me was a hooded figure with a skull for a face, immediately I recognised this as personification of Death, The Grim Reaper. As soon as I had fixated on him he reached out and grabbed at me, frantically grabbing me, attacking me, his arms moving so fast they blurred. I fought back, pushing him away from me, struggling to get to my feet in order to defend myself properly, wrestling and fighting with Death. It really felt as though this was the fight for my life, I wasn’t ready to go and wasn’t about to go quietly but kicking and screaming. I started shouting and screaming mustering all my strength to fight off my aggressor. Just as I was winning I woke. Still kicking and screaming, fists clenched and heart racing.

I sat up in bed, scanning my room. Everything was where it was meant to be with no shadowy menacing figures lurking. I caught my breath and started to calm myself. Lying back down, the images of my dream still so very clear in my mind, I started to close my eyes to go back to sleep but before they even closed Death reappeared in front of me. Like wisps of thick black smoke coming together to form the body, the skull face materializing through the dense plumes of smoke, its mouth fixed in a permanent evil grimace. It was right there, in my face nose to nose so to speak.


That was enough sleep for me. I got up and put the telly on.

Sands of time

Time has a strange way of slipping past you if you let it. More stealth like than our most highly experienced Special Forces, more silent and deadly than a trained ninja; time can creep up on you and take you by surprise. One moment you are riffling through your parka pockets, searching for a few spare coins in amongst sweet wrappers and Air-fix soldiers to buy a quarter of pear drops or cola cubes, the next you are pleading with your bank manager for another extension on your already overdue mortgage.

The last couple of months have passed me by in the blink of an eye. It seems I fell asleep one night in September and awoke late October. At some point during the night a mystical unseen force stole my time away from me. We are all guilty of wishing the hours and days away, how often have you sat at your office desk or at your work place and wished for the end of your working day, wished it was the weekend already? Time is a precious commodity of which we can never replace, once it is gone, once that minute on the 17th day of the 3rd month in the year 2009 has gone it can never come back. We are all given an unknown amount of precious time to spend on this earth and yet we frivolously discard it often without thought or regard, much like we blink or breathe without consciously thinking about it we let the sands of time slip through the hour glass without any real contemplation.

We far too easily slip into the mundane routine of life. We work, we come home to kith and kin, we maybe go out on our days off and before we know it we are back at work again. Days merge into weeks, weeks into months and months into years. Before too long we wake up one morning, look in the mirror and see an old stranger staring back at us. The saying live every day as if it were your last is all well and good albeit slightly unpractical, we all have bills to pay and, unless you are the latest lottery winner that requires us spending a vast majority of our precious time at work. So maybe we cannot live every day as if it was our last but the time we do have we should make the most of. When you are not at work, if you have family be with them, spend time with them for all too soon the young children in your life will have their own mundane routine of life and there minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years will be speeding past them.

When you are younger time seems to be a vast expanse that you never seem to progress across, as if time were an ocean and you are in a row boat tethered to the shore. Everything took forever, from the car journey on a day out, to your birthday, to the next Christmas. It all seemed like such a long time, at the time. Now car journeys are fleeting moments your sub conscious sometimes doesn’t even register, birthdays become just another reminder that yet another year has slipped past you and as Christmas all too soon approaches you feel as if it was just last week you put the tinsel and decorations in boxes back into the loft. Afternoons spent playing in the sun with your friends seemed to last a life time, every day was an adventure, every second an exploration into the unknown. Never really knowing what was round the corner we lived life without an expectation of tomorrow, we lived for the moment. Now as we have settled into the routine we know all too well what tomorrow brings. We know what we are doing a week on Saturday, our life is planned out for us and for the most part it isn’t something new and exciting, it is something we have done many times before. In our youth we didn’t always know what the plans were, or if we did we didn’t know what they held in store for us. Everything was a surprise waiting to be unwrapped. The anticipation of the unknown caused time to slow and enabled us, had we have known better, to cherish it. Now with the knowledge we have gained and the routine we live time hurries past us in a blur. Every now and then we need to stop, turn the hour glass on its side and savour the time given to us. Try to break free from the chains of modern day to day existence and experience new things. Do something you have never done before. Go somewhere you have never gone before. With modern transportation as good as it is there is nothing really stopping you from going anywhere. Even on a meagre budget I am certain there are places on your door step you have never been to that would not cost the earth. If you try it is not hard to find the time to do all those things you want to do, yes it may require some initial effort but it will be so worthwhile. I want to get to the end of my allotted time with as few if onlys and what ifs as possible. I don’t want to find myself saying if only I had more time.

Get up out of your arm chair and find the world outside your front door; it is just sitting there waiting for you to explore it.



Make the most of the time you are given, you never know when that last grain of sand will fall.

Already?

I can’t believe that it has started already. Here it is just a few days into September and it has started. Looking back now it started a few days ago but in a more subtle less direct approach. Adverts appeared on the telly for large tins of chocolates, buy one get one free. Nothing too suspicious about that you might say. But then today I pop into my local convenience store for some bread and milk and whilst looking around I spot some chocolate snowmen for sale, I tut and think to myself not already surely? Then I go to the gym for a swim, all very nice and when I finished I went into the gyms café for a coffee. Out of the corner of my eye I catch a flashing, twinkling light, drawn to it I turn to see what it is. To my horror it is a Christmas tree with twinkly fairy lights and presents wrapped in brightly coloured metallic paper nestled underneath.

It’s September.

As you may be aware from previous entries I love Christmas, I really do. But I can’t stand it when people start it so early. I can forgive supermarkets getting Christmas goods in early, people need to spread the cost and buy bits and pieces over a period of time. But do we really need to start decorations quite so early?
One of the things that, at least used to make Christmas so special and magical was the fact that it happened just once a year, (thankfully that hasn’t changed) and that it was just one or two, maybe three special days with a couple of weeks leading up to it. Now with decorations and lights being displayed so early in the year it takes the sparkle of it. You become desensitised to it, you get used to seeing the decorations, the tinsel, the fairly lights and the fake snow and it starts to become tedious and dull.
Look at it this way, when a bride walks down the aisle in a beautiful white wedding dress it takes your breath away, she looks beautiful. Had she been wearing the dress every day for the last three months leading up to that special day it wouldn’t be quite so amazing and part of the magnificence and beauty would have been removed.

We could all do with a little more magic in our lives; lets not destroy the one time of the year that gives it to us.
Christmas is one of the most magical times of the year for adults and children alike. Wanting to prolong the magic is understandable, but in doing so you are actually lessening the experience.
Love Christmas; immerse yourself in it and all of its splendour and wonderment. Let’s have a full colour Christmas not something that has been drawn out and dulled into greys and blacks.

Who, what, why, where, when, how?

I went for a swim today, as I often do and as I was getting changed overheard a conversation between a grandfather and his grand daughter, whom I am estimating to have been between two or three years old, but could be completely wrong, when it comes to guessing ages, especially that of children I am next to useless. Anyway she was of an age to be talking, obviously, and also required these new fangled swimming nappies that I have seen you can get. Judging from the conversation between them they had just been to the shop and purchased said nappy and from the sound of it were unable to buy the size they would normally get, the grand daughter was inquiring why they couldn’t buy the normal size and the grand father tried to explain that they were sold out. The conversation flowed pretty much as follows:

Grandfather: “We had to get the medium because they didn’t have the large in”
Grand daughter: “Why?”

GF “Because they had run out”
GD: “Why?”

GF: “Because other people have brought them and they have not had any more come in”
GD: “Why?”

GF: “Because the man who comes round in a van has not been yet.”
GD: “The man in the van? Why?”

GF: “Yes, he’s probably very busy.”
GD: “Why?”

GF: “He has to drive to lots of shops.”
GD: “Why?”

And so the conversation continued in much the same vein, the child constantly asking for more and more information, I’m sure those of you that are parents can relate to this kind of conversation and have had many similar. The inquisitive nature of a child’s mind is phenomenal, at this age they are like a sponge, absorbing every tiny thing around them, always wanting to know more, never accepting something at face value but always wanting that little bit more information. Everything is new to them and they are excited to learn about it and discover exactly how things tick. The learning potential for a child is exceptional, teachers of any description will generally tell you the best time to learn anything is when you are a child and your brain is still open and receptive to new information. Just think how much information they are taking on in their early years, from learning to speak to discovering the everyday objects around them.

I have often, as an adult attempted to learn something new and struggled, I often wish I could roll the years back and learnt all the things I wish I could do now then. Take musicians as an example, those that play instruments that are supremely talented and the top of their field have generally been playing or learnt to play as a child, of course the amount of years playing goes a long way to them becoming as great as they are now but having started so young must have been a very large contributing factor to the talent they now have.

I’m sure we have all seen the pushy parents attempting to get their children interested in something, whether it be piano lessons, beauty pageants or general studies, and all frowned in disapproval, but I think as parents we should be active in our children’s lives and at least they are. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t approve of the extremes that are often showcased on television, where nothing else seems to matter to the parent than the next talent show or competition, where I’m sure we often think it’s the parent trying to live their youth again through their children. In these cases the parents in question seems completely oblivious to what the child actually wants just as much, possibly even more so than the parent that ignores their child or takes little interest in them, instead they have gone to the extreme so much so that the child just becomes a cog in the machine to win the prize or achieve the acclamation.

There was a common saying when I was growing up, which I can clearly remember my grand mother saying, that a child should be seen and not heard. What complete and utter nonsense. I just hope that this has not been passed down through the generations and has been left in the past where it truly belongs. A child should be cherished and treasured; they are not merely trophies to be exhibited when the vicar comes to tea. We need to take heed of the children in our lives, listen to them as we would our peers or elders, do not disregard there needs and requests. We should attempt to fill their lives with as much as possible to help them grow into the adults we would like them to be, encourage them in all that they do, introduce them to as much as humanly possible so they at least know it’s there in the first place, a child that is not aware of the piano will not show interest in one, make it available to them and if they welcome it all the better, if they do not then so be it, but at least they are aware of its existence. Give your child every opportunity that maybe you weren’t, and if they show a desire for something then encourage it and maybe you will find your childs natural talent that will not only enrich their lives but yours too.

Give the sponge water to be absorbed.

Two Hearts

I have come to realise that I wear my heart on my sleeve much more than I realised I did. I thought I kept my feelings fairly well guarded and hard to decipher except to those that know me well. Not that I think it is a good thing to be so guarded but believe it to be a defence mechanism to protect myself from letting people get too close and then in a position to cause me pain. I have, regrettably in the past let people past my outer defences only for them to attack me from within, a Trojan horse of emotional conflict.

I have always been a fairly emotionally charged person and will easily get upset over things and people that I care about, I have worked in jobs that could have proved very emotionally taxing, however due to the fact the job was with people that didn’t really mean anything to me I was able to remain emotionally detached from it. However when things come closer to home it is quite often all I can do to hold in the tears. I don’t think it is a bad thing for a man to cry or for a man to cry in public, in fact I think more men should, but sometimes I do struggle with this and will try in desperation to control myself and not show my emotion in a physical form, preferring to do this in the seclusion and safety of my own home and in private.

We have two hearts, the first being the muscular organ in our chest cavity which pumps blood around our bodies, the second being the metaphorical heart, the source and centre for our emotional life, a place where our sincerest and deepest feelings can be found, a place incredibly vulnerable to pain.
Without either we would cease to be.

If our emotional heart is damaged I’m not sure it will ever be as good as it once was, I think we have the ability to repair ourselves but that the scars will always be present and just maybe weaken the area damaged. I think we, the human race, have an adept ability to get back up and carry on, we all go through various hardships and difficult times and most of us are fortunate enough to come through the other side. There are, of course some that sadly fall by the wayside, maybe there heart was already weakened from previous conflicts and just could not cope with the most recent trauma, I don’t know.

I believe I am a fairly strong person, emotionally; I have dealt with various tragedies to my personal life over the years and in my eyes for the most part have coped well. I think this is partly due to the fact that I have learned to release my emotions, whether in private or with others I trust. Emotions that are not released can only put added pressure on the weakened scar tissue and cause further damage. During my young adult life I had not learnt how to deal with my emotions quite so well and did some things that I am not proud of, drank far too much in a futile attempt to find the answers I was looking for, for what its worth the answers are never at the bottom of the bottle, no matter how many you look in.

Sometimes I contemplate things maybe a bit to much, relive past hurts in my private times a bit too often, but maybe that is just the way I have come to learn how to cope with and deal with whatever it is that may be troubling me now, looking for answers or solutions to previous worries. When you are alone you have plenty of time to examine your heart and soul, to prod around in places that sometimes you wish weren’t there. When you are in that quite place, whether it be those few minutes before you fall asleep at night and you are just lying there in your bed or if you are lucky enough to grab a few minutes during the day, when you are alone with just your thoughts as company, when the world lays still and a hush falls over the commotion of the day, when that hollow feeling engulfs your chest and your eyes well with the tears of faded scars, you reflect on yourself and catch a glimpse of the person that you are.
It can be a scary place to be, a very lonely, desolate place, a place that asks us questions we don’t want to answer, but at some point we must all visit it. Some more than others, it is a place I have come to know all to well and would like to leave undisturbed for a time. But life asks questions of us and demands answers and sometimes those answers can only be retrieved from the darkest of places.

I fear I still have many questions to go, many left unanswered that I have yet to find the answers to or am just too scared to venture where I know they can be found.

The Elephant in the Room

Who’s to say what consciousness is? Nobody can really describe the conscious state other than it being a state of self awareness, an awareness of your surroundings and your feelings, an ability to make decisions and make perceptions. But that doesn’t really explain what consciousness is. Nobody can truly say that the way I experience consciousness is the same as anybody else. It is a very individual thing and one of life’s true mysteries.

For all I know everything around me is a figment of my own imagination. It is possible that I am not living the life that I believe I am living but am instead in a fantasy world of my own creating. All it takes is imagination. The human brain is probably the most creative of all the animal kingdom, everything we see around us that has been created by man is as a result of somebody’s imagination. From the chair I am sitting on to the computer I am writing this on. It all started life as somebody’s idea. So what is stopping my brain from creating an existence and then living my life in the dream world? My true life could be the furthest thing from this supposed reality that I am immersed in. Maybe I am a prisoner somewhere and this reality is being forced upon me to keep me subdued. That somewhere deep inside I know this and am trying to wake myself from the dream world by writing this, trying to remove the blindfold. All very Matrix like but a possibility none the less.
Maybe I am a patient on a ward in a coma, and that this is the reality I have created whilst my body recovers. That one day I will wake up in a hospital bed, unfamiliar with the world I awake too and long to return to the familiarity that I have created and lived in for the past 34 years. Maybe the true reality in which I am actually living is so awful that I have created this as a form of escape.

Nobody can ever prove to me that any of this life is real, anything that happens either to me or to others I can simply explain away as a figment of my imagination. Touch and feelings are just electrical impulses sent to the brain via nerves and then translated by the brain into substance. Electrical impulses can be manipulated, forged and imitated, my brain could be deceived into thinking it is typing on this keyboard. The human mind is very susceptible, hypnosis is common practice for various treatments and also used for comical entertainment, I’m sure we have all seen somebody made to believe they are a chicken or some such nonsense and paraded around on stage laying eggs and clucking. We can be made to believe we are seeing things that are not actually there, all of our senses can be conned into an alternate reality. Can we really trust our own senses? For all I know I could not exist at all but am just a part of someone else’s creativity and a figment of someone else’s imagination. I am just a character created in the mind of another and quite simply there to play my part in their make believe world. But would that be the case? Is the human mind powerful enough to not only create a false reality for one person but also for all of those within the life of the creator? Or would I simply not be when I am not in the presence of the author?
Artificial intelligence has been an ongoing goal for many people for many years, to enable a computer to have intelligence similar to that of a human. Maybe I am not human at all but am an experiment in artificial intelligence. I have been placed into a controlled environment and given the perception that I am a thirty something male and have been left to see how I react with and too different stimuli. My memories of my childhood could all have been created for me so that I have something to build on now and to make me believe I am who I am, at any given moment the experiment could be deemed a failure and I get turned off or maybe just restarted and have to do this all again. That could be one possible explanation for the beliefs that some hold that when you die you come back again. Those memories of a previous life were just in fact random bits of program and memory not deleted from the previous run.
Life is a mystery which I don’t think we will ever be in a place to understand until we come to the end of it. None of us are truly able to understand anyone else on the same level as we understand ourselves because we simply are not them. How do I know that even if I experience the same event at the same time as somebody else that we have had the same experience? The way one person sees the world and lives within it can be and is completely different to my perceptions. It is not possible for me to step into someone else’s mind and experience life through their eyes. To feel the way they feel, to see things the way they see them. If you were to for ask for ten peoples eyewitness accounts of an event they will all vary to some degree. We all see this life differently; it may be very subtle in difference but different none the less.
We are all blinkered to the true reality of life by a hundred and one tiny things around us that continually occupy our minds, from not forgetting to buy milk to problems at work. At some point we need to stop, breath, focus and take a moment to see the Elephant that is in the room with us. See the truth that has been hidden from us, that we have been to occupied and distracted to take notice of before. Wake up to the reality of our own existence.
It is maybe then and only then that we will understand the mystery of life and just maybe find some of the answers that have bewildered us for so long. But maybe in doing so we will solve the mystery of life and for us it will then cease to be, maybe then we will move onto a new plane of existence and being, this could just be a holding area to prepare you for your true life.

Life is a mystery to be solved.
I just hope when you have the answers that it will not be the end but just the beginning.

Exit stage right.

I spent the day in London yesterday with my very good friend Denzel. Denzel and his good lady wife Lara had got me tickets to the theatre for my recent birthday and yesterday was the day of the show. Now I like London however don’t often venture there even though it is not much more than a fairly short train journey away. There are a few reasons for this; the first being that I just find it far too busy; it’s difficult to even partake in a coffee and a bit of people watching as there are simply just too many people. The diversity of the people in London is extraordinary, especially yesterday as it just so happened to be Gay Pride day, I’m sure it’s not the norm on any other regular day for men to be walking around in just their pants but I could be wrong.
I actually found the best opportunity to grab a small snapshot of people watching was whilst travelling up and down the various escalators to and from the underground. Because although you are moving you are not physically propelling yourself forward and it is one of the very few places that I have ever found in London where people actually stand still for a moment in time, they pause for the shortest of breaths and just ride the escalator. Everybody can be found on those moving staircases, from the business man or woman to the old lady who has just popped out for some groceries, from famous celebrities to couples who are just famous to each other. Maybe one day I’ll take the time to travel up there on my own and maybe sit in Hyde Park and just watch the world go by, try and get more of a feel for our capital city.
Another reason for me not always wanting to go is because London confuses me, I easily get lost and can never find my bearings, this is difficult for me as a man to admit, as I’m sure any woman out there will tell you men will never admit to being lost. For some reason we believe that we should always know where we are and where we are going, it is deemed a failure to admit you are lost and even worse to have to ask for directions. This feeling is magnified if the man is with a woman, he cannot admit that he doesn’t know where he is, it is his job to get his lady from point A to point B and does not want to fail her which he will consider to be the case by admitting he is lost or asking a stranger for directions. By the way, a quick diversion from the main subject, if you ever are lost and do feel the need to ask for directions who to ask is probably the biggest dilemma you will ever have. Men will initially always look for another man to ask, this is by far less demeaning than asking a woman, however if you ask a fellow man and he doesn’t know where you want to go he will not admit this, so to save face himself he will just make up completely random directions and then send you off on a wild goose chase. Ask a woman and you enter a whole other world of directions, you will be directed via shops and trees, by pretty flowers and possibly even clouds, A woman will tell you to go down here and turn right at Next, carry on till you see the tree and turn left at the pretty flowers, oh and there was this funny looking cloud there earlier, its just by that. Always, always ask a taxi driver, you will get proper directions that you will understand and more importantly that are right, of course the only problem this springs up is trying to find a taxi driver that speaks English. You know I actually saw a bus driver yesterday with a map on his dashboard, that’s got to worry you when you get on.
Going back to my confusion with London I think I know what it is. People find their way around by visualisation we remember things and when we want to find our way back there we mentally take the journey in our minds first. The problem you encounter when moving around London is that this is removed from you to a certain degree. So much of your time moving from one place to another is underground. You make use of the Underground which takes away your ability to spot landmarks and to work out where you are. London is almost dissected into various different areas. For what its worth these different areas could be millions of miles apart, not connected at all physically except for this one tube that joins them, almost if you will, like one of these futuristic Hamster cages you can get, lots of different sections connected by tunnels. If you actually wanted to walk from one section to another you couldn’t, you would just hit a clear plastic wall. And so because you move from one section to another without external reference via the underground and because when you go down your body compass is thrown into disarray by the various twists and turns, the ups and downs you have no concept of which way you are facing or which way you are going. It’s difficult to then relate one section to another. I couldn’t get out of one tube and then point to where I had just come from or even worse try and walk back to where the tube had just brought me from. I just can’t physically relate or join one area of London to another; they are just completely separate and individual areas only accessible via the underground.

Now the main purpose of our visit was of course to go to the theatre. I absolutely adore the theatre, everything about it is magical from the moment you see the signs illuminated in a dozen lights outside to the final curtain call. It is the one thing that will draw me back to London time and time again. The magnificence of the buildings, the grandeur and the history always makes me feel like a small child stood in front of a wise old giant of a man. A man that could tell me so much and show me so much, could educate me and invoke emotions so deep and thought provoking that will make you stop all that you are doing and just listen, to just travel with him as he takes you on a magical journey of his own creation. If you give yourself over to this wise man in front of you, trust yourself in his embrace and travel with him you will experience life as it was meant to be experienced, on a level unachievable in the normal day to day existence we all live. For a few hours life will be enchanting, your own world will be placed on hold as you become a part of the building and its history.
I am quite old fashioned and maybe even snobby about the theatre, I would be extremely happy if there was still an enforced dress code, if men still had to wear dinner jackets and the ladies in magnificent gowns. I think it would only enhance what is already a very special occasion. Some people may say that this would reduce its attraction to some people and maybe make it into more of an exclusive membership instead of something for the people no matter what class you belong. But this is not true; the theatre has always been for everyone albeit in earlier years it was more segregated, the stalls area of the theatre that on the ground floor, level to the stage used to be the cheapest seats in the house. The floor was often muddy and dirty and was considered to be an area for the less fortunate although was later realised that they were experiencing so much more by being so close to the performance on stage and in recent years has become the most expensive seats in the house with the exception of the private boxes. The Royal circle and the upper circle, the areas for those that used to have money and stature are now the cheaper seats.
I am not about to write a review on the show itself, that is not my place to do, we are all individuals and will find some things pleasing that others will not, all I will say is that it was fabulous and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There is not a single aspect of the theatre that I do not enjoy, from the fantasy world played out in front of me to the interval drinks, from the lights to the music, the costumes to the props, from the actors to the musicians, I wouldn’t change a thing. Throw all of these things together and a whole lot more and you have an occasion that will stay with you forever, something that you will want to pass on to others.
As I touched upon earlier the theatre isn’t what it once was with the dress code etcetera, and on this occasion I found further changes to the spectacle that I had not noticed before. On occasion I have had the misfortune of somebody’s mobile phone ringing or to have somebody nosily rustling sweets, all of which can abruptly awaken you from the dream like world you had previously been enjoying. But on this occasion it was taken to a whole new level. At the interval Denzel and I went for our pre-ordered interval drinks, we stood there talking and watching those around us when I happened to notice a young lady carrying what appeared to be two pizza boxes, on closer inspection and observation this was in fact exactly what it was, she carried them along with a light silk scarf and stood at the bar chatting momentarily. I had not witnessed from where she came and she walked off eventually in the opposite direction from us. I came to the conclusion that surely she was a member of staff and had popped out to get some food for the actors or the backstage crew. I left it at this and didn’t give it much more mind. Denzel and I went on to finish our drinks and then make our way back to our seats. We had a few moments before the show resumed and Denzel lent me his operatic binoculars which he had earlier hired from the dispenser in the chair, (I’m not going to go into the near criminal damage inflicted on the London Palladium by Denzel after the machine swallowed his money and didn’t initially release the binoculars). So there I am looking through the binoculars scanning the stage and the auditorium when I spot the pizza girl I had seen at the bar, there she was sitting on the opposite end to where we were still clasping the two pizza boxes and the light silk scarf. I sit there in disbelief that this girl intends to eat the pizza during the performance, had I been sitting anywhere near her I would have been compelled to say something, to be honest I had to restrain myself from walking over to where she was and saying something, thankfully she was so far away to not destroy the illusion for me, once the lights went down I forgot about her and her pizza and let myself slip back into the fantasy world. But there was a small part of me that hung onto it, I half expected a delivery boy to arrive and bring somebody a curry. The fact that somebody felt it was acceptable and the fact that it was allowed amazes me and still amazes me as I write this. Has this country fallen to such a level where rules and acceptable behaviour can no longer not only be enforced but put in place in the first instance? Surely the smell of pizza would have ruined the experience for those sat anywhere near this young lady? I am extremely self conscious about how I move about and reposition myself in my seat to remain comfortable so as to not disturb those around me. If I were to take some food into the show I would be incredibly selective over what I took. Crisps would of course be out, as would anything with wrappers, sweets in bags would have to be tested for how much noise they made and most certainly nothing with any kind of overpowering smell would even be considered. What this woman was thinking I could not say. I can only assume that this behaviour is considered normal for her, I just cannot conceive it and maybe that says more about me then her but so be it.
Exit stage right pizza girl.

Should anybody read this that has any influence in such matters please may I request that dress code is re-established, even if it is for just one special night a week or a month, but that more importantly rules are set in place as to what is acceptable practice and that anybody seen carrying pizza boxes should not be allowed within fifty feet of the main entrance let alone let into the auditorium.

Enjoy the theatre; it is a spectacle and a marvellous tradition to be enjoyed by everyone, from the young to the old. Revel in it and if you have the opportunity to introduce somebody to it then do so, it is one of the greatest gifts you can give to another.
Check your worldly coat at the door and enter a world of fantasy and fiction, of story telling and drama and of magic and emotions.

Dancing in the rain.

I have a few things in life that I enjoy immensely but for no particular rhyme nor reason. They are things that give me pleasure instantly but I could not pin down exactly what it is that I find so pleasing.

There is a French word or saying that probably sums it up, joie de vivre, it means a delight in being alive; keen, carefree enjoyment of living.

Funnily enough all three things involve walking.



1. Walking in the rain or a thunderstorm
2. Walking at night
3. Walking down the middle of a deserted road



Give me all three of these things at the same time and I am in heaven.



There is something very special about being out for a walk in the rain, especially on a nice summers evening. Having spent the day being kissed by the warmth of the sun, when the air is still balmy and heavy, the smell of a BBQ still lingering on a gentle breeze and the sounds of children playing in a secluded garden, then out of nowhere you feel a few drops of rain, you instinctively look for the source, somebody watering the garden maybe, a child with a water pistol but nothing, you disregard it and carry on your way, then again, a few steps later another drop lands on your arm, warm and yet cooling to the skin at the same time. You look up and see a few odd puffs of cloud, an ever so slightly grey cloud looking somewhat out of place lurking amongst the others; you look down and see signs of drops of water on the parched floor instantly dried and absorbed.

You take in a deep breath through your nose and you can smell the water in the air, that fresh smell you only seem to get on days like this, almost as if the air itself is being washed clean as the rain falls. A few drops turns into a light shower, your body welcomes the release from the harsh summers sun, the hairs on your arms stand on end as your skin tingles from the earlier exposure to the strong suns rays. You stand in the open air, look up at the vast expanse of sky, your arms held out to your sides, palms facing upwards, you let your head drop backwards, close your eyes and open your mouth as the cooling drops of rain splash upon your face. You open your eyes as you feel a droplet land on your dry lips, your tongue tastes the clarity of the virgin water, another drop catches in your eye lashes making you blink. You stand in the cooling shower as your light summer clothes start to cling against your body, the small shower droplets start turning into fat dollops of rain drumming against leaves and the heavy dry soil.



A skip in your step now, you carry on your way, in no hurry, the rain is pleasing to your tiring body. With almost a dance you progress, on tip toes springing from paving slab to paving slab avoiding the cracks as the orchestral rain drums out its rhythm, every now and then catching the droplets on your tongue as they collect and fall from your brow. Watching as a young female blackbird baths herself in one of the many forming puddles, water beading against her feathers as she shuffles and shakes, preening herself. The musical tones of rain upon leaf climbs as a rumble of thunder forms on some distant hill side, the sky darkens and the rain pauses for a second as if to take breath, the now grey blue sky flashes with electricity highlighting the forming clouds overhead, a second rumble followed in quick succession by further flashes of light and power announce the brewing storm. And then still, the air feels electric, for a few seconds everything slows, just the sound of your breath and the gentle thump of your heart, you fill your chest with air, tasting the foreboding power in the air, your chest heaves as a fork of lightning flashes in the distance stretching out across the darkened skies, its fingers reaching out into the forming clouds as if to ignite them into life once more, a sudden clap of thunder rattles your very bones and then the rain resumes, heavier now than before it begins to fall once more. The summer light retreats from the threatening clouds as day turns into night, the earth lays still, hidden, as an animal might try to escape its predator, cowering in the darkness, hardly breathing waiting in some dark hole for the threat to pass it by. You feel like the only thing living as the threat prowls about you looking for its quarry. The streets are empty now; you step out into the deserted road and walk the centre. With every step a rebellious surge ignites your inner soul, as the shadowy hunter thunders about you, calling out to you in a display of might and ferocity, you stand tall and proud, defiant against its power and strength. His breath upon your cheek, your invisible foe stalks your every move. Walking the deserted tarmac you turn and watch for your antagonist as he lights up the ever darkening, brooding sky. Your senses heightened to every sound and movement as an indignant Mother Nature puts on a magnificent display in front of you, the rest of the world seems to have stood still as you walk along the road, you can almost sense the rotation of the earth beneath each foot fall.
In the chaos of the storm you find peace.





Nope. I can’t think of a single reason why I like it so…

A Fathers Love

With Fathers day soon approaching my heart strings are being plucked. I always thought that at some stage in my lifes journey I would have children; I have always wanted them and kinda thought that I would make a good father. I have always had a good relationship with my friends kids and my god daughter, I think the trick is that I don’t treat them as children, just small people, like minded people who like nothing more than sitting on the carpet playing games, exploring woods or playing in the local park. I love nothing more than pushing all my worldly concerns to one side for a few hours or better still a day or two and playing. When I go to see my God daughter and her sister that is exactly what I do, within minutes of arriving I am being dragged into the lounge and am presented with an array of games pre-chosen for when Uncle Identity comes to visit. With scarcely enough time to exchange greetings with my adult friends and parents to the two most beautiful girls in the world I am on the carpet and in a make believe world of fantasy and fiction played out by various dolls and figurines, we are putting jigsaw puzzles together, playing guessing games, board games, drawing or reading stories together which I think is probably the thing I love most of all, a weekend just gone I was sat on the sofa with one of the girls either side of me, my arms around them holding the book in front of us, (so that we could all see the pictures of course) and we all read together, taking it in turns to read stories to each other.
I had the opportunity not so long ago to take the two girls to one of these adventure playground things. You know the type of place, huge climbing frames covered in brightly coloured padding and foam, climbing nets, ropes and pits full of a collection of plastic balls with more colours than a rainbow. On arrival all our shoes were discarded and we let loose, all three of us charging around without a care in the world, albeit I was a bit slower and redder in the face, before too long I was like The Pied Piper of Hamelin and I had a multitude of children playing with us whilst their parents either watched from the sidelines or relaxed in the café.
I will never forget the time I had spent the day playing and I was getting ready to leave and the youngest girl came up to me as I put on my leather motorbike trousers, she tugged on my trousers, looked up at me and said “Don’t go” at which point my heart just melted, she then proceeded to wrap herself around my leg and there she stayed as I walked about gathering my things trying desperately not to burst into uncontrollable tears.
I love it, more than I am able to express in words alone.

Can anyone truly know the meaning of life without first helping to create it?

According to scientists they believe that men as well as women have a biological clock, and why wouldn’t they? Yes it is the woman that carries the baby for nine months and quite possibly has a connection that maybe man might not be fully appreciative off, but, and this is something that should be remembered by some people, it does take two. A child is a gift to both the mother and the father, not a possession to be fought over. According to the scientists who conducted the study a mans biological clock starts ticking in his mid thirties, which means if mine isn’t already ticking it’s due to start any time now. I don’t like to think that it will never happen for me, I still hold on to some hope that at some point I will be building tree houses in the garden, kicking a ball about or playing games with my own children. I long to hold my son or daughter in my arms seconds after they have been born, to know that feeling, to experience the mass of emotions that must well up at such a time. Although I am fairly certain that at such a time I would be a mess on the floor unable to cope with the outpouring of emotion and feelings. I love my god daughter and her sister with all that is within me, but and don’t let this take anything away from the way that I feel for them I don’t think the love that I have for them would compare to that which I would hold for my own children. I just hope one day I will experience such love and be able to express it. I want to see my child grow and blossom into an adult, I want to be there every step of the way, trying desperately to guide them along their own paths, or at the very least setting them on their own way, on the right path, I want to be there when it is there turn to become parents, there turn to experience the love that I would have felt and to know a whole new love for my grandchildren.

To see myself in my childrens eyes, to witness the miracle of birth, to know that feeling of being needed, an unquestionable love, an everlasting love.

Is my biological clock ticking?
It feels like Big Ben is ringing in the hours…

Happy Talk

Earlier today I partook in one of my fondest pastimes of people watching, I observed a couple sitting in a fairly modern café, (you know the type, where you can’t just order a straight forward coffee anymore) on this occasion it was the conversation that grasped my attention, now please don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t eaves dropping, in fact I have no idea what they were talking about. What intrigued me was the way the conversation flowed. The couple were probably in their mid thirties and judging by their body language were either husband and wife or at least in a very close relationship.

I sat there enjoying my “skinny cinnamon latte” for nearly an hour watching these two converse, although what fascinated me is that during the whole hour the man said exactly three words, “yes”, “no” and “maybe” various other guttural noises of approval and disapproval were made along with the occasional “Hmmmm” but I am not counting these. Throughout the majority of the conversation the mans eyes were transfixed on the large plasma screen displaying a football game in progress, at one point, so engrossed was he that he had to stop himself from jumping up and cheering when a goal was scored. For nearly an hour the woman upheld the majority of the conversation and didn’t seem to mind that her partner was negligibly involved. She was quite content just sitting and talking, barely stopping to catch breath or to sip her coffee.


Women are incredible like that, as any man that lives with a woman will be able to tell you, their ability to talk knows no bounds, which is often manifested in the phone bill. I believe this is nearly an exclusive female trait, I am notoriously bad at making conversation, small talk fills me with dread, I just can’t do it. I honestly believe anything I have to say would be found dull and sleep inducing to the poor unfortunate stuck with me as company. I admit I am not what you would call a social animal, I thoroughly enjoy my own company, when I do go out with friends or to a social occasion I am fine in a group and with a topic of conversation given to me and will happily throw in my two pence worth, however leave me alone with just one other and my ability to talk disappears quicker than a white rabbit at a magic show and I retire into my shell. For this reason I am truly envious of woman’s ability to just talk. Women love to talk, and it doesn’t necessarily matter to whom, their partner, best friend, girl friends, strangers on the bus, if you give a woman the opportunity to talk then she will take hold of it with both hands and not let go. I find it one of woman’s most endearing qualities. They will talk for hours, days if you let them; it’s stopping them that proves to be difficult, especially when in a group of other women. A woman can spend the whole day with a girl friend only to get home and spend another three or four hours on the phone to them. All a woman seems to want is someone to listen to them, simple, listen and just listen to your significant other and they will be happy. You don’t even have to get that involved in the conversation, just as long as you have listened.


Men on the other hand are at the other end of the spectrum. Men don’t really talk to other men at least not on a level that woman can comprehend. A man can spend a whole evening with another man enjoying a beer and a game of pool and darts and leave not knowing anything new about him. Wouldn’t have a clue what’s going on in his life at the moment, couldn’t tell you what their last holiday was like or even where he went, chances are would struggle in telling you his kids names let alone their ages and what’s going on with them. However he would have a complete working knowledge of his new car, the full technical specifications of his new LCD television and cinema surround sound and a mental image as clear as a high definition picture of the new female secretary his company has taken on. A man can quite happily spend hours in the company of his best mate and only exchange two or three words for the whole evening and the two or three words would probably be, “Beer?”, “Yeah” and “Cheers”.

On the very rare occasion when a man calls another man the conversation would be deemed a complete failure if it took anything longer than a minute. A man approaches conversation in much the same way as he does shopping for clothes; know what you want before you set out, know where to get it and how much it will cost, get in and get out as quickly as possible, none of your trying it on or browsing, no going round to a hundred different shops only to go back and buy the first thing you saw. Say what you have to say, await the response, hang up, job done.
Men have a unique ability to understand the guttural grunts and groans mentioned previously. Whole conversations between men can be carried out with these Neanderthal noises, which is why we get into so much trouble with the opposite sex when we instinctively use them in conversation with them, the woman is under the impression that we are not listening where as we believe we have answered fully and adequately forgetting that women have lost their ability of guttural speech and evolved into a far more beautiful subject than there cave dwelling predecessors.


Man is a few steps lower on the evolutionary ladder than woman in the conversational department and if truth be know probably always will be. Man still expresses himself with hand gestures and incomprehensible noises, under the belief that the louder he is the more articulate he is. This is one of the reasons sport is more popular among men than women as it gives them plenty of opportunity to shout and wave their arms about.

Woman however speaks in poems and flowers, there words float on the air and bring harmony. A woman’s belief is why use one word when twenty can say it so much better, never is this more evident than when woman returns home and finds man still sitting on the sofa with a beer and the pile of dirty dishes still in the sink.


If man speaks in black and white then a woman speaks in vivid high definition technicolour.

Never Forget.

It’s been sixty five years since the day the world stood up in unison and said “No” to Nazi Germany. The Allied Invasion of Normandy began shortly after midnight on the 6th June 1944 with an air assault, men parachuted into enemy occupied France and for nearly seven hours had only those that jumped with them as support. At approximately 0630hrs the amphibious assault began, using landing craft over 160,000 troops ran onto five French beaches spanning a length of 50 miles, the largest single day amphibious invasion of all time. Within five days of the initial landings approximately 326,547 troops had come ashore by sea or air. Due to the nature and scale of the assault there have never been any verified figures for those that lost their lives on the day and days to follow.
Fathers and sons, uncles and brothers, friends and strangers stood shoulder to shoulder and fought for their country, laid down their lives so that others could live.
We rightly commemorate them and remember the sacrifices made by so many. I can not even begin to imagine what it must have been like for the men. What must have been going through their minds as they rode the waves hurtling towards occupied France and then as the ramps dropped and the assault began? Under constant fire from entrenched enemy forces, as you witnessed people with whom you have trained with, lived with over the weeks and months leading up to the attack fall in front of you.
We have been shown tiny glimpses into what it may have been like from films such as The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan and television dramatisations such as Band of Brothers. But even the best of these cannot encapsulate what it must have been like to have gone through and survived such a traumatic experience. I cannot envisage the sites that awaited our men, the brutality, the destruction, the death, the sacrifices and the heroism.
World War Two changed the way we live, saved the way that we live. We need to honour all those involved, from those that fought to those left at home who in their own way fought their own war. Every one a true hero, courageous and worthy of recognition, we must never forget, it is our duty to make sure that the following generations are made aware of the events that preserved our way of life.

For what it’s worth my heart felt thanks go out to every one who bravely took part, in whatever way, home or abroad that has made it possible for me to have the life I have.

Thank you.

Behind every mask.

We all hide behind the masks that we wear; more often than not we are unfortunately hiding than being our true selves. We do it to protect ourselves, to show the person that we would like to be, to cover the way we truly feel or maybe to try and make ourselves feel better. There can be many individual reasons as to why we put on our masks and which mask we put on.
A couple of the girls at work always say things to me like, “you are always so happy”, “can I have some of what you’re having”, “you are always singing”, now unfortunately if truth be know this is more than likely them responding to one of my masks, I am in general a happy person but quite often can be hiding behind my happy persona. As my good friends know I often use humour to hide my true emotions or to help me through difficult situations, I was in a motorbike accident a few years back and for the whole experience, from initial impact and during my time in hospital I didn’t take off my humour and happy mask until I was left on my own, I was the only patient on the night in A&E laughing and joking with the doctors and nurses, when I got sent down for the required surgery the anaesthetist couldn’t believe I hadn’t been given any drugs other than an asprin because I was so happy and care free, he even phoned through to A&E to check. In this situation I believe I wore my mask to try and protect those that I loved from worrying about me and to lighten the whole situation.
I truly believe that you can find good in most if not all situations and always try to find the silver lining, granted sometimes you really have to look and really want to find that glimmer of hope, but it is always there although sometimes it doesn’t seem apparent until after the event.
I believe that life makes us into the person that we are today, and it is how we deal with life that builds our character. I have always said that age does not guarantee wisdom but life does. The way I respond to a sad event, in public, maybe completely different from someone else, and maybe that is a bad thing; maybe I should feel free to show my true feelings at the specific time. But I have become accustomed to dealing with things, as we all have, in my own way, I protect myself by wearing a mask and only when I feel safe do I remove it. This is something that I have always done and is probably considered a very male trait. During my college years I was one of only a few guys in my class and in my circle of friends I was the only guy. I always felt that I had to be the strong one and in some Neolithic way thought it my job to protect those around me. I have become very adept at burying my true feelings and emotions, keeping them hidden from sight and only ever letting them out in what I would probably perceive as a moment of weakness. This is true for the deepest of my emotions, you will still catch me crying through my favourite weepie film or at a story of heroic exploits, my heart strings are often tugged and often display themselves in a physical way, but to get to the roots of my feelings you would need to dig deeper than just a tear wiped from my cheek.

Maybe all this means I am a difficult person to know, or to know well, but that is what makes my close friends close friends. They have gone to the effort to know me, they have been with me through some of lifes attacks and victories and now know that in a moment of trauma that I am feeling the pain and sorrow even if my outward persona doesn’t display it. We do what we do to survive, some of us need to show our emotions to others, some of us bottle them up and store them away, some of us, like me put on a brave face and then in a private time grieve. I don’t see a problem with the first and third of these, the second can be a hazardous path, emotions need to be released for us to deal with them. If you bottle up your emotions and store them one day you will run out of room, and the next time you open your cupboard door to put away another bottled emotion you may find them all come crashing down on you.

Deal with your emotions as you see fit, but they must be released, either in private or with trusted loved ones.

Emotions that are kept locked away will one day try to break free and in doing so may just break you.