I'm not sure if I have a cold or if it's allergies but I'm feeling rotten at the moment. I also have what we in the North East of England call 'The Skitters', I'll leave that you your imagination. Suffice to say I'm not firing on all cylinders today so I thought I would write a few words to pass the time why I quietly die.
I was going to go on again about how many awful people there are on Twitter but I've banged on about that enough and there are also some lovely people who counter the other kind so we'll put that to bed I think. The option to just not go there is always available and I have exercised that recently. I made the mistake of nipping back on yesterday to be met with abuse from right-wing trolls for asking a question so I think I'll just observe for a while again.
I'm feeling a little sorry for myself with being poorly but I've cheered myself up by working out that if I time things right I will be able to afford to retire early some time next year. That will be a great thing if I can manage it, it will mean that I can concentrate on writing poems and my long-ignored story of Bob West, blogging and catching up on some reading.
Another reason I'm a bit down is the fact that today is Thanksgiving and although I'm not American I kind of became used to celebrating with Karen each year and I do miss it. Still can't be helped,I just have to get on with it.
I'll tell you what though,if anyone ever has a sore throat I thoroughly recommend Olbas Pastilles, they take a little bit of getting used to taste-wise but by gum they do the job.
I've nothing much else to report really so I'll stop now and go back to reading before it's time to watch Ken Burns' The Civil War which is being repeated on the PBS America Channel and is a masterpiece.
Until next time, Peace and Love. ttfn x
Thursday 26 November 2015
Sunday 22 November 2015
A few thoughts Sunday 22/11/15
It's twelve noon on a cold November Sunday and I'm sitting with the heating on and a blanket round my legs like a little old man. I have the Sunday crossword to complete and a book to read so I'd appear to be quite content in my little world.
There's something missing though, and I don't know what it is. I have an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach (no it's not hunger, I've had brunch); there's a feeling in the back of my mind that there's something or someone not in my life that should be. I don't think it's my ex-wife even though I admitted yesterday that I still love her. No, there's just a space waiting to be filled and by what I don't know. I am feeling strangely lost without this missing element and have no clue how to find whatever it is.
What a load of twaddle you might say, get a grip and get on with your life. In general that's what I do, I try to function on a daily basis and present a 'normal' face to the outside world, just occasionally I sit back and this feeling of there being something missing creeps up on me and I feel the urge to tell anyone who happens to read this blather how I feel.
Well it's now three pm and my dinner is slowly cooking on a low gas. I'm sitting with Thomas kitty cuddled up against me keeping each other warm. Having a blanket and a cat certainly saves on gas for heating.
I've been seriously considering applying for early retirement. I don't like the direction my workplace is going at the moment and although I enjoy what I'm doing I'm finding myself more and more often wishing my life away until I'm 60. I reckon based on my last pension statement that I can live quite reasonably on my reduced pension and save my lump sum for emergencies and travel. I'm meeting my manager soon so I think I'll broach the subject and see where we go.
I really need to change my work/life balance. I was away working far too much this past year, I need to travel for fun and spend more time at home writing and catching up on all the books I have sitting waiting to be read. I need to have time to spread my wings while I'm still young(ish) and well(ish) enough to enjoy life.
Maybe that's what has been the missing thing I was talking about earlier. I need to break free of the shackles of my calendar and expand my mind into the areas I love; travel, reading and writing.
That's it settled then, I will consult the necessary people and see if I can put an early retirement request in train.
I'll let you know how I get on, until then Peace and Love. ttfn x
There's something missing though, and I don't know what it is. I have an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach (no it's not hunger, I've had brunch); there's a feeling in the back of my mind that there's something or someone not in my life that should be. I don't think it's my ex-wife even though I admitted yesterday that I still love her. No, there's just a space waiting to be filled and by what I don't know. I am feeling strangely lost without this missing element and have no clue how to find whatever it is.
What a load of twaddle you might say, get a grip and get on with your life. In general that's what I do, I try to function on a daily basis and present a 'normal' face to the outside world, just occasionally I sit back and this feeling of there being something missing creeps up on me and I feel the urge to tell anyone who happens to read this blather how I feel.
Well it's now three pm and my dinner is slowly cooking on a low gas. I'm sitting with Thomas kitty cuddled up against me keeping each other warm. Having a blanket and a cat certainly saves on gas for heating.
I've been seriously considering applying for early retirement. I don't like the direction my workplace is going at the moment and although I enjoy what I'm doing I'm finding myself more and more often wishing my life away until I'm 60. I reckon based on my last pension statement that I can live quite reasonably on my reduced pension and save my lump sum for emergencies and travel. I'm meeting my manager soon so I think I'll broach the subject and see where we go.
I really need to change my work/life balance. I was away working far too much this past year, I need to travel for fun and spend more time at home writing and catching up on all the books I have sitting waiting to be read. I need to have time to spread my wings while I'm still young(ish) and well(ish) enough to enjoy life.
Maybe that's what has been the missing thing I was talking about earlier. I need to break free of the shackles of my calendar and expand my mind into the areas I love; travel, reading and writing.
That's it settled then, I will consult the necessary people and see if I can put an early retirement request in train.
I'll let you know how I get on, until then Peace and Love. ttfn x
Saturday 21 November 2015
Life and love.
I'm sitting here in my rented flat with a kitty by my side reflecting on a few things. I just listened to my team being beaten yet again. They are in grave danger of relegation if they don't sort themselves out soon.
Anyway, that's just an aside, not what I want to talk about today. I've been thinking about life and love the last couple of evenings and have come to the conclusion that I'm likely to be destined to remain on my own. I can't look for a new soul mate or life partner I'm resigned to having to plough my furrow alone. The reason is that I'm still in love my my ex-wife, stupid really, we've been divorced now for 3 years and she has been remarried for getting on 2 but that doesn't alter the fact that my love has not receded into the background as I thought it would and indeed thought it should. The fact is I can't seem to let go of the feeling that somehow it wasn't suppose to happen like this, we were meant to be and our life together was supposed to carry on into old age.
I'm not sad or unhappy, I'm just confused about what to do and where to go, I know we aren't ever going to be a couple again, she's back in America, remarried and as far as I know, happy with her new life and husband. All I do know is that I will regret the failure of our marriage until my last day on earth. Stupid I know but this is why I will be unlikely to find another partner, it would take someone very strong and special to break down this wall, no not a wall, more like a fine strong veil of regret that hangs over me and stops me from moving a bit like a fly in a spider web.
Still, I will have to make the best of the life I have now and try to overcome this feeling of a lost opportunity. Perhaps it's because we are coming up to the third anniversary of the divorce that my mind has turned this way, who know? I know that I should mark it all down to experience and move on, my common sense tells me that but still I hang on, in fact I don't hang on, most of the time it feels like my feelings are just there with no reason for them being there, they just are.
I'm rambling a bit now, this is more of a stream of consciousness, I'm not thinking about the words, they are just flowing through my fingers onto the page, a bit like my poetry. When I think about what I'm writing my mind seizes up and no words come. It's all very odd, I live in a twighlight world where nothing seems real except that lost feeling clinging to me like a cloud. Not a dark cloud more like the mist you get at the coast which obscures reality and stops you from seeing clearly; a mist that you know you can get clear of by moving a couple of miles inland. Trouble is I don't have the desire or the inclination to make that move, it seems I'm content to blunder along in the half light and wait. Wait for what I don't know and probably never will.
So on that note I think I'll go and shave my moustache off and let the fresh air hit my top lip for the first time in eons. Probably a bit cold to be doing that but I feel like a change so bye-bye 'tache.
I'm off to do that right now so until my next ramble or poem Peace and Love. ttfn x
Anyway, that's just an aside, not what I want to talk about today. I've been thinking about life and love the last couple of evenings and have come to the conclusion that I'm likely to be destined to remain on my own. I can't look for a new soul mate or life partner I'm resigned to having to plough my furrow alone. The reason is that I'm still in love my my ex-wife, stupid really, we've been divorced now for 3 years and she has been remarried for getting on 2 but that doesn't alter the fact that my love has not receded into the background as I thought it would and indeed thought it should. The fact is I can't seem to let go of the feeling that somehow it wasn't suppose to happen like this, we were meant to be and our life together was supposed to carry on into old age.
I'm not sad or unhappy, I'm just confused about what to do and where to go, I know we aren't ever going to be a couple again, she's back in America, remarried and as far as I know, happy with her new life and husband. All I do know is that I will regret the failure of our marriage until my last day on earth. Stupid I know but this is why I will be unlikely to find another partner, it would take someone very strong and special to break down this wall, no not a wall, more like a fine strong veil of regret that hangs over me and stops me from moving a bit like a fly in a spider web.
Still, I will have to make the best of the life I have now and try to overcome this feeling of a lost opportunity. Perhaps it's because we are coming up to the third anniversary of the divorce that my mind has turned this way, who know? I know that I should mark it all down to experience and move on, my common sense tells me that but still I hang on, in fact I don't hang on, most of the time it feels like my feelings are just there with no reason for them being there, they just are.
I'm rambling a bit now, this is more of a stream of consciousness, I'm not thinking about the words, they are just flowing through my fingers onto the page, a bit like my poetry. When I think about what I'm writing my mind seizes up and no words come. It's all very odd, I live in a twighlight world where nothing seems real except that lost feeling clinging to me like a cloud. Not a dark cloud more like the mist you get at the coast which obscures reality and stops you from seeing clearly; a mist that you know you can get clear of by moving a couple of miles inland. Trouble is I don't have the desire or the inclination to make that move, it seems I'm content to blunder along in the half light and wait. Wait for what I don't know and probably never will.
So on that note I think I'll go and shave my moustache off and let the fresh air hit my top lip for the first time in eons. Probably a bit cold to be doing that but I feel like a change so bye-bye 'tache.
I'm off to do that right now so until my next ramble or poem Peace and Love. ttfn x
Thursday 19 November 2015
Time
Time passes as I read
A book. A kitty asleep
On my lap. Surrounded by
Things to eat and drink
Two phones silent and
A closed laptop all seeming
To snooze as the daylight
Fades and I sit while
Time passes.
Wednesday 18 November 2015
Social Media
I've decided to give both Twitter and Facebook (FB) a rest for a while. The whole tenor of comments and the general lack of empathy from many of those making comments on both are really starting to get me down. And don't get me started on the Newspapers and TV news!
I've reached the stage where I'm seriously considering where my future lies. In the short term I plan to work, write, and catch up on all the books which are waiting to be read, both hard copy and on my electronic devices whilst making the occasional foray to the club for light refreshment.
In the medium term I hope to be able to retire in just under 3 years time to concentrate on writing, reading and travel as well as hoping to find a soul mate along the way.
The World is a seriously messed-up place just now with some of the comments I'm reading on said social media leaning towards fascism if not Nazism. If we aren't careful we run the risk of regressing to the 1930's where poverty and extremism ruled and the welfare of people was consigned to the dustbin.
We are sleep-walking into a bad place and I for one want no part of it.
I will continue to blog my thoughts and poems on here and post them to Twitter and FB but until I feel ready to stick my head out of my cave I will be otherwise conspicuous by my absence.
If anyone wants me I'm on Google hangouts and of course feel free to comment on here.
Until then, Peace and Love. ttfn x
I've reached the stage where I'm seriously considering where my future lies. In the short term I plan to work, write, and catch up on all the books which are waiting to be read, both hard copy and on my electronic devices whilst making the occasional foray to the club for light refreshment.
In the medium term I hope to be able to retire in just under 3 years time to concentrate on writing, reading and travel as well as hoping to find a soul mate along the way.
The World is a seriously messed-up place just now with some of the comments I'm reading on said social media leaning towards fascism if not Nazism. If we aren't careful we run the risk of regressing to the 1930's where poverty and extremism ruled and the welfare of people was consigned to the dustbin.
We are sleep-walking into a bad place and I for one want no part of it.
I will continue to blog my thoughts and poems on here and post them to Twitter and FB but until I feel ready to stick my head out of my cave I will be otherwise conspicuous by my absence.
If anyone wants me I'm on Google hangouts and of course feel free to comment on here.
Until then, Peace and Love. ttfn x
Monday 16 November 2015
A reflection on life since 2012.
As the third anniversary of the Great Schism of 2012 approaches this Sunday I look back with some ambivalence.
I wish at times that things could have been different and that we had been able to find a way to get through our bad times and move forward together. Having said that if that had happened I would not have met the people I have since I moved here and that would be a shame.
I do miss the American connection though, I loved the trips for Thanksgiving and Christmas and the insight they gave me on how normal everyday Americans live their lives.
I hope if I get to retire when I'm still fit enough to travel to the US regularly and spend time there in some of the places I came to like such as Yuma, Washington DC, Columbia SC, and especially Vegas.
I'm sorry that I was such a bad husband that Madame felt that she had to leave and go back, it's a source of sadness to me that she had to take such a drastic step to be happy and that I failed in making our life together work.
I suppose the good thing to come out of it was that I had to move out of the old place and start again which was beneficial. It has made me a better person I think. Not that I was a particularly bad person, it was just that I had settled into a rut, in fact we both had, which didn't leave a lot of room for the other half of the relationship.
Still that's all water under the bridge now. we are where we are and life will take us where it will.
I've not really said very well what I started out to say and will maybe revisit this again. I just felt the urge to say something about my feelings as this anniversary approaches and to use this as a vehicle to put into words the thoughts that build up at this time of year.
I've no desire to go back, just to hope that next time, if there is a next time I can avoid the mistakes that caused the termination of something that started out with such promise and optimism.
Anyway, I've said enough for now. I may revisit the subject when, if, my subconscious mind leads me to but until then Peace and Love. ttfn x
I wish at times that things could have been different and that we had been able to find a way to get through our bad times and move forward together. Having said that if that had happened I would not have met the people I have since I moved here and that would be a shame.
I do miss the American connection though, I loved the trips for Thanksgiving and Christmas and the insight they gave me on how normal everyday Americans live their lives.
I hope if I get to retire when I'm still fit enough to travel to the US regularly and spend time there in some of the places I came to like such as Yuma, Washington DC, Columbia SC, and especially Vegas.
I'm sorry that I was such a bad husband that Madame felt that she had to leave and go back, it's a source of sadness to me that she had to take such a drastic step to be happy and that I failed in making our life together work.
I suppose the good thing to come out of it was that I had to move out of the old place and start again which was beneficial. It has made me a better person I think. Not that I was a particularly bad person, it was just that I had settled into a rut, in fact we both had, which didn't leave a lot of room for the other half of the relationship.
Still that's all water under the bridge now. we are where we are and life will take us where it will.
I've not really said very well what I started out to say and will maybe revisit this again. I just felt the urge to say something about my feelings as this anniversary approaches and to use this as a vehicle to put into words the thoughts that build up at this time of year.
I've no desire to go back, just to hope that next time, if there is a next time I can avoid the mistakes that caused the termination of something that started out with such promise and optimism.
Anyway, I've said enough for now. I may revisit the subject when, if, my subconscious mind leads me to but until then Peace and Love. ttfn x
Saturday 14 November 2015
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why do
They do it?
These thugs with their
Guns and their bombs and
Their fanatical hatred of all they
Despise, they have no heart or soul,
Just hatred leading them to kill
And to maim innocent people
Who've done them no
Harm; No reason,
No sense,
Why?
Written in sadness
I'm writing this as a Humanist. I have no religious axe to grind, I'm just a bloke who yearns for peace.
I don't know why people reach a stage in their lives where they feel so removed from humanity that they see fit to attack and murder hundreds of innocent people in the name of religion.
These thugs and extremists are not religious, they don't reflect the thoughts and desires of millions of people who believe in a god; they are criminals following their own twisted agenda to an end that I can't fathom.
All extremism is destructive, any form of fundamentalism is bad. People should be allowed pass their lives in peace and harmony without worrying about whether they are going to be killed by some evil-doer for no good reason other than their skin colour, religion or creed whilst they are at school, in an office, on a farm or having an evening of rest and relaxation.
I have no solution, bombing and shooting are not the basis for negotiation. Extremists by their nature are extreme in their views and beliefs, they see no value in anything other than the total destruction of their so-called enemies so any form of reasonable discourse is likely to fail.
Should they be fought in the same way as they fight? I don't know. As a pacifist I abhor violence and wish there was a way to deal peacefully with this type of destructive behaviour but as I say I can offer no solution.
Violence begets violence, all I can wish for is that somehow the perpetrators of such evil acts as happened yesterday in Paris will one day, somehow come to their senses and realise that they have taken the wrong path, forswear violence and agree to live harmoniously with others.
I'm not holding my breath.
I'll end in sadness, hoping against hope that Peace and Love will prevail. ttfn x
I don't know why people reach a stage in their lives where they feel so removed from humanity that they see fit to attack and murder hundreds of innocent people in the name of religion.
These thugs and extremists are not religious, they don't reflect the thoughts and desires of millions of people who believe in a god; they are criminals following their own twisted agenda to an end that I can't fathom.
All extremism is destructive, any form of fundamentalism is bad. People should be allowed pass their lives in peace and harmony without worrying about whether they are going to be killed by some evil-doer for no good reason other than their skin colour, religion or creed whilst they are at school, in an office, on a farm or having an evening of rest and relaxation.
I have no solution, bombing and shooting are not the basis for negotiation. Extremists by their nature are extreme in their views and beliefs, they see no value in anything other than the total destruction of their so-called enemies so any form of reasonable discourse is likely to fail.
Should they be fought in the same way as they fight? I don't know. As a pacifist I abhor violence and wish there was a way to deal peacefully with this type of destructive behaviour but as I say I can offer no solution.
Violence begets violence, all I can wish for is that somehow the perpetrators of such evil acts as happened yesterday in Paris will one day, somehow come to their senses and realise that they have taken the wrong path, forswear violence and agree to live harmoniously with others.
I'm not holding my breath.
I'll end in sadness, hoping against hope that Peace and Love will prevail. ttfn x
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