Things around me

Musings, Things around me

Still on Track

15th September 2022

These past days have been fraught with so many issues that may have well thwarted all my valiant efforts in this huge challenge I am trying to overcome. Not only do I have physical injuries and pain to deal with but there has been the more mammoth and vastly more important death of our Queen Elizabeth. As with most of the world, my eyes and ears have been occupied by the coverage of all the events pertaining to and surrounding this sad passing of Her Majesty. Growing up in South Africa as I did, I never knew what it felt…

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CHALLENGING CHANGE, RELATIONSHIPS, Things around me

BRAVE NEW WORLD

16th May 2018

Getting across London today, from South West to East took me as long as it takes me to travel from London to Cambridge. I took a bus from Victoria to East Dulwich and it took over an hour for that leg of my journey. Sitting on the upper deck of the bus gave me a bird’s eye view of this amazing city and whilst observing my surroundings, many thoughts came to mind. We are all so comfortable in our own environments and tend to traverse the same routes and patches for the most part. When we occasionally step out and…

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FITNESS, Mental, RELATIONSHIPS, Things around me

LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

27th April 2018

Returning to London is a total onslaught. I feel like a kettle drum with an over enthusiastic trainee percussionist beating the living daylights out of me. I have two irksome and problematic, intense dislikes . One is loud noise and the other is inconsideration. I find that as I get older, these issues have magnified and I have to constantly talk myself out of letting anything associated with these bugbears get to me. I try to look at them as challenges that God has presented to me to test how far I am prepared to strive in order to have…

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PRACTICAL STEPS, RELATIONSHIPS, Things around me

THE KINDNESS CHALLENGE

13th February 2018

As has happened numerous times in my life, more times than I could ever calculate, my desire to successfully implement and execute the desire to follow a programme or challenge to myself has backfired. It was all a bit of a damp squib. Not that the earnest desire and good intentions weren’t genuine. They always are but in the end, everything I set out to do takes a backseat to my obsession with food, my rituals and my repeated behaviour. I’m talking specifically about the 30 day Kindness Challenge and the 7 day Kindness quest I set myself. In the…

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CHALLENGING CHANGE, RELATIONSHIPS, Things around me

READ ALL ABOUT IT!

29th January 2018

I’ve just been to the library. As a child, this was where I found my solace, my nourishment and my escape. Without a father and with an absent mother, I would spend hours wandering between the shelves, the smell of old books pervading my nostrils and the silence strangely comforting. Without the distraction of television and well before the advent of social media and technology, books ( and the occasional film ) were the only means of escaping into a world of fantasy . Through reading and books I learned how to numb myself , to remove myself from reality…

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RELATIONSHIPS, Things around me

RAISE THE ALARM!

16th January 2018

I watched a trespassing cat in my garden in France this afternoon as it clumsily ( it was a rather portly cat )attempted to stalk the little tits that frequent my bird-feeder. The birds immediately sent out a chorus of warning signals until the danger had passed. Wouldn’t it be amazing if humans did likewise, rallying round each other, looking out for each other , constantly vigilant and issuing warnings whenever the slightest hint of danger seemed apparent. So often we become insular, looking the other way, scared to offend or interfere, looking after our own but neglecting our neighbour.…

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