Posts

Just another beautiful day..? 2026 3 11

Yeah, but how many more has one a right to expect when the world at present is so full of suffering and strive, so much bloodshed in the middle east, and in many of their once sacred places??? Here in Finland, we its ppl are just emerging from one of the worst winters in a good few years: 2021 when I last walked any distance on frozen ice visiting our out-lying islands, in more usual days only seen across the sea! And its ppl I'm going to venture to say more friendly than usual, since we have shared the experience of the cold climate together: cars usually no time to stop at Zebra Crossings, now slowing down in good time, and stopping even though the zebra stripes are unseen covered, by snow and ice... When I am reminded that in these northern climes of Norway Sweden and Finland it is the strong community spirit which contrives to hold us closer together, never more apparent than in the depths of winter? Today with social media such as X formerly Twitter, Tik-Tok, You-tube and ...

More ppl I get to meet where I swim 26 3 5

First let it be said how swimming in the sea every day is neither a big deal or a game changer, which is to say that in the town where I live there are some, say 25 ladies and a dozen men who regularly visit our changing hut on "The Ladies' Beach" to partake in this pass-time That I have been doing now on pretty much a daily basis for the past 16 years is not unusual. Before I alllowed my wife to buy me, or strictly speaking rent me, a key, I had been swimming from our nearest beach for a few weeks, when I accepted the idea of getting a key for the much safer custom of swimming where others regularly swim: for the safety in numbers, if nothing else. When I decided to give it a try then in 2009 8 19, the first guy I met there when asked when he started he began by saying how he came to live in the town in 1969, and when I related this story to the next guy I met there, he said he hadn't been swimming so long, because he didn't start until 1983. So my own efforts...

T problem of humanity in a nutshell 26 3 2

We can all have a take on this one Mine is to do with these ancient texts say from much of the pre-history when man was more the savage than he is today... When all these biblical texts came into being: the Holy Bible, for Christianity, the the Koran for Islam and the Talmud for Judaism. Not to mention the more Eastern religions of Budism, Hinduism, etc., etc., etc., plus the main ones breaking down into subsidiary ones: Christianity into Catholicism and Protestantism; Islam into Shia and Sunni; Judaism into Reform and Orthodox. Already it will be apparent the sub-divisions are legion. Without naming any of those beliefs that don't hold to any of the above: atheism, agnosticism, humanism, etc., etc., etc... But for my 87 years I dallied with a few of them, but, after subjecting myself to getting a blessing of a priest or minister of a Christian Church, aged 27, I kicked them all into touch, to go with ppl like Bertrand Russell who, and here I may be mis-quoting him: If I can...

The toughest day I like to recall 26 2 18

Scotland..? 19 6 13 (6) 25 2 3 That is to say the only new peaks I managed to climb in 2019 were all climbed or at least summitted  in Mist and Rain, and on one occasion, the worst day when it rained pretty much without respite for all 13 hours I was out in it! That then is the bad news!! And the good? That in order to climb these 3 new summits involved me in 3, 4 and 3 days subsisting in the Scottish outback: walking and climbing and/or spending the second of two consecutive rainy days simply drying out my equipment, and resting to recover my strength. Adrenalin the unmistaken driving force for such activities..? 19 6 14 This second outing turned out to being in still more sustained falling rain and mists, to the extent that I walked 8 hours before gaining my main summit objective in altogether more strenuous conditions than I had bargained for, but when wearing a pair of shorts under my waterproof over-trousers I continued beyond dusk to finish my walk some 13 hours afte...

One of the reasons for writing stuff down..? 26 2 28

Or, maybe the reason for reading someone else's blog? To do with the written word being so final so long as it remains so uncorrected? Giving one a stated position from which to move forward: from the readers perspective, "Ah! So that's his, her latest offering..!? Now as my reading increasingly becomes more selective, it's a toss up between writing something more, or reading what someone has already written!? Like dipping into that Erica Blair story, aka George Orwell, to the less initiate. And reading some of his earlier works, it is easy to believe he had at first difficulties getting published. Until that is his books became so insightful: one of my favourites "The Road to Wigan Pier", an interesting title for the land-locked West Lancashire town of Wigan, a short enough distance from the towns of my childhood. Once as a young school boy I wrote affectionately of "Wigan on a Waggon" instead simply as "Wigan" because I'd grown ...

On the day of my conception 1939 2 26...2026 2 26

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Of course no-one can be so precise about the day they were conceived but the actual day is of little consequence except to say this momentous event took place around this time of year at least from where I am sitting..? Talking to my sister the other day about such family matters she recounted the year she was married on the 20th February instead of February 28th her first choice because our mother had announced that day is her wedding day, a full year before my day of conception I might add...Though Alice our mother had cause to blush in connection with some of these goings on when in another year she announced “Today is my Silver Wedding Anniversary”... the embarrassment to do with the fact someone commented how that wasn’t possible because of her having an almost 25 year old son at the time in addition to yours truly a mere 23..! A lost J, her husband to WW ll and for one reason or another didn't re-marry. But one can speculate that maybe my conception may have b...

Meeting with 2 fellow Icy-Sea Visitors..? 26 2 21

Yeah, this am just after I had taken my dip but upon arriving to our Changing Room hearing these ladies' voices after their taking their respective dips in the ice cold sea before me. Which to say I didn't take the trouble to descend the steps with giant ice-pick and spade, one in each hand, before stripping off to my nothings, on this day because the women's voices had flagged up everything was cosher, in order to take my dip... when to my surprise it was as if the opening was covered in ice, with water flowing out of its southern rim, since overnight the Sea level had risen... But because I knew the women had visited, I descended anyway, when sure enough the surface ice simply moved away, as I too descended the depths to sit and flap about in zero degC, to get my endorphin/ adrenaline shots for this day of Saturday Feb 21st 2026... So here's the thing: as I'd dried off and dressed, I hear footsteps approaching the outer door, so open the men's inner door to ...