DannyBoy

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

from using micro wave ovens, requiring stovetop or oven heating instead... NOW FOUND TO BE A HOAX, SORRY Patient outcome data showed microwave-banned patients achieved 94 % tumour stabilization rates compared to 34 % in microwave using controls despite identical chemotherapy protocols. 2. The molecular biology reveals the mechanism. Microwave radiation at 2.4 GHz doesn't just heat food -- it changes protein molecular structure by flipping water molecules 2.5 billion times per second. This creates denatured proteins and free radicals that healthy cells can process, but cancer cells absorb these damaged molecules preferentially, using them as building blocks for rapid division. 3. Hopkins tracked 2,800 cancer patients over 5 years across both groups. No-microwave-using group : 89 % tumour shrinkage or stabilisation, 67 % entered remission, minimal side effects from treatment. Microwave-using group : 58 % tumour progression despite treatment, 23 % remission rates, heightened infla...

re-writing what I have just lost...on yesterday's St Valentine's Day: in Finland Friendship Day That is or was meeting the Captain and an encapsulation of the person he met from a later reflection.. When I recalled one of my last walks in the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland in 2019 when I took this taxi prearranged to collect me at 7 am this particular autumnal morning with sun shining... Beinn a'Ghlo the peak or collection of peaks maybe 4 or 5 in total I had visited several times in the past but this day hoping to complete my assalt? Then coming upon three others each carrying much heavier ruck sacks, the two together having caught the third man with the heaviest sack, my day pack the lightest of the four. Me by this time somewhat intoxicated with the adrenalin or endorphins released on my ascent so far of maybe an hour's hard up-hill hiking. But not someone greeted by this trio for they were far too engrossed in discussing the going whilst carrying their heavy s...

Read 26 2 12 for Today's Havanto, i.e. the action taking place yesterday! I had just left t "Koppe" our changing room on the Ladies' Beach where the town has its Swimmers' hut above rocks with a heated staircase in winter to preclude the steps freezing over with any water draining from the sea dippers: ladies' thru the right swinging door men to the left... As usual I was all pumped up with feel good chemicals be they endorphins or adrenalin running across this sun glasses wearing man, smart phone in his hands, straddling his Mountain bike, taking pics of our Koppe or its surroundings...clear we should exchange the greeting "Morjesta"(meaning "from the sea!") Very soon he was complimenting me on my "excellent Finnish", not so excellent it didn't betray an underlying foreign accent, but good enough for his not to have started speaking English, before I admitted to being English by birth... Then when he switched into English,...

Aged early 30's, me in my early 50's. Me, 2 years into my 4 year contract, they replacements for 2 guys I had eating out of my hand, based in the fact I had been visiting this company for 10 years before I arrived, and in a sense had been head-hunted to join them owing to a superior knowledge of the Industry, garnered as it was by visiting all their competitors in a development-coordinating role for some years past... The one a "Tavallinen Insinööri" as a opposed to a full Diploma Engineer, tavallinen meaning "Ordinary" as opposed to top notch: the other a bean counter, according to his own addmission, an Ekonomi or Economist on the top grade. The former a Trumplike figure, a narcissist with a personality disorder which had it that everything he did was okay, whilst everyone else wasn't. Whilst the other guy would run a mile rather than enjoin battle in an argument. I don't know which of the two was worst, but probably the latter who was noted as ...

A poem by Dylan Thomas sited by my nephew ex-Royal Marine Nick on WhatsApp in the UK yesterday, regarding my exploits this last week at our Avanto (Ice hole) Then his siting this poem was commented on by his youngest brother's wife, Claudia in Penang, who said she had just been teaching her students the same poem, reproduced here for my readership in the rest of the world... 1 Do not go gentle into that good night 2 Old age should burn and rave at close of day 3 Rage, rage against the dying of the light 4 Though wise men at their end know dark is right 5 Because their words had forked no lightning 6 Do not go gentle into that good night 7 Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright 8 Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, 9 Rage, rage against the dying of the light 10 Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, 11 And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, 12 Do not go gentle into that good night 13 Grave men, near death, who see with blin...

Imagine being able to borrow these two pics from a blog I wrote on another site in 2016 but almost a month earlier... The thing this year is that it's the first winter since 2021 I can recall being able to walk on the frozen sea and exceptionally I have been the only visitor to our changing room to keep the AVANTO that's Finnish for "hole in the ice" open, by daily hacking the over-night build up of ice away, and these last 2 days making sure to throw as much of it away onto the surrounding ice, in order that it doesn't become joined to the fresh over-night ice build up. Back in 2016 I have to think there were many others one could rely on to perform this task because I'm thinking today the average age of the daily visitors is much older than then, as the population of the town has got older..? That's leaving aside the weekend visitors but not so many to brave the deep freeze conditions as I do because as a permanent inhabitant who has been...

On this Runeberg's Day 2026, the day we buried my Appi-ukko, father-in-law, in his family plot in Pernaja, in Swedish Pernå, always known by his affectionate pet name, Jalle. Me, marrying into a family abroad, my Gentleman Farmer father-in-law with cows and "karjakko" or milk maids living on his farm to tend their flock, back in the days in the 1960's when we married in the same family church in Pernaja, with a sumptuous wedding reception in their yard: between the Shippen, the main house or manshion, and out-houses used to store vegitables and fruit on the ground flours, which doubled as guest rooms on the first floors, a second dwelling, all ready for the retirement of the elder generation, to vacate the farmhouse in the fullness of time, one generation following the former, a square of turfed garden and Flag Pole flying the national Flag in our honour wherein the guests from different parts of Finland and England, on my side because of my past history of working h...

The lady commedian in the long running Holywood series Sh*ts Creek just the latest in having her longevity termiated aged 71: life's great leveller maybe? Whoever you are, rich or poor, famous or unknown, the termination of the human condition is where its at, come the day that has one's termination date to the fore. And along the way all the other stuff going down: at no time in the history of the world are we as a group of ppl more aware as we are today through the media outlets, the social net-working platforms, books, newspapers, the internet, tv and radio, its all taking note. Aged 86 I am becoming an ever rarer specimen in the sense that the older one becomes the fewer there are left of the ppl one used to know: get to be 118 like one lady, and you might get to be unique as the one living person aged 118! But now I'm going to pause this snippet while I go take my daily dip in the sea. These last 5 days, since the 31st of January I have been the most visited person ...

One of these ladies my Finnish lady wife with red hair red scarf! From countries as wide apart as Vietnam (7), Bangladesh (1), Brazil (1), Pakistan (1), Senegal (1), the USA (1), Other (5). When normally I can go many days at a time without getting a single hit... So what was different to encourage my audience to get curious to read more from my on-line type-writer? Adorning my blogs with pics from the different homes i have inhabited perhaps one factor? Filling my blogs with home spun philosophy perhaps another? But today i'll tell you what i have been up to so far when you'll all get to decide whether it was just a one-off or whether it will keep your interest alive and keep re-visiting???? So this day began again with my walking the 1-2 km to our changing hut on the Baltic Sea shore in the south of Finland. Key to gain access: men to the left, women to the right inner doors. But like yesterday and Sunday the 1st Feb and 31st Jan before that today I was again the o...

So, back to the house into which I was born 26th Nov 1939. At 13 Thornleigh Road, Fallowfield, Manchester. This Sanderson Air-raid shelter we decamped to during many night times, as a family to escape Hitler's blitz of Manchester: until 1941 when our Dad volunteered to join the Royal Marines, when Jim my elder brother and I, together with our Mam, moved from his mother's house to the house in which our other grandmother resided in Bury, to the north of Manchester. After just getting off a video link up with Fabienne, our younger son's eldest daughter together with her son Hugo, almost 18 months old, such a joy for my wife and I getting to chat to our Granddaughter and Great Grandson..?

When as a child in my 2nd class school, i.e. the local Junior Technical School, after the 1st class High and Grammar Schools, each of which required passes in the 11 plus examinations, the 3rd class being schools wherein none of the pupils got to pass these entry examinations, not even aged 13 getting into the local "Tech" Getting into the latter meant getting on the first rung of the ladder marked "Get yourself a trade in your hands young man!" One stream coaching one intake how to lay bricks for example, the more academically gifted (?) stream the one I was put into, in which we instead got the subjects Woodwork, Practical Drawing and Metalwork for example, 3 half days a week, with Mathematics, Science (embracing Chemistry and Physics), Geography, English and History taking care of the rest: no more Music nor French of the 3rd class school, coz getting a trade didn't require the humanity subjects so much. Since I went from sharing the bottom two places of m...