Hair loss

You know that yucky feeling when you have a hair in your mouth? Well, I won't be getting that sensation for some time into the future now. Nope, not after wifey left her hair remover tube next to my toothbrush in the hotel bathroom and packed everything else up and deposited her suitcase at reception. Arriving back at the room after a late and enjoyable breakfast; I duly brushed my teeth. Yuck, double yuck, and disgusting.

Said toothpaste style tube now has its body marked with the word "hair" in several places and is soundly wrapped in cello tape to ensure that the embossed new title can't be rubbed off. You may want to do the same if anyone in your family buys toothpaste style and sized tubes of hair remover. Or buy them a blinking big razor. But hey ho, there's no hairs in my mouth anymore. Nope, just the unnatural taste of hair remover.

Holocaust Day

You can't wish everyone "A Happy Holocaust Day", so I shall instead "Wish you all a very long memory". Please don't forget those who died, how they died, and why they died.

It shouldn't have happened again, but they tried to replicate it in the Balkans and Africa; albeit in lower numbers.

The idea of Ethnic cleansing is disgusting, but time and time again people see human differences in religion, group ancestry, or body features as reasons for removing specific groups from this world.

It's all very sad, so while you go about your Sunday routine, stop and say a prayer for this kind of murderous behaviour not to happen again.

The Snow Leopard

Well sometimes we just have to call it a day, and this is one of those times. After many hours of enjoyable painting the Landrover Sport deposited into a Penrhyncoch and Scottish Mountains scene is now finished. Some more work on the glazing and adding my signature earlier today brought this long haul to a satisfying end.

17 January painting

Another few hours on the oil painting improving the offside and bonnet of the Landrover, changing the wall colours and detailing the church, darkening down the middle building, adding shadow by the bushes, and improving the windscreen

Vroooooom

The oil painting is progressing well with this session starting at 0730 whereupon I entered a relaxing world of my own and sang some songs without my favourite album playing

 

I find painting and drawing quite therapeutic.  But keeping myself busy often means putting some things to one side as I skip along from one activity to the next.  Pen and ink drawing and water colours have been quite a big thing of late along with model making and playing with my grandson.  This oil painting has hung on my wall for the last two years drying out and unactioned.  Then in a lonely moment a few days ago I picked up the brushes and set to work once more. I am really pleased with the progress and have enjoyed painting each day, sometimes with music playing in the background and at other times with tranquil silence.  

This painting is intended as a gift for a friend.  The last gift was a pen and ink and water colour of a car, and the next piece of art will probably be something in charcoal. Why? well simply because I haven't got a clue how to use them, and it's important for me to have lots of things on the go to deflect from my darker moments.

Photies 6 of 6

The series of photographs that I uploaded for the lovely people of a certain DIY brand have now been removed as promised after the matter was pleasantly concluded :-)

2012

The iconic moment of 2012,  

Felix Baumgartner Space Jumper:

"I'm going home now"

Coffee and stuff

Christmas coffee chat and panini with friends Adam and Nia, lovely. Followed by Christmas coffee and cake with Wifey and her friend Mandy. Well a cheap and healthy skinny Cortado and no cake for me, but they enjoyed their cacen and latte. Now if it wasn't for the flooding, getting soaking wet, and the road detour going home: it would have been a perfect day.

Mince Pies and all the nice stuff

With the Sports Centre closed until the 02 January 2013 the Plan is to run an accumulative Christmas Half Marathon and with that in mind I previously downloaded the NIKE Running App ready to try it out later today.

The running will need a lot of commitment as there's no exercise planned for Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Day and possibly Christmas Eve and New Years Eve so each and every one of the days that are left are extremely important for the Exercise Plan.

But of course being a qualified Strategist; I know that no plan survives first engagement with the enemy, so that sort of scuppers everything written so far :-)

Right, where are those Mince Pies?

Pretty Woman

And to add to my list (in my last Blog post) of things that appear one way and actually run another way; we can add a scene from that all time favourite film Pretty Woman.  Picture Vivian at the breakfast table the morning after the night before, after the line from Edward Lewis “there are four other chairs” and Vivian gets down from the table and instead settles down into one of the aforementioned chairs.

There she is munching on a croissant.  Not any old croissant mind you, but one that when it is one third eaten, miraculously changes into a pancake that is also one third eaten.  The team managed to get the amount of food eaten to be roughly the same, but alas they picked on the wrong pastry when they continued with shooting the scene.

Now how many times have we watched that film, and not seen the switch until tonight.  You see, all too often we allow ourselves to see what we want, rather than that which is actually there.  A third of the way munched croissant here and problem there.  Maybe it’s not a problem all, but simply a pancake, if you see what I mean.  So remember that the situation is not always how we see it, not even when we are absolutely certain about the accuracy and the clarity that we think that we have about an event or occurrence.  More often than not, it’s about perception and what we want to see.  So go on and add this explanation to my earlier list, and in doing so start to build up a portfolio of coping mechanisms and things to rationalise our feelings, and anger, and confusion.

Oh, and it’s still Merry Christmas, so make sure that you set your hang-ups to one side and get on in there and enjoy yourself.  

Merry Christmas

Mental ill health is a terrible thing and we all know that Christmas and the New Year is a time that often places an added burden onto an already stretched mind. 

I would like to share some thoughts with you that are equally relevant at any time of the year, but may for be really useful now.  If you have a Counsellor then it might be worth mentioning what you have read, as the professional may place some of the statements into the context that is relevant to your circumstances:

It’s rarely the case that anything is so bad that it can’t be put right,

What we often think of as important, more often than not turns out to be irrelevant,

We often place emphasis on the things that don’t matter, and in doing so neglect that which does matter,

Although you may not agree at this moment in time, from most bad things come good things,

As one door closes, many doors open as we embrace new chances and opportunities,

Those that love you wouldn’t want you to harm yourself, as any harm will also hurt them,

We can’t control the past, we can only learn from it, so don’t dwell too much on what has happened,

We can’t control the future, we can only plan for it, and as most plans need changing, this spoils the planning idea,

If we can’t control the past or the future, and planning has its own hiccups, then maybe it’s time to think more about living for today,

Bullies are often insignificant people, who like to think of themselves as being important,

If you are being bullied, then think of your boss as someone with his or her pants down having a crap,

And when you realise that this is a waste of good thought process, bang in a written complaint about them instead and let them do the stressing and not you,

Putting things down onto paper often expunges the thought process and enables us to get on with life,

There are various coping strategies, and do not know which ones are suitable for your circumstances. An eclectic range of hobbies and activities and interests and tasks seem to work well for me.  Yes, this is about deflection and keeping latent problems under the surface.  But hey ho, if it works then let’s engage in the things that help us to better cope with the problems.  Remember that mental ill health affects lots of people and probably impacts on every family in some way.  The medical professionals, like your GP, can help and guide you towards support systems.  Your Trade Union can give you advice and guidance if you are being bullied.  Many help groups can be found online and in the telephone directory.  So don’t bottle it all up, and instead seek the help and support that you might need and which is readily available free of charge.  Just because someone is not wearing a plaster cast, doesn’t mean that they are not ill.  Take strength in the knowledge that others have or are experiencing similar problems and that with help and support and sensible adaptations they are making it through each day, and you can as well. 

Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2013

  

Mr President

In the 1994 film 'Guarding Tess' (Nicolas Cage and Shirley MacLaine) and the scene when the President of the United States of America is due to come to town; is that a younger Barack Obama walking just ahead of the ex-First Lady when Shirley and her Special Secret Agents visit the Hypermarket?

Jacintha Saldanha

I found the news of the untimely and unnecessary death of Jacintha Saldanha extremely upsetting and must admit to shedding quite a few tears.  People can dumb down the act leading to Jacintha’s death by calling it a ‘prank’ or a ‘stunt’ or by using neutral terms such as ‘tragic event’, in order to avoid proportioning or accepting blame.  But in doing so, they must also realise that people are responsible for their actions.  Nobody forced 2DayFM to make the telephone call.  While the presenters were laughing and joking on their video, Jacintha was entering a living hell.  

Now her children have lost their mother.

I refuse to listen to several radio presenters because I have found their unsolicited telephone calls to unsuspecting strangers to be a form of bullying.  Others call it ‘fun’, but I call it ‘nasty’.  There is no place for this kind of behaviour in a modern society irrespective of whether or not it an attempt to ridicule a person, or to extract confidential information.  Any such act is morally wrong. 

I do not accept the argument “the station hadn’t broken any laws” either.  Bullying is a terrible thing, bullying comes in many forms, and there are many examples where the victim has committed suicide.  Manslaughter is a crime, obtaining confidential information, whatever the method, is an invasion of privacy laws, obtaining a pecuniary advantage is a crime.  But Jacintha’s death is not about criminalising the two presenters involved.  I suspect that the worldwide disgust far outweighs the outcome that they could suffer under any penal code. 

The publicity surrounding Jacintha’s death is a reminder that those who do stupid things run the risk of being called to account when those stupid things go badly wrong.  Those who are responsible must be held to account.  They need to be sacked, as does anyone else at the radio station or its parent company that was involved or has moved to try and protect the company while losing sight of the death of Jacintha.  Play music and chat, run competitions, invite guests onto the station, give the sports results, tell us the news, talk about the weather, play more music, but remember that you have no right in any form whatsoever to telephone anyone that you do not know.  And that folks is the bottom line so stop being in denial and wise up.  The outcome was foreseeable, if not this time then at a point in time, as all actions have a reaction.  

Bearing Gifts

I am absolutely flabbergasted, having received an astonishingly nice and unexpected gift through the post today.   I’m always the one that does the nice things, and until today no one ever does that sort for thing for me.  Strange I know, but that’s the way it’s always been, and the family tend to accept it.  So with that in mind you can imagine my surprise when the chap arrived with the parcel, I even commented that I was not expecting anything and checked that he had the right address.   

I was outside in the garage gluing some bits and bobs to a small table top 'n' gauge railway layout for Mr Tister and me, so I sort of pounced on the driver when he pulled up, poor chap.  He even said, “You are Roger Bennett, aren’t you?” Yes indeed, I am. 

Enclosed with the Special Next Day Delivery Box was a note; “just a little thank you for your help”, along with a gift wrapped Vinho Do Porto Messias 10 year bottle of Port. 

Scrummy, just what the doctor ordered.

People

Why do people queue up in a coffee shop and then get miffed when there's no seats after they order their drink. It makes sense to bag a seat as you enter the premises by placing a magazine and an old pair if glasses on a table and then queue if you are alone, but one of you sit and the other queue when there's two of you.

Yet I watch person after person calmly queuing, as others walk in ages after them and breeze past to get the seat.

Is the lack of common sense a British thing? Or do we simply crave the drama and frustration that the lost seat brings? Wise up folks, bag your seat and then get your drink, or always order a take out in case you have to go.