What shall become of me?

Well, it's Friday afternoon.... There's a beer festival that's just started at the Barge and Barrel, and I am sitting at my computer desk drinking pineapple and grapefruit green tea!!

Shame on me.

I haven't even managed to blog this week, and once again, I would put this largely down to the very fact that whilst the sun is shining, you're like to find the fox indulging in some sort of outdoor pursuit.... walking, gardening, dogging..... you know, the usual stuff.

Anyhoo.....

Big big big shout going out to the Pighill Wood volunteers, who, within the last couple of years, have totally turned around the decimated woodland area near Scapegoat Hill. I have been walking across there a couple of times this week, and I'm pleased to say that all their efforts are both appreciated and obvious. Not sure how relevant or up-to-date any of this information is, but if you want to know what I'm on about then it's here anyway. I guess thanks are due to the lottery too.... I must eat my words!!

My pineapple and grapefruit green tea smells very much better than it tastes.

I have bought myself some herbs today (of the legal variety) - some flat leafed parsley, some thyme, some fennel, and some fancy schmancy basil. I also bought myself some Giant Russian sunflower seeds, and a Kniphofia - that's a red-hot poker to anyone else.... a childhood favourite, from which my cousin and I were quite deft at removing the heads with a single swipe of a stick... how my grandma (the legendary Fanny Bush) must have cursed us. She did make up for it by surreptitiously nipping us while our parents' backs were turned.

I've even managed to almost catch up with all the blogs I have to read..... some of you may have received a comment from me, but they've been few and far between because none of your blogs were even worth responding to I've just been so busy. Sorry.

If you expected this post to be done in rhyming couplets, or as a witty sonnet, then I'm sorry to disappoint.

Humbled.

Seems there doesn't a week go by lately, where I don't have some cause to eat a large slice of that bitter bastard of a pie, known only by it's humble name.

I know it shouldn't taste so bitter, but generally, it's force fed to me, and usually rammed up both my nostrils at the same time!!

Blogging, for me, started out merely as an "organic" method of maintaining some sort of website, where I could gather: Thoughts, links, pictures, files, and anything else. That a blog could be easily maintained without wading through pages of html code, just to make a small change. I maintained a few websites before I discovered the relative calm and simplicity of blogging.

Even now, although my intentions are good towards blogging, it sometimes feels like a chore and a mandatory daily exercise, to find words that can actually say something. I know that nobody likes to read about me lazing about all day pretending to be a sniper, without actually getting dressed, or taking my slippers off (although the slippers do make for extremely quiet walking, and I can run to the paper shop in them with unfathomable haste when I run out of milk or bread or something equally staple).

Yesterday, was my attempt to "unclutter" my head. To get some troubling issues out onto a page, to simply free up a bit of headspace. It worked, and today, I feel, not only better for this cathartic experience, but positively uplifted and a bit overwhelmed by the responses it derived.

I also went out of my way to find a few new blogs. I used to make a weekly effort to do this, to branch out, to explore other people's thoughts and ideas. The blog fish pond can be very insular at times, and it seems, as more of my regular haunts fall by the wayside, I now rarely find the time or energy to change the water, in whatever is left of this fishbowl of life.

If anyone else feels the need to check out some new blogs, then might I point you in the direction of these two local gents?

Yorkshire Pudding

Walls come tumbling down

And so, on to the pie....

A big thanks to everyone for their continual support.... It's frikking great to know that so many people stop by and take time to look into my fishbowl. It's all too easy sometimes to forget that bloggers are just real people, writing whatever happens to float through their heads at the time they happen to be near a computer!! (Perhaps it's more like, during the time when they are not away from their computer!!). I got a big warm hug from everyone yesterday, and it made me feel great.

In other news....

You still have time to sponsor my cousin's efforts for MS.

Ferny - You signed my guestbook, but there was no link to track back to your blog.... If you've got one, share it with us please.

Dawn - I love you!

Sophia, and Spice - Thanks for your good advice, and hopefully I will be visiting in the near future.

Kenny - Thanks for the donation.

You can still see the "Mad Peakers" inaugural gig here!

My Flickr album of high quality images is still here.

Oh, and I almost forgot, if anyone wishes to see what I looked like in those heady days of my youth, when I used to pretend to play a saxamaphone... look no further!! Those elasticated bow ties really did chafe somewhat.

I'd like to thank my mum, and my dad..... and anyone else who knows me...... yadda yadda.

Please, next time, would someone remember to bring the custard?