baldysblog.co.uk

Posts Tagged ‘Personal Journey’

In common with most of the British Press reacting to the Pope visiting the UK in September and in his letter to the British Bishops, expressing his fears over British anti-discrimination laws that have already led to Catholic Adoption Agencies closing down or severing their links with the Catholic Church.

Of course and even in the Independent, the Anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish vote were much in evidence, the Pro-Faggot Lobby was out in force and just for the total intolerance and bigotry, the  Readers comments are worth a browse:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/anger-after-pope-slams-unjust-uk-equality-laws-1886589.html

Read the rest of this entry »

Early last Saturday morning I called the Ambulance and my Mother was taken into Weston Hospital. It was an “odd call” in the sense that there was not any one specific ailment to point to like say a heart attack. Possibly she had Flu, certainly a leg infection that was very painful plus she has the most awful pressure sore on her bottom. In fact it turned out that she had three separate infections but none responded to treatment.

I visited her and spoke to her on Sunday morning when she was a gibberish truth to tell but as I looked at her lying in her bed, I was taken straight back to a Hospital in Wandsworth in the late 1970’s where her Mother was just prior to her death, exact same look. When I visited again later that afternoon, she was very deeply asleep although she was apparently pretty sparky that evening when my eldest Son, his wife and my Granddaughter visited her.

Read the rest of this entry »

The film “Groundhog” starring Bill Murray is one of my favourites and in some ways, we all have Groundhog experiences in life, mine and for over a year has been a personal saga of in-growing toenails which hardly sounds that exciting which, it isn’t to an outsider but both painful and crippling to the person living with them.

The truth is, like a latter day Boston Tea Party, my two Big Toes have risen up in rebellion against the rest of my body. They are demanding one to one attention on an unprecedented scale and will brook no negotiations upon the matter, their war of attrition continues unabated as they take it in turns to cause aggravation !

Read the rest of this entry »

Today is my birthday so that I have now reached the great age of 64 which is probably equivalent to 54 compared with my Parent’s generation so I do intend to make the best use I can whilst I can enjoy good health and to be as physically active as I can.

My wish is not so much a long life as a fully active one that finishes suddenly rather than peters out in poor health and dependency, God willing. To my mind, continuing to live whilst you can do the things that you enjoy doing and still make a positive contribution of some kind is fine plus keeping yourself physically active makes good sense. You may not live longer but you will enjoy a better quality of life until the end.

Read the rest of this entry »

At the beginning of October I mentioned in another piece that I had picked up a rather nasty bacterial infection called Cellulitus which inflamed one leg to twice the size of the other. I detest being “ill”, have never been the kind of person who described a cold as “Flu” and have a reasonably high pain threshold but I must admit that in the earlier stages, it was very painful.

Still the main problem was that as I have a housebound 89 year old Mother to look after, being “not well” can only be a part time activity at best and so all activities have to be prioritized into essential and non-essential tasks. To me though the biggest loss due to necessity was having to suspend my morning bike rides.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rather oddly I thought, Alan Milburn re-surfaces today in the Independent with an article that described the “new political agenda” which appears to be exactly what the Conservatives or specifically, David Cameron have been talking about for quite a time now, at least the past two years but then again, the extremists were seeing Cameron as just “Blair Lite”.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is Milburn breaking cover in this way right now, perhaps we are seeing the opening salvoes of the battle for the soul of the Labour Party that will certainly follow an election defeat. He is restating the middle ground of the New Labour Project in order to fend off an extreme swing to the Left following the inevitable electoral defeat.

Read the rest of this entry »

I suppose I should subtitle this: “Gordon Falls into his own Elephant Trap”. The story of a Government defeat in the Commons yesterday over the status of former pre-1997 Gurkha soldier’s rights to settle in the UK is an interesting lesson to all politicians. In a way I suppose it is similar to the old saying of actors about never working with animals and children, they will always upstage you !

It was though a total and utter disaster for Gordon Brown and just incredible that he didn’t see it coming and was even stupid enough to get in a slanging match with Nick Clegg that he lost at Prime Minister’s Questions, only Brown could make Clegg look so good !

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday on my ride by the River Brue, I took these pictures that I thought I might share. To me the perfect conditions: Big sky, clouds and blue, high tide and still water, a sheer joy to be there and drink it all in.

Read the rest of this entry »

Born in London, I am by nature a “City Boy” and although I have lived in other places and other cities my love and feeling for London always plucks at my heart. For some, perhaps many people, cities can be both frightening and lonely places but I always find them motivational because when you are tired or have run out of ideas, all you do is standstill and both watch and feel the City move around you, it doesn’t take long to be back up and running again !

But for all that, in the almost 5 years I have lived by the coast, I have got used to seeing the sea everyday and would miss that if I moved away. I would also miss sights such as this, my friend the Heron who is a great character. Herons are very big birds and tend to keep away from humankind but I caught these moments a couple of days back and thought that I might share…

Read the rest of this entry »

I must admit that I am not a great sports fan these days. Gone are the days that I would always watch Match of the Day, most F1 Races and Tennis which I only could really start enjoying once Tim Henman was knocked out as he inevitably was.

But this past weekend, three sporting events gave me cause to sit and ponder exactly why I had lost interest in watching sport on TV and I came to an interesting discovery…

Read the rest of this entry »