So I have just renewed my membership of Moor Trees a fantastic rewilding charity based here in Devon. Their long term vision is for a Wild Heart of Dartmoor, a core zone that is predominantly wooded and largely shaped by natural processes, but combined with low density grazing. The core zone would be surrounded by a mosaic of moorland, blanket bog, mires, pasture and crops with managed native woodlands, including working woodlands.
Dartmoor is the closest area we have near to where I live that can be described as close to a wilderness area as we have. A stand out wild area of beautiful landscapes and legends. Dartmoor National Park is a vast moorland in the county of Devon, in southwest England where Dartmoor ponies roam its craggy landscape, defined by forests, rivers, wetlands and tors (rock formations). Trails wind through valleys with Neolithic tombs, Bronze Age stone circles and abandoned medieval farmhouses.
A Dartmoor Pony grazing next to Plymouth Leat, above Clearbrook in south-west Dartmoor. Photo by Nilfanion
In the UK if you stand still long enough one of the utilities companies that you use will find a way of making more money out of you or just simply taking you for granted. So I decided to shake up some of my utility suppliers last night. Its well worth checking prices online and going to a comparison sight to decide what it is that is important to you and then signing up to who can best deliever what you want
I signed up last night to an Octopus Energy – renewable energy deal where they are also able to carbon offset my home gas usage. My Dad has been signed up with them for a couple of years now and finds them really easy to work with and loves there ecological motivation and credentials. I clicked on a link from my Dad which enables us both to get some cash back by me signing up.
I also eneded my contract with Talk Talk for my Phone and Broadband deal after they deciding early in the year to double the price of my broadband and mobile deal that I had with them as well as destroying the quality of my broadband speed and reducing the customer service number to a we wont answer your calls line. The speed of braodband was so slow that it was affecting my abilty to work at home.
So I also changed broadband supplier in order to get a fastrer supply for a cheaper price and a better customer experiance. So I am going to try POP telecom Broadband and see how that goes.
Exeter (my city), Devon (my county) and the rest of the UK (my country) held elections yesterday and many of the results have been announced today.
I voted for the green party where I live and I am very pleased to say that a green party councillor called Amy Sparling won the local ward on my council so Exeter City council and St Davids ward where I live now has two elected green party councillors.
It would be awesome if one day Exeter could send a green party elected official to our parliament in London to represent the people of Exeter, who knows what might happen in the future!
So I have just put on my green party of the USA T-shirt this evening, which I bought during one of the lockdowns last year while they were campaigning for the USA Presidential election, though it could have got here by plane so not sure how environmentally friendly my purchases method of transport was!
I also joined the green party in the UK last year and had some help from the other Green Party Councillor regarding an investigation into chopping down hedges along the rail track by my house during the bird nesting season in a spring 2020 lockdown. Although it was all said to be legitimate cutting of greenery by network rail by the wildlife crime officer which I could not really argue with in the end I was grateful to my local green party councillor also for checking out the legality of the cuttings being done and that really won over my support to the local green party even more than it already was.
I have already been really interested in politics from an early age and studied politics at university (although not staying there long enough to get a degree). I struggle to understand why so many people say politics is irrelevant to them or that it does not matter who you vote for their all as bad as each other.
I person in work said I quote that I had not heard before which is ‘if you don’t do politics, politics will do you’. I think that is an excellent phrase in which never was a truer word spoken.
So I went on a train trip down to Cornwall, a couple of weeks ago, where I was able to celebrate Christmas, Easter and pubs reopening all in one week with my parents. I also even found time to get my hair cut for the first time in 6 months to ensure that I no longer look like I am in some kind of 70’s TV police show.
Haircutted April 2021!
I have also been trying to lose weight, since my diabetes diagnosis and its happening slowly but surely and I weighted in this morning and find that since I started reducing my intake of unhealthy foods, portion sizes and eating less carbohydrates and more vegetables I have lost about 1 and half stone in weight or 9.5 kg. I was a little worried about my weight this week because I went out on my first lads night on the beers for the first time in over a year and also had a meal out to. But I was still able to loose a little weight due to the healthier eating and drinking in the rest of the week.
I still have a heavy weight to loose and a long way to go but it’s all going in the right direction. My biggest risk to my physical health will be when the pubs open up full time and I want to go out and be social and have a pint and listen to live music. But if I do so once a week and keep on track with my eating for the rest of the week (and my life) I should hopefully be ok.
The following definitions of democracy are commonly understood and accepted
Government by the people especially: rule of the majority
A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.
All that sounds very straight forward and who would argue against that well if you watched any TV in the UK or picked up a so called News Paper then you might have been under the misimpression that we have a one state controlled media promoted through TV and written publications all singing from the same hymn sheet.
A picture of the UK has been attempted to be painted this week of a county full of royalist worshipping citizens whom need to be reminded every 15 minutes through news bulletins, and documentary dramas that we have a monarchy they are very wise and superior to us mere mortals, intellectually, spiritually and genetically. There will be no talk of the future of the monarchy in anyway of whether we want, need or even should have one moving forward. If you are not crying at your TV because someone you have never met and never loved has died, then there is something wrong with you. It’s all quite an odd state of reality really.
The British Royal Family is deeply part of the political fabric even though the monarch is claimed to be above politics is still a deeply political position. The head of the machine of the states is our monarch and the tentacles of the state and our poorly unevenly handed media went into overdrive in the last week showing just how important to the system the promotion of the status quo is within the UK and chance of change or how such changes might take place in order to make our unwritten constitution and the construction of how our state works and to whom it works for are very remote.
Are we merely born into a system where the blood line of a head of state is more important than the blood line of any and all other citizens born with in it? If the answer to this question is absolutely yes, then this system is very much archaic and needs much needed reform which may never come.
We have a house of lords with some peers appointed from state supporters (none elected though the ballet box and some life long peers). They are responsible for keeping an eye on our political laws and ensuring due process is undertaking in parliament.
There are many who ridicule democratic due diligence, process and democratic political power. The reasons for these are often complicated and not easy to understand or even see. But most notably if you are not in favour of democratic due diligence, process or democratic political power it is because you have an invested interest and already receive power from an alternative form of government within which the ordinary man or woman does not have such power or privilege from.
A day of mixed emotions today I have been advised that I no longer needed to shield and so stepped out of my home and walked to work this morning and returned to the office. Its the first time I have walked into Exeter since I had my coronovirus jab, so things on the up for me personally.
But the lives taken of two young people in Exeter were also weighing on my mind. Firstly Lorraine Cox who was murdered in the Summer of 2020 had a jury find the murderer guilty of killing her and he is due to be sentenced next Wednesday. On the night she was last seen she was drinking in a local bar I drink in which is a lovely and friendly place, always welcoming to people who come through its doors and little did the people drinking with her on her last night know when she left what would next happen to her that terrible night in August 2020. It really has been deeply dark time for some of her friends and family that know and love her.
Lorraine Cox RIP
Secondly there is a wonderful young man, younger that is than me that very recently died in Exeter and his funeral was today. His name was Trevor Garman and he was a local legend within his lifetime. He had such a warm and worldly way to him and when we would get talking he was always very welcoming, kind and a great teller of stories and a champion of social justice to boot. Plus he made a great pirate and ran the most awesome karaoke night in town, where even I would occasionally get up and sing. He was always so warm and welcoming to the people that got up and sang and really made you feel supported up on the stage and was always making you want to go back for more.
Trevor Garman RIP
Sadly after posting this page I have another soul to add to the list of the lost humans
I was lucky enough to meet and work at the Devon Wildlife Trust with a wonderful woman called Emma Parkinson some 20 years ago. We used to chatter in the office, go camping on Wildlife Nights Out for School groups and also go out with the rest of the crew at DWT for an occasional beer or two. When I moved away from Exeter she was one of many wonderful people that I lost touch with and hoped to one day meet again. So I was trying to see if she had a facebook page this week and sadly came across her memorial page I don’t know how or under what circumstances her life was lost but it happened a couple of years ago another real tragedy of a good person taken before their time.
Emma Parkinson RIP
So all in all a sombre day for many Exetonians today.
On 11th March 2020 the world health organisation announced that COVID-19 could be characterized as a pandemic and that a pandemic was not a word to be used lightly.
The early stages of the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns were hard on many people, in different ways, unemployment, families trying to live, work and study under one roof or individuals having to rely on themselves and draw on their own resilience resources to adapt and absorb the enormity of the situation. There were also many other challenges severely affected the mental well-being of many people around the world and yet here we are, a year on.
It’s a tough subject to write about and one which we are all effected by on daily basis in our own uniquely uncomfortable way. It’s possible to feel both guilt for the good things that have happened as well as joy or remorse for the bad things that have happened and yet relief for the bad things that have not happened too, all in one blink of an eye on a reflection of range emotions and issues.
I do also wonder what would have happened politically, socially and environmentally to our streets, towns, cities, countries and planet had no pandemic occurred and life had continued to race on at its break neck speed into potential oblivion.
It feels like the brakes have been put on a runaway train of consumer capitalism that was our everyday race for life and although consumer capitalism is still very much our way of life and affords us to live, can we now appreciate what we have a little more and aspire to protect and value the sanctity of life in a new found appreciation of what we have and what we hold dear to us. Essential workers can finally feel that well for want of a better word they are essential to the fabric of human life and society.
Who would have thought 12 months ago that to stack a shelf in grocers store was a means to help feed a nation. If I had my way I would give all essential workers and minimum waged workers a huge pay increase not as a thank you but as an acknowledgment to the role they play in a society and economy. This would enable workers to be able to afford to keep an adequate roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. The money that the low paid earn is ploughed straight back into the economy because unlike the wealthy they don’t have the luxury of saving wealth you simply spend to live.
You could tax pollutants such as fossil fuels like they were industries equivalents to humans smoking tobacco or drinking alcohol. You could also create a new digital economy type of VAT where everything bought online had a Digital value deducted tax. It would cause prices to increase but if people are earning more this would still balance out.
Well look at that not been in a pub or had a drink of alcohol for what must be over 3 months and still getting drunk on ideas and trying to put the world to rights. Roll on the open of those bars again so I can go in and start to have a conversation about ideas like this and pretend it is because I am drunk again!
O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000) Soundtrack – Down to the River to Pray
The 28th February 2021 will be 6 years to the day since we lost my brother to him taking his own life on Saturday in 2015. In the early hours of the morning the young warrior was slain, and it was his own hand that pulling his trigger too. So I am the last of my parent’s children and our line could die with me although my brothers son still lives and god willing he might one day have a family of his own and continue my brothers blood line, but he does not feel like he is really anything to do with our family and grows further away from us as each year passes by and his interest or even belief that he is part of this family diminishes over time.
My bro with his beloved dog Sam
I have cousins both on my mothers and fathers side of the family that are fantastic breeders and wonderful people. But alas I truly feel that in all realistic ways my time and chances of having a family of my own and a grandchild or grandchildren for my parents is all but gone. It would have helped if I had been in a relationship long enough to ask a lover to marry me, but having not had that many relationships in my lifetime I have no idea if I could father a child let alone be a good father. I am also insanely shy, when it comes to asking women out on dates and that shyness results in me having been single for the vast majority of my life.
Me and Andy on a trip to France
People don’t really see me as a shy person but with layers and coping mechanisms I have been able to hide it well for many years and my coping mechanisms and tricks, really do help me get by in this crazy world and I feel like I have found people, friends acquaintances and colleagues who like me and I like them too which makes me feel comfortable and at ease in my own skin.
As I have mentioned to some on here before, my brother was a very spiritual man and he believed that he had a spirit guide that was a Native American spirit guide that communicated with him from the spirit world and I believe this perception of reality that my brother held to be true. My brother Andy was tremendously strong willed, a successful charmer of the ladies and a luckily and driven man. His main flaw was he had no ability to take care of money, but saying that he knew how to take care of people. But ultimately the only person that could beat him at this game of life was himself, when he decided to end his life in one ill tempered moment in time the same zeal and motivation that had fuelled his desire to live tragically resulted in him motivating himself to take his own life.
My Bro Andy
At first when writing this blog page I did not know whether it was appropriate to write on here out of respect for my brother and parents but as it is already on the web from a newspaper article from after his inquest I feel ok to say on here that unfortunately my brother shot himself in what was described by the coroner and those that were there at the time of his death, as a moment of madness. Hence his determination to live life to the full and do what he wanted to do or what he thought was right was twisted and turned on its head at the end of his life and he used his determination and will to sadly take his own life. One of his then partners children who was then only about 18 herself was wrestling a gun off him on this most wicked of nights along with one of my brothers good friends who was also trying to get the gun off him, only to have Andy run into his bedroom where he grabbed a second gun and ended his own life then. This would be the first and last time he would try to take his own life.
It makes you question everything when a life event like this happens or when any life that you love is suddenly taken away, where was/is god? Why did Andy do this to himself? Why did God or even Andy’s spirit guide let this happen? I very quickly and with some anger inside as well as sadness at first blamed my brother for he was the one that pulled the dam trigger.
But blame does not make the hurt go away and does not stop you from loving a person or asking the question why did he do that? The moment of madness ruling by the judge is all we will really ever have to go on. I know we will meet again one day, but hopefully after I am much older than I am now and we can both laugh ourselves silly looking back at mistakes in life that I have yet to even make yet or laugh at funny situations that I have gotten into and continue to get myself into in my life as well as the funny and wonderful situations we shared when he was alive.
An Andy Smile
Most good spirited people in this world seem to have a good and kindly nature and sense of humour, and a unique and positive outlook on life and good way at looking at life and putting a spin on life’s events, situations and settings. I like to think I have one of those perspectives too and my brother had one also and last but not least the most awesome walking spiritual dude on this planet , His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet has one of those positive perspectives on life, (a fellow spiritual person whom is also a singleton you know). My point being is that you have to see the good in people, the laughs in life and have a hunger to continue to want more out of this crazy world in order to find inspiration for a million and 1 ways and reasons to continue to fight the good fight.
So since last Thursday that is what I can be boxed off and defined simply as a dyslexic diabetic and to be honest I have been called worse.
I really wanted to put something down on here but at the same time I wanted to absorb the new diagnosis of being a diabetic first and begin to try to understand more on what that definitional and diagnosis now means to me. I have been being tested for it for years and kept on coming back as negative and not having it but blood suger levels slowly increasing year after year and I knew my time would come. My brother had it and so did my Grandfather. My mum has it and so does my Grandmother.
The mental health medication I take also increases my chance of putting on weight and developing diabetes and it seems lockdown and my desire and ability to increase the amount of cakes I have been eating also increased hugely my chance of being diagnoses with diabetes this year, plus the sedentary lifestyle with working at home more and just not having many places to go or reasons to go to them, my chances of getting diabetes this year along with my blood sugar levels just sky rocketed up, up and away.
It was like I was playing Russian roulette with a gun that had as many bullets in it as it had chambers to fire them out from.
Prior to the diagnosis I really was kidding myself that my health was ok, my diet was ok and my lack of exercise would change. I still don’t know if I am kidding myself but I am trying to get my head around this and make changes that will enhance my health. I have been for so long focused and dedicated to looking after my mental health, holding down a job and keeping a roof over my head that I really did feel there was not much time left to look after my physical health or pretty much do anything else and I am still not sure if this is true now.
So now I have had a wakeup call and if I want to have a good quality of life, I do have to make some lifelong changes to my diet and improve my physical health. I’m pissed off this has happened I see life like a big beautiful, messy and complicated picture that paints a thousand words or life like a potential journey to a thousand places in a thousand worlds.
world keeps on a spinning
When some new negative words or views are added to my already complicated llfe bubble, one of those words being diabetes and the second being diagnosis it just feels like what was already a struggle to live as a life just got a little harder and it sucks right now.
First Aid Kit – Silver Lining
Although I am already feeling much better now than when I had first heard the what felt like inevitable news and am beginning to get my head around it now somewhat more and implement some positive changes for myself.
I have signed up to get advice, be educated by and taught more about diabetes by a diabetes mentor of sorts, through our lovely National Health Service and I have stated keeping a photo diary of everything I eat and drink now for the diabetes dietician to mull over and tell me what I am doing right or wrong.
It’s exactly one year to the day since the first article was born on this website.
I was reminiscing last night about different types of communication platforms or social media sites that I have followed or used in the past and also wondered why I used them and if or how they used me.
The reason I mention whether they have used me or whether I am using them is that on social media platforms such as Facebook and MySpace you sometimes feel more like you are the product or thing that is being promoted or sold. Where as on a website blog because I control and editing and content of it it feels like I have more ownership over it.
The first website I really enjoyed using was MySpace. It was an amazing platform for sharing music, finding like minded people and also having as a platform for political and ethical activism. The way people shared ideas and raised awareness concerning different issues and ideas really was inspirational and at its peak I do believe it was purchased by Rupert Murdock because of its ability to empower individuals to educate one another to inform and share ideas. To someone like Rupert Murdock such a platform of sharing ideas and ethics was a dangerous thing that was to be bought, sold and suppressed. Someone like him feared and would try to buy and stop a form of communication that might threatened the consensus or shattered what was seen as the norm of political and ethical thinking by the so called rich, great and good defined by corporate media. A platform where people can educate themselves and no longer need to be told what their opinions are because they are too busy thinking for themselves could be feared by some people within power.
We should always aim to speak truth to power – for one day we might be the difference between the worst happening and preventing it from happening.
Man versus Tank – Tiananmen square 5th June 1989
That is what I really like about having a blog, I am my own editor and hopefully those that are reading the published pages are doing so because they want to see what I have been upto or heaven forbid what I might even have to say.
I really never thought I would have enough to say to be able to do a blog. But once those fingers start tapping away on a keyboard, it can sometimes be that I have too much to say and must try to keep it relevant and to the point.
Being dyslexic also means I am not a fan or find large pages of words difficult to read sometimes and my grammar and spelling are also not great. When I was a child I loved visual mediums such as Cinema, TV and cartoons. But I was not a fan of books and really struggled to try and read books from page to page let alone cover to cover. If I struggled to connect with a book I would find that I could not remember what I was reading at the top of a page once I had gotten to the bottom. Where as with films, TV episodes or cartoons I found them much more memorable and felt more emotionally connected to them than word on a page.
Eddie The Gun – Don’t Be Afraid
Saying that though one thing I do and did love was creative writing trying to build emotional images and stories though words. I am quite an emotional human and so feelings and emotions are part of this human journey and so trying to connect with people and share my morals perceptions of right and wrong with others and also learning what other people’s views of right and wrong are is a fascinating journey that WordPress helps me to continue to travel along. So happy 1 year birthday to this website I hope you have many more birthdays and I look forward to sharing ideas and reading articles and blogs from other fellow WordPress writers too.
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