Tag: Hope

The birds in the breeze

During lockdown due to Covid-19, this feels like a life time away now. I bought myself a bird table and began to regularly feed the birds outside my front window by where I would work at home and just from watching them feeding I was able to appreciate a simple truth – that life is not perfect or harmonious balence and there is a continues battle for the pecking order for how things are and how they should be.

The birds fly in so elegantly on their wings, but they would always be squabbling amongst themselves on the bird table trying to boss each other around to ensure they got what they wanted. I do not know whether this was because they were hungry or starving or just the way they do things.  

finches at feeder

The big birds such as seagulls would also often be the first to the table and would have the first cuts of bread put out on the table. The Pigeons or sparrows would never join them at the table but would wait their turn for the seed too small for the seagulls to successful take off the bird table or bird feeders. I never saw a seagull attach a smaller bird but then again the smaller birds would never challenge the gulls.

We picture in our heads birds such as seagulls, pigeons or sparrows as peaceful creatures of the animal kingdom. But to see up close the squabbles and infighting that goes on in order to enable them to feed is an eye opener. There is no humanitarian or religious distributor of food to the birds it is in fact every bird for themselves.

My point I hope I am making is that even though our natural environment is beautiful and offers much wonder. The natural environment can be harsh and brutal place and a daily struggle to feed and survive.

Life for us humans can at times be harsh and brutal and many times in human history our darkest times have been when man inflicts darkness and pain upon man. But ultimately this should not detract us from the beauty of the human spirit and hopefully its ability to overcome daily struggles and the desire and will to survive, prosper and flourish.  

Onions have layers, like people have secrets

I started this blog on 1st February 2020 nearly two years ago hoping to shed a skin or two of layers of my perception of life and write about my mental health experiences and my view on politics, loves and life. It’s such a good form of self expression having a blog and just as much fun reading and seeing what other people view and share too. I tend to go through phases of wanting to read others, wanting to look over my own and also wanting to write on my own or find new ones to follow.

But one thing I still have not had the ability to do yet on here is come out about my mental health (both past and present) and I am not sure if or when I ever will. The thing about publishing on the World Wide Web is although not many people do read this blog, it has the potential for anyone I know or even don’t know to read it and judge me. That judgment might then result in someone thinking less of me which is not a big deal, but if that judgement resulted in a work colleague or employee then making life difficult for me or even causing me to lose a job over then that would be a huge problem for me.

I work hard to pretend to be normal in a work environment and that hard work enables me the comfort of sleeping with a roof over my head in my own flat in a comfy bed and with relatively few nightmares. To come out about my mental health difficulties on here makes me feel that I risk all of that. So I don’t really discuss it or go into great detail about it really so as not to be at risk of being found out. Maybe my circumstances will change one day or something like that but I feel safe in my own skin leaving it as it is for now.

I take very few photos of myself although I have found one that a friend took in the most awesomely friendliest bar in Exeter called the Arcade that I was in recently.

Me, Will, Kev, and Nate (all legends on their own barstools)

Birthday Bash

Well it was my birthday on 12th July so had planned to go out with some friends for drinks on Saturday night which was great and ended with me safely home after a great night out. Then on Monday 12th July I had booked some time off work and met up with some friends for a meal which was lovely and the first time we had all been together since last March. I then went on to a bar on my way back to mine which is usually a lot of fun and had a couple of drinks on my own before heading home at 8pm.  

All was going well Saturday it was a fab night and met some new people as well as had fun with some old friends. It’s like I am playing catch-up now and meeting with friends that I have not seen since pre-pandemic times.

Things went a bit sour in the last bar I went into on Monday because suddenly it appeared I was fair game to shout threats to and give insults to simply for where I worked. As I work for the council in environmental health and a very drunken stranger was told by the owner of the pub where I worked which results with threats of potential violence and the only compliment coming from this complete stranger nut job was that well at least I’m not a traffic warden because they are worse than environmental health officers. Gee thanks pal!

He was taking about getting the lads around to sort me out, bare in mind this is a drunken complete random stranger, that I had only just seen and not even spoken to at all, who felt it amusing or necessary to hurl this drunken abuse at me.

I always try to be careful when I am out not to act like an idiot, bring to much attention to myself or in anyway put myself into a situation that could lead to violence or for want of a better possibly slightly melodramatic way put myself in a situation that could result in my untimely death due to violence at the hand of another.

There is something about masculine culture that can result in violence occurring for some people especially when alcohol is involved and the last thing I want to hear the next day or when I am unlucky or lucky enough to wake up in hospital or pick myself up from the floor is ‘Oh sorry mate it was not my fault I was drunk’!

I think like most males that have lived and been around the block a few times I have in the past been assaulted and it’s a nightmare situation that no one asks or volunteers for and I am so angry when someone tries to put me in that type of situation. In my younger days I used to make a move to try and stop fights when I saw them happening and that mostly went well and either stopped or prevented violence. But I am older now and feel like I should not be stepping in any more if I can help it.

I am not going to stop going out but I am also not wanting to put myself in harm’s way due to some drunken idiot the suddenly finds a kinship with violence due to how many beers are in his body.

I was the one that had to wake up my father in the middle of the night and tell him my brother’s life had ended. If I can help it I never want anyone else to have to wake either of my parents to tell them that my life has now been lost too.

Rag’n’ Bone Man – Human

Turned my light down low

Simon & Garfunkel – The sound of Silence

Well as I write this its 18:10 and my brain in the last few days has become more silent. I am not saying that less horrible things are happening in this world or that I could not quickly find something terrible to tell you or terribly good for that matter.

But as for my ability or will to write about them now has diminished (for now). I have been working in my day job since lock down and am due to start my new job on the 13th July.

I have been preparing for this next chapter of my life. By walking into the city, shopping in the city and wearing my mask when I get the bus. But throughout all this preparation my will and ability to express myself on here has decreased.

It would be nice if the job goes well, covid-19 is defeated and politicians do the right thing by the whole of humanity and not just for their own pockets of supporters or potential supporters. I tend to criticise those in power the most because they are ultimately the ones that can actually save lives and make sh*t happen. The ones out of power are just peeing in the wind waiting for their next chance to get into office normally or at least that is how it seems to work in the UK from a shallow perspective.

I hope if you have got this far in reading this that you are well and continue to be well. I really have enjoyed writing every darn word and if you get bored anytime I dare you to look over old posts there is a lot of my heart and soul that has gone into making this thing.

I will try and continue to post on here but like I say my mind has become more silent of late and I don’t yet know what that means but it feels like a positive necessity to heal or recharge my batteries.

God bless us everyone.

Florence + The Machine – Shake it Out

Well maybe tomorrow?

Before I went to bed yesterday I knew I was struggling and looking for guidance and so I picked up two books looking for help but with the views that I hold and the hopes that mean so much to me I could find no inspiration from the pages that I turned to.

I feel a little burnt out at the moment running on an emptying can of gas. Not quite arrived at my destination but knowing that in order to get anywhere now there is no turning back. I have no idea about my final destination it’s rumoured it might be nice. But so long as it gives me comfort and a rest I know I will be fine.

So I have the start date of my new job now July baby here I come. I am trying to set things straight in my old job and make sure my colleagues know how to do the job I have been doing before I leave.

I am very nervous about what lies ahead not just for me and whether I will be able to do the new job (as I feel a little damaged from what has happened this year). But also nervous about the whole Covin-19 future and how that will shape out.   

I always hope that each day the world gets a little kinder, a little bit of a better place for souls to be born into and live and die. But sometimes you just don’t know if that is a mirage or really happening.

That kind of sums up where I am too at the moment don’t know if it really is getting better or just a mirage in which I am waiting for the next thing to happen.  

Stereophonics – Maybe Tomorrow

Hyme for the Harvest

 from the Shih Ching (The Book of Songs)

Grant that this year abundant harvest reign,

And be our granaries piled with rice and grain.

Let sheaves in myriads and in millions fill our barns.

From these sweet wine we will distil,

To pour as solemn offerings at the shrine of those, who, passed away, are now divine;

The sainted sires and mothers of our line.

Pleased with such sacrifices may they bestow unnumbered blessings on the folk below.

BEN Né en 1935 Take care - 2016 Lettres synthétiques blanches sur panneau en aluminium brossé