world domination...

... I have learnt  a step...

Hello,

I start to type this, at the usual time, of Friday afternoon, but am without coffee (aka ‘blog-typing power’). I slept late today, as I could. I am without notes from my phone this week – eeeek! I really do not know whether I will post.

I have one picture to post this week (a brilliant Christmas present).

I was gonna do this post 'live'/in a cafe, but no, you deserve more of my concentration...

It is now Saturday, and I type.  2014 approaches, so I am due to provide you with a selection of images that I have used on this blog over the last 6 months.

I had planned my 'new year's resolution' to be 'investigation of the tube in a wheelchair'. As an employee of KCIL (Kingston Centre for Independent Living), I know that there is no London Underground station in our borough. Hmmm. I will no longer use this fact as an excuse!

an image board '2013 - part B'

images

Happy Birthday (blog) ! Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday blog.

Three years! I have kept this blog ‘active’, for the last three years.

 A total of 16,483 page views, pleases me. As you’d expect, calculations have been made, telling me that I have had 7,463 page-views this year. This means the rate has increased by 127% from last year.

Oh whatever, basically it is valuable!

This birthday means that Christmas is only 5 days from us!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I attach a snowy photo that I took earlier this year. Some of you may already have it as I have sent you an ‘e-card’.

I warn you of my next note. It was made at the start of the week, and it’s beginning is sad.  The note is an example of I can use my mind to twist things into positives.

I am sad. I am lonely 

My life is falling past me.

It is the truth but it is far too depressing to think like this. Keep focused on positives.

I am content, with much inner self-confidence.

I am happy and know that I should feel proud, but don't like taking pride. Everyone lives life and all fates are different. Everyone faces different problems, tackling them in very different ways. Each chosen way or route of fate, is right for that person. We must all be content that we are acting in a way that best suits us, not anyone else. We must be able to realise when we are being 'bad', and shouldn't be surprised when fate plays a big move against us. Fate balances everything in life.

Shortly after making this note, I was bad. I caught myself flirting (fairly regular), with a member of staff in a shop busy with Christmas shoppers buying their cards. The trouble is, I really can’t take a hint, to stop!

I take safety in the fact that I was doing nothing wrong. Compliments can only be positive. Right?

How many corners do I have to turn?

How many times do I have to learn, that all the love I have is in my mind?

My final note, reminds me to provide some music.

IT’S CHRISTMAS!!!

Hehe, no, don’t worry…

I Pass!!!

Hiya

Ouch! I’ve just been close to scolding my little pinkies (aka fingers). I hope you lot know and are aware of the extreme dangers that I face each time I write a post on this blog. That mug is flippin’ hot!

The drink is damn tasty as ever, and I WILL survive! So type, I must. I do not try and claim that I only ever use a coffee mug, on a Friday.

There we are, I have subconsciously made a music reference without intending (‘On a Friday’ was Radiohead’s first name). Anyway, notes…

First note

I pass!!!

I had a blood test last week. I am on medication, and I wanted to check that all is ok. Hmmm, I get the results back, and to my untrained eye, they mean very little. Although, I am relieved that I am ‘legal to race’. Or, I think the UCI (union cyclistes internationale), used to deem a Haematocrit level of over 50% to be highly suspiscious, suggesting EPO.

Mine was 42%. I pass. Coffee is my EPO. More coffee!!!

Cafe accessibility 

Perhaps obvious, but this is perhaps the biggest issue I face. OK, it could be argued that ‘accessibility’ is a much larger issue, and it is. It could be said that I take my coffee, seriously, and I currently live in a wheelchair, so experience related issues regularly. Caffeine is a drug. Coffee is a soothing engagement. Life in a wheelchair has its ups and downs (as does everything). Combine the two, and you get a man spilling all by typing on a blog! Hehehe, no, but yes.

I praise cafes that take coffee serious enough to realize that sometimes coffee is NEEDED. It is a drug. Inaccessible cafes are cruel tricks, showing you how wonderful coffee is (we all know), but then holding you back. I won’t name names, but they do exist and therefore deserve no promotion of mine.

I admire but don't desire

My note refers to the sheer happiness, that I was given, having bought a cycling magazine that has a good mixture of professional road racing content, and regular reviews/stories. I spent the following afternoon valuing the surreal fact that whilst I admire the beauty of the sexy bikes featured, in no way can or do I desire them. Happiness. I remember looking through similar publications when I was able to then struggle, considering how it should be possible to save for this, climb that, compete this, race them. Desire. This desire has left me (yippeeeee).

A website link for the magazine…

http://www.ridemag.co.uk

Oh dear!

Christmas decorations have feelings too!

I attribute my friends Emma and Ruth as co-joint ‘Christeners’ of Tony Owl, and Laura Dear.

Music. Hmmm…

This week I discovered the new self-titled album, from female duo ‘Lily and Madeleine’. A pair of gentle, folky, female vocalists, are an immediate attraction for myself. For those who may know, they are perhaps expectedly quite similar to ‘First Aid Kit’ (you MUST have heard them).

Two notes that remain on ’my notepad’, are related.

Photographing the sun 

Life 'on charge'

The photographs that I use on this blog are all taken by myself, and the photo above is a shot of Surbiton Station, suffocated by the low winter sun. A shot like this could not be taken using an ‘old fashioned camera’, but with a mobile phone?

How times have changed.

Linked to the  following note, as I notice the need to charge my phone. Grrrr! I like to think that I am quite an ecological person, but it disappoints as I realize that I am not the only one who needs to keep a mobile phone charged. The total power/energy consumed by people/everyone is a scary thought! Too scary for me, so just like everyone else, I ignore. Until?

more…

there's only one way to go.

Hmm… with or without you

Ciao!

I open with music clip above, because it is class and I love it so much.  Half an hour of supreme sounds.

I do realize however, that this may not be ‘up your street’, so I link you to another act who have been around for a few years, but are a new, pleasant discovery for myself. ‘This is the Kit’ are right up my street and hopefully yours too.

I type without coffee (we’ll see how it goes), as I feel that I have maxed over the past few days. I received a ‘LOL’ response as I emailed the following picture of coffee, to an employer (voluntary work), at 10pm (UK, GMT time). I was trying to prove that I prepared correctly for work.

I am undecided whether or not to expand the story further. If you get more this week, then this story relates.

We’ll see…

I have managed to accept the fact myself, I predicted years ago.

slow-cooking, i just can't stomach it

Although it was forced on me in my rehab home, and I thought I could accept it, having bought and used a ‘Slow Cooker’ myself, I just can’t face preparing an evening meal, after breakfast in the morning!

My next note refers to my dismay.

I'm crossing the road, waiting for the lights ...

… and yet again a family just run out into the road, slowing down to cross, and it is dark!!! EEEK!

Do people get amused by taking their life in their own hands, in front of a wheelchair user? The amount of people that ignore traffic lights is quite amazing. It is only now that I have no choice but to obey them, do I recognize the vast numbers of fools!

The following couple of notes both refer to the importance of positivity.

I go down the street and no matter how bad I feel inside, I always wear a smile, which enhances things, always :)

It is so important to emit a positive vibe in everything you do. Smile

It works. By realising your positive impact on others, it enhances your own mood to. There is nothing more negative than seeing some other wheelchair user because most look so depressed. But, I am weird in that I find this positive, as i know I am the complete opposite. Hmmm...

Those notes were made as I was about my town of birth, Kingston. I faced this fact by noting it. I realized that most people about town change. People grow up, and move out to live their own life, with whoever, wherever…

I haven't left. I am in my THIRTIETH year, and I am still here!!... One day...

I got two buses back from Richmond to Surbiton, this afternoon. Both, as expected, were fairly busy with schoolchildren, however, on both there were passengers with their dogs! Now, ok it might be me, but this seems a very lazy way of ‘taking the dog for a walk’. I am in a wheelchair, parked in the specific wheelchair space, and it seems that now ‘because of me’ there is nowhere for the dog to sit!? It is a fiercely competed for area of the bus, by dog owners, mothers and prams, schoolchildren, OH AND WHEELCHAIRS!!!

Grrrr. It is ok, because I know the rules, as do most, and I usually win as I bring my own seat!