My favourite physical activity is sea swimming. I do it year round and the sea temperature today is 12 degrees.
What are your favorite physical activities or exercises?
I do not consider myself a ‘hardened’ sort of person. 12 degrees is about the mid-point of swimming in Plymouth.
The Bobbers, my swimming group have dipped in water at 7.8 but I don’t think the water has ever gone above 16 degrees in the three years we have been swimming regularly. If I were to ask the internet about swimming in 16 degree water the advice would still be that it is not advised. We do just fine doing something many people would recoil from.
What technology would you be better off without, why?
I have no idea which technology I would be better off without. I believe technology is a scientifically invented force of nature and selecting one type to remove would have unforeseen and unwelcome consequences elsewhere.
I had an online natter with a friend yesterday which shows how technology evolves
I discovered when we moved to our current house that without the communication technology that we were accustomed to, organisational life slowed to a snail’s pace.
A first world problem so easily demonstrated by the fashion pages from the year my house and Polly’s were built. I would have moved house in the 1880’s looking like this.
I could only have written to Polly to commiserate with her new house communication woes. I could perhaps have sent a telegram. I presume her only woe would have been how far the walk was to a post box or post office.
I would have been unlikely to even have a landline.
And Polly would have looked like this in the 1930’s and may have had a landline. She could also have sent a telegram.
How times/technology change.
First World predicaments on the subject of nattering.
P.s Writing this made me look at the house deeds . It is actually 20 years older than we thought.
I know I couldn’t stop at 3 pet peeves and more would seem rather ranty. So I will just offer one peeve. And there is a sting in it for me.
I think this saying would also cover micromanaging which is also unforgivable.
I like to think just a withering look quells any egg sucking educators. But the truth of the matter is that no matter how much I dislike micromanagement and any other unsolicited advice. I actually have no idea how to suck an egg. All eggs in close proximity to me will remain resolutely unsucked.
But try to teach me how to suck eggs and you will be rewarded with at least a withering look. And believe me if my thought bubbles could actually be read you would realise I am not quite the person I present as.
I am firmly a both kind of person in the visual sense, the two combined are very special. I am a gazer at Mountains, I have no need and not the right knees for ‘ conquering’ mountains. Unless they are fairly small versions.
I was in Arcadia, a mountainous region of Greece, recently. A wonderful place to walk and enjoy mountain air and village life. Only days before I was on an unspoilt beach on Spetses Island.
Spetses
Both locations got a full 100% satisfaction grading from me. Both offered huge fresh figs and good coffee. No need to choose one over the other. Both are fabulous especially if figs and coffee are involved.
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
I have met so many people in my life, a few who have or will become historical figures.
Just as you should not judge a book by its cover. Historical figures may not be as fascinating as history depicts them. Just like all humans historical figures can be a mixed bag.
Honestly I can’t reliably make a decision. Obviously this is a personal opinion.
Were I to randomly meet a historical figure that would be just fine and rather fascinating. A chance to interact as equals, perhaps on a long train or aircraft journey. Somewhere that we are unable to escape one another until our book or a podcast lets us off the hook.
I suppose what I fear is not only managing my expectations but also the historical figures’ perceptions of me.
Would they give me, a non historical figure, just 30 seconds of small talk and move on when someone of more interest, to them, appears on the horizon.
Big question on a blog with a lovely number. #1111.
My favourite month is May with September as a very close second.
September
Weather, nature and crowds are my parameters. Late May is a gorgeous, vivid time of year with nature bursting out in all directions . The holiday season has not quite cranked visitor numbers up to intolerable, even if they are essential to the local economy.
In September Nature is a little dusty and depleted by the Summer and Visitors but the weather is usually kind.
If May is Glamorous,then September is Shabby Chic, both fabulous in their ways.
A bit of googling suggests that my first choice is popular. The second not so much.
I have never worked in education but September always feels like a month of new beginnings and May the sharpness just before the languor of Summer.
May wins because it welcomes Summer but only by a little bit. May also has one extra day.
The coolest thing I ever found was knowledge and love of our capital city, London. My parents who lived 50 miles away always made sure I visited several times a year. Times were different but I was encouraged to confidently travel there alone and navigate public transport from about the age of 15.
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?
November was always a favourite time to visit and as I write I am sitting in a hotel room in my former home town of Crystal Palace overlooking the city where I lived and worked for 12 years.
The dogs have already done one of their favourite walks in Dulwich Village where we lived when we first moved to London.
Next one up is a circuit of Crystal Palace Triangle. Another home town we loved living in.
Tomorrow Borough Market for breakfast. But to finish an arty farty image from our London flat. It feels a little odd not to be there, but the new owners might not need two women and two dogs being all nostalgic in their home.
English was my favourite subject by a long way. I went to a very normal State school with an excellent English department. The staff there encouraged my natural love of creativity and communication using language.
In this week of a puzzling, to many, decision by nearly 51% of the American electorate to give Donald Trump a second crack at being U.S President, I was sent a copy of a letter by an old school friend. He is equally obsessed by English. Below is his letter to The Age, an Australian Newspaper.
In the Charles Dickens novel Martin Chuzzlewit, (1843), one of the characters asks,: “f I was called upon to paint the American Eagle, how should I do it?” His companion replies,” Paint it like an eagle, I suppose.”
“No that wouldn’t do for me. I should want to draw it like a bat for its short-sightedness,, like a bantam for its bragging, like an ostrich for its putting its head in the mud. And like a phoenix for its power of springing anew from the ashes of its faults and vices and soaring up into the sky.”
While the American electorate were acting like bats and ostriches, Donald Trump somehow managed to transform himself from a bantam into a phoenix. Except as everyone but the American people know, the phoenix isn’t real it’s a myth. Meanwhile the American Eagle’s future is more uncertain than ever.
David Pullen
Martin Chuzzlewitt, fictional character created by Charles Dickens could have made this observation yesterday. From abroad it feels like a cousin ( The U.S) has entered into a relationship that outsiders can see is not healthy.
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