Typically, I enjoy peace and quiet more than anything else. By far, my favourite time is after everyone is fast asleep, and I can enjoy the dullness of the world. I am not aware of any sensory processing issues with my brain, I just don’t understand why everyday life has to be an assault on my senses, and I’d give anything to quieten it down. Thankfully, it only cost me £249.
I’ve theorised that this might be due to the world needing to constantly try to sell me something. I hate the needless background music in gyms, but it seems to spread everywhere. So much so that I have taken to wearing AirPods a lot of the time just to tune some of it out.
Noisy telephone conversations in coffee shops, dull background rumbling of vending machines, wherever it is, all I need to do is pop in my AirPods, and it all goes away. Despite this feeling like I’m mad at the world, this post is more to express my love of my AirPods and why.
These tiny white bits of genius (obviously other noise-cancelling headphones are available) are my favourite bit of technology I own. Not only do they help with quietening down the world, they also improve me hearing the things that matter. Apple has done a wonderful job of transparency mode when you need to hear the things going on around you, and the upcoming Adaptive Audio is a wonderful improvement.
There’s still the unshakable feeling that I am being rude by wearing my headphones, but I think the world is getting used to it. If teenagers can get away with it, so can I!
I am no stranger to writing about my life. My son and daughter often feature in blog posts, and sometimes podcasts! We have lots of struggles and I use my blog both an outlet and also a way to publicise this. One of our biggest struggles is with Lucie’s various disabilities but in particular her Epilepsy.
I also love raising money for charity through various crazy things, such as running 4 miles every 4 hours for 48hours! So this week two things in my life collided, and I entered the London Marathon to raise money for a charity very close to my heart, the Epilepsy Society.
Epilepsy stops Lucie from doing so many things in here life that it’s at times upsetting. She suffers daily seizures, and we’ve been through numerous investigations and tests to try to get to the bottom of them. All of which are really hard for Lucie to deal with, but she does it all with a smile on her face.
The way she deals with everything and still manages to light up so many people’s lives made it an easy decision to take on this challenge. I have been trying and failing to enter the London Marathon for years, but that doesn’t change the fact that it will be a huge challenge for me. It will cost me months of training and a lot of pain, so I’m asking for a favour in return as a reader and a friend.
I’ve set myself an ambitions target of £3000, and I need your help. I know times are rough and the cost of living is higher than ever, but if you can so spare just a couple of £/$/€ I will be forever grateful. If you enjoy my writing, posting, podcast, whatever it may be (and even if you don’t), please donate whatever amount you can to make a difference in people’s lives.
I hate this feeling. I’ve never had it before, and I never want it again. Some people call it the holiday blues, others feel it every week on a Sunday evening. Whatever you call it, I’m talking about that sinking feeling when you realise you have to go back to work following some time off, and it fills you with dread.
Generally speaking, I enjoy my job. I have an excellent employer and a good working environment, not many people can say that. I don’t dislike my job by any stretch, but I just don’t want to go back to normality just yet. I want to stay in my holiday bubble and live a life of sun, sea sand and little to no worries. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work like that.
I know in my rational mind that returning to normal is what makes vacationing and time off work so special, but my heart has different ideas. I know that I will return to an ever-growing task list, there will always be more work, and a wave of things that happened on my time away. Even though I was a bit sad, and answered emails while I was away!
My enjoyment of my working environment and the things I do has been replaced by the stress of managing a team with a gigantic workload. Thankfully, once the initial few days are out the way, things will return to normal, I am just not sure if I want this normal any more. It could be midlife, it could be holiday blues, either way I have to shake it off and get going anyway!
For a lot of the last 18 months or so, I have had two blogs. Since buying a new domain in 2021 I found my approach to writing became too formal. I spent too much time worrying about publishing and soon returned to a micro.blog at gr36.com. I would then publish personal notes, short things and whatever I wanted, but soon discovered it wasn’t the domain that made me lose my way, it was me.
Each time I made a concerted effort to write and publish more, I started to move further away from what I want my blog to be. It has to be about me. It needs to revolve around my thoughts about topics and, more importantly, be about what I get up to. I am sorry to say that over the last few months I haven’t been doing that. I’ve fallen into the trap of writing rather than blogging. Although my posts are littered with personal writing errors, they are still more about being a brand than being myself.
My blog feels more like a website than a personal representation of myself. More so than ever before, I want the web to return to pockets of people posting things about them, and to push for that I need to do it myself. My blog is my place to not just publish my blog posts, buy my photos, my updates, and everything else that would typically be on ‘social media’ – becuase that is precisely what it is.
A personal place to post.
A walk around Torremolinos old town.