My long London walk

I have just had an amazing couple of days in London. Got back home on Saturday night and felt like my feet might actually drop off. I thought that when I plotted my route on the map that it may have stretched to 25 miles, okay perhaps a little optimistic, but it really did feel like the marathon walk.

London is just the perfect city for discovering something new, something amazing… Around every corner there are things to see. I can honestly say that my trek through London helped me rediscover the brilliant Buckingham Palace, secrets of Soho and the towering heights of the Shard.

I must head back down to London soon.screenshot-2017-01-30-17-57-53

Get a grip

How can it be that I time whizzes by a such speed that I am left sitting in amazement. I used to blog so much. I used to be on WordPress weekly to enjoy the posts of friends around the world or simply to share a moment that had made me smile.

2017 is here already… How? When did 2016 come and go so quickly, and without so much as a “hello there”.

New Year Resolution 1 – blog.

Get through the year and actually put my mind to it. Who even remembers that I used to blog? I barely do myself now.

Of course, being married and a terribly mature individual now (cough, cough) I shall have to think of new and wonderful thoughts to share.

Don’t hold your breath 😉

Getting back into the blogging rhythm

Just how long has it been? I think it’s been about 3 years, possibly a little less since I last posted on this blog. It’s been running quietly in the background , always here, but never added to. It’s been a crazy couple of years. I’ve packed in SOOOOO much.

What have I done since?

  • I got married. What a wonderful day that was! Can’t believe that I’ve just celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary.
  • I travelled to the Caribbean and swam with turtles. That was quite a way to celebrate our honeymoon.
  • My ten years in the Netherlands are coming to an end. Back in February I took a new job ‘back’ in the UK. It’s quite a strange feeling to be heading ‘home’. I hope I still like it. I’ll be talking more about that soon.
  • City trips. I have packed in a few visits to cities in Europe. I love it. The camping bug has stayed with us and we’re still popping to different place. Where to head outside Europe? Good suggestions welcome.
  • Life. Life has just been busy. It doesn’t take long to get out of sync with something.

I will get some of my new ideas into One Life soon. Great to be back guys.

The doors of Brick Lane: London

I enjoyed a weekend in London recently and decided to take a trip to Brick Lane in East London. I’d seen a television programme that week that was all about the history of the East End. I wanted to see it for myself – so went along to explore.

There was street art everywhere I looked. I went snap-happy with my camera and loved every moment. Here are some of the amazing doors I found!

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2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 68,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Feel the heat – with Veet

It is months since I heard about and read the reviews on Amazon about Veet, the hair removal product. The reviews are truly shocking and likely to make your eyes water brilliant. Forget a trip to the cinema or a night out dancing – just pull up your laptop, sit back and relax – then laugh as you read what people have written.

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There are all genuinely from the Amazon site:

Review 1:  A warning from across the pond…, July 3, 2012

After having been told my danglies looked like an elderly Rastafarian I decided to take the plunge and buy some of this as previous shaving attempts had only been mildly succesful and I nearly put my back out trying to reach the more difficult bits. Being a bit of a romantic I thought I would do the deed on the missus’s birthday as a bit of a treat.
I ordered it well in advance and working in the North sea I considerd myself a bit above some of the characters writing the previous reviews and wrote them off as soft office types…oh my fellow sufferers how wrong I was. I waited until the other half was tucked up in bed and after giving some vague hints about a special surprise I went down to the bathroom. Initially all went well and I applied the gel and stood waiting for something to happen.
I didn’t have long to wait. At first there was a gentle warmth which in a matter of seconds was replaced by an intense burning and a feeling I can only describe as like being given a barbed wire wedgie by two people intent on hitting the ceiling with my head. Religion hadn’t featured much in my life until that night but I suddenly became willing to convert to any religion to stop the violent burning around the turd tunnel and what seemed like the destruction of the meat and two veg. Struggling to not bite through my bottom lip I tried to wash the gel of in the sink and only succeeded in blocking the plughole with a mat of hair. Through the haze of tears I struggled out of the bathroom across the hall into the kitchen by this time walking was not really possible and I crawled the final yard to the fridge in the hope of some form of cold relief. I yanked the freezer drawer out and found a tub of ice cream, tore the lid of and positioned it under me.
The relief was fantastic but only temporary as it melted fairly quickly and the fiery stabbing soon returned .Due to the shape of the ice cream tub I hadn’t managed to give the starfish any treatment and I groped around in the drawer for something else as I was sure my vision was going to fail fairly soon.I grabbed a bag of what I later found out was frozen sprouts and tore it open trying to be quiet as I did so.I took a handful of them and tried in vain to clench some between the cheeks of my arse. This was not doing the trick as some of the gel had found it’s way up the chutney channel and it felt like the space shuttle was running it’s engines behind me. This was probably and hopefully the only time in my life I was going to wish there was a gay snowman in the kitchen which should give you some idea of the depths I was willing to sink to in order to ease the pain.
The only solution my pain crazed mind could come up with was to gently ease one of the sprouts where no veg had gone before. unfortunately, alerted by the strange grunts coming from the kitchen the other half chose that moment to come and investigate and was greeted by the sight of me, arse in the air, strawberry ice cream dripping from my bell end pushing a sprout up my arse while muttering…” Ooooh that feels good “. Understandably this was a shock to her and she let out a scream and as I hadn’t heard her come in it caused an involutary spasm of shock in myself which resulted in the sprout being ejected at quite some speed in her direction. I can understand that having a sprout farted against your leg at 11 at night in the kitchen probably wasn’t the special surprise she was expecting and having to explain to the kids the next day what the strange hollow in the ice cream was didn’t improve my status…So to sum it up Veet removes hair, dignity and self respect…:)

Review 2:  This stuff really works, but pay close attention to the instructions…, June 12, 2012

I came to Veet as an innocent man does to a woman’s product with images of satin calf and gentle hand. And with that in my head, after one long summer bike ride I loaded my palm and went to work slathering it liberally on my twig and berries. What happened next forever changed my life. In that universe of blinding pain I would have eagerly kissed the medieval executioner’s sewer pipe mouth and put my head to the block with grateful smile anticipating sweet release. No stocks, no flail, not even the inquisitor’s cruelest implement could compare. But after the pain there came a smoothness more intoxicating even than the tears of the Poppy, and as with that dread flower I was hooked. But the coarseness of a vengeful Blackbeard slowly took that smoothness back, and so a blissful, dreadful cycle began and I was caught in the middle of it all. After my wife left me, I found myself in my parent’s basement. And when I lost my job I began to search all the obscure and dusty library shelves for resolution. Then, in the back of a Chinese takeout shop, I found the man who led me in my mind to a place where nothing mattered. Now, after days of nonstop meditation, I am able to ride the pain…barely. There is still much more work to be done, but now at least I have hope.

Review 3:  LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION, 17 April 2012

I like the clean shaven look down in my gentleman’s log cabin, so for the past few years I’ve used a shaver. However the hair keeps growing back which means every 6 months I have to spend 20 minutes trimming again. As I’m sure you’ve realise this is valuable time I cannot waste. So I decided to get to the root of the problem and purchased this product.

Probably the first thing you will notice after using this product is the pain. Although as a man I lack the required experience, I’m going to estimate that using this product is at least eleven times more painful than childbirth.
Imagine sticking a rusty razor blade into your favourite eye, before tying your hands behind your back. Then imagine that you use the entrenched razor blade to slice open a raw onion. All the while being butt naked. This product is slightly more painful than that.

However if we ignore the blinding, crippling and debilitating pain I should point out that this product is remarkably effective. Before, all manner of organisms great and small lived down there, now nothing can grow; not even on a cellular level. Sadly this includes my genitalia; I’ve spent the last four hours staring fixedly at Carol Vorderman’s arse, all to no avail. My tinkywinkleton hasn’t even so much as perked up, so if my review seems a bit harsh, it’s only because I wanted children.

Amazing Guitar Skills – performing ‘Sing’

The song ‘Sing’ by Gary Barlow is an incredible one. It gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. The power of children and adults singing together from around the world. Amazing!

Here is the Gary Barlow video. If you have never seen it then sit back and enjoy.

I was on YouTube looking for an instrumental version of it and came across this video. One man in his house, performing over the backing track with his guitar.

What talent!!! It’s brilliant.

Here is the video.

90,000 hits!

How has this happened?

How have I managed to lure in 90,000 hits to my blog?

Okay – it seems that cups of English tea have helped along the way… I’m not joking (I check my stats and how they find me).

 

I’ve been really ‘absent’ recently. I just haven’t had time to post – but my stats keep going up? How is that possible?

I really need to get some new stuff on the blog though.

 

Inspiration…

I need inspiration.

 

Bear with me people! More will come soon!

Running through London

Firstly guys, I would like to say “Hello, I’m back”. I haven’t blogged for over a month. Work has been manic and so I haven’t had a moment to think.

At the end of September I flew over to London to take part in the first ever ‘Big Gay 10k’ run. I was very excited about doing the run. It was my first ever run. I was going to crawl and possibly die in a gutter do my best and try to get a good time.

For those who had read more on my Just Giving charity site would have known that I had been training to run since the beginning of July. Fun, fun, fun…

Well – 400 people took part in the 10km run in London. Some were runners, some were walkers and the rest were mincers!

The route was fantastic! Here are some photos from the fantastic day. (I’m in the blue vest, my fiancé is in bright yellow). Our super friends Sue and Caroline came to support us.

The fantastic route with London’s finest landmarks all the way around.

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The race was started by Cheryl Baker, in pink in the photos (from Bucks Fizz, the 1980s pop group who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981). I even met her and had a post-run-sweaty photo together. Once the race was started, Bas and I were off like a shot. My music was playing and I was high on adrenaline. I wanted to get a good time. So far my best time had been 10km in 52 minutes (I was averaging 55 mins).

We kept up with the front group and split from the main ‘pack’. The streets of London were packed. As we all reached the Embankment, where the London Eye stands we had to wriggle and jump in and out of the tourists. As it was the first Big Gay 10k in London the organisers had been unable to clear roads or pavements, meaning for us that we had to contend with human-obstacles. They must have wondered what was happening…

Halfway through the race I realised that I was well over my usual pace. I got ahead of Bas who probably got caught in the crowds. Bas caught up with me at about 7 or 8km into the run. That was when we came face-to-face with the photographers. (Time to look as though I was loving it…).

At 8km I hit the wall. Not literally – a wall of pain. I really didn’t know if my body would get to the 10km finish line. Bas was brilliant and ran along side me the rest of the way. The last bridge was the last hurdle. I said to Bas “I don’t want to go uphill anymore”. He replied that we were there.

We had made it.

We came 28th and 29th (seconds divided us). 29th!!!! From 400!!!!!

Stunned. You can see my time below. Just under 51 minutes. It probably took me those 41 seconds to stop my timer.

You can see how much money I was lucky enough to raise for a great charity in London! Brilliant supporters – thank you!

Proof on my time! I am still in shock that I managed it.

The breakdown of the route.

The amount I raised for ‘London Friend’.