I know what's missing, a challenge...

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Please click on the links to you tube music as you go along.
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 I know what's missing, a challenge...
Maybe it's the lack of Tennis,
maybe it's the cycling challenge that's missing,
kayaking of late has been a nice thought,
it be nice to do.

Anna Ternheim, Shoreline

Moby, Flower
New places, new ride routes to explore, a break up north, to get fit,
write to the job people who may give me my next milestone,
to get back in the saddle and go with the red lights of trains and cars falling (fading) in to the distance.

Moby, Flying Foxes

To new heights, hill tops to look out upon the landscape,
 where the sun might go down,
 but rises early,
ready for a fresh run of sweet smelling rurality.
Rammstein, Haifisch

The motion.
The journey.
The freedom of pedal power.
Bushcraft is the way forward.
(An old story of Ray Mears living in the wild no less)

Anna Ternheim, My Secret

 Du bist das Schiff ich der Kapitän
Wohin soll denn die Reise gehen
You are the ship, I'm the captain
Where do you want to go? (Rammstein, 2009)
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I thought of doing the London to Brighton night ride this year but it's going to be mental and not much to see.
So the Music is a helper to the cause of all:

I know what's missing, a challenge.

Completing for the sake of completing

Something has changed recently, now the year is fully underway...who would believe were already half way through February...time is challenging us already the deadlines are coming through thick and fast again. As I said though, something has changed, why is it I now have the urge to complete things, tidy things so that they cannot be undone.

For example, I've suddenly become a minimalist, I want absolute tidy clean kitchen sides where a little bit of stuff hanging around was ok. This is not OCD, just perhaps finally getting the hump with other people not tidying up. I've also found that bottles with alcoholic or not need to be completed, as if it can't sit there as an enjoyment for the next occasion it needs to be finished off and binned or a fresh one needs to be ready to go and located in a specific spot where it's not going to get in the way. Uber organised, I think not.

This also seems to be the case for books too. I'm in the middle of what is turning out to be quite a good read. 'One Man and His Bike' by Mike Carter, except even though I'm only 90 pages into it, I now feel the need to get it done and dusted and out of my hair. As if for some reason, it has been yelling at me for too long to get on with it. I always seem to find things saying you need to do this and either not having the energy or the time to bothered to do any of it.

 Once again I have to get on the train for London, my office has kicked everyone out who isn't needed whilst the flooding continues. Maybe, I should be grateful for not having to travel so far, but it's now incredibly strange that I don't want to work from home either.

Did I get itchy feet? My voice hasn't cleared up with this unending amount of coly cough, I'm going to sound like a really odd person, or maybe just maybe if I'm lucky I'll sound like Brian Cox (the actor) with a hint of Charles Dance in the air...who knows.

Either way, have it your way.
This item of writing ends here.

Why St. Valentine?

My Lovers Heart,
my bleeding Soul,
you keep me safe and make me whole.

How I wish upon the star,
for all of your desires to come true,
you are sensitive where I am not,
your tender loving care out strips my humanity.

To find someone so refined,
like the perfect grape upon the stalk,
is to find the cherished Angels on the Clouds.

Not you or any other, can stop my heart from dreaming of you.
I am yours, need I say more.
Forever my loving Giggle,

I love you,

Tickles.

Winter Olympics -Epic Advert

I'm not one for pushing things along too often but as is seen by a few handful of very cleverly portrayed adverts for films, books, TV and radio programs... the style required for the Olympics has been on another scale as was back in 2012 series under two mainstream UK channels. This one however, makes you feel the need to rise to a challenge like no other, a stamina of endurance, something longing deep inside that you must answer to show you are capable of succeeding and beating the odds. It strikes your heart at fear and drives you towards a sense of possible fulfilment, challenge accepted... I give unto thee... The voice of Charles Dance. I'll have that voice thank you, and add it to the radio concoction I have tried to produce from time to time. (If only I could master words and a voice like this).

I am the dreadful menace.
The one whose will is done.
The haunting chill upon your neck.
I am the conundrum.

I will summon armies.
Of wind and rain and snow.
I made the black cloud overhead.
The ice, like glass below.

Not you, or any other.
Can fathom what is nigh.
I will tell you when to jump.
And I’ll dictate how high.

The ones that came before you.
Stood strong and tall and brave.
But I stole their dreams away.
Those dreams could not be saved.

But now you stand before me.
Devoid of all dismay.
Could it be? Just maybe.
I'll let you have your day.

Where are we going?

I have as far as I recall covered this topic a number of times. Whether focused on work or leisure activities in the past, this one is here to help you stop for a moment and take in the massive amount of hours put in to our daily lives without recognising the great machine we are all gradually turning.

This week I had a very surreal meeting, the context was so big and powerful, my role just doesn’t justify what people who have serious management and operational roles may have to do in their day to day lives. When you consider your own role, there are a number of other people who are working behind the scenes to make it the day to day life continue from the front desk to the top table. And that was just it; the top table had to work at the same level as my world – all be it another team mainly does it, to ensure everyone was safe and no long term issues would arise. Decisions are made just as fast and as easily, it’s just bigger digits on the bill exist, with higher consequences for getting it wrong.

So on my train journey home, I found myself observing all my fellow passengers, but the number of us who get off and have to wander the corridors, fill in spreadsheets and hold debates over topics from the mundane to the important. Whilst we all might hide behind catch up TV and iPods on the train, we may well be sitting next to somebody who has decided to change your life – for better or worse who knows. You may have sat next to someone designing a new phone, social media site, well known journalist or a government worker without realising.

Dealing with all the daily minutiae, means we forget to check in on the wider important aspects, we get tired and bored of doing the same old task. So sometimes a little perspective is required, what if it turned out you had that dreaded phone call of a loved one dying or witnessing a traffic accident where someone was seriously hurt. Would you manage to get through that trauma and not take stock and reassess what were doing in life? If you really said no and meant it, I have to ask if you have any empathy and care of other people around you.

We are forever seeing in the news about how someone was killed by a violent act, maybe at war, maybe a crime. The news has a way of making it all seem normal and either help make your point or give the complete opposite account, we are numbed to the violence because it’s through the TV and so regular. The issue is we are so used to hearing about bad things in the news we don’t take it in, but if that news report was very close to your heart you would pay more attention to it. Swap from bad traffic incidents in the news where a certain number are serious injured to having a doctor ring and tell you a family member or friend was involved in the same type of accident. These are different feelings, so it’s important to note what’s happened, take it all in and formulate a new plan to make it better…after all life is only short.

If we didn’t keep trying to improve life, it wouldn’t be worth living. We need that time to step back and evaluate what’s been happening, and take yourself out of your comfort zone to understand how other peoples lives are affect and how you can help them in the future. Maybe what needs to be done is a little bit of peace time to digest everything as I did…

…on my train rolling and rocking along, through the dark evening, listening to music, staring blissfully out the window trying to make out trees, houses and streets, I’ll never meet any of those people whose gardens I commute through, tired from all the days work, digesting what the people at the top table were having to go through to make sure myself and thousands of others were still safe the next day.

It’s definitely a strange feeling when you are in a meeting and the presenter brings up high profile characters and figures which could change everything very quickly. So as you can see, my little role just fills in with many others but contributes to a wider plan, only we don’t always get to see what the plan is or what the top table people were doing to oversee the success of larger issues whilst I deal with the smaller everyday ones I’m tasked with.

Where are we going?

I don’t know, but it’s enlightening to see that people at all levels have similar problems but just at a different scale. We sometimes need a little jolt to put everything into context and perspective otherwise the little problems would be unmanageable and actually, they are small enough because they might be forgotten about to make room for the important issues you really should be looking at when the time comes.

Simmering Ships that Sail the Sea...

Well, I had to ask myself what to write this week. I had ideas many were broken and beaten, some forgotten. The one that's stuck is the mayhem of the following week...if you saw last week as being crazy for commuter ville, this week was the environmental stress on everyone.

First, the early mornings to crisp, the bitting wind left over made for slippery ground, crystalised air forming under my feet glistened in mornings street lamps. By the time I got to town, the sun was up but that idea of the city being warmer didn't exist...that water really must have been cold.

 But at least it could be seen, the perfection of sunrise had already hidden the weekends flooding nightmare up the east coast. Now, in true disbelief of the perfect aftermath, everything looked fresh. No wind, just a silloute cloud and a a more damp ground.

 Only I should have known better, all that dampness stuck in, and the week turned into a re-enactment of the the 1950s smog. If you could see whats ahead you might be able to plan your route. For the un-initiated, it might have been quite daunting yet, justifiably enjoyable.

The photographers around town have died off because summers been and gone. Still, enough people were out to enjoy the silence that meant standing still was eery. The more bleaker part of the year heightens the senses and each foot step next to you could be heard...beyond those few feet of vision absolutely nothing.

 To not be able to see the other side of the river, and hear Big Ben strike the 8am gave small chill. Like nothing before, the world still goes on, somewhere, unseeable had to be going about its daily routine.

Yet the London hubbub everyone knows, was quietened down. The only things that were well placed were the ghost ships bobbing around like they could take you to another world.

Train people

This last week or two has been very trying on the commuter lifestyle.
A fire caused havoc to most of the network round my way laying out three hours of painstaking slow progress home. Having left at half four I made it in the door four trains and one car lift later at quarter to eight.
I was evacuated off a mass packed underground station due to crushing risks - (I've never seen it so heaving), I was 'bottled' down a platform on the overground as everyone headed for the train, and we all squirmed through the stairwells and passages to one of the few trains able to run.

Meanwhile, I looked on to one older gentleman in a very smart long jacket the other day, yet I realised it wasn't so much the jacket but the crisp white shirt and tie, and ease of the newspaper. More and more people are dressing up on trains, people in jeans are decreasing, even for a Friday when dress with ease can be the norm. Pulling off a well kept style, also apparently requires a certain amount of hair gel, or at least something thats looks like a magazine print version on their heads. Uncontrolled mayhem, mayhem controlled, smooth, slick, grease, short, long, long and fluffy, fluffed but held in place.

It's almost as bad as this trend in oversized black rimmed glasses, why are people wearing 1980s styled huge glasses with noughties clothing and I think it's hair from the 1970s. I'm so confused by my era.