it just strikes me....

I look out the window.

I see the flowers in the garden.

There are greenfinches flapping about on the bird feeders.

Apples bending the laden branches of the tree, flowers blooming a touch straggly after the earlier rain. The sun shining now and there is a blue and white sky.

...and though I feel like death warmed up with this flu thing, cough splutter aches and a little too hot.

...and I have some tricky surgery to go through in the next few weeks and months which is just a little bit scary

I remember how bloody lucky I am to be here now.

I've lost quite a few friends lovers and others along the way and I'm sad they are not here any more or we feel different now and have parted but the journeys not done, plenty more love life laughter with all the thorns and dark days colours and light, noise and peace to come

If we are still in the circle together now, thank you for the helping hands and ears the shared everythings over the time passed. Changes are coming but then aren't they always....when was that ever not the case....

fiat lux till that spark arrives from heaven....

things and other things

for gary


y'know ...there's all sorts of stuff going on....



bad scary things, worrying things, questionable things....


today I spent a few hours just watching wild birds, ospreys mainly but also a few others and just seeing em fly, glide, holler out and all the usual bird things that birds do....forgot about some things and also got reminded of others....



there's things good and bad. The exhilaration in watching a butterfly flutter by

wonder as you gaze at a bird of amazing beauty climb high in the sky

and laugh at the antics of a flock of canadian geese flocking about on a lake

these dont get 24 hour reports on Sky or BBC but are as real and important as all the other things.....maybe more so



....also, found out that there is the real possibility of release of gary critchley in the very near future, a chance to live life again outside the hateful system of  unjust incarceration he has endured for so many years....this missive is dedicated to the cause of freedom for gary and all others unjustly imprisoned both in and out of institutions ...

waiting for the spark from heaven to fall

sometimes it just hits you....

It's been a few years but I only saw this today, wandering around SOAS with my camera early in the morning....

just opposite the main Birkbeck entrance you will find this remembrance plaque

I remember the day

...we were living near Great Ormond St Hospital at that time so work was a mere 10 minute walk away

hearing the bus go up....sounding like nothing else I'd heard....I'd gone past just a few minutes before....where it was destined to explode

Living so close , passing by daily where the site of the bus was shielded by white sheets whilst the scene was examined cleaned investigated....for quite a while, all seemed a different colour, the brighter shades subdued, edges sharper and also blurred....that day of bombs on tubes and buses...


I don't know if I met Benedetta, but as a student in Birkbeck it's possible that we may have crossed paths unknowingly....She met her end in the Aldgate bombing, and considering the connection with Islamic extremism of the bombers, the irony....her fiancé was a British born Muslim and they were planning a joint Catholic Muslim celebration in Rome using rites from both faiths.


in my mind today she is a reminder of all that have died and suffered because of the violence of 'those that know best' ...the bigot the authoritarian the disciplinarian,  the haters of women of men of gays of lesbians of the 'weak' of foreigners of difference of tolerance of peace of love filled with the certainty of their righteous insecurities and fear



faith? I don't know.....do I have any? I'm not sure what it is...I do know that to work against fear is to make life better...for myself and others...whether they are people I love or know or strangers....a simple thing....I can feel more alive when I love and smile and laugh than when I hate or fear or am afraid....tricky sometimes but simple


..... so a leap of faith?  .......try it...can't hurt, eh.

a moment can last a little bit longer

....i tend to take pictures on a whim....just see and *click* usually on my phone or a little digital  camera occasionally....

flowers don't pose, insects take no notice of you, shadows just are

maybe its the element of chance or something about capturing the moment  when i see something, a colour a shape ...

art? who knows....i'll leave that story for others to worry about....click on a picture and you'll see it full size, they tend to look better that way....

all as seen and found around and about.....odd what you can find if you look....

just one of those days I guess.....

Been a while....not added to the blog cos there has been so much to do, and just not enough time.

In the process of putting a site together for my photo stuff, a little passion that has grown the last few months. Though I say so myself, using just the camera with my phone, I seem to have managed to take quite a few damn good pictures lately. The last 6 months or so, having regained a love and interest in wildlife - birds insects and all that stuff - I've been snapping away like there's no tomorrow.....and also had a little photo trip each morning on the way to work, grabbing images of what I see.....and have managed to capture some bloody amazing images along the way....or not....anyway...more of the wildlife ones later...for now, my morning indulgences....

I like them.....here's a little sample

still, as I mentioned as such....one of those days.

.....of which more in the next blog when I may actually write summat.....just hope you enjoy the images for now....