Tag Archives: countryside

Five Weeks Back In The UK And No Work

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Well it’s been five weeks ago today since I left the sunshine of hot and sticky South Florida and returned to the UK to be with Debbie.

It’s true that we have had some nice days where the sun has shone, there have been blue skies, and it’s been a pleasant 70 degrees, but there have also been quite a few days where the temperature has barely climbed above 65 degrees all day.   Sunday was grey and gloomy all day, from the time we got up until the time we went to bed.  You can’t really say until the time it got dark, because it never really got light!   Monday started off the same, but it turned out nice in the afternoon, and we were able to have a BBQ and sit outside in the sunshine.   Tuesday was mixed and also breezy.  We went to Calshot, which is across the other side of Southampton water, and had a good walk along the beach (well pebbles).   But today has been another one of those grey gloomy days, most of the afternoon it’s been spitting with rain, and the last two hours it’s been blowing a gale and pouring down.

The schools go back at the end of this week, and Debbie heads back to work tomorrow after six weeks off.  We wonder where summer went to, but although we haven’t had the money to go anywhere and spent anything, we have had some wonderful local walks and done some good exploring of the local countryside.  That’s something we both enjoy a lot, and I have a lot of posting to catch up on, with plenty of photographs to add as well.

As soon as I came back here I signed on at the job centre to claim unemployment benefit, but so far I haven’t received anything.  With so many people out of work over here, the offices are backed up, and with my having just come back from the USA it hasn’t made things easier either.  I hope to hear back with a positive result within a week, as my money is almost gone, what bit I had left over here, and Debbie only earns enough to barely cover the bills and food.

Of course I have registered with all the internet job search sites, but they all pretty much return the same jobs, and nothing has really matched my skill set yet.   I would like to add a commendation for the one recruiter who I found through Linked-In, and who took the time to call me while I was still in Florida, as well as to check up on me at least once a week here, providing tips on potential job openings in companies where he didn’t have a contact, as well as working hard to find a place for me within his clients.    If you are looking for an IT job in the south of England, particularly if you are working with IBM Midrange systems, I highly recommend Adam Langley-Smith of Required-IT to handle your job search.

Meantime, I am trying to decide what to do, trying to figure out how I can earn enough money online to keep us afloat, and there are so many ideas, but the hard part is to know what to do and in which direction to turn.   I thought of looking at ghostwriting (writing articles for other people – they get published without your name on them), but I would really love to be able to write under my own name.   I would love to write a book, but I can’t think where to begin, I need a plot, and the worst thing is that this could take a year or more before I got published, and then the book might never be successful anyhow.

I keep trying to be realistic, since my IT skills are in need of some re-tuning, but still I am hoping that something will come along.

Tomorrow will I hope bring some good ideas, since Debbie goes back to work, and I have more time to myself, time to devote to writing, promoting, and to trying to earn a penny or two.    I would really love to have some good money coming in soon, as we had planned to spend Christmas in Florida so I can see my two daughters, but if I don’t get a job, that isn’t going to happen.   There is always the Lottery of course, or the million to one chance of a benefactor leaving a donation in the Tip jar on the blog, but I don’t realistically expect either of those to happen.  Just have to get lucky and get a good paying job.

So farewell summer, welcome to my new working life, trying to make it by writing and blogging.   Wish me luck…

Adam Langley-Smith

A New Forest Walk

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On Monday as the weather looked to be nice, we wandered over to Debbie’s Mum and Dad’s for a brief visit, as I hadn’t seen them since I was last in the UK, and then took a trip out to our favourite spot in The New Forest to take a walk.   Our plan was to re-trace the walk that we did back in April, when we saw several white deer, but it involved trecking way off the main paths and heading off into parts of the forest that only rangers usually go into.  However, we really enjoyed our walk last time, and wanted to try and find the same places again.

Our walk started from a car park on the Ornamental Drive, which leads up to Rhinefield House, a 5 star hotel that used to be owned by Richard Branson (and maybe still is).  The Ornamental Drive is lined with Rhododendron bushes on both sides, and for a short time in the spring it’s lovely, however this is early August and not a flower in sight.

We headed out and had no problem re-tracing our previous journey, except that three months more into the summertime the ferns had fully grown, so it was not always so easy to determine where we went before, however we managed ok.

At one point where we came close to a fence line, we stood deciding which way we needed to go through an area where the grass was longer.   Suddenly, out of a grassy mound not 20 feet from where we were standing, a pheasant flew up into the air, giving us both a start.   We looked at each other, and started to talk about it, when all of a sudden there was a second, then a third, and a fourth, all not 20 feet from where we were, but we hadn’t seen them at all in the grass as they were so well camouflaged.

From here the grass got a bit longer, and it was hard to always find a way to go where we could avoid it.  Since Debbie is mortally afraid of snakes, and the forest is known to have a lot of adders, the most poisonous snake in the UK, she was rather concerned.  However we didn’t see a single one, nothing scary, and found our way quite easily up several little used paths, across a fence, over an old wooden bridge, and we came to a clearing where the previous time we had seen several horses and all of our deer.

Approaching the clearing through some trees we saw a few deer, but they saw us first, and headed away before we could take any decent photographs.   So we carried on to the clearing, seeing no wildlife, and decided to wander into the woods at the far end of the clearing, where we sat on a fallen tree to wait for some deer to hopefully arrive.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tPAJWVGr5o

Well, we waited and waited, waited some more, trying not to move too much, trying to keep quiet, and eventually after what mist have been close to 30 minutes, our patience was rewarded by about a dozen deer coming close, led by one of the white deer.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BE3Y5ouDQA

They didn’t come as close as we would have liked, so eventually we made a move and started walking towards them, which caused them to move away, however we did get close enough for me to take some video, while surprisingly because of the amount of zoom that was needed, Debbie also got some nice photographs.   We tried to follow the deer for about 1/4 mile, but it was obvious that they wouldn’t be coming closer, so we decided to head on to the next leg of our journey.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fShNgDYG9Gs

We hadn’t gone very far when a family of ponies came along, and as we approached, one of the two foals walked right up to me, within a few feet, before turning around and going back to feeding.   The whole experience was so nice, because there were no sounds of other people around, in fact no sounds of human life at all, which was really nice.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj3YrwHPn7M

The last leg of the journey took us a different way back, since we had to cross a stream using a fallen log, and then had to find our way back to the car park, which was about a mile away,  through an area of woodland that had huge clumps of ferns, boggy patches, and the only pathways were those that had been made by animals not people.  But we succeeded, and ended up back close to the ornamental drive, the car park and then home.

Below you will find some of the photos that Debbie took, and I hope you also enjoyed my video clips.   Clicking on any of the photos in the gallery will display the full size image.

The End Of A Short Era

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Deer Creek Country Club Deerfield Beach FloridaTomorrow I head back to work, starting a new contract after three months of being unemployed, and so apart from weekends, today marked the last time I expect to be able to take my morning walk around Deer Creek.

I have really enjoyed getting out of bed in the morning, and heading out around the lakes and golf course at Deer Creek to stretch my legs, listen to the birds chirping, and to watch the wildlife and trees.  There is always something different to see every time I take a walk, and I will really miss it.  At least I should have one weekend day when I can take my walk (the other I see my daughters and take them for breakfast, so no time).

I also still hope to go walking most evenings, which I also enjoy, and it’s different, especially in the dark.  Of course now with Summer here it doesn’t get dark until late.  Going out for a walk at 8pm even a few weeks ago would provide you with an awesome clear sky full of stars.  Now the sun still hasn’t set by that time.

Well it looks as if my Squidoo Lens about my walks around Deer Creek has started a trend.  Today Clouda9 published a lens about a Walk On Our Country Road, a lovely tour of the rural area where she lives, and it’s so different to Deer Creek, being out in the countryside.

I hope many more people will think about doing this.  It’s so nice to see the places where people live, so inviting to stroll along with them on a virtual tour of their favorite places to go walking, and nice to see the photographs of these special places.   So if you think you might like to do this, let me know.  Just stroll out, camera in hand, create a lens or a blog post, and I will write about it.   Maybe we can acquire a nice collection of these as time goes on.   If nothing else, these will make great memories in years to come, something to hand down to the children and grandchildren.

Patricia Sanders (aka Jewelsofawe) also has a great lens about being out on her sister-in-laws farm.  Take a look at Out On The Farm and see if you feel envious of the beautiful scenery.  She also created a lens that gives a wonderful virtual tour of her Garden Of Veggies – the Apple Pie looks delicious.