Tag Archives: walking

Summer Is My Favourite Time Of Year

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When I look back at my life, it’s easy to see why I readily admit that Summer is my favourite time of year.

I grew up at the seaside, just outside of Bournemouth on the south coast of England, in a small village called Lilliput, right on the edge of Sandbanks, which is now one of the most expensive places to live in the world.

There we had a beach hut, and since my Mum didn’t work, up to the age of 15 I spent every fine day of the summer months at the beach.

Years later I spent some time in New Zealand, where I learned to Scuba Dive, and also spent a lot of time in the ocean, either diving, snorkeling or just enjoying the beach.

For 12 years I traveled extensively in the Caribbean for work, where I had the opportunity to snorkel and dive again, and more recently I spent 3 years living in South Florida, where of course the beach and ocean are right there close at hand.

It’s not just the beach life that I love of course, it’s the ability to be outside much of the time without freezing to death. 

Florida in particular gave me the opportunity to take up walking, and to work out get fit for once in my life.  

I never felt better than I did during my last 2 years in Florida, but sadly since returning to the UK the often inclement weather has limited my ability to go out and exercise as much as I would like.

So naturally I am excited about flying back to Florida tomorrow for two weeks, and look forward to enjoying some sunshine and heat, even if summer in Florida does mean frequent thunderstorms and high humidity.

This article was written on the subject of “Summer” for the blogging group GBE2.

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.

In A Word – Blisters

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Well it had to come I suppose, I have been pushing myself all week to exercise more, and have been doing a good 2 1/4 mile walk at a fast pace every morning, with the result that I now have blisters forming on the balls of my feet.

I decided to slow things down a bit yesterday morning, which helped, my feet weren’t too bad during the day, but then I went on another 4 mile hike yesterday evening which left them sore again.  I was determined not to miss my walk this morning, but knew it had to be done at an even slower pace.  I also wanted to try and take a swim after, to make the most of my workout routine.

I lost track of how long the walk took this morning, but it was a while longer than the 36 minutes of the previous days, helped along with some more good music from my trusty MP3 player, today being a fresh batch of random songs from the same selection.

The walk starts and ends with going down and back up 6 flights of steps from my 7th floor condo, and within 10 minutes of having got back from the walk, I was changed and back down for a dip in the pool.  I managed 20 lengths, then back upstairs again, by this time just after 10am.  It really is nice to be living in Florida where you can do this sort of thing most of the year.  If anything the summer time is hte worst, since it’s just too hot and humid, even in the early morning.

I was feeling nicely energised after the walk and swim, and not very hungry surprisingly, so I made do with an orange and a banana.  I then set to on the internet, catching up with messages and postings on various sites.

Before I knew it, 1:30pm had come around, so I legged it downstairs for a 3rd time to put the sauna on, then grabbed a light lunch of cheese and tomato sandwich, my favorite since I was knee high to a grasshopper.  I topped this off with a yoghurt.

An hour later I headed down to the sauna, then did 20 lengths in the pool, took a steam, and another 30 lengths, before heading up those steps for a 4th time.   That made a total of 70 lengths in the pool, my daily record, plus I think a record for going up and down stairs.

I was going to have some homemade chicken soup for dinner, but didn’t feel like something that heavy, so I made do with some sliced carrots and ranch dip, followed by an apple and orange.

My day of working out wasn’t over yet though, as I went out for another walk to check out the opening times for the local Farmers Market and for a couple of items to Target.  I hadn’t been to this Farmers Market before, but Tim, who I rent from went today and got some real bargains, all important if you are on a tight budget.  We also discovered a nice park around the corner from the market, with several walks and lots of ornamental shrubs and trees.  I guess we covered about 2 miles in total.

So here I am at almost midnight trying to get my daily post completed before the day ends.  I have spent the evening trying to catch up with comments on my Squidoo Lenses and also on Tagfoot.   And so it’s almost time for bed, catch you tomorrow.

A Totally Wasted Frustrating Day

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I have to admit that today started out ok, I knew I had to get certain things done today, since I am flying to England tomorrow morning, however no sooner had it started than the frustration set in, and at this point in time, almost 2pm, I haven’t really achieved a lot.

On Monday I had an interview for my Naturalization (US Citizenship), and all went ok except that I had to provide proof that I am paying child support, which I am.   I expected the form providing details to arrive after some weeks, but no, when I got home Wednesday night there was a letter, telling me what I needed.

Reading the details of the forms they sent, which were rather vague, it seemed that I needed to provide a notarized letter from my ex-wife as evidence of my payments, so we arranged to meet up this morning close to where she lives to get this done, and then I would take the forms into the Immigration Office where I had my interview.

We were due to meet between 8am and 8:30am, after she took my daughters to school, but no sooner had I started my 25 mile journey south on I-95, than the radio announced that the road was completely closed southbound due to an earlier accident.   Well there was no easy way to avoid the block, and I know from previous experiences that the radio is usually a good 30 minutes behind with the status of accidents.   I mean, just how long can they leave a major highway completely blocked?    As I got closer and sat in traffic, the radio gave out more information, advising people to use alternative routes, but I stuck to my guns and sat in traffic doing a very slow crawl.   It seems that at 5am there was a head-on fatal crash, and although it was a few minutes to 9am when I got to the point where they were directing traffic off the highway, the road was still closed.

The trip, which would normally take 30 minutes on a good day and 45 minutes on a normal rush hour one, took me close to 2 hours!   Of course my ex-wife was peeved since she had a busy day lined up, and I knew that I would have to maybe sit for hours in the Immigration Offices, before heading back down there to take my daughters out tonight.

Well we got the documents notarized, I headed back north, traffic a lot easier this time, and arrived at the Immigration Offices.   A rather rude lady insisted that the form they sent me was an interview date, not the date that I had to have the forms returned by.   The documentation was rather vague, but it said in block capitals that “the documentation must be returned by 29th May 2009 at 7:15am.  It did not say this was an interview date, it said disctinctly to return BY THIS DATE!   So having got nowhere with the rude lady, I headed home, where I grabbed some oatmeal and a banana, it now being after 11am and I hadn’t had a bite to eat yet.

It was after 11am by the time I got home, and by the time I had eaten, changed the bed ready for when I come home from England in 3 weeks time, put some laundry on, and then Debbie came home from work.   I explained the situation with the papers to her,  and she suggested writing a letter and sending it off.  “Great idea” I thought, so I composed a letter explaining how vague the instructions were, enclosed the documents, put it in the mail, and at the same time turned on the sauna in the small fitness room on the 1st floor of the condo building.   I then did a bit of work online, watched some fo the American Idol show I taped earlier in the week, and went to take my sauna.

“Oh great!”  I get down to the sauna to find that someone has gone in and turned it off, it’s only lukewarm in there.  It needs a good 45 minutes to warm up, so I headed to the pool, got chatting to one of the residents here who is down by the pool most afternoons, did 20 lengths of the pool, and by that time almost an hour was up.   Headed back to the sauna and “oh yeah” nice and hot.  I knew something had to go right for me!   Had a good sauna and steam, then realized the time, hit the shower, and had to head out to see my daughters for the evening.

I normally see my daughters ( aged 4 and 8 ) on a Saturday and take them to breakfast and to the park, but sometimes, like today, I take them out for pizza.  Of course this meant a 25 mile drive south for the second time today, I picked them up, took them to the park at the soccer fields where they play, had a good kick around, then out to the pizza buffet, and back to their house.

I had to leave them early, because I had remembered earlier that I had to pick my suit up from being altered.  It wouldn’t be ready until 5pm, and of course I would be with them at that time, but the store was open until 9pm.   Of course the store is 5 miles north of where I live and also west, so I had an hour to make the 35 mile trip.  All was going well until just before I had to exit the highway, when I came across another accident which almost blocked the road.  I had a minor panic for a minute, thinking I would be stuck and not able to get to the store in time, but the traffic kept flowing and I made it.  PHEW!

Now I don’t need the suit for my trip to England.  I need it for a dance the night after I get back.  My 8 year old is in the girl scouts, and they have an annual “Me And My Guy” dance where the Dad’s take their daughters to the ball.   She enjoys it, but I feel a bit awkward not really knowing any of the other Dad’s.   I suppose I could have picked the suit up the day after I return from England, but the last thing I want to do is to have to worry about that when I have jet lag and am about to have a late night.

And so I finally return home at 9pm, tired, sticky, frustrated, actually really tired, and the guy I rent with wants to know if I want to take a walk.  Having eaten way too much pizza and needing the exercise I agreed, so we took a good 4 mile walk around the lake and through part of the golf course, which is always nice.  We both enjoy walking in the evenings, the exercise is good after a meal, it’s nice to be off the road where there are fewer lights and the stars are clearer, and fortunately tonight we were a bit later, because if we don’t time it right, we have to dodge the sprinklers.  It all adds to the fun, but these walks are great for clearing your head and letting off steam as well.

So 9 hours after I started this article, it’s about complete.  I am exhausted, ready to hit the hay, and hopefully tomorrow will see a couple of good flights, no delays, a smooth ride, and a happy Debbie waiting for me at the other end.

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