Signing off – first published 21 March 2014

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The first official day of spring 2014 and, as I walked in the bright chill of the morning, there were songs going through my head. These were songs I haven’t listened to for real for a long time, from an album by reggae band UB40. In fact they were songs from their very first album. You may be wondering why songs about, among other things, Gary Tyler, languishing in a Louisiana gaol for thirty odd years, or Martin Luther King, were going through my head. The reason is the name of the album, Signing Off, named because the band were all on the dole until that album was released. This was the day I was going to sign off myself. Continue reading Signing off – first published 21 March 2014

Bees, butterflies and regeneration – first published 8 March 2014

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The real sign that winter is over isn’t the flowers or the flush of green on the tips of the branches. No, those are just the window dressing. The real sign that winter is over are the insects, the bees and the butterflies. In early March 2014 the insect seemed to suddenly reappear after their winter absence and I knew Spring wasn’t far off at all. Continue reading Bees, butterflies and regeneration – first published 8 March 2014

Blue sky, floods and the Job Centre – first published 8 February 2014

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With all the wind and rain we had in early February 2014 I got a bit behind with the February miles so I was hoping to fit a few in on my Job Centre jaunt. There was even a plan. After the Job Centre I thought I’d walk a winding route through the parks and wooded areas of the city centre and back home over Cobden Bridge with a little look at Riverside on the way. Another night of heavy rain plus morning news full of floods and weather warnings told me that might not be the best of plans. It was looking like my walking one hundred miles a month challenge might be doomed for February. Continue reading Blue sky, floods and the Job Centre – first published 8 February 2014

Red tape and good news – first published 24 January 2014

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Hard as I might try,  the routine wasn’t really happening. Every morning I started with good intentions of getting this or that done but the days seemed to be running away with me. Some days I spent so long searching for a job I could do and hadn’t already applied for the whole morning was gone leating no time for a walk. It was all very well the job centre saying people have to apply for x number of jobs a week but what wawere you supposed to do when the jobs were just not there? It seemed fairly pointless to be applying for jobs as a brain surgeon or nuclear physicist but that appeared to be what they wanted. Continue reading Red tape and good news – first published 24 January 2014

Distractions before the job centre – first published 21 January 2014

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Towards the end of  January 2014 Commando Senior gave me a draft of the first of his memoirs to look over. When I was meant to be job hunting and filling in Job Centre forms I found myself lost in his memories of his childhood in Southampton. From reading about his life in the early thirties and the war years to Googling for old maps and photographs, most of which eluded me, I wasted more of the morning than I should.  Continue reading Distractions before the job centre – first published 21 January 2014

Signing on part two – first published 10 January 2014

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January 2014 and it was time to sign on at the Job Centre for a second time. Even before I’d left the house I was feeling horrible about it. It’s such a demeaning experience I can’t imagine anyone looks forward to it. So I set off on the familiar walk to work route with a feeling of dread. Finally it really felt like winter, a proper cold and frosty morning. On the river path I stopped briefly to take a photograph of a skeletonised leaf on the ground and another couple of the mist over the water. Anything to take my mind of where I was going. Continue reading Signing on part two – first published 10 January 2014

Trying to create some kind of routine – first published 7 January 2014

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The beginning of 2014 seemed like a good time to try to get some semblance of order into my life again. Exercise was high on the agenda.  With a broken  DVD player in the gym Pump it Up had fallen by the wayside. Then I discovered some of the workouts were on YouTube. With a little fiddling and experimenting, I found out I could create a playlist on YouTube too. Who knew that? Ok, probably everyone knew that except me. Continue reading Trying to create some kind of routine – first published 7 January 2014

Signing on – first published 2 January 2013

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2013 was finally over and it was a year I was glad to see the back of. 2014 came in with a bang in Southampton. At midnight we opened the back door to let 2013 out and open the champagne. It was raining. We opened the front door to welcome 2014 in, look at the fireworks and listen to the boats. We didn’t stay out long because the rain started teeming down. As we sat back down in front of the fire there was a flash of lightening and a tremendous clap of thunder and all hell broke loose with the rain. We hoped it wasn’t a sign of things to come, 2013 had been stormy enough thank you very much. Continue reading Signing on – first published 2 January 2013