I'm moving

Rather than think up another "13th" ploy to try to keep this blog going I'm re-directing you to my latest venture. What may be yet another, for me, "middle-age crisis"!

My Harley and Me

should auld acquaintance...

It's the final day of 2008.

In just a few hours it will be in the past and a new year will be under way, bringing with it the usual new hopes, plans and dreams. So maybe I should use a few words just to say farewell to the old year and pick out some of the highlights.
Or maybe not. I can't think of any personal highlights and the public ones will no doubt be written about in countless blogs, columns and reviews of the year. It is stock to write interminably about what went on during the previous twelve months.
As if only the columnists have the memory or the ability to use an internet search engine and therefore must remind and enlighten all us sleeping witnesses to the events around us.

2008 wasn't a bad year for me. It just didn't have too many outstanding and memorable happenings.
I went on holiday a couple of times and it rained. I took a lot of photographs (not as many as I would have liked as it rained a lot of the time!) and learned a good bit about the craft of photography. I did a further qualification at work, though for the majority of my time in gainful employment I was wishing I wasn't. (It's just boring and no longer challenging and I have still not found the exciting new career I believe I deserve!). I'm still living the single life. Not ecstatic about that but not grieving either.

So, as I look forward to a new year I'm comfortable that I didn't waste the last one but at the same time I'm not going to make any big plans for the next twelve months.
I'll just take it as it comes.

Happy New Year.

and finally

It's the last of this year's "thirteenth" entries.
To be honest, the whole idea of writing on every thirteenth was conceived purely as a way of excusing my laziness.
I was getting fed up with the regime of writing regularly and so came up with a way of assuaging my conscience but still allowing me to persuade myself that I wasn't giving my blog up entirely.
Not that I wanted to do that either. I enjoy having this space on the web. It's mine and I appreciate having this bolt-hole for my thoughts. Over the couple of years I've been doing it, it has maybe moved on from the rant it was initially intended to be. Hence the title! But it is still my place and it gives me the opportunity to indulge in one of my pleasures. Writing, not complaining!
So, from the start of 2009 I intend to get back into the habit of sitting down and regularly writing something. What it will turn out to say only time will tell. What I must do is to be disciplined about it. No more lame excuses or subtle plots to try to get out of what will be hard work at times but will always end with satisfaction as the ultimate reward.

penultimate

It's the second to last thirteenth for this year.
Winter is upon us (wet and windy), the days are short and the nights dark.
So maybe that's why I just don't have the energy to sit at my keyboard and get down something really interesting. That and the fact that my internet connection keeps slowing down and refuses to connect to certain sites.
So before I go into a huge lengthy list of why I'm not writing this time:-
Have a good thirteenth and see you next month for the final episode (for this year anyway).

just a few left

Thirteenths that is.
This one I almost missed, so as I caught it late this will be just a short post. So much has happened since the last time I posted I could probably write screeds and screeds.
But, as it's getting late on in the evening I'll save it all for some other time.
So, either till then, or failing that, the thirteenth of next month, take care!

silver linings

Hello on the thirteenth once again!

It's been a busy month since I last posted on here and for once the time hasn't gone by like the "express elevator to hell"
I enjoyed my week's camping in the north west highlands. The weather wasn't too bad. In fact it's probably the only part of Britain where the locals are complaining about the lack of rainfall this summer. At least the salmon fishers are! The couple of showers that I experienced during the week were just not enough for them. They were hoping for some more sustained rain to swell the rivers.

Probably the most memorable moment of the week was the little French girl in the camp-site in Applecross.
I had gone into my tent when the sun went down and was lying reading my book when I heard her voice.
"La lune! La lune! Regardez la pleine lune", she said.
So I stuck my head out of the tent and sure enough rising over the hills was the most beautiful full moon.
But that wasn't the end of it. The girl who was about five or six years old started singing. She had a lovely voice and remarkably was singing the kind of songs you would expect to hear from the mouth of a crooner like Charles Aznavour. I was sure I even heard her sing a Leonard Cohen number!

Well my holiday was over all too quickly and I headed south once more just as the north-west joined the rest of the country in experiencing a taste of the greyest, wettest and dullest summer since records began. (And we thought after last year that things could only get better!)
One thing I have noticed is that since the the beginning of 2008, there has not been a week gone by without there being at least one spectacular sunset. Every cloud has...., as they say!

Anyway, that's all fading into the dim and distant past and the realities of my boring, humdrum life are taking over once more.
Work continues to be a drag with more industrial action on the horizon. All the other distractions I use to keep my mind off the reasons I'm stubbornly single are back, threatening to swamp me and I still haven't won on the lottery!
Though I did find myself flirting, ever so slightly, with someone I met on a training course the other day. So, who knows, maybe things are changing for the better and I will win the millions that will keep me in the manner I'm sure I deserve.

But until then, here's some pics.

rainy days and thirteen more

Just got time for a quick post before I head off for ten days camping.
As I'm staying in Scotland, ten days is maybe just a little bit optimistic. The weather so far this summer has been consistent. Wet! But I'm sure that it's going to change just for me.
Speak to you all when I get back.