Most Commented Lifestyle Blogs (2,470)

We all, I think, I hope, have that moment of walking into a room, then wondering what we went there for. Or stopping halfway up the stairs and thinking ????

When I was preggers I took that a lot further, I was definitely scatty - once I found my car keys (after a long search) in the fridge.

Today I opened the draining cupboard over the sink to get a mug for coffee, and there among the glasses and cups, looking a bit embarrassed, was the jar of Bisto gravy granules.

I'm racking my brain to remember when I could have got pregnant.

This has nothing to do with Nam...but only a realization after tonight. Though it is very sad to hear about Nam, one can only hope he does recover....may happiness ensue him.


Tonight....some of my friends.

To know them during the day they seem on the surface like just another man. Doing his deeds, those of which are required of him to survive. Talking with them, everything is just fine, there is nothing wrong they'd say. My life is going smoothly, "can't complain."

Why? I now wonder to myself. Why can't they complain? Perhaps, because they are man. They are suppose to be a man...strong and to be anything less would be a disgrace within the norms of society. But they are also human and not without emotion, human feelings.

By night, these same men are still men in the public arena. They laugh, they joke, they socialize as they should. But when alone, they hurt. They have so much pain that it is unbearable to speak of most times. A strong, jovial man. A biker at one time, a muscle car fanatic to the day...long hair, long beard...he sits and tells me about his time in war. With tears falling from his face, his next two bottles of beer turn him back into a man.

A close friend of mine, one could argue he leads an angry life. His story is different. After becoming very close to him nearly 15 years later, I would also argue he seems a bit bitter. Out of the public spectrum, he breaks down to me. After discovering his brother dead from suicide and shortly afterwards his true love lifeless from an overdose...he goes on to tell me, she wrote on the bathroom mirror in her lipstick earlier that day, "love you, will see you later." However, the bottle brings his manhood back up to status quo.

There are a couple more stories...

Have we mistaken just how strong man's spirit is?

Thinking I needed to get out more, last summer I joined a walking group. My first time out with them was on a Wednesday evening, the walk was a stroll round the town where I live, as it happens. Their main outings are on Sundays and the Wednesday evening ones are just during the summer. I continued to go on both the Wednesday and Sunday walks regularly for several months, right up to the end of the autumn, my enthusiasm waned as the weather got colder.

I didn’t consciously think about it but I suppose I had a preconception of a bunch of like minded people just turning up at a prearranged location and setting off walking together. It never occurred to me that such a seemingly straight forward and simple activity would necessitate the amount of effort and time to plan and organise that it actually does. And all by a handful of people doing it out of pure altruism, gaining no reward other than the simple satisfaction of knowing that their efforts are enriching the lives of others.

The group has a monthly meeting where, presumably, they discus important issues and make weighty decisions. They have a Chair Person, Vice Chair, Treasurer, Walks Programme Co-ordinator, Footpaths Officer and several other officials with vaguer, but, undoubtedly, no less necessary roles. So, clearly, this is not a Mickey Mouse outfit, it is a serious and properly organised group.

While I expected to derive a modest health benefit from participating in the activity of the group, I was quite surprised to also find that joining them actually made me feel younger. This was no doubt due in part to the exercise, but, more than that, I think it was because a good many of them are retired and older than I am. The principle of relativity in action.

Every walk has a walk leader, a job that entails much more than arriving first and then striding off in front, assertively. The walk leader first has to conceive the adventure, he -although, quite often she- must assemble in their mind a journey of discovery, or at least an excursion that isn’t likely to bore the pants off everyone. Next, the precise rout must be planned, followed by the “recky”, which is where the walk leader sets out, quite often with another dedicated group member, and does a boots on the ground dummy run. Thus are any potential problems and hazards identified. How often, I wonder, have we carefree ramblers turned up on the day with nothing to think of but a pleasant day’s meander through the English countryside, completely oblivious to the extra large muddy puddles and steep embankments our leader has beforehand had to suffer so that we don’t have to.

While the walk leader is out in front, blazing the trail, at the very back, is the man at the very back. He’s probably got a title but I don’t know what it is, probably the tail man, or something similar. His job is mainly to ensure that the stragglers don’t take a wrong turn and get lost, his secondary role being to mop up any casualties. It is surprising how many people, particularly the old duffers, slip head over heels on the mud or trip up over a tree root or discarded soft drink can. Usually any serious injury is confined to the dignity of the person involved. I have never actually witnessed such an occurrence myself, but that is probably my own fault for not hanging far enough back.

We have our own web site. With a few mouse clicks I know where the next walk will take place, how long the walk is and whether or not it is dog friendly. We also have a self appointed group photographer who covers twice the distance of everyone else through running up and down the line all day taking shots. I am amazed by his energy, I don’t know how old he is but I believe he’s been retired for ten years. The results of his vigourous enthusiasm appear on the web site a few days later, he’s quite artistic, actually.

I could go on forever singing the praises of the Ramblers but enough is enough.

Interest rates have risen and it is becoming tougher to afford living...

…might turn out to be something else, than you hoped they’d be during the acquisition.

For me it’s an alpaca poncho in winter – soft, light, very warm and comforting – rather expensive…

…and a fly swatter during the summer: serves faithfully and fearlessly, cost pittance.


Those, claiming that you can’t buy happiness for money, are just misinformed :)

In the late 1800's, it is claimed that Albert Pike, a supposed member of the Free Masons and a supposed Satanist, wrote a letter to a friend of his.

In this letter, he explains how all three World Wars are to manufactured. The letter is accurate with the first two World Wars.

Many claim that this letter is a hoax.

However, if you read about how he says WWIII will unfold, it seems as if he was on to something.

If a hoax, whoever wrote it must have psychic skills.

More can be found out about this on youtube and google.

I just wrote this as something interesting and do not claim there is any truth to it. I encourage you to check it out for yourself.

I will not be giving any responses.

Take care all.

..................................... Yes, no Doubt whatsoever.




I can sense it.


Hope your year will be as fantastic as mine.

I trust each and every member of CS will find happiness and whatever they are seeking in life's race

The original* is philosophical not specific, I know that, borrowing the words not the thoughts for this blog.

If I think I am happy, I am surely happy? I think.

but ....

If I think I am sane, am I sane?

They do say only the mad think they are sane. Split the difference. I’ll accept interestingly eccentric, albeit financially challenged.

If I think I am the most drop-dead gorgeous creature on CS, well, I am free to think that, but what others think does have to play a part.

So how much does what others think I am, affect what I am? If I value someone’s opinion, and suddenly find out they think I am an idiot, does their opinion still have value?

My builders thought I was rich and gullible, and to be fleeced of every possible cent. My daughter thinks I am going through a midlife crisis, starting with the books I’ve written, especially the Clarissa ones, now with moving abroad, and wishes I would settle down and take up crochet. Talking of Clarissa, a younger friend of mine now thinks I am deliberately torturing him by refusing to become his domme until he is submissive enough. Dyeing my hair green and getting purple and blue slashes tattooed on my face, well, I didn't, but so far as I can see no-one reads long paragraphs. I have a friend who thinks I am in denial about being old and need to start with the blue rinses already. Actually, more than one.

I think they’re all wrong.

(There are some who see me the way I want to see myself - even some who see me as braver, cleverer, more talented, more capable than I am. There are the special few who, whatever they think, support and help me on my way.)


I think I’m right, therefore I am.





*Cogito ergo sum is a Latin philosophical proposition by René Descartes usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am".

Remember the days when you used to sit in a friend’s car on a wet Sunday afternoon, waving a cheap transistor radio around, poking other passengers in the eye with the aerial as you tried to hunt down the best signal so you can all listen to ‘the game’?

What about more recently, when you'd struggle with those tiny televisions, again, playing rotating and contorting yourself in order to see the movie you'd been banned from watching - often in bed, under the covers and long after you’re supposed to be asleep?

Technology is meant to be progressive, yet you're still watching a (possibly illegally) downloaded copy of a blockbuster movie, designed to be watched on a wall the size of the Hoover Dam, on a smartphone with a screen the size of a Post-It note.

There are apps for so many things - too many things in my view - which we get wrapped up in what we can do with our device:

• I can use it instead of my spirit level
• I can use it instead of my egg timer
• I can calculate the azimuth of this planet, the albedo of that star whilst rating the cuteness of people’s kittens on a scale of 1 to 10
• I can turn it into a fake Star Trek Tricorder, Doctor Who’s Sonic Screwdriver or hide my porn... erm - sensitive business documents behind a fake calculator app, even though nobody actually has access to my tablet!

So why do we (hypothetically, in my case (ehem)) do it?

Just because we can…!

Lets throw a party. I have alcohol, weed, music, more alcohol, and lots of food.

Who's in?