A Frustrating Time
It has, in retrospect, been a very frustrating week. However, today marks a Super moon, Equinox and Solar Eclipse so maybe certain difficulties should have been anticipated? The solar eclipse was pretty much of a non-event here with it being only a partial eclipse. We did go out and take a look though. Being Spring Equinox, the good news is that we are now heading towards Summer and that can’t be bad can it? For those expecting some end of the world, apocalyptic-type event – well, I did warn you that nowt would happen….except that your wishful thinking would be dashed again. No. I simply have been wildly unorganized and time seems to have slipped through my hands like water. So much to do, so little time to do it.
Read More »A Yorkshire Christmas
Christmas Eve was spent collecting Ammonites on a cold, blustery but magnificently beautiful day on the Yorkshire coast. We found lots of these whirly fossils in the lower Jurassic of Ravenscar and the walk down and then back up the cliffs was refreshing and invigorating. This experience was topped off with a delicious cream tea at Raven Hall Hotel. It couldn’t have been any better. As the three of us trooped down the muddy path, I reflected on the many trips around Yorkshire fossil hunting I had done with my late Father. Not only did we hunt fossils but we explored the area in depth. Roman roads, ancient burial sites, viking villages. You name it, we did it. We even found a whole bunch of iron age pottery that we
Read More »Expectation and the Power of Prayer
A few weeks ago, someone posted in the local Brno-based group on Facebook that the supermarkets here always had empty shelves and that they couldn’t find a number of food items that they were used to in Germany. Politely, I made the comment that I never had experienced that problem and pointed them to a number of locations stocking the items that they needed. I also made the remark that we must live in parallel universes. Not knowing me, that comment was taken the wrong way but I actually meant it. To me, this was another example of magic at work. We get what we expect. The German plainly had an expectation contrary to mine, that the supermarket shelves were often empty and, as a result, they were. On the
Read More »Work Space Blog Hop
So, once again I have been ‘nominated‘ on one of these blog hop things… this time to show off my work space!! So here goes. I work from home in a small space fondly referred to as my office but in reality its the small guest bedroom and one could scarcely fling a cat in it… Strangely enough, it is almost the smallest room in our Brno apartment and, if you remove sleep hours from the equation, I probably spend 70% of my time sat in the corner of this small space. Rather bizarre when I come to think about it that way. It is my office, where I write, where I promote and market, where I meditate, where I deal with the mundane things like paying bills for example,
Read More »Now, Where is that Curse?
There are times when I find myself contemplating a little black magic. Yep, I have to be honest and say that there really are times when I think about delivering a really good and debilitating curse. Hell, there are times, if I am honest, when my thoughts are less than pristine and I do come very close to issuing a mental curse or hex. For this reason, I will never be a good magician as I must go back continually to the drawing board of ‘know thyself’ and work on that sudden rush of blood to the head that I experience from time to time and that will one day cause my fall. I must let it all be water off a duck’s back as they say. I recall taking
Read More »European Football Trip
I awoke yesterday morning with just a twinge of rising excitement. Later in the day, we would be off on a 200km road trip to watch Hull City in their European debut. Sometimes, you do get the feeling that events conspire against you though on days like this one and yesterday turned out to be challenging….. At around noon, as we made final preparations to leave, the skies opened. It rained so hard, Brno streets flooded within 30 minutes. Really, I have never seen so much rain here in the 7-years I have lived in the Czech Republic. If it was raining like this in Zilina there would be no game at all we thought. A check of the internet held out hope. The rain was more or less north-south
Read More »The Big Adventure
I haven’t managed to take in a live Hull City game for several years unfortunately. The last game was an away game versus Leicester City that I decided on the spur of the moment to go to. At the time, my son Liam and I were visiting family in Hull and we were heading back down to London and the airport at Gatwick for Liam to fly home. We set off on the Saturday morning and in the back of my mind, I had a half a mind to jump off the M1 and go grab the game in Leicester. Of course, the M62 was a packed with traffic due to an accident and so by the time we got to the M1 I wasn’t at all sure that we
Read More »Of FA Cup Finals, Hull and Yorkshire
This last weekend, I and a good percentage of my fellow East Yorkshire compadres (not all as Rugby is still big in Hull and Hull KR played Hull FC that same day!) were either sat in the London sun at Wembley or, like me, huddled in front of the biggest TV we could find. Of course, none of us really entertained the idea that we could actually win the FA Cup but we all brimmed with pride and awe at the occasion none the less. But you also knew, as underdogs, we had nothing at all to lose and there is always the chance, no matter how slim, that on the day and for 90 minutes, Hull City could be the better team. Of course, 10 minutes after kick off
Read More »Once a Century or so
It was a very big day yesterday. After 110 years, Hull City played in the FA Cup final for the first time. Its still incredible to me that The Tigers are in the Premier League and an FA Cup was simply the icing on an already desirable cake. I was pretty nervous. Arsenal are a team whose squad is worth many many more times that of Hull City. They are a big club and they play good football. Classy even. I had in the back of my mind a 3-0 or 4-0 drubbing to be honest particularly since Hull City hadn’t played so well the last few weeks. In the two games against Arsenal, we lost 5-0 on aggregate in the league. Imagine my surprise when within 8 minutes of
Read More »Games and Things
What a great game the FA Cup semi-final turned out to be. End to end stuff and 8 goals. Of course, Hull City won which means that for the first time in 110 years, Hull City will appear in an FA Cup Final. Its been quite a season for us ‘Ull fans…..I do believe in destiny and I have a funny feeling about all of this… Arsenal can be beaten…..So, I did have a beer too many on Sunday I must admit. Oh well….
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