Erm.

Exactly how are we almost at the end of August, already?  I could’ve sworn it was just a minute or two ago I was clinking ceremonious glasses of punch with friends in recognition of the new year that had just arrived, and now we’re two thirds of the way through it…

In the absence of a burning main topic to write about this month, here are a couple of bits and pieces…

Something to Consider…

This week I came across an article on Social Media about a Chinese couple who realised that – unbeknownst many years earlier – they had both been in the same place at the same time, within just a few feet of each other, having their pictures taken.  They had only realised this by looking through old photographs later on…

In lives where we are meeting new people all the time I often marvel about the scope for similar instances of this.  Every day we are encountering other people in passing wherever we go; in years from now, will any of them ever become anything more to us than that?  Who’s to know whether those we know and are close with now weren’t once people we just passed by on the street?  People we moved into single file for (perhaps grudgingly!) on the pavement?  People we beeped our car horns at in moments of frustration?  People with whom we bemoaned the speed of the queue in the bank?

It fascinates me no end and I do believe that it happens more often than we realise… so, maybe pay close attention to the next person you pass…and those ‘moody people in the background’ which invariably feature in every photograph… as perhaps one day, they will one day turn out to mean much, much more to you…!

The Joy of Random Memory Recall

I love those moments when memories of incidents that made you laugh come flashing back into mind through no real logic at all, and have that same impact all over again.

There’s absolutely no reason why yesterday, whilst sat on a motionless Tube train, I suddenly remembered a lunchtime from way back in year 7 when an 11 year old I had clocked that the form tutor had accidentally typed ‘Jucy’ instead of ‘Lucy’ on the birthday list which was pinned to the class notice board.  That’s a memory from almost 20 years ago which in the large scheme of life had the significance of even less than a small plop in world’s oceans, but that had friends and I in tears of laughter for what was literally days when we first saw it, and which still raises a smile so many years later, brightening up an otherwise uneventful Tube journey.

Nothing quite cost-effective like a recycled giggle!

You Know You’re in Your ’30s When…

…An evening out with your mates consists of taking your KFC to a local lake and singing Michael Jackson’s ‘Earth Song’ at the top of your voices whilst looking out over the water as the sun sets.  Who needs bars and clubs anymore, hey?!

Song of the Day:  Socratic – Curtain Call

Good ol’ New Jersey indie-rock.  Really like this one.

And as the plows drive by,
Oh I can hear a hum in the night,
past the lights on city hall,
loneliness takes its curtain call.
I’m left with me and my need to believe,
It’s a wonderful life, afterall…

Sometimes you suddenly find yourself in one of those moments when your whole life (or what you’ve experienced of it so far) blends into just one single moment, a snapshot of time that could have been taken in any year.

I’m sat enjoying a glass of Jupiler and a weinerschnitzel in the central entertainment and dining area of a Center Parcs holiday village in the North of Belgium.  I’m surrounded by a mixture of couples and families, and when I lean back, palm leaves tickle the back of my neck.  The interior of this whole building has been set-up to look like a tropical paradise, and it’s a great little place to come on holiday.  It always has been.

It’s a Saturday evening and timeless Euro-pop hits reverberate around the large, glass dome building in which myself and all of the other holiday-goers sit.  Right now, the Macarena is playing.  It gets to the bit where the lady laughs because she (nobody could ever quite make out what, despite valiantly straining to hear) to the boy who ‘was no good’ (in fact, she didn’t want him, nor could she even stand him, poor guy…).  At this precise moment I could just as easily be looking into the display of a classic digital Casio watch at a date that reads something like the 30^th of July 1996, whilst my older sister walks ahead of me, urging me not to dawdle as we make our way out of the ‘Parc Plaza’ (as the glass dome is more formally known) following an early evening swim.  Los Del Rio’s Macarena was probably playing back then, too, only at that time it was a brand new, chart-topping hit that had swathes of people across the Continent attempting to master its dance routine.  That’s quite the contrast to the tune now associated with 1:30am and the musical downturn on a night out at some sticky-floored bar with purple walls in Lancashire, or drunk old men jigging around at wedding parties with the remains of a mushroom vol au vent stuck to the soles of their white leather loafers.  In 1996, the tune was an emblem of class.  Or so my memory serves…

Why is it so easy to envision this moment of the past with such detail?  We used to come here – to this very same place – as a family, every Summer from 1994-1999.  We visited again in 2004 and 2007.  My sister came here last Summer with her family, and this year I’m back again with my parents.  With the exception of a few recreational additions dotted around here and there the place hasn’t changed a bit in 22 years, and that’s a good thing.  Familiarity is such that I can still remember my way around the whole village.  Virtually the only thing that’s changed since our jaunts in the 1990’s, is that these days I’ll opt to while away the time by quietly sitting and writing whilst sipping on a Jupiler, rather than scavenge around the adventure playground and pester the parents for a Chupa-Chup.  Other than that, time may as well have stood still for a couple of decades.

A young waiter, with smooth skin and a hairstyle that looks as though he took along a picture of legendary children’s game ‘Kerplunk’ with him to the barbers, approaches my table.  The child inside of me – that has never quite gone away – imagines that he’s the sort of person that 10 year old me would have had a bit of a crush on.  10 year old Sophie would probably have walked through the Café very slowly each day in hope of catching sight of him, with my head and neck at the most peculiar angles if it meant I could increase my chances of doing so.  A swift glimpse would be sweet enough; but success at scoping out the moniker on the name-badge would be akin to a lottery win.  I’d send half a dozen postcards home to my school friends talking about “fittie waiter Jean-Luc” (and pronounce it, ‘Gene Luck’) as though he was some imperial being that I would one day end up marrying, even though we had never, and would never still, exchange any words.

For the 30-year old me, Jean-Luc’s (not his actual name) role within my holiday is much less of a romantic dream and more-so a formality.  I need Jean-Luc’s assistance in helping me settle the bill for my beer and schnitzel, a process which is straightforward enough back home, but becomes marginally more complex with a language barrier in place.  When it comes to foreign language, I would in no way consider myself to be an ignoramus, far from it.  I can speak basic French, basic German, basic Bahasa Indonesia… but barely a single word of Flemish, the native language of this part of Belgium.  Nonetheless, I would like to try.  Nothing annoys me more (well that’s not true, but figure of speech and all that jazz), than people who go abroad and don’t even try to accustom themselves to the local language.  As Jean-Luc approaches my table, I desperately rack my mind for any hint of what ‘Can I get the bill please?’ could possibly be in Flemish.  A number of foreign words and phrases learnt during school pass through the forefront of my mind in no logical arrangement – die Speisekarte, bitte!, je voudrais to pay, das schmeckt gut!, entschuldigang!, – but sadly, none of these is the one I’m looking for.  None of these are even Flemish, so when Jean-Luc eventually arrives at the table I’ve pretty much lost all chance of communicating with him in the way I would wish to.  Still determined to do so, I open my mouth and my brain does one final, last-minute rack of the limited foreign phrases within.  Consequently, something comes out:
“…N’errr…”.
There we have it.  That, my friends, is the shameful extent of where my modern language skills (or lack of them) has got me today – emitting a sound which when written phonetically is a word that doesn’t even exist – in any language – and which tapered off once I considered it probably more communicative to wave my debit card around in front of Jean-Luc.
“Follow me” he responded, and took me to the counter, where I settled the bill with no further issue beyond feeling completely hopeless at life.

The language barrier can be an enemy – as the example above indicates – but it can also be a friend.  Sometimes it’s bliss not to have any idea whatsoever of what the people around you are talking about.  There’s no danger of having an unpleasant commentary – which is usually enforced upon you – perforate the positive holiday vibes.  Yesterday we’d gone into a service station just north of Brussels, where a group of men were sat wolfing down plates of chicken and chips, a scene which I’d otherwise think nothing more of.  That was until we passed by their table as one of the party was regaling a story… “an’ ‘e (or ‘Annie’, I’m not quite sure) cayyyyme in and pisszhed all oahw-vah the floorrr”, he said, with a strong, Scouse accent.  Welcome to Belgium: a land of culinary excellence, enchanting forestry, and citizens who are incredibly polite and each own a bicycle with a basket on the front. The first noise you’ll hear is an especially vocal Liverpudlian who knows somebody with an unfortunate urinary habit, possibly the flame-haired little orphan of musical fame, Annie.

Another advantage of not knowing the language, is the amusement that can be sourced from looking over at other people, and imagining what they’re saying.  At the table in front of me as I ate my schnitzel, were a young-ish couple.  They were clearly having a romantic evening meal, their faces drawing ever closer together as they finished their drinks:

“What’s say, baby!  We’ve done dinner…wanna sleep together?”
“Hell yeah, sweet-cheeks”
“Great stuff.  Grab yer bright red waterproof Regatta jacket love, you’ve pulled”

In reality, the conversation was probably more like:

“Do you know what my favourite thing was about those chips?”
“That they came served in a paper cone?”
“… well, yes.  Yes that was my favourite thing about them.  *Short, awkward pause*.  Have I got any basil stuck between my teeth?”

Nonetheless, I preferred my own version, which was made all the more funnier when one of the two – the bearded male with the paunch – tripped over a randomly-placed child’s high chair as the pair got up to leave.  Inner snigger.

And speaking of leaving, it’s probably my turn.  The bill for my weinerschnitzel has thankfully been settled now, thanks to the help of my old pal Gene-Luck, and it’s time for me to snooze.  Nonetheless, this has been great fun.  An evening of writing, relaxing, and observing.  Bliss.

Song of the Day:  Ezra Furman – Anything Can Happen

This chap from Illinois is my current musical obsession.  If this ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ song doesn’t get you up and moving about, nothing will!

A selection of things that got me thinking… happy Autumn x

Saturday Morning Coffee

I’ve decided that Saturday morning coffee tastes the best.
I like to make myself a nice frothy cup of the stuff, and look out the window at the rooftops, trees and the sky.  I just appreciate the time to be still, to really absorb how slowly the clouds move, and – in an infant-like way- wonder how high I can actually see.  And even though it’s just a standard view from a window… once again I’m reminded of how mesmerising nature can be just to look at; how soft and how calming.  I find that the coffee accompanies this moment well, and once these fifteen minutes of solace are up, it’s back to action…

When’s your favourite time for coffee?

Blogger’s Response to a Response

Minor rant time…
I have found myself becoming increasingly irritated with the number of virals I see all over the internet – especially on ‘news’ sites – about somebody’s ‘hilarious/genius/spectacular/any other superfluous adjective’ response to something else.  I’m talking about those photographs of hand-written notes, or instant messenger screenshots pertaining to a personal conversation that somebody feels they simply must ‘share’ with the world wide web so that it can be viewed 5 million times over:

‘Mum’s hilarious letter to teenage son’
‘Woman’s stern reply to Man’ etc etc

I’ve seen around a dozen of these on the internet lately and every time I read them I can’t help but wonder whether what appears to be a quest for internet fame has made a redundancy of the basic principle of being genuine.  It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if people just wrote these things on purpose just to earn some large-scale acclaim, and that’s what gets to me.  Things become a lot less powerful or funny if they’ve been edited to entertain to the point where they deviate from sincerity, and so seldom whilst reading these things do I ever think they’re clever in any way.
And in writing of the above… I realised I’m probably making further steps to officially becoming a grumpy old lady… but whatever, I just wish these things wouldn’t be considered ‘news’.
Now, to screenshot the above couple of paragraphs and send it into The Mirror online…

The Sandal That Couldn’t Go On Holiday

Slightly fitting to the above, and further to something similar I wrote about in May, I’ve always found the most amusing things in life to be the quotes or situations that haven’t been scripted in advance.
Most recently, there was an incident involving a shoe and a Eurostar departure lounge, in which a somewhat perplexed looking assistant had approached a friend and I with a rather grotesque looking dark brown sandal dangling from her little finger.

“Is this yours?  It’s only just been found… must belong to somebody who recently passed through security”

Despite any possible urge to claim the sandal as our own, we confirmed that it was neither of ours, and the assistant carried on and asked the next sets of people the same thing, prompting the same bemused replies.
A few minutes later, a puzzled sounding call came out from the tannoy…

“Err if anyone’s lost a brown sandal, please come to Customer Services to claim”

But it seemed that nobody did; at least not in the initial 15 minutes after the announcement.  Perhaps they were concerned that an immediate appearance would identify them to all around as the careless owner of the dark brown sandal, or maybe they had no idea that anything of theirs had even been misplaced, and would arrive in Southern France about to merrily take a stroll along the promenade only to find that they would have to do so with just one shoe.
…I will forever ponder the ultimate fate of that sandal…

Song of the Day:  Way Yes – Macondo

Soothing stuff for an Autumnal Saturday morning.  Fresh out of Ohio…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQOQyTboc2k

I recently came across this image online, and I liked it a lot.  The quote comes from an inspiring publication called ‘Life’s Little Instruction Book’ by the American author, H. Jackson Brown Jr, and for me it makes a lot of sense in the context of today’s globalised society.

Native English speakers often forget how lucky we are to be naturally fluent in a language that is widely considered to be the universal one, despite the fact that Chinese and Spanish speakers are more prevalent.  Yes, we learn foreign languages in school, but even as we might struggle trying to learn key sentences like, “Ich wohne in einem Reihenhaus” (I live in a terraced house) or “J’ai une chat qui s’appelle Fluff” (I have a cat called Fluff) we know that essentially, wherever we go in the world, we’ll probably never be too far away from somebody who can speak a bit of English, and can help us out if we really need it.   That’s the reality, but we should never take it for granted…

…Sadly, there have been numerous occasions in which I’ve been abroad and felt embarrassed by fellow Brits, who just steam-roll into shops or restaurants and start booming out requests in English, expecting an immediate response and showing visible frustration if one isn’t forthcoming.  How difficult could it be just to learn – at the very least – one simple translation of “Do you speak English?” before rattling along with an urgent order of steak and chips?  Not all of us can pick up foreign languages, I know I struggle (and was explicitly told NOT to do German A-Level by a horrified looking German teacher when I mentioned I was considering it); but one simple sentence is all it needs to take to distinguish between common courtesy, and latent ignorance.

I will always have the utmost respect for those who persevere at learning other languages to the point where you feel that you can hold a conversation with them that knows no boundaries.  When I did the volunteering out in Indonesia, I was the lucky one.  English was, again, considered the universal language of the project, and I was the only one for whom it was my native tongue.  I can honestly say that some of the best conversations I’ve ever had were whilst out there speaking with the Indonesians and the other trainees, who came from all over the world.  I felt able to speak amongst those people as I would around people from home, such was their impressive command of English, to the point where I would often forget about the language barrier altogether.  I could never imagine being able to speak another language as well as they did English, and for that I feel a sense of shame.  It’s one thing to know how to describe the town you live, or to explain that you enjoy going to the cinema on Fridays and eating ice-cream, but if that was the limit to which everybody could speak a different language, then the world would be nowhere near as multicultural or diverse a place as it is today.  There’s a whole chasm of difference between the lingual intensity of sentences like those, and the more complex sentences which form the majority of our conversations with our fellow Brits.

And so, relating back to the original quote, when people who have learned English as a second language might apologise to us for their broken sentences (perhaps in response to the kind of vitriolic Brits mentioned earlier, who are just cross that they’ve needed to repeat themselves a couple of times), I always find myself thinking that the apology would make far more sense coming from the other way around…

We should just be grateful for the fact they’re trying!

Song of the Day:  Rita Marley – So Much Things to Say

…The bit when she sings about how rain falls over multiple roofs – as opposed to just one – always springs into my mind whenever I find myself stuck in a heavy rain shower, as seems to have happened quite a few times this month 🙂  Lovely song…

This month, I couldn’t decide which particular topic to write about, so instead I’ve decided to write a brief bit about three nice elements from my Bank Holiday Weekend 🙂 Enjoy x

Moments of Nothingness…

Yesterday I took my bike out and went for an explore.  I didn’t really know where I was going, and looking back – I don’t even know where I really went – but I did, at one point, find a very nice spot of meadow upon which to sit and chill.  And so that’s what I did, for around twenty minutes or so.  Everything was silent, apart from a bit of breeze whispering through the grass.  A handful of people were out walking their dogs, but I couldn’t even hear a yelp.  There were cars in the distance, but they didn’t make a sound, they just… floated… like everything else around me at the time seemed to do.  It seemed that all I had for company were a few subtle rays of sunshine beating onto my shoulders, and the fresh scent of cow parsley.

It was all very peaceful and my little love affair with Kent intensified just a little bit more… what a wonderful place this can be for finding somewhere in which you can awaken the senses, and just ‘be’.

Moments of nothingness…
Nothing extraordinary to report;
Nothing ordinary to dismiss.
When I can lose myself in exploration of my thoughts…
Every day, needs a moment of nothingness…

And now for something of a somewhat different tone…

Can YOU see any ships?

It’s always the unscripted, random things in life that I find the most funny, and you can always rely upon a day out at an English Heritage site to experience something like that.

Today we visited Walmer Castle, a Tudor fort opposite the sea-front, near to Deal, that was constructed in the 16th century at the instruction of King Henry VIII.
In one of the castle’s many rooms, an old brass telescope stands on a tripod in front of a small window that overlooks the sea.  A sign stands next to it, “Can You See Any Ships?”.  The intention is obviously for a younger clientele to take a look through the instrument and activate their imaginations by believing that anonymous objects looming on the horizon are menacing French and Spanish ships, sailing over to invade.

It would have made for an interesting view I’m sure, but unfortunately all I got was a close-up of an elderly lady leaning against one of the bastions outside and looking dreadfully disappointed, most probably unaware that she was in the direct line of the telescope.

…It did make me chuckle…. and despite trying to intake as much as I could of Walmer Castle’s hundreds of years of fascinating history, the moody lady in the telescope will probably be the thing I remember the most.

And finally…

My mum recently brought down all her old family diaries from the attic for us to read through.  She’s kept a diary since the 1970s (clearly being the inspiration for me to keep my own, as I have done for nearly twenty years now), and I’m so glad she has.  Being still somewhat ‘young’, I have often believed and assumed my memory to be a good one, but reading through mum’s old diaries, I realise that there are many things that I have long since forgotten.  Some of the entries have also served to stitch additional patches to memories which within my mind are only fleeting, fractured and without context.

One such example is a fleeting memory I have of saying goodbye to my grandfather as he and my cousins got into a beige car outside of a house where the walls of the hall were peacock blue and seemed massively tall…  Reading the diaries, it turns out that this was actually a memory from a party held at my other grandfather’s house at 31 South Road, Faversham, during the Summer of 1988.  We had spent most of the afternoon in the back garden and I had played with a blonde-haired little boy called Ben who lived in the house next door.  Grandad Faversham had a miniature train and track in his back garden that people could ride down the garden on, and at the party there had – apparently – been a hidden tension between he and my mum over the fact that he was considering getting rid of it, much to mum’s disapproval.

The above occasion may not sound particularly notable, but reading back through the diaries it made me quite sad to think how susceptible our ‘memories’ are to a natural erosion over the years.  It’s nice to occasionally reminisce, and remember, and place everything into it’s context.  It’s interesting to look back and see – in daily detail – just how we ended up where we did.

I hope that one day somebody will find my diaries as interesting as I find my mum’s…

Song of the Day:  The Sugargliders – Ahprahran

Australian ‘twee pop’ from the early 1990s about life in a suburb of Melbourne called Prahran.  Pretty sweet stuff.

I am almost thirty years old.

In recent years a love of travel and a penchant for curiosity have lead me towards all kinds of adrenalin-induced danger;  I have taken nocturnal taxis in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, a city with one of the highest rates of homicide in the world, whilst drive-by shootings have actively been taking place.  I have been – unwittingly – near recruited into a Saudi harem off the coast of Egypt after making a naive decision with two friends, and I have traversed down Nicaraguan volcanoes on nothing but a sheet of second-hand formica.  I have been dining in West Sumatran cafes as minor earthquakes have taken place on the ground beneath my feet, and been hurled along the wild water rapids of the Ottawa river on a piece of foam…

… But when my mother requests that I go no further than the hotel bar as I enjoy a few Pelforths on the final night of our trip to Lille, France, I duly oblige.  As much as I’d love to be in the midst of the city, absorbing the Lille life for what it really is and scribbling observational notes about it accordingly, I am not about to disobey my mother.  To do so would present a guilt much more terrifying than any of the above, and so I remain enclosed in the sparse bar area of the Novotel hotel, on Rue de L’hopital Militaire, a few steps away from the Grand Place.

Initially, I am sceptical of the potential for this modern-looking space to provide me with the most encapsulating opportunities to do some observational writing, and my early experiences do little to suggest otherwise.  There is really not much going on.  A middle-aged trio are propped against the bar.  They speak in broken English and the only word I can really make out is, “money”.  Very little to go on, here…

The bar area is certainly nothing like the vibrant space that it was yesterday morning, when a group of teenage girls sporting navy tracksuit emblazoned with the word ‘France’, sat drinking coffee and taking selfies over bowls of Muesli, clearly on their way to a tournament of some sporting variety.  No, the bar is a very different place this evening, and I am not confident that I will be able to source much in the way of ‘writing material’, which is what I wanted to use the final night of my trip for.

“Well there are bound to be interesting people coming in and out of the hotel at all times,” Mum had earlier declared, in her valiant attempts to convince me that the creative writing spark of this particular trip could be ignited from within the security of a hotel, and not from behind the dusted doorway of a backstreet bar I had tiptoed into the day before in my search for cigarettes.  A gaunt man with a stubbled face had lead me back out onto the street to motion towards “le Tabac….. rouge……” – the only information required for me to spot the iconic red diamond-shaped logo of a tobacconist, several hundred yards along the road.  “This would be a great place to people watch, and write about it”, I had thought to myself as I’d entered the bar, but mum’s later plea was to pour cold water over that idea.

Completing a sentence in my notebook, I look at the table in front of me.  On top of it is a round, plastic device with four options on it – ‘Annuler’, symbolised by a cross, ‘Addition’, symbolised by a Euro sign, ‘Appel’, symbolised by a bell, and ‘Commander’ – symbolised by a human figure.  A line above the device helpfully translates that it’s purpose is to ‘Call us, we are coming’, and I realise that before me is installed another classic creation of the lazy 21st century.  “Look”, I point to mum, who is ensconced in her chick-lit novel.  She fails to see the value of the device.  “Why don’t you just go up and order?”.  She proffers a valid point, since the bar is a mere five metres away from us.  I agree with her sentiment, but also want to make the most of this magnificent machine.  Besides which, my feet are pained from the blisters caused by a much-betrodden pair of ill-fitting new boots, and right now, even just five metres seems like an ominous incline that I am loathed to trek at this moment in time.

I press the ‘Commander‘ button and within moments a tall lady with a perfectly-rounded bob approaches the table.  She genuinely appears delighted that she finally has something to do, and takes her time in preparing my fresh glass of Heineken, which comes back to me in the form of half-lager, half-froth.  Thankfully for this lady I am not one to judge.  I am instead mesmerised at the success of the plastic device, and hate myself for being so.

As I come across a pause in my flow of thought, mum is keen to point out that the author’s photo – as featured in the inset of the book she is reading – is similar in appearance to a family friend.  I have no idea to whom she is referring but hum along in agreement anyway.  Mum is clearly pleased with her observation.

It is at this point that I head outside for a cigarette.  Puffing on a representative of Pall Mall vertes, I muse on the disgusting nature of this habit and once again assert to myself that this is something I must quit.  “Once the holiday is over, no more cigarettes”, a voice within dictates.  However, I am a realist at heart, and concede that even should I dispose of an empty box at Ebbsfleet International upon our arrival home, it won’t be long before a pack of Sterling Fresh Taste finds its way into my bag.  Perhaps it’s time to try harder.

Back in my seat, mum is clearly still enthused in her book, scribed by the apparent double of family friend P.  She has but half a centimetre of pages left to pore through.

The hotel bar remains empty and this is proving not to be the source of creative inspiration I was planning it to be.  Oh, but maybe it is?  In sheer relaxation there is creativity to be found.  Just by being affixed to a piece of foreign furniture, in a foreign bar, in a foreign land, one can assert a sense of fresh interest and enthusiasm in the world.  And the truth is that this is probably the climate in which I feel most susceptible to allowing the rush of creativity to flood through my veins.

“I wish somebody would pay me to travel the world, and write about it”, I think to myself – and not for the first, second, third or even fiftieth time in my life.  But even then, in that most idyllic sounding of circumstances, I can envision that doing so would actually be quite a lonely job, with little scope to build a home.

I press the ‘Commander’ button on the small plastic device and feel a sense of guilt for the consequent pause in chatter between the two bar staff.

My index-finger has served as a reminder that there is work to be done.

Song of the Day: Locksley – The Way That We Go

Criminally under-rated Wisconsin band who describe their unique sound as “doo-wop punk” – what’s not to love?  This is the kind of song you can have on loop for days, and never get tired of.

There is really a whole lot more I could say on this matter, but I’ve got the Christmas Flu (which typically arrived on the big day itself), and at the moment it just feels like somebody’s shoved a cork in my brain.

But what I will say is that (sneeze) the above sentiment has been one that has become particularly apparent to me this year; when certain situations have reminded me of the complexities of human life – not just in terms of the things that can happen, but how they can make us feel inside…

Just remember – you are an individual human being.  You are the only you that exists in the world today, and both before – and after you have lived – regardless of how much time elapses… there will never be another you.

You are not just a gingerbread creation that was shaped by the same cutter used upon all the rest.  Don’t even try to be.  Because neither is anyone else, even though sometimes you might think that they are.

But that’s why we’re all so fascinating…

…Embrace it.  Enjoy it.  Because all too often, I think we forget it.

Song of the Day: AlgoRhythmiK – A Guide to Happiness

Another by-chance Spotify discovery, but this has definitely been one of my favourite tunes over the past few weeks. I have absolutely no idea how I could describe this music, apart from that it’s some of the strangest I’ve ever heard… but what I do know is that if the mash-up of old country ditty ‘Hamburger Hop’ with some electro-beats that starts at approximately 1:55 minutes into the song doesn’t make you want to want to dance, we’d probably be a bit of a mismatch when hitting the tiles…