I had to trespass on private property to take these pictures.

Me and my friends used to play here when were young kids. There was a rope swing on one of the trees. The land owner kept cutting it down, but somebody always put up another one. Sometimes we used to play Army, splitting into teams and running around with sticks in our hands, trying to capture the enemies. Whoever says that kids living in the countryside have a more boring life than kids living in large towns or cities, they're totally wrong. All we ever needed were our friends, our imagination, and somewhere to run around.

Now instead of just being a link to the blogs I like, I am now using my blogroll to keep track of comments I've made on other peoples blogs.

This is because:
For a while now, I've kept track of my comments on other blogs by saving a link in a folder within Favourites in Internet Explorer. I was thinking recently, that it might be a fun idea to let other people see the comments I make on other blogs. Also, recently I started reading all my favourite blogs within a program called SharpReader, so I no longer have the need for my blogroll for the purpose of checking my favourite blogs for new posts.

The good thing about this is, the more interesting I find a blog, the more likely I am to comment on it, and therefore the more likely it is that it will get linked to on my blog in this way. It should be fun, because if people like my blog, then they might be interested in specific posts which have caught my interest.

To the left:


Straight ahead:


To the right:

Railway Bridge 

Due to my ongoing newfound mental & emotional stability which has blessed me over the last few months, lately I seam to have brief moments of absolute perfection. They seam to happen when I'm out by myself, either walking or in my car.

One happened a couple of weeks ago at the weekend. I went for a walk up on the hill. There was nothing particularly special going on. It was somewhere I had been many times, and the day was slightly overcast. But I was overwhelmed with this sense of joy at just being, just simply being, just being me and being around nature and passing other people walking along the lane. It was nothing I could put into words at the time. I felt no anxiety at wishing anyone was there with me to share the joy, I just simply allowed myself to experience it, and in that moment that's all that mattered. This is what I believe true happiness is. It's not a material thing, it can't be bought. It's not about a particular place. It's not even about another person. It's simply about finding a natural joy within yourself which only happens when your mental/physical/emotional health is totally in balance.

The most recent one happened on thursday evening. I was driving my car up the hill out of my small town. I was on my way to another town for my yoga class. It began to snow, and as my headlights eluminated the falling snow in front of my car, I began to feel a similar feeling again, like nothing even mattered, and I was just right there in that moment, just me as myself, experiencing the beauty of these white droplets of joy falling from the sky. I felt totally free, I was on my way to something I enjoyed doing. It wasn't even about that really though, it was the sense of freedom and peace. As the journey went on, the snow got heavier, and as I drove along the roads, I began to get hynotised by the eluminated droplets speeding towards my eyes, and I almost went into a trance. It was like sliding into another dimension, whatever that's like.

And to think that, not so long ago, I used to be a complete mental headcase with anxiety, obsessions, bizarre phobias, etc, etc, etc.

And people go on and on about what life is about, about you should do this, you should do that, all about careers and meating the right people and doing the right things, challenging yourself and achieving things. Some people even talk about religion and God and all those kinds of things. All of it is complete nonsense. Every last bit of it. ALL THAT REALLY MATTERS IS YOUR HEALTH. Get that right, and everything else will naturally slide into place.

I used to desperately clutch onto things, onto ideas and meanings and activities, obsessively, like they were all that were keeping me afloat in the stormy waters of my disturbed mental state. I didn't even realise at the time that I actually had several physical things wrong with me which were making me feel like that.

But now I'm experiencing something I don't think I EVER experienced previously in my life. The ability to just be.

Such a dramatic change, simply from using eating the right diet and using special nutritional supplements to reduce my high histamine level.

Of course, the St John's Wort probably has something to do with it too though. Although it's not the whole solution, because I was taking it for a while previously, and I never felt quite like this before. This is something entirely different. This is what it's like to be healthy and normal.

I'll probably be able to stop taking the St John's Wort eventually. But what's the rush? It's totally safe. I've never experienced any side effects from it at all. And it has various other health benefits too, such as fighting infections. To put it into perspective, even if I did end up taking it for the rest of my life, I'd still be 100 times better off than all the millions of people in the world who smoke, drink alchohol, smoke cannabis and take caffeine every day, all of which are actually known to be harmful to your health (Some health reports say that a small amound of alcohol in moderation is good for your heart, but this is overshadowed by the fact that it is an antinutrient, which means it kills nutrients - also, it is addictive, so people do actually often struggle with the "in moderation" side of the equation. If you're healthy anyway, your heart will be perfectly healthy anyway.). Not to mention the worse drugs. I don't do any of those things. All I do is take a safe herb which has no side effects, causes no health problems, and just simply makes my already wonderful state of being just that bit more perfect.

I just don't care. This is it, right how I am these days. This is pure happiness. Even if I died at 50, I don't care, if I get 24 years of this happiness, it's worth a million years of how I used to be.

Actually, depsite what the wonderful Patrick Holford says in his nutrition books about living healthily to a grand old age, I don't actually think I want that. If I'm still around when I'm in my 50s, I'll probably take up a few extreme sports. I'm a bit accident prone. Actually, it's quite an achievement that I've lasted 26 years without dancing naked off a tall building, it really does amaze me. Random thoughts: Flip-flops are stupid. Trees are lovely. Ban nude hang-gliding.

All the pretty girls have boyfriends.
All the good jobs are gone.
Lessons learned are almost too late.
But it's never too late
To rediscover yourself,
To stand on the hilltop
Within your mind,
Within your dreams,
Running in slow motion towards a clifftop,
Falling into the sky,
Floating away on a summer breeze,
To a lake by a beach by a mountain in the heat of the stars of the midnight sun,
Moonlit and a marble wind,
Hilltop and gravestone red,
Warm and cold like an eagle in love,
With a sheep and a lake,
And a woman running,
Falling
Into time.

Cold Sunny Day

Currently listening to: Jean-Michel Jarre - Oxygene 7-13. Created in 1997, this was a revisit to the theme of 1976's Oxygene album, using a combination of old and new electronic musical technology. I actually prefer this to the original Oxygene. I think it's what Jarre would have made had the technology been around in 1976.

He may be old and French, but he makes great synth tunes!

Anyway, check out his official website. Click on Discography, you can hear snippets of all the tracks from every album he's ever made. Particularly worthy of note are:

• Equinoxe (1978)
• Magnetic Fields (1981)
• The Concerts In China (1982)
• Revolutions (1988)
• Chronologie (1994)
• Oxygene 7-13 (1997)

What am I thinking in this picture? Post a comment with your suggestion. Whoever comes up with the funniest suggestion gets a nice big bold link to their blog.

BAN ALL BAD THINGS

This is me, transformed by Robin

September 

June 

June 

Recommended listening:

Tangerine Dream
- Das Mädchen auf der Treppe, which is an updated version of White Eagle (1982)
- Le Parc (theme tune to Streethawk) (1985)
- Hyperborea (1983)
- 2nd half of Tangent (from the Poland live album) (1984)
- Kiew Mission (1981)
- Choronzon (1981)

Jean-Michel Jarre
- Equinoxe parts 3 & 7 (1978)
- Oxygene part 7 (1997)
- Industrial Revolution (1988)
- Magnetic Fields part 4 (live version from the Concerts In China) (1982)
- Chronologie parts 2 & 4 (1994)

Kraftwerk
- The Robots (1991)

Monday night's dream:
I was working as a chef for Gordon Ramsay, but I found him so unbearable that I got in my car and drove off. I ended up lost on my way home, and I was up on some countryside road up on a hill, in the middle of nowhere. The car felt odd, so I parked it over at the side, and realised that one of the tyres had burst. Then a fat guy who I hadn't seen since school (but who I saw in real life at the petrol station a few days ago) drove up next to me and said, "I thought I'd find you here." I had the sense that he was going to save me. There were other vague aspects of the dream that I can't really remember, such as various sexy young women at a leisure centre, or something like that, I can't really remember.

I know exactly everything which caused this dream...
- I went for a walk up on the hill on Sunday, along a country road
- I watched a program about Gordon Ramsay
- I saw that fat guy at the petrol station
- I've been watching my DVDs of the Brittas Empire
- I started a new job on Monday
- I got stuck in traffic on the way home

And last but definately not least:
- The place I work is full of young women walking about in tight trousers. Nothing else means anything. As long as there are young women walking around in tight trousers, the entire day from start to finish gets my vote!

I'm currently listening to the Pet Shop Boys' Very album. I'd totally forgotten how great it is! You see, I've not got it on tape to listen to in my car. I made a tape with the albums Actually and Introspective on it (minus the last song of Introspective due to space on the tape), so I'd be listening to that mostly lately. But recently I wanted to listen to some Pet Shop Boys music at my computer, and I put Very on, and it's really very good!

I decided to see what would happen if I tried typing really specific phrases within quotation marks into Google. I then decided it might be fun to list the websites found via such a method. I then decided it would be even more fun to show a picture from each website.

I love my waterproof socks


I want to wear your clothes


My feet are on fire


I fell over and broke my ankle


If only I could fill my heart with love


Is it to the sky?

I am evil

Introspection
An altered version of someone elses picture

Who needs London when you've got a city as gorgeous as this much closer to you?!

Countryside near Bath:









I think this was the last time I visited Bath. I parked at the Park & Ride car park just outside of Bath, and then instead of riding on the bus into the city, I walked along the Cotswold Way which leads into Bath via some lovely countryside. The idea originally was then to catch the bus back out to the car park, but instead, I just carried on walking and walked round in a loop, through the city, up through the houses, and back up onto the hill where the carpark was.

It was a lovely day.