Things To Make Me Smile (and a few things that annoy me)
I always thought that I was bad at blogging because I had a boring life. Well recently I’ve been doing THINGS so it seems I’m just really rubbish at writing about it! I’m not going to list off all of the things I’ve been doing – in fairness it’s not really a long list, but it’s more than two things so that definitely constitutes as being a list right?
Today I took the day off work to go and get my eyes tested. It seems my vari-focals will see me through for another year or two and after that I’m reverting back to single vision lens because I tend to use my reading glasses for all things bar seeing. My eyes are complicated – long sighted/shortsighted/astigmatism <- I should point out that I do only have two eyes but one of them has two defects, just in case you were getting carried away with notions. When I was finished with the opticians I decided to drop into the library. Now this is no longer my local library – but it was when I was growing up and I remember the joy of being able to go from taking books out upstairs in the children’s section to taking out books from the grown-ups library downstairs. Of course all of that has changed now but the memories were wonderful. I went in and although it’s smaller, it definitely felt like they had more books than my local disappointment. I decided to take out a book anyway – I mean, how daring! and yes it does mean I have to go back and return it in a few weeks but that’s no great hardship really – ok maybe the parking is – but…
The book-du-jour is “A Nice Cup of Tea” by Celia Imrie
I’ve listened to the Audio books of the other two in the series and they were lovely! “Not Quite Nice” & “Nice Work (If You Can Get It)” were both read by the author herself and believe me when I say she really has the voice for audio books – absolutely delicious! This trilogy (so far a trilogy) is about a group of British Ex-Pats, plus Carol the American, all living in Bellevue-sur-Mer, along the coast from Cannes. I don’t want to spoil it but it’s basically about their friendships and adventures. I’m almost tempted to compare it to the Famous Five, if they had all retired to the south of France. The south of France is also why there’s so many plays on the Nice and the British nice.
Anyway – I’m off to put the kettle on, this has put me in the mood for a nice cup of tea, and I’ve a book to be reading!
This is probably a post that should be over on the blog with the photos, but I decided that this was the place I wanted it to be.
I love nothing more than a rainy day. It’s even better if I’m sitting inside – a cup of tea in hand, cosy socks and slippers – if it’s in the cooler months, add a warm jumper or oodie – maybe watching some old film. It all invokes that mood of being cocooned and safe. It’s possibly part of that Hygge definition – that cosiness is highlighted against the not so cosy weather outside.
The above is the stereotypical notion of being indoors when it’s raining. However, for me, I like to sit next to the window – if there’s a stair to be sat on that’s a double win, but I like to be next to the window to watch the rain. Not the rain outside, but the raindrops coursing down the window. It’s hypnotic. It allows the mind to wander away and come back to what’s in front of you. Watching how each trickle can distort the background, how some will join up and become larger and change the pattern it leaves behind.
I love the comfort and the solitude it invokes.
This little video/reel was recorded one evening, using the time-lapse option on my phone. I like the increased sense of movement that you don’t always get with rain – and because it was still early evening the light outside was sill bright enough to see beyond the window. So click on it – press play and enjoy the clip of music that it going with it.
The internet feels as if it is changing again. There’s things I miss about the (my) early days – I miss websites, I miss LiveJournal – when your friends page was just your friends posts, in the order they are published. Facebook is still just a small amount of people reposting other peoples posts – there’s no personal content – there’s nothing to show you how your friends are. I know I’m as guilty as others but I do post updates too, which seems to be a rarity. I love Instagram, but it now all seems to be about businesses – I just want to post photos with no alternative reasons. I fell away from Flickr but I think I will go back to it – because I take more photos than I post and I should post a bit more, so I think Flickr will start being a home for all sorts. I like TikTok but I only watch, I don’t do tiktoks – the closest I get to it is when I hear my alarm clock at night but that’s more ticktock than tiktok. I’m also on Twitter but I’m hearing that there are death knells in the offing. I’ve signed up to Mastadon but haven’t actually figured it out and I’m not sure I really want to.
So that is my lament. My other lament is the fact that I’m terrible at blogging – I am – the previous post is from Easter and it’s only a miracle that it’s Easter of this year!
I’ve renamed this blog from Comfy Corner to My Corner of the Internet and I’m going start posting here with hopefully a bit more frequency. The reposts from Facebook, the updates, the brief updates that would be twitter, a few reposts of other peoples work on the likes of Insta & TikTok – my own photos from insta & flickr will be over on the photo blog. I am too spread-out and it’s time to start to consolidate it all.
I’m tempted to say Stay Tuned to this station but going on my previous record, I won’t be that cruel! However, I do hope to do better!
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248613587058216961
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248621427860754434
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248634812971220993
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248638461751496707
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248640633167843328
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248644666955829258
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248648241345966083
It is that time of year again when the lovely Reverend tweets his Stations of the Cross. I have always been stunned by his choice of photos to illustrate the message.
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248506062166089731
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248518197743104001
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248531222395043845
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248535478690820097
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248563932232548353
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248583228333621250
https://twitter.com/RevRichardColes/status/1248589227920707585
There have been many times, when I was in work, that I wished I could just spend the afternoon reading my book. It seems the reading bug has bitten again – this should been seen in a celebratory light however as I’m working from home at the moment it means falling for temptation is all too easy. This morning I spotted a tweet from a friend:-
https://twitter.com/johnreppion/status/1247302792391405569
– and he’s right! There is something comforting in that vintage detective fiction. In the last day or two I’ve been reading a J.Jefferson Farjeon book from the British Library Crime Classics.
Sometimes he can be a bit florid in his narrative and that made it a little difficult to get into, however the chase has started, and I don’t know why, but I am thinking it might be something a long the lines of The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan – we will have to wait and see – not that, that’s a bad thing I must add. As I’m a slow reader this will take me a while yet – but I’ll let you know how I get on…
Sadly I must return to work and the book has to be left in a different room, just so I’m not tempted to pick it up for a minute/hour or two.
John Reppion. (Who is also a good read!)
I’ve been seeing them a lot on social media lately – that might be because I started to follow them recently (Who Knew?!).
ANYWAY! One of their prints has caught my eye and I think next week will see me being the proud owner of this:
This picture (☝) is by Marta Barcikowska, actually they have a lot of pictures that I think I need to get. Last year I picked up this little beauty:
If you like the two that I have shown, here are a few links for Jam Art Factory:
Website: http://jamartprints.com
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/jamartfactory/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jam_art_factory/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamartfactory
Pay them a visit online or in person
I love the work of Raymond Briggs! So it is with great joy and glee to read on the Ethel & Ernest blog that there is a trailer for the up and coming film by Lupus films. October 28th is now in the diary and I can’t wait!!!!
(Trailer via Flickeringmyth)
I love listening to the radio – I have one in every room in the apartment even the smallest room!
Actually, that’s not exactly true – I did have a radio on my locker but retired it for the telly. What I mean by that is we get the radio through the television and the signal is much, much better! However this morning two things happened to be bring the radio back to the locker – I woke up in time to listen to Gloria on LyricFM and the remotes were over on his locker. The radio was found, plugged in and I snuggled back down to listen. It really was glorious! The reception wasn’t too bad either.
Speaking of reception – I mentioned earlier that reception is better on the telly – well that’s not really worth anything if there’s no electricity! As was the case last week. I had just gotten off the bus when all of the house alarms started going off. It seems that when the electricity fails you don’t get silence these days. I do like having no electricity – it’s like an adventure! Anyway with no telly or internets there was only the radio left! So out came my transistor (I don’t think they can be called a tranny any more) and the reception of BBC radio 4 was PERFECT! We listened away ’til the lights came back and at that point all of the static electricity that was being generated completely destroyed the reception. Now I know some will go what did you expect but it had never dawned on me before – yes, electrical weather but household, no!
Here is my old faithful –
I’ve had her for too many years than I’d care to admit to!
My Corner of The Internet 