This World, This Life

  Today has been a good day.  It's not quite 11 in the evening, and I'm sitting on the balcony in my old and rickety IKEA rocking chair that I fear is nearing the end of its useful life. (It come to all things, including ourselves. But do not think I am coming to that stage - far from it.  So please don't worry - as if you would!)  The day was hot, approaching 30C I think, not bad for early September in Warsaw, and even now it's a comfortable 19C and in my old blue shorts and new black Red Hot Chilli Peppers tee, I'm warm. I have a chilled Lech beer on the table beside me, a full belly from My Beloved's cooking, and the sublime music of Mozart fills my ears.  It truly is a fine ending to a fine day, and I feel thankful and satisfied with my life right now. Of course, it hasn't always been so.  There have been trials to face and there will be more I doubt not.  It's what we humans have to go through (probably all living things do, come to think of it). An

  I've been a bit blocked lately. Not in the digestive-y way, you understand, but....well, in the head. Which is why there's not been a lot posted so far this year. My Muse, always a bit hit and miss for me, has buggered off.  Again. Truth to tell, I'm out of ideas.  No inspiration.  Not for blogs, not for longer stuff like short stories. Or essays  And as for complete book length writing.......not a snowball in Hells chance! ----------------------------------------------------------------- I mean, it's not as though is there is nothing going on in the world to bring a little inspiration. There's Putin's War for a start, but I've lost a little bit of, I suppose, focus as it drags on through the winter months. There are war crimes being committed on a daily basis by the Russian invaders, and heroic resistance by Ukrainian forces to counter them. Life goes on mostly, as people try to live as normally as possible amid the power cuts, lack of heat

So here we are, the first post of the year - better late than never, but at least it’s not February yet.  I hope you all had a good and pleasant Christmas, and a riotous New Year’s Eve (mine was sober but a nice family one), and wish you every success and happiness for 2023. As for 2022, I’m kind of glad to see the back of it.  My ambition last January was to get through the year without being hospitalised, and in that at least I succeeded, despite some sciatic problems that needed some physio in a clinic, but I don’t really class that as “hospital” - so I’m calling it a win. Apart from that, at least on a personal level, not a lot happened.  For a number of very good reasons, it was a quiet year.  Finishing off the new place meant there was not a lot of spare cash so for the first year in my life (at least as far as I can remember) I never got to the seaside, and I’m rather surprised at how much I actually missed it.  Since childhood I’ve loved the sight and sound of waves, big and sm