KICKING MYSELF AND THIS BLOG BACK ON TRACK FOR 2021 WITH A DISPLAY OF PHOTOS.

For the past few weeks and over the Christmas Season in the year 2020, I have been bopping around, in my mind, and breaking from the chronological order of our life and travels. The reason being, I think, was that I was getting inspirationally stale. And based on the decline in readership, possibly due to boredom with my memories or method of recording them in this Blog, I decided to have a small break and just kinda put some random flashes on paper. I wrote a couple of Christmas musings, dug out some old memories from my childhood and otherwise freed my mind to ramble.

This did not increase my readership, nor encourage, once loyal readers, to return to the fold. However it did provide me with a chance to clear my mind a bit. The Christmas Season, that had been planned as a “big blowout” family get together, turned out to be a big blowout consisting of myself, Bubbaloo and Ange. This, of course, due to the unrelenting media pressure of “pandemic panic”, now being bought into, full on, by “elected” officials, who are also, in full foaming, frothing “pandemic panic”. The little dears have now finally found something they can get stuck into and not feel so overwhelmed by their incompetence. Unlike everything else they try, in this situation they are no longer the inexperienced; they finally have equal experience to everyone else, that being NONE ! My god, how it amazes me to sit back and watch this fiasco unfold. Sorry, I digress, I just can’t help myself.

What resulted for us was a Christmas mini-blowout with the three of us present. It was really quite good. Although I missed Ron, JMW, D2, A, the grandkids and possibly a surprise visit by D1 and Vi, there is no one better to put you in the Christmas Spirit than Ange. Her enthusiasm is compelling and cannot be ignored. There is no way, I could remain a grinch with her around. She stayed with us “old folk” well beyond her call to duty. I had fun!

So, in between the bouts of movie watching (and arguing over whose choice it was), baking, puzzle making, hiking and unending eating; I also spent lots of hours searching for a way to spice up this drivel and make it more appealing to a wider audience. What I came up with was, nothing. However, are you ready for this, I finally realized that interest in my blog and what I did in the past had/has probably run its’ course; and return to the days of 40-50 readers was likely not going to happen in the future. Ol’ Bubbaloo then reminded me of the purpose of my blog in the first place. That being, to record my memories of times gone by, places seen and things done for review in my later years, once the clutch has finally slipped beyond repair. And, as she said, if I accomplished just that, then I will have achieved success.

It also, again, made me realize, that without this pandemic enforced lockdown and isolation, I may have never found time to sit and regurgitate this steaming pile of memories onto this computer. For me, this was the “silver lining” in the otherwise dismal situation we all find ourselves living through. So, for a while, I am going to continue to transcribe my memories of the old, old days while they are still available in my memory bank. Later in January, I am going to go back to, a sort of, chronological order to my posts. Now that that is sorted out in my mind, I feel less pressure to try and guess what things that my readership is looking for, and will now concentrate on thoughts of the past, and producing a record of my times that I will read in the days where my memory draws a “blank”. For those still left and reading this drivel, I just bet you can’t wait for me to continue into the New Year. Ooooohhhh, I’m so excited, it’s now 2:30am and here I sit pecking away at this keyboard.

To get back in the mood, the first thing I want to post is a gallery of some of our most beautiful and memorable photos taken during our travels. A lot of them are scans taken from “hardcopy” photographs, before the invention of digital cameras and dug out of our archives or “old boxes” as some might say. I hope you enjoy these and if you do, let me know and I will post more from time to time.