Back To The Routine Again
It’s silly isn’t it. You go on holidays and suddenly it’s so boring getting back to the same old routine every day.
That’s how it feels for me right now. We came back from holidays and I’m back to routine. Same old same old routine. The same thing I’ve been doing every day for - how long? Seems like forever.
But that’s life isn’t it? If you didn’t have routine you’d have to think of something different to do every day. Every day different might be nice but it might not. Maybe there’s something reassuring in routine?
Mine is simple. Feed the cows, get the kids breakfast, make their school lunches. Do the dishes that I didn’ t do the night before.
It used to be that I thought I was doing the dishes that I didn’t do the night before. Now I know that I’m never going to do them the night before, I’m just too lazy. So I just do the dishes in the morning.
Then it’s work, then off to the supermarket to do the shopping after I’ve planned some meals and made my list of shopping requirements. Then back home.
Cook. Feed the kids. They usually complain that they don’t like what I cook them but if I cook them what they like it’s usually junk food and it’s usually the same thing over and over. Boring.
I like cooking Chinese and Indian. I love hot food and my son is getting to like curries now. Good as I can cook more.
Then it’s some time in front of the idiot box and off to bed, just to get up and do it all again the next day.
Feed the cows, make the lunches…….
That’s life isn’t it?
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Cows. I Love Cows And They’re Smiling Now.
I really love cows. They’re such lovely animals, almost a half ton in weight but so gentle. I’ve never seen an aggressive cow. Bulls maybe, but not cows. Even my kids can pat them as long as they’re feeding them, the cows don’t necessarily like being patted but they’ll stand there and be patted if they’re getting fed. They just pull back a little when you try and pat them.
You won’t get to pat them a lot unless you’re feeding them hay. They like their hay and when the grass is short and there isn’t too much because winter is coming and the grass isn’t growing. But I have a good supply of hay.
Now if you’re feeding your hay to your cows then that’s the time to pat them, but it’s also a bit of a drain. You have to feed them every day, without fail. Even if it’s raining you have to feed the cows their hay. If you don’t they starve for the day.
I feed them myself. I like my holidays though so when you go away you have to have something to do so that the cows are fed. I do this.
I have a good system. I keep a couple of my paddocks fenced off with the gate closed so that when one has good grass in it I can keep it that way. The cows eat my hay until I have to go away and then I can open the gate and let them in there and they have plenty of food for a week or so and I can go away knowing my cows aren’t starving.
And when I open the gate to the paddock with the grass they’re in there as fast as they can, because they’ve seen all that grass when they look through the gate.
And then I come back from the holiday and my cows are happy. And I take them out of the grass paddock and put them back in the main paddock.
Right after breakfast I feed them their hay. They get 1 1/2 bales of hay every day but if it’s too cold I give them 2 bales of hay and they eat the lot. And they’re not silly, they know when feeding time is, they’re waiting right out the front of the shed for their hay.
I gave them 2 bales of hay this morning as it was cold. But it’s getting warmer soon and the grass is getting longer, it’s growing. And that’s good because my hay is getting short, I have a shed for hay and it’s pretty empty.
My cows are happy now.
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We’ve Got A Boat And We Took It Along Thankfully.
I just love having a boat. As it says on a sticker on my boat, life is better with a boat. It’s only small, maybe 11 feet, I can’t afford a big one, but a small boat is better than no boat. And it’s got it’s advantages, it’s easy to tow.
It was raining a blowing hard when we went away last week. The kids had school holidays so they said they didn’t want to spend the whole time at home, so we went away. And though it was raining hard at first it soon stopped and got sunny so it was really nice.
It was a nice place to go to. There was so many things for the kids to do it wasn’t funny. Kids need so much to do. So if you’ve got bored kids there’s problems, if you’ve got bored kids then they hassle you constantly for something to do.
Bored kids can be the worst thing you can do for your holiday. They are grumpy and unhappy and keep hassling you all the time to play with them, when all you want to do is to sit and relax and read a book. Kids hassling you doesn’t mesh well with bored kids.
But no bored kids last weekend. There was this huge plastic thingy that they could jump on and they spent hours jumping up and down on that. How they can be so entertained with something as simple as that is beyond me but they loved it, so they were happy.
And in the games room there was something that the kids loved too, a massive tv that had a kids movie showing every night so they just sat in there all the time in the evenings.
And of course the swimming pool. I can’t believe something as simple as a swimming pool keeps kids entertained for so long.
But I mentioned the boat. I took the boat along because there was a river there and I could take them on the river. And it’s useful for taking stuff along too. The kids bikes wouldn’t fit in the car but no problem getting them in the boat.
So we ended up doing a couple of days out in the boat. One along a local river, just puttering around looking at the scenery, a nice picnic on the bank of the river, some swimming for the kids, and a nice shady spot for us to sit after lunch and read our books.
And near us was a lake too and we decided to spend some time on the lake. I had already bought a tube that towed along on the boat behind so that the kids could ride on it. They did it last summer and liked that so I decided to throw that in and was glad I did. In fact it was hard to get them off of it.
So there’s a little bit about having a holiday for a few days with a boat. Worth taking the boat along for sure.
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I’ve Already Said How Much I Love Living In The Country.
I’ve already said how much I like living in the country.
But one of the good things about the country is the birds. (I just love birds).
You just won’t believe how many birds there are out here in the country, millions. I get them sitting in the trees around my place. They have strong beaks and claws and they sit in the trees and pick off the seed pods with their claws and hold them with their claws and then break them open with their beaks to eat.
Although I do like birds they do make a mess of my trees. When they break off a small branch to eat the pods they drop it on the ground and it looks like a battlefield under my trees, bits of branch everywhere. Just everywhere.
They have stunning colors. They’re parrots and all parrots have stunning colors I think. And they like to sit on the window sills and veranda posts around my house and look in at me, and I find that if I sit really still then they don’t fly away, they just sit there, and that’s such a treat. I love having them around.
There’s damage to the trees like I said but it’s still great having them around and I love it. I could shoo them away when they start damaging the trees and then I wouldn’t have the damage but I’d rather let them come and sit on my veranda. If I shoo them away they might leave for good.
Its got to be so much better out here. Ill bet there’s no birds like that in the city. Too many people to scare them off and no trees for them to wreck/eat from.
And of course there’s lots of other animals too, not just birds. Animals are just as good to have around as birds. They’re all great to have around.
Its good for the soul I think. Having birds and animals around is a part of nature and a part of life. Its not sterile like in the city. Birds and animals for me any day. Just right now as I was writing this a whole bunch of them flew right past the window. I can see one of them sitting on the verandah in front of me right now.
I’m not interested in going back to live in the city. There’s so many things that I love about it out here, not just animals and birds.
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It Was Raining, Grrrrr. But I Still Enjoyed It.
Well it’s all over, the weekend is finished. It was just fantastic to get away, I need to get away more often, it’s good for the soul. But it was a little tough starting quite so early. Too early for me.
It was really early, but I had something to get up for so it wasn’t so bad. But even so getting up when it’s still dark doesn’t do it for me. At 5 in the morning it feels like it’s about midnight. There’s not even any birds.
I picked up my friend and we got started. He had a lot of gear to load into the car and we took longer to get going than I thought was a good idea. Because we were meeting some other cars there and the meeting was at 9am, so we had to get started and get there on time.
And what can you do about weather? Raining. And for the last few months it’s been so great, warm clear weather, just my luck that when I go away it’s raining. Really annoying.
We had to drive to the place where we were camping. It was raining all the way but by the time we got to stop and get out it had pretty much stopped raining, luckily. That was good as I don’t like putting a tent up in the rain, and everything gets wet trying to get it all into the tent.
And along the way there were all sorts of new speed limits
But even despite all this it was a good weekend. I did some fishing and caught a fish and we had it for dinner which was nice. Fresh fish tastes great.
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I Get To Go Away This Weekend And I’m REALLY Looking Forward To It.
Yeah, I get to go away this weekend. Im really looking forward to it.
And this time I can’t go with my family because they all have some concert to go to that I’m not particularly fond of so they can’t come and I get to go with a friend.
We are planning to camp. I have a great tent, canvas, water proof, big enough to be comfortable and its forecast to rain, so I may need all of that. I hope it doesnt rain because rain isnt what you need when you go camping.
I don’t like getting up early, I resist it when I can, but we have to go at 6 am Friday. It’s a 3 hour trip to where we are meeting up with some others, and we meet at 9.
But getting up early on Friday will be fine, Ive got something great to look forward to. And I really am looking forward to it.
Unfortunately my car is pretty old and I’ve got all my fingers and toes crossed hoping it makes it up there ok. It’s done 540,000 miles so it’ done a lot of work, but it goes fine.
Saturday will be a day of doing nothing. It’s planned that way so that’s how it is. I want to go fishing, I really like fishing. So I’m intending to take the gear along, though it is forecast to rain. In fact I bought a new fishing rod today, because I broke my old one a while ago.
I made that fishing rod when I was about 25. I bought the blank and I bought the whipping and the rod varnish and all the other bits and pieces that go into making a fishing rod. I was pretty pleased with myself that I managed to make my own fishing rod.
I’ve used that fishing rod for a lot of years now, and it was a sad day when I broke it. I dont even know how I broke it, I was just walking through the trees and suddenly I noticed the tip of the rod broken off hanging in its own. Boy was I pissed.
It wasnt worth a lot but it was to me. I mean I made that rod myself. And I broke it. So today I went back to the fishing shop and bought a rod.
And I couldn’t believe. 25 bucks for a new fishing rod. They certainly aren’t expensive now to buy. But the new one isn’t the one I made. I’d rather my old one than a new one.
So there’s the news about my weekend to be. It won’t rain will it and I will catch a fish won’t I?
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Cycling Is Just The Best Way To Get Fit
Ive said it before but I just love cycling.
I found cycling relatively recently. I was getting unfit and I didn’t want to be unfit, and I was getting older. I knew I had to do something.
Swimming never did it for me. I mean swimming is boring, really boring. You just swim up and down, up and down, up and down. For hours and hours. Actually it only feels like hours and hours, I rarely swim for more than about 20 minutes, that’s about as long as I can stand the boredom.
There’s a black line and you just spend your time watching that black line, because of course there’s nothing else to watch other than that black line. Now that’s what I call boring.
So trying swimming was a flop. It never worked for me. And to get fit you really need to do it at least 4 times a week if not 5 times a week and if you’re bored and every minute feels like an hour I just can’t do it.
And that’s doing at least a half hour. You need to swim for at least a half hour to get enough exercise and it just feels like such a waste of time.
So I was in a bind. I used to jog and found that as boring as swimming and so I was a little stuck. But then I started to think about cycling.
Problem number one. I didn’t have a bike. So I wasn’t going to be cycling too far with no bike. Well actually I did have a bike but it’s really really old and all rusted, so no use. So I had to get hold of a bike and and they aren’t cheap.
So I went and talked to some of the people in the local cycling club and found out that there was a new recreational cycling group starting up and that I could join it. So I figured that all the stars were lined up and it was time to just go out there and buy a new bike.
I found the pace of riding wasn’t right for me, but enjoyed the rides. They did longer and shorter rides and I enjoyed it.
Now Im not young, 52 actually, but even so I wanted to go a little faster. The ride was more social than a workout and I wanted a workout as well. Eventually I dropped out to ride on my own because I needed to ride a little harder to get a real workout.
So after a while riding on my own I found that it was nice to ride hard but a little lonely. I was getting a workout but on my own. So I made some enquiries and found out that there was a riding group that rode out of town a few days a week that used road bikes and rode hard. It went sundays and I decided to go along.
But the bike I had bought was a hybrid, half mountain bike and half road bike and they all rode a road bike so I would have no chance of keeping up riding my hybrid. So again I was stuck without a bike. But I knew I liked riding now so I bought a road bike and joined the. They’re good riders and sometimes I can’t keep up but mostly I can.
But of course its a hard workout, exactly what I need.
Unlike the swimming I enjoy it and I’m getting fitter.
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I Live In The Country And I Love Living In The Country
I’m lucky enough to live in the country and I just love living here. I’ve lived out here for a few years now, more than I care to remember actually. And I grew up in the city but I wouldn’t really want to go back there any more.
There’s just so much to living in the country that you just can’t find living in the city. One example. I love cycling and do it heaps out here in the country. It helps keep me fit and that’s important and I definitely need to keep fit. And it gets me into some beautiful outdoors locations.
And riding gets you out where you see so many things that make it worthwhile. I love to see sheep and cows in the paddocks. Actually I have my own cows and I love that and I even get calves from time to time.
Having cows and calves around grounds me. It makes me love nature, it makes me see the cycles of life.
It’s really hot today and I don’t like heat, but it’s summer and there’s nothing I can do about it is there? If it’s hot it’s hot. But it’s still better here than in the city, if I lived in the city it would still be hot. Out here I see nature and the seasons and I see them come and go. I get to see the grass start to grow after winter and I see the leaves change color and fall and regrow.
All the leaves turn such great colors, and they fall off and they look so good all on the ground around the base of the tree, and the trees drop seeds and new baby trees start to grow underneath them. I get to see the old and the young, all cycling.
All of these things cycle, just like I cycle. They go round and round and I really see what the seasons are.
If I lived in the city I mightn’t even have a garden. I mightn’t have a tree at all. I might have a lot of concrete, I might have pavers and a BBQ, but I mightn’t have a tree or a blade of grass.
And unlike here I probably wouldn’t get to see the seasons change like I do now.
The city is so sterile. I spent a lot of years there so I know what its like. Now of course that’s just a personal view, but that’s how I feel about it.
My own family still live there, including my brother. He’s a doctor and he’s single and he like the city so he’s happy with the social life. He likes all that stuff and so he’s happy living in the city. But I’m not.
I grew up in the city and spent most of my life there. Then it was fine but it really feels now as if I wasted a lot of time in the city, I wish I’d been born in the country instead. I feel a little like I wasted a lot of my life in the city, that’s sad isn’t it? I didn’t really waste it of course but it feels that way. I should ask my brother if he’d like to live here but I doubt he would. He likes the city.
So now it’s the country for me and that’s where I intend to stay.
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I’ve Been Writing Stuff All My Life
Isn’t writing a lot of fun. I love to write and I’ve done it for a long time. And I still love to write now. I remember when I was young and at primary school I wrote so many stories, I suspect my teacher got bored reading all my stories. And he was amazed that I could write quite so much when I was so young. But I’m not sure that I’m any good at it, I just like it.
I did a university degree when I got older, but it didn’t include writing, though I wish now it had. If I was young again and going to university all over again I’d think about doing some real study about the art of writing. I studied what I needed to to get a job, I just wish I’d studied what I liked to do.
It’s an interesting question about whether I could ever have become good enough at writing to make a living from it. Who knows. But if I had the chance then I should have tried, after all if you don’t try you never know if you can really do it. I should have tried.
I’m quite convinced writing is a skill that can be learned. Of course not everyone can learn it because there’s other important things as well. For example I think it’s essential that you love to do it. That’s like anything. If you don’t love it you’re unlikely to keep at it long enough to learn the skill.
But if you love it like I do then writing is just something that needs time to develop. It is a skill that you have to work on every day. I work on it every day.
So I have this website and this is where I’m going to practice my writing. I have it on the internet as it’s a convenient place to have it, but I really don’t intend for lots of people to come along and read it. It’s just about me and what I do every day, so it’s probably pretty boring to others. But if you’re someone reading this then I have at least one other visitor other than me, so thanks for visiting my website.
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Don’t I Just Love Days Like This?
Days like today are just a delight. A real delight. It’s just perfect for what I like, warm but not hot which is great because I don’t like it hot. And there’s no wind and it’s just, well, perfect. I’ve been for a drive and I’ve enjoyed the view. There’s cows that look at me as I drive past and I see happy people walking.
But what is a perfect day for me may not be a perfect day for you. Perhaps you’ve had some really bad news or maybe you’re sick or maybe you just don’t feel yourself today. It’s all different for you than it is for me.
It’s all subjective isn’t it. To me it’s a great day, I can’t see any reason why it isn’t a great day. But that’s just me isn’t it? For me it’s a great day but for you it may be terrible.
What is it that makes it a great day for me but is really not the best day for someone else? Why is it that I see the sunshine and the cows in the fields and the happy people? Why is it that you may not see these?
The best day for me is the worst day for you. Where I see good things you might only see bad things.
Surely the only explanation is that it’s in our minds, the day. We see the day through the filter of our minds. We don’t see the day, we see what our minds tell us the day is like. We filter the day through our minds and our experiences.
Its all in our head isnt it? Our minds tell us whats a good day and whats a bad day, because we filter all our experiences through our minds. Every experience we have is filtered.
That’s all a little silly isn’t it? But when I woke up and looked out the window I was thinking about that sort of stuff.
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