Day 260 - In Remembrance

jazz pots

Having bought some memorial plants for Bluez, today we went shopping for something similar for Jazz...

We wandered around our local gardening centre looking for inspiration, and in the process discovered that, for some reason, in our heads, where Bluez was blue and green, Jazz is red and orange...warm colours for the endlessly loving being that he was.

I'm not generally very interested in flowers, but Fuschia is one I know and like...when we happened upon them they immediately seemed right to both of us...

And curiously, I don't know many trees either, but Rhus is one I'm both familiar with and fond of...its leaves turn a glorious orangey-red at certain times of year...and when we found a few small ones in pots, we were both immediately happy to have one to match Bluez' Rowan.

So we found a couple of nice pots in warm earth colours and brought them home.  We'll plant them in their new pots, complete with a sprinkling of Jazz-ash, when we have a little ceremony for the old boy in a week or so.

With Bluez we had our funeral ritual within a week or two of his death...with Jazz, it's taken a lot longer...I'm not going to analyse that to work out why - it is what it is, and these things happen in their own good time. 

For now, suffice to say that we still miss him keenly, every day...the plants (both Jazz and Bluez') will come with us when we move home, and we'll plant them as a permanent memorial to two of the best friends we ever had. 


In other news, it's the end of August!

I've been thinking about how the fitness training and Font preparation has come on, especially since realising how tired I've become as the month has drawn to a close. 

I had a look back at how much I've done over the last 31 days:

• Number of climbing sessions = 6
• Number of Pull-up Challenge sessions = 11
• Number of Push-up Challenge sessions = 4
• Number of Tai Chi sessions = approx 15.
• Number of non-rest days = 26

I don't think I've lost any weight, and I may even have put some on (although I don't trust my scales at all, so I'm not really sure)...but I do feel that I'm stronger and overall in much better shape. 

I'm fairly pleased with all of that, and I reckon I've earned a bit of an easier time over the next couple of weeks...I certainly won't get an easier time at work, but I'll ease up on the exercise and let my body recover a little.

Recovery certainly takes longer than it used to, as you get older...I probably shouldn't have waited until I was in in my mid-40's before I started doing any sort of exercise!

Still, I think I'm in reasonable shape for a 50 year old...I'm even considering doing the Insanity Workout 60 Day Challenge in the New Year...more on that in due course!

Otherwise, it's been a somewhat dramatic and fairly stressful month:

• Traumatic times for my nephew and his family...
• The constant frustration and disruption of the drainage contractors saga...
• Dealing with the loss of Jazz, and missing him every single day...
• Learning to live with no dogs at all, and realising how wrong that is...
• Busy and difficult issues at work for both of us...
• Skateboarding accidents...
• Annoying telecomms supplier issues...

But alongside all that, there's been lots of good stuff too:

• Learning Tai Chi...
• Meeting random dogs here and there...
• Sticking with the Pull-up Challenge...
• Chris making miraculous strides in his recovery...
• Bouldering lots...
• Meeting some very old trees...
• Fun on skateboards...
• Deciding to buy a new house...
• Getting fitter and stronger...
• Receiving a bunch of cool new 2117 clothes (absolute bargain!)...
• Starting to look for a new dog...
• Paying off all my debts...

On balance, it's been a typically hectic, mournful, active, stressful, chilled, engaging, sore, positive, sad, frustrating, painful and happy month!

Here's to a new one, starting tomorrow...

Do you remember?

;-)

Day 259 - Straight Arms

focus

Killing several birds with one stone, today we met up with Anna's brother and family, in order to take Noah, aged 6, for a climbing session.

It was good fun...Noah was really up for it - willing to try things several times, and keenly determined to achieve a variety of little goals we set for him.  

He did really well, learning some sequences (which is actually quite advanced!), doing a few proper climbing moves (and observing that they were easier), and very naturally doing a cool drop and roll when dismounting from the wall.

In many ways, he's very receptive, and a fast learner...in other ways, not so much!

Here, Anna is trying to explain to him about straight arms...

go ape

A common beginner climber error is to stand on the wall with legs straight and arms bent, which is perfectly understandable...we do it all the time, it's a common human characteristic. 

But apes and monkeys don't do this, and it's plain to see that they're much better climbers than we are.  

Apes and monkeys do the opposite to we humans when climbing - they hang off straight arms, and bend their legs instead.

When arms are bent and pulling you into the wall, you're essentially using your upper body muscles to support the weight of your upper body...very hard work, and very tiring.  

However, when arms are straight, the skeleton holds most of the weight, and the main muscular activity is simply the forearm muscles holding the fingers bent...much more efficient, and hugely less strenuous. 

But as a beginner, instinct tells you to pull in to the wall with your arms, because you don't feel safe...this is quite a psychological barrier to get over, to trust yourself enough to straighten your arms, and new climbers often struggle with it, as Noah is here.  However much his conscious mind is saying, "straighten arms", his subconscious is shouting "FOR GODS SAKE DON'T LOOSEN YOUR GRIP!!!"...so he's managing to bend the legs, but not to straighten the arms. 

Once you can bring yourself to try it though, it quickly becomes clear how much easier it is to climb this way. 

As if to demonstrate the principle, here are a handful of snapshots I randomly took whilst Anna was climbing earlier.    

straight and narrow

Both arms nicely straight here...

1 straight

The weighted arm is straight here, and the other is only bent to move it to the next hold...

2 straight

Anna is now hanging off a ceiling, in effect, and it's even more important to let her skeleton do the bulk of the work.  Anna's muscles are focussed on keeping her core engaged and her weight under control as she moves her feet into the best position to be able to let go with one of her hands to move it on.

3 points on the ceiling

Here Anna is in the process of moving her weight underneath her left hand, so that when she lets go with her right hand, she doesn't swing around (and quite likely fall off).  One of her feet has found a hold on the ceiling and is both taking as much weight off her arms as possible, and acting as a counterbalance to her left hand.

But in all cases her arms are fully straight - really nice form, and makes her look like a pro climber!

That said, we had an incredibly strenuous and tiring session (around short sessions playing with Noah)...I felt really tired, and struggled with overheating and feeling dizzy and light headed after each climb.

However, we did climb on and off for nearly 5 hours, and the average grade was fairly hard...almost everything seemed really hard, to be honest, even the supposedly easy ones...but I reckon we still managed 30 or 40 problems with an average grade of V2, give or take.

But it was a tough session, and I feel really beaten up now...I'm going to pay for it tomorrow!

Chatting about it on the way home, I realised that I'm concerned whether I've over-trained now, and rather than getting fitter, I'm just getting more tired, going past it...

So we've had a bit of a rethink, and we might take it reasonably easy for the next couple of weeks before our Font Trip. 

Preserve the strength gains we've made recently, get some rest (as far as hectic and heavy workloads allow), and build up some reserves...

Sounds like a plan...

B-)

Day 258 - Party Time

house of fun

So it's the end of another long week, at last...Friday night, 8pm, and we find ourselves here doing our weekly shop!

I'm really not sure how to cope with the excitement...other than by completely over-indulging, and spending far more than is strictly necessary, simply to compensate ourselves for having to go shopping on a Friday night!   

Shopping hungry is always a dangerous game, on any day of the week...shopping on a Friday night, when already demob happy for the weekend, with any hint of caution long since thrown to the wind, is just asking for trouble...

But then I like living dangerously, so it kinda suits me...

Anyway yep, it's now 9.30pm...I'm still hungry (dinner is in the oven though, at least!), I've been on the go since logging in to work at 7.30am, and I'm very, very tired.

Can it be actual Friday night proper now, please?  You know, the bit where I can have a drink and some nice food and fall asleep in front of a film I really want to watch?

Pretty please?

Coming right up...

;-)

Day 257 - Smear Test 101

stride

A day out at Cratcliffe and 'the Stride today...Robin Hood's Stride that is, in North Derbyshire, in the south eastern corner of the Peak District.

It's a beautiful place, a jumble of rocks and trees and boulders and cows on a hill in the middle of nowhere...lovely!

style

We have some good memories there...it's the first place we climbed outdoors, as it has lots of easy bouldering (a rarity in the UK)...it's also where I broke my leg on one of these easy boulders in May 2012, not 5m away from where the photo below was taken.  

sun dappled

Of some significance, it's also where we started to really get a feel for climbing on gritstone, the hard, abrasive rock that is largely confined to the Peak District, and is heavily symbolic of what Peak climbing is all about. 

Gritstone is generally rounded and weather worn, which means many of the cracks and edges have been smoothed off.

When first trying to climb on grit, it just seems impossible - there's no holds for hands and nothing to stand on with your feet either!  And it feels very abrasive, so cuts your hands and arms to ribbons, whilst at the same time being slippery and polished to get a grip on. 

A critical skill on gritstone is smearing, which means placing the toe or ball of your foot flat on steep rock, pushing some weight through it, and ultimately standing on it.  

Not only is this physically very difficult, involving fine control of body weight and a significant test of balance, but it's also quite challenging psychologically.

You just don't believe that you can put any weight on that foot without slipping off and scraping yourself down the rock...and this mindset makes you hesitant, which makes you not weight the foot much, which makes you slip off.  

But if you trust that it will hold, and really positively put some weight on it, some sort of mystic magic happens and you can stand, and even push on what seems to be nothing. 

Here's Anna taking her smear test...

delicate

The prescribed challenge here is to smear along this slab of smooth rock from right to left, relying almost solely on the friction you can create between your shoe and the rock, and a carefully controlled state of balance.

easy does it...

The gritstone does feel slippery and damp (not helped by sporadic rain from the turbulent grey sky), and whilst this may look like a simple problem, it really isn't...what it does is force you to pay attention to detail, to climb carefully, and most importantly, to trust your feet.

Here Anna reaches the left arete, and escapes upwards with relief.

phew

Meanwhile, there is a classic climb at Cratcliffe called The Egg Arete, on the Egg Boulder, which I've been battling with for two years now.

As its name implies, the boulder is like a huge, oval egg, and there are climbs of varying difficulty on all sides of it.  As it happens, this is the very same boulder that I broke my leg falling off of!

The Egg Arete is a blunt, smooth corner of this big boulder...it's a V3 problem, which makes it sound easy-ish, but it really isn't.   Just getting on the rock is very difficult...the first time I tried to do this problem, in late 2012, this is about as far as I got:

almost off the ground

During 2013, I tried it 2 or 3 times, and managed to consistently get here:

solid step up

Today I made some more good progress, but still nowhere near getting up the thing...this is about as far as I got:

push/pull/etc

We took loads of videos of each other failing to get up climbs...fortunately (for you!) I haven't had time to upload any. 

Usually, of late, we've looked to do as many problems as possible...but today, we just felt like working a few harder climbs.   We didn't actually complete any of them, but we made bits of progress here and there, and feel as though given the right conditions (cold and dry - basically the opposite of today) we might get up a few things. 

And we wanted to spend a little time on actual rock before Font in two weeks time...

A good day out...and I'm officially very tired indeed!

)-zzzz

Day 256 - Septapod

how many sgs3's?!

Preparations for our climbing holiday in France continue apace!

When we started climbing outdoors a couple of years ago, we quickly discovered the value of documenting our adventures with video and photographs.  It adds a new dimension to a day's escapades when you can sit and relive the day in the evening...it always sparks memories and conversations that you couldn't have at the time, because you were at opposite ends of a rope or whatever.

At the end of our first year, we were able to produce a lovely photobook documenting our journey from outright noobs to not quite such outright noobs.  It's a lovely way to distil 2,000 photo's into something interesting and meaningful. 


And of course we made a couple of cool videos of our trip to Fontainebleau last September.

To be honest, I would have made more (and intended to), but it is very time consuming and let's face it, nobody else is really that interested. 

It's also really incredible how ubiquitous high quality video cameras have become, even just over the last year.

In September 2013, in Font, we had one decent smartphone that would take HD video, one half decent smartphone that took reasonable quality lower-res video, and one purpose built video camera that claimed to be 720p but was really atrocious quality. 

We had one little tripod that fell over as soon as you tried to attach anything heavier than a lighter to it, and one of those spider wire things that you can fashion into a shape that can hold a phone whilst it video's, but are really hard to fix into an unmoving position, and even harder to get to point specifically where you want it to.

The result of all that was a lot of faffing about trying to balance phones and cameras on rocks and uneven ground, and a lot of badly framed, poor quality video.

By contrast, this year we will have at least 5 smartphones capable of producing 720p video, two of which can take 1080p, and one of which even claims to take video in 4K!

Alongside those, we'll have two very good DSLR cameras, both of which will take HD Video, and at least one GoPro type action camera, which again takes extremely good video. 

So I've gathered this collection of tripods to assist our documentation...

The yellow one has extendible legs, up to about 1m, and is quite sturdy.  We already owned this, so I just got a phone holder attachment for under a tenner.

The one with the fat black legs is bendy and robust. The legs can be bent to suit uneven ground, or even wrapped around branches of trees or similar.  That cost just over a tenner.

Finally, the monopod (purchased for the princely sum of £3.39) is a phone clamp on the end of an extendible arm.   This will have a variety of uses, from taking selfies from much further away, to filming climbers from above, to who knows what interesting motion shots!

To store the huge amount data we're going to create, I've got about half a dozen 32GB micro-SD cards for the phones, and a 32GB SDHC card for the camera.  I assume Jezz will have significant capacity for his 3 or more cameras too.

I've just realised I'm probably going to have to take a good sized hard drive to store the ridiculous amount of video we're going to end up taking!

Fortunately we're all into photography, and we all have a different approach.  With a bit of luck, we should get some really interesting and creative stills and movies.

Interesting to us, anyway. 

You'll all be getting samples of it on this blog, of course...

You can't escape it...resistance is futile!

B-)

Day 255 - Failed Experiment

catch that pigeon

It was another of those longest days today...but not in a good way!

Work was really busy all day, culminating in an intensely frustrating and inconveniently over-run meeting with HR (how do these people sleep?!)...so I left work just before 5pm, later than intended, and had to (literally - and I mean that...well...literally!) run round Sainsbury's to grab a few supplies, before dashing home by around 5.40pm.

I'd promised to help Anna with some weird bat bothering escapade this evening, and as it was taking place in Melton Mowbray, we had to be away by 6pm. 

By 7.30pm we were on site and preparing to start the survey.

The plan was for each of us to take a pre-planned and very specific route around the perimeter of two adjoining fields.  We were to spend 5 minutes in one spot, listening for and recording bat sightings, before spending 5 minutes moving slowly on to the next spot (whilst listening for and recording bat sightings).   This process was repeated 12 times over 2 hours, as we covered both fields between us. 

In order to complete this seemingly simple task, I had to carry in one hand a clipboard with a map and spare paper for recording manually if needed.  In my other hand, I was to carry a bat detector (which transposes the sound of a bat's echolocation down to a frequency that human's can hear).

In my other, other hand, I carried a large box containing a sound recording system, to record any passing bat activity for later analysis.  In my final other hand, I held my smartphone and recorded details of any sightings onto a Google Form (one handed of course).

I had to do this whilst walking around an unfamiliar field, in the deepening dark of night.

So that was easy...not!

All was quiet for the first and last 50 minutes or so, but in the middle there was a flurry of bat activity....mostly pipistrelles foraging and commuting, although there were one or two other species which I'm not familiar enough with to be able to identify. 

I did catch a brief glimpse of a fox, sneaking through the field behind me, and at one point a deer was barking away just a few metres away from me on the other side of the hedgerow. 

The photo above was an experiment with Night mode, using a new camera app I've been playing with on my phone.  I'd disturbed a pigeon which was hiding in the long grass, and didn't seem able to fly away...this is an 8 second exposure of that pigeon!

So, erm yeah...Fail!!

Finally, to illustrate just how long a day it's been, check this out...

what's in the bag?!

I've been waiting for this big bag of SportPursuit delights to arrive for weeks...today, at last, it arrived...

But it's just a few minutes before midnight now, and I have yet to open it!

This will soon be rectified!

;-)

Day 254 - If 6 Was 9

one

A rainy Bank Holiday trip to the climbing gym provided the perfect opportunity to test our progress on the 20 Pull-up Challenge. 

The aforementioned progress isn't spectacular, I have to say...but it is definitely measurable. 

We're three weeks into a six week schedule that promises to enable us to do 20 pull-ups at the end...we've been very sceptical of this since the beginning, and our tests today only served to reinforce this scepticism. 

That said, neither of us are remotely bothered about being able to do 20 pull-ups...but we both want our shoulders to be in good shape for our forthcoming climbing holiday, so we're determined to stick with the programme regardless!

another one

You take a test before the start of the first week, and this dictates the schedule for the next three weeks.   Then you retake the test, and the final three weeks schedule is determined by your new score. 

Anna didn't actually take the initial test because she was away, but we guesstimated that she'd be in the 3-5 pull-ups range.  I scored 6 on the first test, which put me in the next category, 6-9.

So having diligently and painfully pushed ourselves through three weeks of rigorous training, today we did a few easy warm-up climbs, then went for the test, which is basically to do as many pull-ups as you can in one go.

Here are the results:




Anna scored a personal best of 7 pull-ups, which is great going!  I gained a 50% improvement from 6 to 9, which is also a personal best. 

(Question: If 6 was 9...how many would 11 be? A question that has long bugged me in the wee small hours...)

I can't imagine there's any way either of us are going to be anywhere near 20 in three weeks time...but if we can break into double figures we'll both be pleased, I'm sure...what with me getting older, and this being an exercise significantly more suited to men, any progress for either of us is hard-won!

The main thing is, if we can climb daily in Font without niggly shoulder issues, then it will have been worth the effort!

Bring it on!

B-)

Day 253 - Ancient Oaks

treebeard

We took a trip out to see a load of old trees, and this old man oak was the king of them all...he's said to be over a thousand years old!

He really does have an entish quality to him - I can quite see him plodding across the hillside, if he so chose...

We were in Staffordshire meeting Anna's folks for lunch, and went for a walk across what used to be an old country estate, to take a look at all these old trees.

There were a number of ancient oaks, all with their own individual character...

an old oak

Some of them look in fine fettle, despite clearly being a shadow of their former selves.

another old oak

I wonder what changes they've seen over the centuries.  The M6 motorway is a scant half a mile away across the fields, and I wonder how the constant air and noise pollution has impacted the trees over the last half century. 

yet another old oak

I hope someone studies this, to perhaps shed a little light on the invisible damage we do when we treat the planet as though it's entirely our right to do with it as we will, disregarding the needs and interests of all other species...

sweet chestnut?

Someone could perhaps examine the rings in a dead portion of this beautiful chestnut...I'm sure he would gladly make a small sacrifice for the betterment of everything else...

Back in his glory days he would have looked a bit like this...

horse chestnut

So, a fine collection of grand old trees...

Also of interest, this beautiful damselfly, that I tracked for a while until he landed...I crept up and managed to find him resting on this leaf...didn't quite get him in focus, but hey, he's another good addition to the species collection!

banded demoiselle

Finally, we were by a lock on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, and Jack here was watching her boat putter into the lock with keen interest.

when the boat comes in

She's a lovely little thing...maybe we'll add someone like her to our pack as the final terrier addition, in a few years time.

I'm really starting to yearn for another dog...I'm not sure we're going to be able to resist much longer now...

Can't wait!

:-)

Day 252 - Walking Dead

it's alive!

Over at my brother's house this afternoon I thought I'd stumbled into some dystopian nightmare when this lumbering zombie shuffled, moaning, into the room.

Turns out it was just the BirdZombie, reanimated after a miraculous display of self-healing, defying all the doctor's predictions, and back in the land of the living.

I recommended getting into cosplay immediately and heading for the nearest ComicCon...he looked at me blankly, and for a moment I was concerned that he is actually zombified...but no, he was just being a teenager!

Anyway it was fantastic to see him up and about, and I hear he's enjoying daily visits from the nurse, so you know, I reckon he's living the teenage dream! 

;-)

Following that we visited Kim to see how she's getting on setting up her new business.  Roob had built this elaborate light stage to get professional quality photo's for their website. 

light show

I'm really impressed at the quality of the work they're producing between them, and I'm sure they can make a go of their business...can't wait to see them progress!

Meanwhile, our local sparrows seem to be joining forces to make a lovely big flock that flit around the gardens and hedgerows...it seems as though several families are enjoying the safety in numbers, and the flock is now around 50 individuals.

superfly

This morning, they all appeared in the hedgerows outside my lounge window, and before long a clutch of them were in this loose, fine soil, where drainpipes have just been laid.  Some were grazing on the grass seed that's been sprinkled on the disturbed lawn, whilst others were taking the opportunity for a dust bath!

There are around 30 sparrows in this photo...whilst the flock includes two or three tree sparrows, I can't spot any in this picture...

(update - Anna spotted a tree sparrow, on the far left, just below the centre line of the photo) 

Anyway, to end this rambling weekend post, for those (hopefully few) of you who are still with me, here's a rare treat...

fro

This is Kim and I, around 1990, give or take...Kim just gave me this photo today, so I felt obliged to post it here for posterity...

I'm not proud...

:-/

Day 251 - Dog Fix

bighead

Since losing our two best canine buddies Jazz and Bluez, in the space of nine months, we now find ourselves drawn to any available dog for a quick dog fix to keep us going.

This evening at the vets with Maisie, this lovely chocolate lab cheerfully obliged with boisterous, bouncy enthusiasm.   He was a big chunky boy, and despite having just had his bits chopped off, he was in good spirits, so we each got a good dose of doggy goodness whilst Maisie was having a blood test.

The amount of positive energy and positive input that a dog brings to your life cannot be under-estimated - they're endlessly friendly, and forgiving, and generous with their affections...of course they can beg and bark and bounce and other bothersome behaviour, but this pales against the vast, deep, rich joy that comes along with the doggy package deal. 

I can't recommend finding and making a good furry dog-friend highly enough...and suffice to say, we just can't be without one for much longer.

It's only three weeks until our bouldering holiday in Fontainebleau, after which we'll be actively looking for a new tenant to fill the large, empty vacancy that is our house now.

We're going to have a section of the garden fenced off and a kennel installed, to make a run where a new dog could be left for a while whilst we're out.   We'll need a bit of an integration period before trusting a new dog and the cats to be left in the house together...so the run will give us the flexibility to separate animals as required.

Our longer term plans involve three dogs of different sizes and ages, and it seems most sensible to start with the middle ground. 

We'll initially be looking to rescue or adopt a middle aged, medium sized dog...something like a lab or a golden retriever.  It will need to be fairly laid back (always get a dog with equal or lower energy to yourself), cat tolerant (if not cat friendly), and reasonably well-behaved, although we're happy to work on any issues. 

Once that's settled in, we'll go for something bigger.  Anna has a bit of a thing about the Italian Spinone, and having introduced me, I'm immediately sold on them too.   They're bigger than a lab, although not huge...they have that brilliant shaggy-dog look, which I love...and they're placid and peaceful like a golden retriever. 

Unfortunately, they're rare and expensive, so we'll have to go slightly against our better principles and buy a pedigree pup. 

(We're largely disapproving of the Kennel Club breeding system, which encourages inbreeding and selection for arbitrary physical characteristics, often without concern for the health and well being of the dog or the wider gene pool).

Finally, once the two bigger dogs are well settled into our pack, we may add a smaller dog, probably a terrier of some type - perhaps a scottie or similar. 

And maybe we'll stop there for a while...although maybe, if we buy our own place, all bets will be off!

Can't wait!

B-)

PS Bonus again, you lucky people...

snake in the grass

Just to demonstrate the exciting life we lead, here's another grass snake that Anna found when doing a quick reptile check on the way back from the vets...

Must be the Year of the Snake, or something...

Day 250 - Natural Order

deadr4t

Of the many themes that have emerged from this series of blogs, perhaps the most disturbing and familiar is...death.

A somewhat grim subject I suppose - I'll resist employing my usual tactic of linking to all earlier related posts...there's just so much of it!

I wonder whether there's an age factor - is it just a time of my life where I'm more likely to encounter the reaper?

Certainly living a country life is a factor, as these photo's (and many earlier ones) so graphically illustrate...today's specific theme is deconstruction or decomposition or decay (or maybe some other word starting with de-)...

The photo above is a rat in a fairly late stage of decomposition.  It must have lain there for quite a while to have decayed so, although I suspect the local carrion have had a good go at it....made a bit of a meal of it, you might say. 

On the other hand, this poor little vole has been summarily squidged to death on the road...

deadvol3

Whilst grisly and unpleasant, I can, in the main, handle these constant little reminders of the fundamental brutality of mammalian life...it's all the other stuff that's a bit trickier.

In the last twelve months, I've lost my two most loyal and constant companions - first Bluez last Autumn, then Jazz this Summer...both of these were hard to bear (albeit in very different ways), and I still miss them like crazy. 

The tenth anniversary of my sister's death passed by a few weeks ago, and that led to much bitter-sweet reminiscence, with a side order of subdued pondering, and all served on a bed of subtle melancholy.

My dad's not been well either, I understand, although that's a very long story that I'm not proposing to go into.

Maybe 50 is simply that age where you become increasingly aware of your own mortality...I don't know.

My life is pretty damn great (see the rest of this blog for details), so I don't wish to come across as being unduly morbid...I love my life, and I love my little pack (primarily my alpha packette Anna, natch), even if I seem to be going through a (bizarrely literal) rocky patch with our home and garden just lately.

And yet along with all that proverbial love, death is also in the air...

But it's all part of the natural order of things, so I can live (and eventually die) with that.

:-)

Bonus PS...I just remembered spotting this little fella sitting stride his own personal, custom built death trap late last night...I took this photo from sitting in my chair...thank goodness for zoom lenses!

deathtr4p