Contrived coincidence

Thoroughly contrived, by making sure I was in the right place at the right time, but it worked! I saw him again, the delicious cutie I'd first chanced upon last Friday. I sat right behind him, albeit for a shorter time than the first, because he got off of the bus at an earlier stop, but it was such a treat while it lasted. Among other things, I was able to see that he has lovely eyes, a very pale shade of blue, almost grey, and, when he put his hands behind his head to fiddle with his hair, a pair of very light coloured freckles on the back of his left hand. Would that I could have kissed them gently!
Before anyone worries, or criticises, I've no intention of stalking the boy - apart from anything else, my work schedule wouldn't allow it, even if I wanted to - it was just that he was so cute when I saw him the other day, and I just couldn't resist the temptation to see him one more time. Yeah, I know I'm a sad bastard, but I can't help it.

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

A bit of a contrast

After the frigid weather that we've had here over the past week or two - and, yes, I know it's all relative, and that we've had it a lot better than many other places - today's almost spring-like conditions are a real treat. It's sunny, with lots of blue sky in evidence, and nearly warm enough to sit outside. A good day, all in all, to be off work, as I am. I'm up in West London again, plotting which permutation of bus routes might give me the best chance of espying some eye candy when the schools finish in an hour or so. Even if my overall situation is pretty frustrating, I do usually enjoy my 'Cutie Time' when I'm meandering in the afternoon, and I'm hoping that the nice weather will enhance the experience today - there's little joy in beholding bevies of cute boys if they're all swaddled up in hooded winter coats.
It'll be back to reality tomorrow, though, as I begin a run of 11 shifts in 10 days - I'm due one of my double shift Sundays this weekend - including a full week of nights. I can hardly wait!

 Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

Out and outside

I'm up in London on my day off, just for a change, currently sampling yet another Wetherspoons, new to me, a stone's throw from the end of Tower Bridge, and contemplating what to do with the rest of my afternoon. I'm trying to persuade myself otherwise, but one plan keeps asserting itself in my head, namely finding myself, as it were, on the same bus route at the same time as last Friday, in the hope of catching up with the same cutie again. What I would expect from such an encounter, I've no idea - probably no more than another bucketload of frustration to add to the ocean's worth already in my head, if I'm being realistic.
I've been thinking again about the implications of who I am and what I want over the past couple of days, and also about the likely fallout if the 'real me' ever surfaced at work, or, at least, in the company of one of my colleagues. Not for the first time, it's made me realise how much of an outsider I am, and, in some ways, I've always been. When you're forced to live so much of your life in pretence, in hiding, just to be able to function in society at all, it can hardly be otherwise. I doubt that such musings are in any way worthwhile, because they bring me no closer to a solution, if, indeed, there is one. Caught in that intractable maze, once more.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Wilting a bit

After spending so much of yesterday at base, 15 of the next 22 hours were spent at work, as my one-off night shift was all too quickly followed by a late shift this afternoon. I can't complain - well, I can complain, but it would be a bit hypocritical, because both shifts were overtime, and thus completely voluntary. I'm running on empty a bit, having had about 90 minutes sleep since 8:30 yesterday morning, but at least I should sleep well tonight!
I caught up with my daughter this evening, after a couple of days of pre-arranged 'radio silence'. Her new boyfriend stayed over last night - separate bedrooms, of course, they are both only 14, after all, and while I wouldn't have too many moralistic qualms if it was other than it is, I have no doubt my ex would disagree - and she still seems happy with the way the way the relationship is developing, which makes me happy in return. This probably won't be the the 'love of my life' moment for her - although I stand to be corrected - but if it's good for her while it lasts, and she emerges undamaged, it will have been a good thing.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Quiet

I've done something today that I haven't done for some months - stayed at my accommodation for more or less the whole day. I am working tonight, but I don't start until 11:30, so I could quite easily have gone out, had I chosen to, but, apart from a much-postponed shopping trip, and that just to the supermarket at the end of the road, I haven't been anywhere. Most of the day has involved the laptop, as usual in these circumstances, although I can't claim to have done anything wildly productive, apart, maybe, from adding a few paragraphs to one of my stories, another of those that's been in draft for about 18 months, but one which, over the past few days, I've started to think about again. Whether it will ever be finished is, however, an entirely different question. Amazing how the 'creative' process works, sometimes - sitting here now, thinking about how, or even whether, to describe what sort of story it is, I've had an idea of how the story might end. It's rather reminiscent, I'm afraid, of a fairly famous novel, later made into an even more famous film, but I might be able to give the scenario a fresh twist, you never know. As ever with my literary endeavours, though, absolutely no promises!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

It's raining!

Not something that would ordinarily be a cause for celebration in my life, but, just for once, I really don't mind, because it's a harbinger of the end of the cold weather we've been 'enjoying' for the past week or more. Most of the snow, at least here in 'domicile-ville', has gone, although that's far from being the case everywhere - I found myself crossing Hampstead Heath earlier on, albeit on the top deck of a nice warm bus as opposed to anything more energetic, and, even allowing for the fact that it's one of the highest points in Greater London, I was surprised at how much snow was still on the ground up there, and I know that other places in the UK have had even more than that. As with most things, though, it's all relative - after hearing, elsewhere in cyberspace, of temperatures of -7°F, and a windchill equivalent to -35°F in recent days, I'll readily settle for what we've had!
Warmer thoughts were elicited by an encounter this afternoon, though, as I spent the best part of half an hour in close proximity to my second stunning cutie this week, on a bus across Central London. He wasn't quite as mind-numbingly gorgeous as the boy on the train on Monday, but there wasn't that much in it. Impure thoughts doesn't even begin to cover it!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

The puzzle

Sometimes you do something to try to change the pattern, to give the pieces a shake in the hope that everything will fall into place, just once, just for a fleeting moment. But it never does. It never, ever does.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Cats and dogs

I came across this post during my cyberspace meanderings earlier, about a 'campaign', if that's the right word, to rid the world of domestic cats. Quite apart from the sheer impracticality of the proposition, I have to say I can't agree, because I've always been something of a cat lover, even if, for the most part, the cats that have been part of my life, in typical feline fashion, have only deigned to reciprocate on their own terms, and on the odd occasions they felt like it.
If, on the other hand, the campaign was to eradicate domestic dogs....where do I sign?!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Perfect - almost

As I make my way through the world - blunder through it, it seems sometimes - I come across a lot of boys. I described them somewhere, I can't remember whether it was in this blog or in an unpublished story, as 'ghosts', ghostly in the sense that they pass in and out of my life in fleeting seconds, or, at most, minutes, then are gone forever, leaving nothing behind, hardly even a memory, in most cases. Particularly in a place like London, it's very unlikely that you'll ever see the same stranger twice, so there's no realistic expectation of another encounter. Just occasionally, though, one of the 'ghosts' becomes far more substantial, and leaves his mark on my psyche, and one such incident happened on my way to work at lunchtime today. In terms of time, the conjunction lasted no longer than many another - ten minutes, if that. A boy was waiting on the platform, two stations before my destination, and, as soon as I saw him while the train was coming to a standstill, my immediate reaction was 'wow'. He was 13, give or take, tall for his age, but otherwise entirely boyish in appearance, and what an appearance. He had those looks for which I've never been able to find the right adjective - 'handsome' isn't a strong enough word, 'beautiful' too feminine, 'pretty' too juvenile - but, whatever word might be used, looks that were all boy, that only very few are lucky enough to possess, looks that mark their possessor as special, at least to me. To my delight, he joined my carriage, and sat only a couple of seats in front of me, although I could see little more than the back of his head and a sliver of his reflection in the window he was sitting beside. When he got off of the train at the same station as me, and I followed him towards the station exit, he didn't quite have the same almost feline grace and fluidity of movement that, say, DBJ had at the same age, but that hardly detracted from the overall impression that here was the epitome of everything I desire the most.
So why, then, is that nagging adverb in the post title? For one reason only, and one that brought tears to my eyes, just about held in check by my being in a very public place, after our paths had diverged outside the station, his to the bus stop, mine to the supermarket - that for all his perfection, probably particularly because of his perfection, there are no conceivable circumstances under which he could ever be my boy, even if our 'meeting' was to be repeated every day for the foreseeable future. Just like DBJ could never have been my boy, no matter how much I loved him. Forever fated to be like the child with their nose pressed against the toyshop window, outside looking in.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Fragility, felicity and frigidity

I woke this morning feeling slightly the worse for wear, having consumed a little more alcohol yesterday than was strictly good for me, but, as usual in such circumstances, there was no-one to blame but myself, so it was just a case of getting on with the day. I was helped more than a little in that regard by a blog post that had appeared while I was sleeping off my excesses - a video of part of a gig by Extreme Noise Terror. They're definitely not to everyone's taste, as evidenced by a couple of the comments the post has attracted, but I love them, and the video certainly put a smile on my face.
The snow returned today, and, unusually, it was actually worse in London than down here in 'domicile-ville'. For once, though, the railway seemed to cope adequately with the wintry conditions, and, helped by a slightly earlier than expected escape from work, I've made it back without any problems. There's yet more of the dreaded white stuff forecast for tomorrow, though. I can hardly wait!

 Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

Injustice

I've been vacillating about whether to post this, or not, for the past couple of hours. But, as I've said before, this blog is the primary place for me to be me, the place where I can be genuinely honest, so I'm going to go for it. Even though it might very well cause people, even those who have tolerated me hitherto, to hate me. If that's the case, then sobeit - I am what I am, and I can't be anything else.
It had to be him, too - of all the bigoted, homophobic pricks I've ever had the misfortune to have worked with, it had to be him. The shift manager I fell out with during the Olympics used to work at Kings Cross, an area infamous for prostitution, certainly in the past, although whether that's still the case I have no idea. He told the tale this morning of an encounter he'd supposedly had during his time there, when he found himself near the station entrance at around 1:00 in the morning, and was accosted by a boy prostitute, around 14 years old. The way he told it, he lectured the boy about his lifestyle, about how he should have been at home, blah, blah, blah. My immediate reaction was to put my head in my hands, because I couldn't help but wish that it had been me that the boy had approached. Rather than moralising at him, I would have engaged him, at least, if it had happened today, I would have engaged him, tried to look after him, materially and physically - I certainly would have paid him far more than the derisory amount he allegedly asked for - treated him with respect, but, yes, I would have gone to bed with him, had it been in any way practicable. That's it, really - there isn't much more I can say. After 40 years of wanting, I wouldn't have been able to resist. If that makes me evil, then I'm evil. Sorry.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

No redeeming features

A little bit of Hitchhiker to start the evening:

“Life,” said Marvin dolefully, “loathe it or ignore it, you can’t like it.” 

Substitute the word 'snow' for 'life' at the beginning of that sentence, and it just about sums up how I feel about the weather and its doings at the moment. Yes, the snow we've been threatened with for almost a week, and that other parts of the UK have already been afflicted with, arrived at around 9:00 this morning in this neck of the woods, and is now here with a vengeance, and, to judge by the forecasts, will be here for several days to come. I can hardly restrain my enthusiasm. I mean, what's not to like? Apart from the fact that it's cold, wet, slippery and screws up just about every aspect of life, especially, as I've said before, in this country, where we seem to be congenitally incapable of coping with it, nothing at all. Not. If anyone catches me moaning about rain, ever again, please don't hesitate to shoot me.

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

Filial responsibility

I saw something while I was out today which made me think along lines that hadn't really occurred to me before. A woman, of around my age, or perhaps a little older, boarded one of the buses I was on, pushing a wheelchair, sitting in which was an older lady, who I presume was her mother - there was certainly a family resemblance. The woman didn't show any sign of thinking of what she was doing being an imposition, but I couldn't help but think that I would never want my daughter to be in that position in regards to me, and I told her so when I spoke to her this evening. The way I view my role towards my daughter, as I've said before in this blog, is as a caretaker, helping her, as far as I can, to set her on the path that she would choose for herself without imposing any of my issues on her. As far as I'm concerned, she doesn't owe me anything, and I wouldn't ever want her to think that she did. She's her own person, and should go and live her own life, without feeling that she has to sacrifice anything on my behalf. All I have asked her, and that only as a favour, is that when I die, that there isn't any religious input into my funeral, and that, if any music is played, it should include Never Understand by The Jesus & Mary Chain. If she's willing to do that much for me, it will be more than enough.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Chilly, Captcha and cuties

My day off today, and, predictably enough, I'm up in town again. It's been one of those days which are very nice to look at - it's been clear and sunny for much of the time - but not, perhaps, quite so nice to experience at first hand, because it's been bloody freezing! Still, given that I could have hibernated indoors, I suppose I shouldn't complain. I've pretty much thawed out now, though, courtesy of 'work-town' Wetherspoons, whose wi-fi I'm currently availing myself of to write this post, on my Kindle. Using my still relatively new toy isn't without its frustrations, though - I wrote a longish comment on a blogpost elsewhere, only to find that I couldn't publish it because the Kindle wouldn't display the Captcha image. 'Take two' will have to wait until I get back to base later. Not all has been as frustrating this afternoon, though - although that might depend on which definition of 'frustrating' you use. I've seen several very easy on the eye cuties, albeit that most of them were far too young to do anything other than muse on how nice it might be to catch up with them in a few years time. Only daydreaming, needless to say.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

A dream of another life

I dreamed of my ex-wife last night, not something that was particularly common even when we were together, and certainly not since it all imploded. I dreamed that I was explaining myself and my motivations to her, and that she understood, at least to a point. The dream seemed hardly less surreal than the reality, the way things are now. It's her birthday next week, and, for the first time in more than twenty years, it won't be a significant day for me, except in as far as it signifies how much things have changed since the equivalent day last year. It really does seem to have been a whole different life, as distant and unapproachable as a mirage. Of course, no amount of navel-gazing will change a thing, the fork in the road was passed on February 29 2012, and there's no way of retracing my path, to find my way back to that other place. The lost boy, more lost than ever.

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

Imbecility in the morning

I came within an ace of having a stand-up row before I even got to work this morning. I called in the newsagents outside 'work-town' station - not to buy a paper, I hasten to add, there are virtually no national newspapers that I would even deign to wipe my arse on, still less read - to be regaled by the shop assistant, a 50-something man of whom it was evident that if a thought had ever crossed his mind, it would have had an exceedingly short journey, and the customer in front of me, a person of similar stamp, opining about the Jimmy Savile affair. 'They're all bent,' was the shop assistant's considered opinion, 'celebrities, they're all bent'. Yeah, well better 'bent' than thicker than a bucket of shit, as far as I'm concerned. And then he had the effrontery to call me 'mate' when he served me. If I needed people like you as mates, mister, I'd fucking hang myself. Moron.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

An unexpected meeting

But certainly not an unwelcome one. I've been off today, and, despite a little early indecision about how I might spend the time, I did the predictable, getting ready and heading up to London. As usual, I'd been meandering around, seeing one or two new corners of the capital, and looking out for eye candy, being rewarded, if that's the right word, with a fleeting view of one of the cutest boys I've seen for weeks, on a bus on the way into Central London. All routine enough, and all the more so as, in early afternoon, I began to make my way across town towards my 'London local'. That, though, was when I received a text message which changed my plans, such as they were. A good friend was also in London, on, as it turned out, a visit which he didn't even know he was going to make until this morning, and was free for a couple of hours during the late afternoon and early evening, so we arranged to get together. Nothing wildly out of the ordinary ensued, it was just a case of drinks and conversation, but, given my largely solitary lifestyle these days, it really made a refreshing change. Undoubtedly a more congenial Sunday than I'd been expecting.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Haunted

I've always been one to hold onto things, things that still embarrass me, even though they happened years ago, and are remembered by no-one other than me, things I wish I'd done differently, or not done at all, things I failed to do that I should have. Sometimes, though, things come to mind that genuinely haunt me. One such is the case of an Essex schoolboy who was raped and murdered by his next door neighbour, a friend of the family, more than thirty years ago. I would guess that the picture of the boy that appeared in the press at the time, a school photograph, a picture of a happy, smiling boy, so pretty, so young - he was a few days short of his tenth birthday when he was killed - finds its way to the forefront of my memory a couple of times a year, along with the heartrending words the boy supposedly said to his assailant, presumably from the man's confession. 'Please, Uncle Barney, please don't'. All I can hope is that if a boy ever says 'Please don't' to me, I won't. I just wish I could guarantee that I wouldn't.

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

If I'm going to dream....

....I would, at least, like nicer dreams than the one that woke me at 2:30 this morning. I had quite a vivid dream of what seemed to be like a sort of substandard action movie scenario, the sort of thing that I would never voluntarily watch in waking life, ending with one of the characters having his hand blown off with a large gun, his screaming being what woke me up, apparently. Where any of it came from, I don't really know, although I do have an idea about the provenance of the gory denouement - there was a similar scene in Robocop, which I watched one very quiet afternoon in a Dutch bar in Gran Canaria, more than twenty years ago. Why can't I have, or at least remember, nice dreams instead, ones with love and cuddles and happy times. Unless, of course, my psyche has become so warped that there aren't any of those types of thoughts left, even in my subconscious.
The weather pundits, just to depress my spirits still further, are threatening snow tomorrow. It must be something to do with the aging process, but what seemed like a huge treat in childhood now seems like the Sword of Damocles. I really can't do snow anymore, on any level - it's just a total and utter pain in the arse, especially in this country, where we seem to be abjectly incapable of dealing with it, even in minute quantities. All I can do is to cross my fingers and hope that if it does arise, chaos won't reign totally.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Cold

It is, and I've got one. It's all relative, of course - by the standards of anywhere with a continental type of climate, it's positively sybaritic, but it's a lot chillier than the past few days, while my state of health is far from being life-threatening, but is substandard enough to be a nuisance, at least. Not that these vicissitudes have kept me grounded today - as is my wont when I'm not working, I've been up in London for most of the day, although I'm back in 'domicile-ville' now. Not that I've done anything of any great consequence, but I've kept myself out of mischief, if nothing else. There was an interesting few minutes when I was in the Wetherspoons in 'work-town' earlier - the place seemed suddenly to be swarmed with boys. I must have seen ten or twelve, not all together, but in three or four distinct (presumably) family groups. Not really what you expect to see in a pub, but it goes without saying that I wasn't complaining!

 Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

Legalised stealing

That's a pretty good summary of my last two working days. I was on a briefing day yesterday, and I've been on an assessment day today, and the sum total of both days, timewise, has been hardly more than half of one ordinary shift. I did all that was asked of me, though, sailing through today's proceedings, in particular, with far more ease than I would have expected. Without wishing to sound complacent, I do know my stuff, in terms of procedures and the way our standards lay down that they should be done, so maybe the odd easy day is the reward for that.
So now I'm off until Friday morning, and, predictably enough, I'm up in London, and indeed, even more predictably, in my 'London local'. I was thinking of doing other things, but, as usual, I can resist anything except temptation, so the pub it is. Now that I've only got myself to consider, most of the time, anyway, why shouldn't I do something I like to do, after all? Life's crap enough as it is, without inflicting unnecessary abstinence on myself!

 Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

But, on a happier note

This is what I was originally going to post today, before I was sidetracked by the other issue.
'A thing happened', my daughter said to me when I rang her this afternoon. That thing is that she is officially going out with a boy she initially 'met' in cyberspace, and subsequently IRL shortly before Christmas. He lives in Cornwall, albeit the best part of 40 miles further west than my erstwhile home, and is actually slightly younger than my girl, but only by a few months. It's the first time she's really had a 'boyfriend', as opposed to a friend who happens to be male, so I'm hoping things go well for her. Time will tell, as ever.

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

The only solution

They appear from time to time, opinion pieces written from a specific viewpoint. I've written a few myself. Everyone is, of course, entitled to their opinion, and the free expression of those opinions is an important indicator of how progressive a given society is. There are times, though, it seems to me, when that freedom spills over into hysteria and hatred. I've recently read a blog post by an Indian feminist on the subject of, to use her own title, 'The Rape of the Minor'. It seems to have been inspired by a truly awful case, of a 13 year old girl in India repeatedly raped by various family members over a two year period, but, as far as I'm concerned, the author has gone wildly over the top in the extrapolation of her argument. As I read it, anyone attracted to 'children' is mentally ill, and 'paedophiles' are incurables for whom 'the only solution' is chemical castration. As I've said before in this blog, rape is a crime that I find totally horrifying and abhorrent, but I find it almost equally abhorrent that all those attracted to minors are tarred with one brush, that of amorality and the complete absence of any self-control. I don't (usually) consider myself to be a paedophile in any case, although I realise that there will be many who would, but, whatever else, I most certainly don't consider myself to be mentally ill, or in need of pharmaceutical intervention to control my libido. I know right from wrong, and anything non-consensual is always wrong, irrespective of the age of those involved. I'm not expecting acceptance any time soon, but I don't expect kneejerk vilification, either.

Love & best wishes to all
 Sammy B

Fantasyland

I read a story earlier, at a website I visit regularly, probably too regularly, if I'm being honest. It doubtless goes without saying that there was some erotic content, but there was a lot of love in the tale, too. Sometimes, when I've read stories like this in the past, I've got myself upset, not so much because of the absence of the physical expression of what I am and what I want, but more by the lack of an emotional connection, of not having the chance at the sort of loving relationship I most want, and have wanted for such a long time. This time, though, I was left feeling pretty good. Emotionally and physically. Too much information, no doubt, but there it is. I've almost given up hope that anything like it will ever happen to me. But only almost. There's still a faint, very faint light, somewhere in the distance, the dream that, one day, it might just be my turn.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Oh, how I laughed

Schadenfreude, no doubt, but this news story that I first came across on the radio this morning did make me laugh. The Vatican City blocked from electronic financial transactions because it doesn't comply with EU regulations designed to avoid money laundering. The pontifical mafiosi getting their comeuppance at last, maybe?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Justifying bigotry

Or trying to, at least. I spent a while this morning reading a fair number of the comments on a report at The Guardian website, one published a few days ago, about the increasing support for marriage equality in the UK, as evidenced by the results of a survey quoted in the report. It showed that backing for 'gay marriage', as most people seem to insist on calling it, had risen by several percentage points even during the course of 2012, with the over-65's now being the only age group to have a majority in favour of the current position, which seems pretty encouraging.
Hardly surprisingly, though, there were those who didn't want to take the results at face value, and sought ways of 'proving' that their own prejudiced (in most cases) position was more accurate. One claimed that the poll was skewed by allowing 'non-UK citizens' to take part, the pernicious influence of 'Johnny Foreigner' again, trying to make the country unfit for xenophobic troglodytes to live in, no doubt (with, of course, a sideswipe at those evil, hand-rubbing bureaucrats at the EU who apparently want to expunge every last trace of 'Britishness' from the face of the earth), another said he couldn't believe that the headline figure of a 62% majority could be true, because he, personally, didn't know 'anyone in favour', which, I suspect, says more about the circles he moves in rather than the views of the country at large, another who suggested that his marriage would be irrevocably changed, and that he would be ashamed to call himself married, if same-sex people were allowed to do the same, yet another prefaced by the transparently disingenuous 'I invite my gay friends to lunch, but....', as though we're some kind of alien species. The most fatuous non-sequitur of an 'argument' I saw, though, was put forward by someone who was evidently a religionist, given that his several contributions to the discussion were full of biblical references, and who suggested to a member of the 'pro' camp that, if gay marriage was such a good thing, they should get a group of their heterosexual friends together and have an 'open-gut conversation' as to why those heterosexuals didn't engage in 'homosexual practices'. Well, duh, it's because they're not gay, presumably - correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that's what the word 'heterosexual' meant. It's on a par with a racist asking a black person to get a group of white friends together to discuss why, if black skin is such a good thing, they haven't got it, too. Arrant nonsense, hardly worth the effort of countering.
What, ultimately, are these people so afraid of? Why does equality seem to be so anathema to them? Could it just be that the white, Christian, straight male group that most of these people seem to belong to are terrified of losing their customary position of unearned power and privilege, and might actually have to make some effort to maintain that position, rather than having it handed to them on a plate? Welcome to the real world, start to prove you're willing and able to earn your privileges, rather than taking them for granted.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Turn of the year....

....turn of the tide? Probably not, not least because 'the turn of the year' is purely a calendrical artefact, there being no special reason, other than convention, that the year should begin on January 1, but, that said, one of the first things that I saw online in 2013 was something that lifted my spirits considerably. I might be able to become involved in a collaboration with not only the person in cyberspace I care most about, but with my daughter as well. She was certainly enthusiastic when I discussed it with her this evening. Early days, of both the year and the 'project', of course, but something positive to begin 2013 with.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B