Anxiety

My anxiety Is an unease at a basic level

through worry

to fear

like traffic lights

Green-Amber-Red

1-2-3

or 3-2-1!

like water over-topping my ability to cope

It's being out of control of a situation I find myself in

(or thinking I'm out of control)

rather than I control it

it controls me

I find myself in situations I think I can't

handle

influence in anyway

manage

balance

ending with a sence of switching off

where previously I would have sailed through the senario

this time it is overwhelming me

I feel a sence of hopelessness and dispare

"why couldn't I get it right!"

frightened I might appear stupid

frightened that I might loose my job

loose face

it all come crumbling down

cross with myself that I couldn't get right

down

frustrated 

defeated 

beaten by something I've previously been able to deal with

it's all out of proportion

but at the time it is very real 

Thought

Find a solution to the problem,

don't dwell on the problem itself 

Medium Wave

Kids these days just won't understand! 

they don't even know what a radio is!

Back in the day,

listening to the Medium Wave band.

I remember listening to Capital radio on 194 meters in Brighton transmitting from London.

Autumn; winter time so the signal was fading in and out.

Then a track comes on

"Guilty" with Barry Gibb and Barbara Streisand,

creating a memory I keep to this very day.

The beautiful full tones of the medium wave band,

Soft and true.

Beautiful,

including the fading and crackle! 

Every time I hear the track I am taken back.

My Veggie Trip

 The 2nd of July 2021 I announced to my family I intended to be vegetarian. It was almost like I was coming out as being gay! I have been such a carnivore in the past, the looks on my familys' faces were priceless!

I had been struggling for many months with the contraction on one hand of loving animals, having a dog, rescuing spiders from the bath, yet seeking to gain my protein from meat and animal products.

I have recently opened my eyes to what rubbish is being served up as meat. Mechanically reclaimed meat in chicken nuggets and beef burgers. Ham that are just bits stuck together in the convenient shape and size of a slice of bread. I'd gone off chicken, in fact I'd got sick of it, I still liked beef, but no one else in the family did.  

Time for a change. Time to face up to how I really felt. Time to finish off the 'hippy', peace-loving life style and indeed now living how wanted to live and showing how I really feel. 

I was really fooling myself in regard to how I wanted to live, how I really felt about things and how I wanted things to be; moving forward. So, one day whilst out on a photography trip I had a bacon and sausage bap (god knows what was in the sausages). And that was it! I even bought the veggie version of a meal deal, later in the day at a well known supermarket in Sussex! Done, sorted! Change made!

I didn't initially make the choice to be uber-healthy, and I've not fully done it to save the planet... can one middle aged man going veggie save anything? That said,  I'm a type 2 diabetic, I am diary intolerant and was 60 in September so I will be fascinated to see how those parts of me are affected!

Finishing this piece off as I am on Christmas day, and having recently had the feedback from a diabetic check-up the news is good!

Not only am I still veggie and have not been inticed off the straight and narrow by meat of any kind, my diabetic score is now 46, and technically I'm now a pre-diabetic!

What next? Dump the bags of sweets! Lets get less sugar in my life and see if I can get that score even lower!

Black Friday

I think the 'Black' in Black Friday refers to the darker side of consumerism. 

Ths darker side of human nature,

humans hunger and greed or is it's the modern 'something for nothing's mentality.

Scenes of shoppers breaking down doors to get in to get the bargains, fighting with each other, with staff and generally anyone they can! Sucked in by tempting offers of 50, 60, 70% off. Are these bargains real? Are these people real! 

It's Black Friday, Black Friday Month, Black Friday forever!

Initially Black Friday was a marketing idea for the first Friday after Thanks Giving in the States, now it simply signals the start of the mad round of pre-Christmas consumerism.

What drives people to behave like this? Is it that everyone else is doing it so they must do it too? That modern phenomenon of 'FOMO' the fear of missing out? What ever it is, it leaves me cold and indicates to me just what's wrong with society. The modern "me me me" way of thinking! Take a look in a mirror sometime and think, what could you do for other people.

Who's in Control?

When I paint, I have a thought, an idea which I want to visualise onto a canvass, a piece of paper or panel. 

I am in control of the paint by what ever means I choose, I can apply it. I can choose colours, forms and methods of application, but I am in control.

When I painted outside and it began to rain, I lost that control. The paint which I had already applied to the canvas was moved, shaped, distorted into forms which I wasn't controlling. It took on shapes and styles I wasn't expecting. My only role was to stop this process when I saw a finished piece by taking it inside.

Half The World Goes To Bed Hungry

The Christmas panic has begun! 'No Pigs in Blankets' the headlines scream. 'Christmas stuck in containers!'  Western parents start to panic buy Christmas in September! October Turkey sales highest ever! November's 'Black Friday' cancelled!

Oh, and don't forget the cranberry sauce! How about this radio headline?

"Half the world has too much food, half goes to bed hungry!"