Category: hobbies

Flights of Fancy

On By Peter's ponderingIn ageing, birds, creativity, Fact, Fantasy, flight, hobbies, humour, Poetry, Rapid rhyme, Smile time35 Comments

I met a lovely man today, there’s many still around

We stood and watched a buzzard soar then swoop down to the ground

This prompted talk of early flights both having flown a glider

The joy of riding thermals and of soaring far and wider

But now, our flights of fancy are all we have to share

We’d love to take a risk or two but we no longer dare

Because our equilibrium just is no longer trusted

Our balance and our weary joints are somewhat rather rusted

Perhaps we’ll try to parasail or other kinds of flight

For me I think I’d like to try to learn to microlight!

But maybe not, we shouldn’t dream of turning back the clocks

Tonight I fell, and broke my leg, whilst taking off my socks!

A Nice Blogging Survey

On By Peter's ponderingIn about me, community, creativity, Difference, discussion, hobbies, humour, joy, nature, New blogs to follow, nice things58 Comments

On Wednesday, Maggie, from CaveWalls Creatively Unleashed, posted a blogging survey, my answers to which are below:

You can join in by following THIS LINK.

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1. How many times per week do you post? Do you post multiple times a day? If so, how many?

  • 1 to 6 per week

2. How many blogs do you follow?

  • 265

3. Do you read all the blogs you follow every day? If not, how often do you read other blogs?

  • Yes, but many post infrequently.  I sometimes read other blogs via a comment they have made.

4. Do you seek out new blogs to follow?  If so, how do you find them?

  • Only in so far as in 3 above, if I find them interesting

5. Do you comment on the blogs you read? If not, why? Do you respond to all the comments left on your blog?

  • The vast majority, yes.  I normally respond to all comments but will occasionally just “like”.

6. Do you ever close comments on a blog you post? If so, why?

  • I have all comments set to close after 120 days.  If reduces SPAM to almost zero.

7. Do you ever unfollow someone? If so, why?

  • Yes.  If they become overly religious, sanctimonious, extreme in their views, or hurtful.

8. What content inspires you to follow a blogger?

  • Anything that displays a joy for life or nature. 

9. What content turns you off from following someone?

  • Monetised sites, health, fitness, wellness, religion, extreme views.

10. How important is it to you that you add a photo to every post?

  • Not at all.

11. Leave me a link for one blogger (other than yourself) that you think I should check out.

  • Now this is difficult. We all have different tastes and pursuits, although I find that we do tend to group into like minded gangs here on WordPress. A member of my gang that you may find interesting, amusing, and talented is a happiness blogging, circus skills instructing & common butterfly following German. She is also a performer, writer & linguist, who is annoyingly keen on hillwalking, baking lopsided cakes and causing a ruckus. She lives in Scotland, her chosen home & habitat since the year 2000. You can find Britta here.

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My wife and I have just been having a conversation about the word NICE. She was discouraged, at school, from using the word as her teacher thought it lazy and said there were much more descriptive ways of giving a compliment. I think NICE describes the majority of WordPress just perfectly. We have a NICE safe environment, we meet NICE people, read NICE posts, make and receive NICE comments. Of course, if you look, there are murky depths in every area of life. Should I ever feel that WordPress has become anything other than NICE for me I shall look elsewhere for my daily slice of NICENESS.

Thank you all for being NICE!

The good, the bad, and the ugly #2

On By Peter's ponderingIn #Writephoto, creativity, crime, Dads, death, dreams, family, fiction, flash fiction, food, haiku, hobbies, horror, Poetry, Short stories, Weekly prompts, wildlife32 Comments

This week’s #writephoto is below. Check out the rules and all of the fabulous entries by clicking on the link

BERJAYA

The Fisherman – Image by KL Caley

The good

Perfect fishing day

Caught them by the bucketload

Returned them unharmed

The bad

Constant casting, perfect calm

Fish are fasting, free from harm

What’s for dinner now no fish?

I’ll get thinner, oh I wish!

And the ugly

He’d fished here for years, first as a boy with his Dad, then as a youth while others were chasing girls, now as a man, alone. 

It was a perfect pastime. 

He loved to cast and dream, to snooze and remember, to breathe the fresh air, occasionally to catch a fish.  He loved the solitude, the perfect reflections that rippled every time he cast, or drew in his line. He even loved it when it rained and the fish rose to the surface, seeming to delight in the shower.        

He thought of it more as feeding the fish, rather than a battle of wills to lure them on to his hook. 

Over the years he’d fed them worms, grubs, and all sorts of ground bait, but the best days fishing was surely the day he’d fed them his wife!