Michael Harling's Blog, page 10

Oh No! It’s Happened Again!

My watch, wishing me a Happy Birthday.

This morning, my Vivofit Activity Tracker, which I use primarily as a watch, wished me a happy birthday. This was doubly surprising: first of all, up until then, I hadn’t realized it was my birthday, and secondly, I had already opened my Smartphone, and that had NOT wished me a happy birthday. You’d think my Smartphone would be smarter than my watch, especially as it is so smug about being smart that it includes Smart in its name.

The third thing I di...

A Look Back

Seeing as how 2023 is already speeding by (Tomorrow is the 3rd of January! Already!!!) I thought it was time to take a nostalgic look back on the 2020s so far:

What the fuck? Seriously, what the genuine fuck just happened? Did we really go through two years of pandemic-induced hell, only to be rewarded with whatever fresh hell 2023 is preparing to throw at us? (I am, of course, referencing the pandemic-induced hell unleashed on my small island, as that is the only one I experienced first-hand...

One For the Road

I should have known 2022 wasn’t going to let me go without one final kick in the gonads: on what should have been a pleasant trip to London, I wrecked the car.

Yeah, I did that.

To be fair, I’ve been driving for over 50 years, and this is only the second car I have wrecked. I think that’s good going, especially when you consider that, in neither case, was there any property damage or injuries, apart from the cars, of course, my pride, and possibly a confused owl.

Allow me to explain:

...

Christmas 2022

Have a Merry Christmas everyone! Or a Happy Hanukkah, Jolly Las Posadas, Joyful Solstice, Cheery Yuletide, Jubilant Soyal, Colourful Kwanzaa, Festive Festivus, or whatever you choose to celebrate.

And I mean that.

This is the first Holiday Season we have been able to celebrate since 2019—and even that year had the worrying shadow of something sinister brewing in Wuhan. This year we are off the leash; there are no lockdowns, or restrictions (here, at least) and we are as free as we wish to ...

Snow

Yeah, we’ve got snow, for about the first time in ten years.

Horsham Park 12 December 2022

When I first moved here, and marveled at the lack of snow, friends would tell me stories along the lines of: “When I was a child, we had snow all the time, and it was so deep it came up to my armpits.”

And I don’t doubt that’s true. I just think their perception is a little skewed.

Me and my sister, in 1958, with the snow up to, and surpassing, my armpits. I was, however, only 3 feet tall at the...

A Lesson For All

Last week, Ted Ropple mentioned in a blog about hiking in the mountains—one of his favourite pastimes—that a woman had recently frozen to death, having gone out unprepared. I had a mind to comment on his post, but the comment kept getting longer and longer, so I thought I’d blog about it, instead.

Then, before I could get to it, he followed it up with a very informative post about what to bring when you do hike in the mountains.

And so, now that Ted has laid the groundwork, here is my stor...

Against All Odds

It is done.

The Bard of Tilbury—Book IV in my Talisman Series—is now available on your local Amazon—just in time for Christmas (how’s that for good timing!). This is the simplest, shortest, and gentlest book of the series. It’s sorta humorous, and nobody dies.

The boys travel to 1588 where they meet William Shakespeare, and become pawns in a plot to overthrow the monarchy.

I was sure I wouldn’t have it finished until after New Year, but in the middle of November, the fina...

Terms of Endearment

This morning, while making coffee, I noted my wife’s half-filled cup and asked, “Warm that up for ya, hun?” because that’s what waitresses in American diners say when they give you a refill.

Warm that up for ya’ hun?

This precipitated a brief discussion about how we do not, and never have, used those sorts of monikers for one another. And I’m not even talking about the obnoxious pet-names, like snuggle-bunny, snookums, or smoochie-pie. We don’t even use low-impact endearments, such as “dear...

Pining for Pinnacles

Many years ago, I gave this advice to my children:

“If you want to be the best in the world at something, pick a subject no one else is interested in.”

I told them this, not only because I excelled at giving rubbish advice to my children, but also because I had recently become the world’s foremost expert on The History of the American System of Fingerprint Classification, a subject that—as noted above—no one else in the world cared a wit about.

This all came about because I had been pro...

Catching Up

My wife and I just bought a new TV. We seem to do this every seven years, but this time it was not due to the old set moving on to the great recycle centre in the sky (or the amenity tip). What prompted this purchase was the need for a larger screen.

We have always lived in small flats (and more to the point, had good eyesight) so we never needed a large TV. Our first was what I would term mid-sized. This was when we were first married—in 2002—back in the day when televisions contained a mamm...