Michael Harling's Blog, page 11

Choices

Once you attain a certain number of years, you gain the ability to divine which of the choices you made during your life had the greatest impact. Over the decades, I have made many choices, some good, many bad, but only one momentous.

Those who know me might assume it was the decision to be a writer, but that fails on two counts. First of all, what makes you think I had a choice? Writing choses you, not the other way around. It’s a sort of mental illness that only intense psychoanalysis and/o...

When Blogs Collide

I didn’t mean to do this, honest. It’s the fault of the lame WordPress Archives Widget. It’s there on the right, under What’s New. Look at it! It’s a piece of crap. And I knew I could do better, and that’s what started it all.

My intent was simply to gather my Postcard Posts into a single archive (which is now available if you click ARCHIVES at the top of this page), but once I crawled into the rabbit hole, there was no way out except to keep digging. What I got out of it was a companion piece, a...

Home From the Sea

Wow! Four posts from a single holiday, plus a bonus blog about getting COIVD. That’s not a record, but it’s pretty good.

This was definitely a Trip-of-a-Lifetime, because we’re never doing anything like this again. We’re glad we did it, we saw many things we would have never been able to see otherwise, and we had many unexpected adventures, but around Day Three we both—independently—arrived at a startling conclusion: we don’t like being away from home this long.

It’s not that we don’t like travel ...

Cruising

When you go on a cruise, the first thing that impresses you (or, at least, people like my wife) is the price. It’s not cheap. But, of course, people will say, “Everything’s included, so that makes it worthwhile.” And the second thing that impresses you is the price: true, your food is included (in certain venues), you can swim for free, and the view won’t put you out of pocket, but everything else—even staying in your room—has a price tag.

Drinks are not free, and the Tier System to buy a Drinks ...

Banff and Beyond

Tuesday, 6 September: Banff

This really was the unluckiest trip we have ever been on. It started on the plane, with not one, but two, sick passengers* (the other was a woman who suffered a panic attack when we first got on — it was like she knew), then, when we finally landed and found our Tour Rep, we ended up losing one of our group.

(* Incredibly, the sick woman I wrote about in my earlier blog ended up sitting next to me on the flight home. We got talking and she told me about her expe...

My Corona

Hi. This isn’t Mike. It’s his wife. Mike is a bit under the weather.

He started feeling like he was getting a cold on the penultimate day of the holiday. On the final day, we were supposed to go on a tour of Vancouver Island and Butchart Gardens—something I really wanted to see—but he didn’t feel up to a full day of touring, so we stayed at the hotel. The next day, when we were leaving, he felt worse, but he still thought it was a cold. We got on the plane at six in the afternoon for a ten-ho...

Eventual Holiday

And so, we went on holiday, eventually.

This was a holiday we originally booked in November of 2019, after deciding we’d like to see the western portion of the United States, having already seen much of the (quite lovely) Eastern bit. The tour was to take place in September 2020 but, well, things happened.

The tour was rescheduled for September 2021, but things were still happening.

Then the tour was cancelled.

Then the company decide they would do the tour one last time and schedule...

Squirrel Squabbles

Some time ago I got it in my head that I ought to start feeding the birds, based solely on the fact that there was a handy feeder-hook attached to the side of the bin store. And some time after that initial thought, I put it into practice by buying a bird feeder and a bag of feed and hanging it up (the feeder, not the bag).

Within minutes, it was covered in squirrels.

I’m a country boy, so I sorta saw that coming, but I figured they’d get tired, or full, after a while and let the birds hav...

The Sacred Tor

Yeah, I got another book done.
This one—the third instalment of the series—takes place in the year 1066. Vikings, Normans, lots of killing, and a trip to Glastonbury Tor. That’s all you’re getting; I don’t want to give it all away.

Available on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,
and all the other Amazons

The revisions and updating of this book (basically rewriting the whole thing) took about four months which, given that the first book took a year, is something to celebrate. However, according to my o...

The Games

My wife and I are not what you’d call Big Venue people. We don’t go to concerts, and we view events—such as those that attract vast crowds outside of Buckingham Palace—from the safety of our living room sofa, horrified at the notion of being trapped in the midst of such a horde. Therefore, when the Commonwealth Games came to Birmingham, it never occurred to us to go. It did, however, occur to my brother-in-law (veteran of many an O2 concert), and, with trepidation, we agreed to go with him.

W...