Michael Harling's Blog, page 12

On This Side of the Pond

A while ago, my son, along with his wife and three children, made the trek across the Pond to visit us on our home turf. This was a welcome change, but it required some forethought, as our flat is way too small to billet seven people. Therefore, we rented a holiday home on the coast.

And now a word about that accommodation: lovely.

Lovely house, great amenities, recommended.

More words would include: It was a large house, located on the south coast. It had four bedrooms, three bathrooms,...

Big Brother is Watching, But I’m Not Doing Anything Interesting

I recently got a new phone. Hold your applause.

My current phone (I won’t say my old phone because, by my reckoning, I bought it about 2 years ago) started slowing down, forgetting things, and needing recharging more regularly, which is kind of how I feel some days, but that’s beside the point. I thought getting a new battery would solve the issues, but when I looked into the phone’s history, I realized it was closer to four years old than two, and that—as we all know—is about 147 in phone ye...

The Magic String

File this one under “The Benefits of Boredom.”

At some point in the early 1960s, I somehow obtained a copy of String Figures and How to Make Them by Caroline Furness Jayne. Rarely has an acquisition made such a monumental impact on my life, and in this case, I have no idea how it happened. Was it a gift? Something my mom had that I took an interest in? Or did it just appear one day, like manna from heaven? The latter, although the least likely scenario, is what seems to be the case, as I only...

A Dead Rat and a String to Swing It

Today’s essay (I like the sound of that; it implies I post regularly, which we all know, I don’t) is about pockets, and what people—more specifically, boys—keep, or used to keep, in them.

This idea came about during an investigation of and rumination about what was currently in my own pockets (okay, I was bored) and prompted me to wonder if children bother putting stuff in their pockets any longer. I suspect any modern child over the age of six would simply carry a smartphone, as it serves as...

Norway

No way! Norway? Yes way! Our way. (I’ll stop now before you tell me to Go aWay.)

Yeah, we went to Norway, a country I had never thought of visiting, but the trip to the Hebrides we booked in 2019 got postponed, postponed, cancelled, re-scheduled, and eventually set to a date that conflicted with another oft-postponed trip. So, they offered us a swap. Consequently, we went to Norway. (I’ve got nothing against Nordic nations, they just weren’t on our bucket list. Having visited this one, howeve...

Memory Lane

We have returned from America, which means, of course, that we were allowed to go there. This was a strange trip, for a variety of reasons:

through no fault of our own, we haven’t been there for a long time, so traveling itself felt oddby pure happenstance, this trip coincided with our original trip to Upstate New York—precisely twenty years ago—when we went there on our honeymoon in April 2002. (I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure we are the only couple in the history of the world who ha...

Lockdown Revisited

My wife and I are currently in Lockdown. It is, however, voluntary and, although it is happening on the two-year anniversary of the first UK Lockdown, this is not an attempt to recapture the magic. It is, instead, due to an awkward event looming in our not-too-distant future where, through no fault (or choice) of our own, we will be required to appear at an officially recognized, Government ordained, testing centre, to submit to a PCR test. Failure—to appear or to pass—will deny us permission to...

For the First Time…

…I finished a book project, not only On Time, but Before the Deadline. I began the revision of The Roman Villa on the 20th of November and finished it on the 20th of February, leaving three weeks in the Project Plan for further tweaking and proof reading. Furthermore, it allows me to start Book III of the series—The Sacred Tor—earlier than I had planned, which, I hasten to add, does not mean I will finish it early. Or even on time.

For you non-writers, pulling a book together in three months ...

There’s a War on, You Know

Just to be clear, there’s a war on.

It’s not a Special Military Operation, or a Peacekeeping Mission. It’s a war. The brainchild of a real-life Bond villain (with more than a passing resemblance to Doby the House Elf), whose skewed view of the world does not include the country of Ukraine on the map, and who therefore decided to send in his tanks, bombs and guns to bring his fever-dream to fruition. The real-world result of his actions is that, mere days ago, millions of people were peacefull...

And Just Like That…

…it’s over.

After two years of self-isolating, hand-sanitizing, mask-wearing, stuffing cotton swaps up our noses, and struggling to suppress a cough in public for fear of sending everyone in a 50-foot radius scrambling for the hills in a blind panic, our Government has decreed that, on Thursday the 24th of February 2022—two years after it began—COVID shall cease to exist. (Or, if you’re reading this on a later date, that was the date it stopped, and you are now living with the fallout. How’s ...