Posts

The Art of Self-Reflection

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One phenomenon of human life that always fascinates me is the ability to recognise how far we've come, even when we're oblivious to it at the time. Flipping through old photographs, for example. We might have thought that was a really cool hair cut or a very snazzy  outfit at the time, but looking back... maybe not the best choice. And yet, even in those awkward phases, we can see hints of who we were becoming - the version of ourselves who, looking back now, can laugh at how far we've come. Many times, people talk about their 'before' pictures at the start of a weight loss journey, which, in hindsight, might actually be their 'after' now. (Yes, I’ve been guilty of that one too.)

Five Years On

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Given that today marks five years since the first lockdown was announced in the UK, it feels like a good point of reflection – you know, like the TikTok trend? Plus, I've found myself itching to write today, for some reason. Anyway. The time has passed with incomprehensible speed, but it feels like a lot has happened.

My Ancestral Quest

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History has always fascinated me, well, local history more than anything. I mean, it was sort of interesting to learn in school about the Romans and the Battle of Hastings and all those Roundheads, but when it came to the topics about things like the two World Wars, my curiosity would lie with the social aspects of it – what life was like for those on The Home Front and the effect it had on the local areas. Even outside of the classroom, I was always looking for pictures of what the local high street looked like years ago and wondering what the house I grew up in would have looked like when it was first built. As I’ve grown up, that interest has evolved, and of course the internet has helped massively. In recent years I’ve found old maps of where I lived which was positively mesmerising. Afterwards, I would be out walking with friends and then take great pride in pointing out that a particular street we were passing used to be the location of a football ground in the 1890s. It isn’...

Same Hermit, Different Shell

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"All being well, it’s not going to be the quietest of years, but hopefully it’s set to be a positive one, on the whole."  - My 2020 Vision ; The Creased Pages I thought it was about time for a little update from me, given that we haven't spoken since the jigsaw rant - sorry about that. We're over a year on from then and of course I don't need to tell you what kind of year it's been for the world. If you've been living under a rock, or are perhaps a member of a future generation doing a history project, I'm sure a little search on Google (or whatever space age research tool is around in the Year 3000) will be enough to get you up to speed. The difficulty of the whole thing is that, on a personal level, it was actually a pretty good year. That sounds awful to say given the circumstances behind it, and I'm not belittling that at all. But I have to be honest, there was actually some good that came from it all for me. Not least because the near-constant...