Marty

Right gang... I'm going to log out of GA for a while, to stop me keep getting distracted by all the notification sounds. I've the second chapter of my The Charmed Life Of Danny Murphy novel just about finished, and am hoping to get it uploaded in the next 24 to 48 hours. But I really need to spend time reading it through, removing any obvious errors, and maybe tidying it up a bit in places. I'll probably be back to annoy yous all in six hours time or so. Be good, now, whilst I'm gone. I don't want to come back and find you've left the place in a mess...

Hey, Gary! Don't be knocking people's imaginary friends! They're a bit like all those voices in my head. If they went away I would be extremely lonely...

And the same to you, Caz

A nice piece of rare to medium done prime steak won't look at me as I eat it, Albert. (That was the long answer to your question. The short answer would be "No".) Although I don't eat a huge amount of animal products.

Enjoy the new abode, Clo!

My favourite beverage is tea, thanks. And do you mind if I bring my own packed lunch? Not really a fan of shrimp (or any food that looks at me as I am eating it)

Hey, Alberto! And thanks. (By the way, could you pick me up in your UFO on the way to Clo's house warming party. Please. Pretty please...

You guys crack me up at times with your weird and wonderful (and twisted?) imaginations! Just where is this naked Irish lad that you can see in the photo, Gary? The interesting thing is that that photograph is number 18 of a series of 52 that I am trying to complete. One new photograph taken every week for 52 weeks. The challenge I have set myself this year (actually from beginning of February 2019 to end of January 2010) is to take only landscapes; and to not include people in any of them. So, if Gary can see a naked Irish lad in photo number 18, I might as well just give up now.

Erm... Just a tad bit higher...

All good here, Albert, thanks. Hope all's good with you. I must go to bed now, though. It's just turned 1 in the morning. Night, guys and gals!

Why, thank you very much, kind sir!

Hey, Page.

But did you listen to the Frank Sinatra recording??? Hi, young Albert, btw.

So, after my whinge yesterday about the piss poor weather we've been having for the past number of days, today basically continued in the same vein, with completely grey, cloudy skies weeping more or less constant rain all day... But then, about 2 hours before sunset, the clouds decided to part ever so slightly and allow a few slivers of sunlight to filter through the gaps. I just knew this was going to be my first outside photo opportunity of the week, so dashed out with my trusty Nikon. This is one of the images I managed to capture:

Hi, all! Living here in the West of Ireland , right on the edge of Europe, can be really stimulating at times. But then there are those days like today, when I am looking out of the window, for the fourth or fifth day in a row, at miserable grey skies with the rain just pouring down from them in a constant stream, that I almost wonder if I wouldn't be better off heading off to live somewhere with a climate at least a little better than this. But I like it here. The summer will arrive eventually. I need the lows to appreciate the highs. Life would just as quickly get boring, and probably even more boring, if I lived somewhere where nothing ever changed, and everything was boringly predictable. Gotta head out and do a bit of house viewing, folks. I sold my remote holding this past year, and am currently renting a small apartment in the local village. But it has no garden, so I'm thinking of buying something with a garden, either in, or close to, one of the villages or small towns close by. Wish me luck, folks! Chat yous all when I get back.

I read something many years ago that suggested that every modern day western (maybe that should be first world rather than western) person has the equivalent of something like fifteen slaves, with all the time-and-labour-saving gadgets (electric cookers, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, cars, etc, etc) they possess. What the author was trying to get across was that several hundred years ago, if a person were to have a lifestyle even moderately approaching modern day first world standards, he or she would need fifteen slaves to do all the things they needed doing in order to achieve our modern western standard of life.

Twenty five years so back I had a dozen sheep on the smallholding that I then owned. Just to prove to myself that it was possible, one year I hand sheared them, spent many a long winter evening spinning the fleece using an antique spinning wheel I had borrowed from a neighbour, and then hand knitted a few items using wooden knitting needles borrowed from another neighbour. It was an interesting exercise at the time. But it also involved a serious amount of time on my part. Nowadays I find it easier just to part with my money to buy the clothes I need. There's an expression "Time is money". Someone once explained that to me along the following lines: if you don't have the money then you must be willing to spend most of your own time making or growing the things that you need (or you could use a barter system with neighbours and friends); but if you do have the money, then you can pay other people for the time that they put in to producing the things you need. The problem is, in a Capitalist society, the ones without sufficient money often finish up in extreme poverty.

Keeping things simple can often be exactly the right way to go.

Aragh, don't be sighing, Albert! It'll help find out what's wrong, and what can hopefully be done to fix it. Knowledge is power, my friend! Maybe bring long a good book to read, as well.

I like the way you have managed to wind this story up, Drew. Chris isn't all the way there yet, but he's finally moving in the right direction. And with his therapist to help guide him, and the support of good friends like Ryan, and Kay and Nina, I'm fairly confident he'll continue to move in the right direction. I'm not worried about his infatuation with Ryan; he seems to accept that there's nothing he can do about it, and to be happy enough to just continue having him as a friend. It would, perhaps, be interesting to know how Chris gets on in the future, but I think this particular story has reached its logical conclusion. It has served its purpose in exposing the harm that groups offering Gay Conversion Therapy can inflict on vulnerable individuals, especially when they do so under the pretence that it is being done in God's name. That story has now been told; continuing on from this point forward would mean that a new story was being started. I think I have already said in a comment to a previous chapter that I am an atheist, but I am strongly of the opinion that individuals who belong to such groups as The Release Trust would, were the prophesied second coming of Jesus Christ ever to occur, be first in line to nail him to a wooden cross again. ++++ I volunteer with an LGBT helpline, and know just how affirming a response like that can be for a caller who has just disclosed what, to them, is or appears to be a traumatic event in their life. It shows them that they have been heard; that someone has really listened to them. It shows them that they are not being judged; neither for allowing the event to take place, nor for their response to it. It shows them that someone actually cares.

I've just read @Headstall's latest short piece, Fly Me to The Moon, and some of the imagery in it made me think of some of the lines from this song from Leonard Cohen, which was on his 1967 debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen... I'm not looking for another, as I wander in my time Walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme You know my love goes with you, as your love stays with me It's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea

And a fantastic job you did with it as well!