Personal Discovery

From personal experience I often know what I want but need help realising it. Taking a fairly trivial example: Do I want pizza or Chinese tonight? I flip a coin to choose, heads for pizza, tails for Chinese... it's heads, that means pizza. Wait... I feel a little disappointed. I'm thinking about a pizza, imagining how it will taste, but I don't feel that's what I want tonight, I think I'd prefer Chinese, yes that's what I want. I think I wanted Chinese all along, but hadn't realised. 

The use of the coin here is not as a tool to randomly select what I wanted to eat, but to give me an option and allow me to think more about it, and decide if it's really what I want.

I don't know what you believe in personally, and to be honest, unless you're telling other people what to do or not do, it doesn't matter. I think it's possible to use tools like astrology, tarot and I Ching as self realisation tools, and learn about yourself through their use, without necessarily believing in them.

I am respectful of the tools and the processes used to bring about a reading, I feel that if an individual doesn't believe in the esoteric uses of these tools, they can still use them in a similar way to the coin example above. To help give them a different perspective, look closer at a range of decisions or problems to help understand them better and think about their intentions. By the same token, we want those who believe to feel comfortable that we are not taking the use of these tools lightly and are treating those tools respectfully. That way I feel I am fairly accommodating everyone. 

Here's where you think there's a trick, but how much will it cost to use these services? That's up to you, these are being done on a pay-what-you-think-it's-worth basis.

If was going to pay for advice, if it was unhelpful I'd feel aggrieved paying for it. On the other hand if it was useful I'd feel it was worth the money. I'm going to respond to requests for services, create documents, send them back to the user, and let them choose to pay if  a) they think it's worth something b) they can afford it.

If someone does not want to make a donation or cannot afford to, all I ask is that they that they do something nice for someone, walk their dog, make a small donation to a food bank next time they're in the supermarket, help an elderly neighbour garden, something to help someone else out.

There is a Facebook Page here!

This site below will be live as of 16:23 BST on Friday 23rd September. 

Personal Discovery Horoscopes - Offering natal charts, Tarot and I Ching.

*tap*tap* Is this thing on?

I'd been meaning to put a podcast together for about 3 or 4 years, and I never managed to get around to doing it until now. I decided I'd put 5 minute long podcasts that you can listen to while making a cup of tea, with random thoughts, the odd joke and me, well being me.

The idea is that I get things out my head, become more comfortable with the sound of my own voice, become more confident and can try and make something entertaining. Hopefully it will develop into something I really enjoy and get something out of.

It's already taught me, that I pronounce and highlight certain syllables in ways I don't expect, it does not sound the same way it does in my head! It's nice to be able to use it to improve my speech. 

I've put out a few already. One about the fringe while making a cup of tea, the second recorded on a short car journey about kids watching YouTube and bad drivers. The third is thoughts I'd been having about making changes in my life. The fourth which isn't out yet involves ghosts and a bit of spookiness, recording that later so let's hope it goes well!

It's available to listen to here, or you can subscribe via iTunes. 

The 'I Drink Tea' Podcast

Please leave a review, and yes I'm aware of the dodgy audio quality!

It's Written In The Stars

I write my blog to help arrange my thoughts, I write it for me. My wife says she likes them. I share it in case anyone finds something useful in it for them. I've been working on a project, it's not quite ready, but I feel comfortable enough to write about it.

This week something changed, I went to see a couple of shows at the free fringe on my own, which isn't something I do, I always go with other people. There were a couple of shows I wanted to made sure I caught and it's the last week of the fringe, so after work, headed off to the venue, stood around for five minutes, watching three members of staff being confused by several chip and pin machines not working, eventually I got robbed a drink and went to queue early as the show has been really busy. I sat outside in the corridor next to the room happily reading a Fortean Times. Other people started to arrive and I was perfectly comfortable and didn't feel out of place at all.

If I'd been in a similar situation last year, I'd have been anxious, standing, looking around, wondering what people thought of me. Why is he here on his own? Is he a weird stalker? Who comes to a comedy show on their own? I'd not be able to settle, always on edge, feeling uncomfortable, my mind reeling. This year? None of that. I really wish it was possible to develop a simulator to put people in and let them see what some of the range of feelings related to anxiety and depression feel like, because, why outwardly there's not always much to see, the feelings inside can be running riot, or they can be subtly undermining. I find it difficult to try and articulate how that feels to people who haven't experienced such things. I'm really not sure how to explain how pleased with myself I was, I was relaxed and it made me happy and felt like I fitted in.

The show I was queuing for was Ashley Storrie and Other Erotica and I haven't laughed so much in ages, though I notice over the past year or two I seem to be developing a Mutley 'heshh heshh heshh' laugh, which I can't decide if it's cool, or downright bizarre and I should stop it immediately. It's always good to see comedy that fits with my way of thinking. It made me realise we should go see the occasional bit of comedy at the weekends.

I went for a good walk around Edinburgh afterwards and did a similar thing at the next venue, where it was also £4-£5 for a drink. I sat in the beer garden perfectly calm, reading a book and listening to tunes until it was time for the show, Sofie Hagen's Shimmer Shatter. An entertaining show, it made me laugh, but elements of it struck chords with me and personally it was, well I can't think of the word I'm looking for. 'Fulfilling' sounds wrong and 'worthwhile' makes it sound like I didn't think I was going to enjoy it, which wasn't the case. It set me off thinking, to me it seems like, compared to 10-20 years ago, there are more people who think similar ways, have some similar experiences and share them. I realise there were probably always a lot of people like that, but it's far easier for them to identify themselves, stigmas that were previously there were dissolving. I didn't feel out of place and alone, for the second time that day I felt I fitted in somewhere, no remnants of awkwardness.

This would be a great place to end the blog, but I did mention a project I've been working on. It's about astrology now don't go forming opinions, damn to late you probably already have, so what am I doing with astrology. Part of what I do generally in life, is look at things, investigate them (solely for me), then forget or lose interest in them. This time round, that's not happened.

Years ago I watched Dave Gorman's  Important Astrology Experiment on BBC2. I thought it was brilliant and funny. It was something no one else had ever done, yes it was tongue in cheek, but it was fascinating. Move ahead a few years, looking for answers, anxiety and self esteem getting hammered out slowly as what others experience as normality crept it. I started reading about astrology, not daily or weekly sun sign forecasts in newspapers, but from a book I picked up for a couple of quid.  The Ultimate Astrologer by Nicholas Campion. My parents used to have a hardback horoscope book that sat on a shelf in the living room for years. I'd read it when I was 13 or 14, and tried to draw up my own chart and gotten confused and lot in the process, so had abandoned it.

I don't remember what made me decide to revisit astrology buy that book or draw up a chart, perhaps it was desperation to find out more about my social conditioning and behaviour? I started playing with free software on the internet, decided I'd like more functionality, so what I did was I tried writing my own Astrology software, this was great practice for doing more coding, but there were nippy bugs creeping in and it was taking up too much time, so I reverted to other astrology software.

In the near future, I intend to do a more detailed post in the future about what horoscopes are, and what astrology is and isn't. The difference between your horoscopes in newspapers and magazines, vs. a full chart. All I'll say is nothing is written in stone and you've got free will. Whatever your views, I am taking the process of drawing these up seriously. I'm not out to fool anyone or take the piss, I am experimenting. I want these to be as accurate as I can make them. I want someone to look at it with open eyes and agree and disagree, offer feedback, I want these to make people think, to look at the wider world around them.

As part of this, once I have my own chart drawn up, I'm going to look at following it for six months, and keep a diary of what's going on, looking at the best times to do things, and hopefully it will make life more interesting. The idea lifted from Dave Gorman, but done from a full horoscope without going for a comedy element, not sun signs in newspapers. As part of this, I plan on offering natal horoscopes to everyone.

I will soon be launching a website offering these horoscopes on a pay-what-you-feel-it's-worth. After reading your horoscope, if you feel it helps, or makes you think and you feel it's worth something, or if you think I'm bat shit crazy and should be encouraged to stay off the streets because I'm at home writing horoscopes instead then you'll be able to donate some money for it.

If you can't afford it, or don't want to pay, then that's fine, you get a horoscope for free, all I ask is that you go do something nice, help someone carry their shopping, do the washing up, get a couple of items for your local food bank. Whatever it is, do something to benefit others, it doesn't need to be a grand gesture.

Any questions?

Wandering Thoughts/Brain dump

(or The Edinburgh Fringe and some top tunes)

It's very easy to do things when you feel you are in the mood. My general energy levels are up and down, when it's down I can't be arsed and leaning towards wondering why I bother with anything and start to dissect ideas or projects I'm oh so slowly working on and start to pour negativity on them.

Then I get phases like now when I'm happy and upbeat and the world is wonderful and everything has a positive spin. Partly it's the meds and partly it's me trying to change my view on the world and how I think about things. Whereas before if I was to tweet someone or reply to an email, I'd be generally conscious about what I was writing, how I would be seen to come across, would I be seen as a twat, arselicker, idiot, always something negative. Now I can just reply and I am saying what I think or feel without beating myself up about it.

I used to have trouble even expressing ideas to my wife, for fear of thinking I would sound like an idiot, or that she would pull the idea apart. While in reality, she may question, she offers constructive criticism and suggestions. Thankfully the positive days more than outnumber the negative ones. While I'm in a good mood, I'm going to tell you that I have a project I'm working on, which I hope to have the first stage prepared soon, the good news is you can participate when it's up and running. I'll let you know what it is soon.

I'm hoping to start a Podcast soon as well, I can't remember if I have mentioned it or not. It's been an idea that has been brewing for 3 years so I should really get it sorted. For me it's the creating side of things that's important, it's great if it comes out well, but if it doesn't work then, no harm done and at least I've learned something along the way. It may be another 3 years before a podcast emerges but hey, I'm sure I'll get there eventually. This isn't Professional Disorganisation for nothing you know.

It's festival time here in Edinburgh, I fully intend to get along to these shows, which I got into based on their great podcasts.

(The Janey Godley Podcast - Consistantly hilarious)
Janey Godley: An Act of Godley

Ashley Storie and Other Erotica

(Comedian's Telling Stuff & The Guilty Feminist)
Sofie Hagen - Shimmer Shatter

And these...
Limmy - Daft Wee Stories

Kathryn Joseph and The Anchoress (two musical acts, not one)


Do you like music? Of course you do. I've a couple of recommendations for you.

First is guitar based indie pop Kid Canaveral. Their third album 'Faulty Inner Dialogue' is out now. Click the link for a review and stream of the album here so you can go, "That's awesomes, I must buy it." I could try and write about it, but there's a review there that says a lot about it so why not just read that instead. I'm trying to write this on a coffee break and am short on time.

Secondly there is, the new Spray album, Enforced Fun catchy as fuck dance floor beats with sarky and witty lyrics.

If that's not your bag, what about a band named after something from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia ? I heard about this band because Keith TOTP posted about recording their first EP and how it was good, I gave it a listen and agreed. The first track is about surviving mundane office life: Give the whole EP a listen and buy it here: Fightmilk

Until next time, peace out and groovy biscuits!

Reboot 2016

It's been a grim year. Legendary musicians bailed on us, David Cameron gambled on Brexit and it blew up in his face. Right wing wankers are on the rise, the Parliamentary Labour party's right leaning wankers don't like don't like democracy so are trying to unseat their leader against the judgement of their members who overwhelmingly wanted Jeremy Corbyn. The new unelected prime minister Theresa May said she thought the murder 100,000 innocent people with nuclear weapons dealing with a threat was acceptable. Racism is rampant, generally, the current case is one of the stars of the new Ghostbusters film. Some guy getting a reduced charge for raping an unconscious girl because he has rich parents. It's not good people.

Here in the UK, people are still sharing Britain First and equivalent posts with a picture with a quote taken out of context, because they 'agree with the statement'. I'm sure plenty of people agreed with Fred West and Harold Shipman on certain issues such as favourite patio styles or saving the NHS money and what not, but it's not something you go around endorsing is it?

So negative, so miserable, so what can I do to change things? What can I do? Not what can you do or what can we do, but what can I do? Responsibility for change always starts with yourself.

• Write letters to people I feel have had an influence on me in some way or if I've enjoyed their work, it's nice to get a letter. Not sure if it's nice getting a letter from me or not because I've never sent myself one. Maybe I should start?
• Following on from that even though email and tweets can be impersonal, I'm going to send encouraging emails and tweets to people. 
• Leave positive reviews on items and podcasts that I enjoy and rate them, even if it means using the evil of iTunes to do it.
• Something I already do, which I fully intend to continue doing is writing silly and amusing things on the 'notes' or 'additional info' when ordering things on-line. It makes a nice surprise for anyone reading it. 
• Try and doing something creative for myself every day or two.

You've got to try, haven't you?

It's a dog's life.

I'm still not quite sure how I feel about an incident last night. It involved a dog. I had my pair on a lead, and this white staffie off it's lead it's owner about 100 yards looking a bit puggled shouting something I couldn't hear because I had my headphones in.

I took my headphones out as Cassie and Luna stood in front of this other dog wagging their tails and it went for Cassie, really went for her, trying to bite her. Now my touch bounce around and mouth each other a lot, but this was vicious and Cassie was yelping, which she doesn't do with Luna. I was going to kick the staffie in the face, when I saw the owner and her teenage son (who also had a dog running over), so instead stuck my foot under the staffie and lifted it up and backwards. and went to grab the collar, when the owner just beat me to it, shouted at it and battered it over the head a couple of times with a retractable lead.

I checked Cassie, I couldn't see any blood and it she visibly had a fright. The woman was clearly mortified, the dog has slipped it's lead or escaped from their house and she couldn't stop apologising and repeatedly asking me to check my dog. I was surprisingly calm, there was no harm done, and they were clearly worried.

The teenage son said a jarring phrase "She's a friendly dog." I'm thinking really? It just attacked my dog, but I gave the benefit of the doubt, I didn't know the whole story behind their dog, and this purely could have been bad luck.

The woman kept saying about how she couldn't forgive herself if something had happened to Cassie. I assured the woman Cassie seemed OK and had just had a fright, they seemed genuinely concerned. I continued off to the park and let the dogs off as usual. Cassie wouldn't leave my side, until I petted her and reassured her. It took a few minutes, but soon she was off chasing after Luna. We wandered through the fields and up the hill Cassie seemed pretty much back to normal, though I did notice a couple of cuts on her legs, so I took them home and washed and treated the small cuts. She spent the rest of the evening lying in her bed looking sorry for herself, like she's done something wrong.

My wife did ask me if I thought the reason they were so worried, was that the dog would have been put down if she'd mauled Cassie? This had not occurred to me, I was still processing what had happened earlier.

Looking at it from another perspective, how often have my two bounced up to smaller dogs and made the owner shit themselves? One woman picked up her chihuahua and gave me dirty looks, other people with spaniels look a bit worried until they see the dogs are just wanting a chase and seem relieved. It's the curse of having bigger dogs, people assume they're vicious, if a big dog barks, it's vicious, when it's nothing of the sort. We have a problem with the posties, we leave the front door open so the dogs can wander in and out of the house, don't worry our garden is fenced in. If it's a particular woman she comes in to drop off the post and gives them dog treats. If it's the men they stand at the gate and shout "POOOOOSSTTT!" because the dogs bark, they believe they are likely to try and bite them.

I think the issues of is it the breed or is it the owner? Well the answer is both play a part, I believe that some breeds are more predisposed to certain behaviours, and how the owner deals with that dog will influence how the dog behaves. This will mean that sometimes however, even good owners will get a dog that will challenging.

What I don't understand though is, why do people with a dog that has issues, walk it to popular dog places, at times when there is a lot of dogs? They have the right to obviously, but where is the sense in it? The dog will clearly be stressed and surely the increased risk of something bad happening would be enough to go somewhere else or go there at a quieter time?

It was a situation that caught me off guard and I'd like to think I could have stood on the dog quickly and stopped her having a go at Cassie, but that's hindsight, and being in the moment we don't always think of what we'd like to do, so there's no point in beating myself up over it. Thankfully this morning Cassie seems her usual self and was curled up with Luna on our bed when I left for work.

Barking

Are you a cat person or a dog person? I'm both. I never intended on owning either, it just seemed to happen. My dogs are both lurchers, which is a type rather than a specific breed, sighthounds cross bred with something else. Here's how it started.

I'm going to see my friend tomorrow, Star's had puppies.  

Really? You're not coming home with one.

Don't worry, I won't.

The next day mid afternoon the phone rings.

Can I bring a puppy home? She's so sweet, she came and lay next to me, she came back after feeding to sit with me.

I thought you were allergic to dogs, particularly Star?

This dog is smooth coated unlike Star, we talked about getting a dog before, this one has chosen me, all the others are running about mental and this one came over and slept beside me all afternoon. 

*sigh* On one condition, ask if you can take her a couple of days to make sure you and the kids don't end up allergied up to the eyeballs, otherwise you have to take her back.

OK, thank you! 

Yes, but any problems and you have to be allowed take her back, don't  bring her home if you won't be allowed to take her back! I hung up wondering if I'd really just agreed to getting a dog. I was secretly quite pleased, but I didn't want to get my hopes up if it wasn't going to work out.

When previously discussing dogs I'd said I'd easily take a rescue greyhound or something if we were to get a dog. We hadn't done this due to concerns about allergies and them chasing the cats. Lurchers are the ideal kind of dog for us, they're lazy dogs, but enjoy a good run-around.  I arrived home from work that night to see little white puppy, who was very happy to meet me.

Alright, maybe you did the right thing!

Don't worry she won't be sleeping in our bed.

Sure about that?

Definitely! 

Over a year later we have own a large dog who shares our bed and tries to sneakily push me out in the middle of the night. Luna is a cross Deerhound/Greyhound/Saluki/Collie. We generally take her everywhere with us, she has separation anxiety so we try not to leave her too long.

At some point during that year we joined the Lurcher Appreciation Society on Facebook. Regularly there's was posts asking people if they can get dogs of Gumtree marked as "free to good home" as soon as possible. The reason for this being that such dogs are used in dog fighting.

We both decided it would be nice to get a second dog to keep Luna company and to be able to get a rescue or older dog that needed a home. After a couple months of half looking, a dog was put into a rescue not too far from us.

We phoned up the vet that had posted about the dog, got the details of Claire who had rescued the dog. Claire has managed the phenomenal task of rescuing and re-homing over 500 dogs off her own back.

This is Claire's website, please take a wee visit here: http://www.cusidh.co.uk/

The following day I went off with Luna and one of the kids to go and see the dog. The dog was a little smaller than Luna, the two of them seemed to get along ok, she was ecstatic to see people, very friendly, much easier to walk than Luna and we discovered she could jump over a 4 foot high fence, something Luna never does.

The next day I took my wife and other child to go an see this dog to see what they thought. They both liked her and again I took her on a short walk. We had a few days to think about things and I ended up going to pick her up.

Her story is that she was about 9 months old and came to Scotland via Ireland and some travellers. She had been in Wick, someone had tried to train her for hunting (illegal!), but she was no good at it, so she was sold to someone in Fife who also failed to train her to hunt. The man went to dump her and Claire caught him in the act. The following day he had the audacity to come back to ask Claire for the collar back because "it was worth money".

She had been called the highly original Lassie, which Claire had been trying to change to Lass. We took her home and debated over what to call her, settling on Cassie since it was similar so it would make it easier for her to respond to and it's also short for Cassiopeia. Astronomically named dogs in our house. Cassie, we think is a greyhound or whippet/collie/staffy cross.

We've had to do a lot of work with Cassie, it's no been easy the past couple of months, but we're getting there. It's taken her 2-3 months to adjust. She's different to Luna, she was kept in a kennel her entire life, so we had to toilet train her. Which wasn't too bad, I remember how long it took to train Luna, and we got her at 8 weeks! She had little or no recall. We had to put up some trellis to heighten our fence to stop her jumping over it. We took her and Luna to Skye to visit some friends and they both behaved very well and amusingly Cassie slept flat on her back on the bed with her paws in the air all night.

We have to be careful not to leave things lying about as Cassie loves to chew on everything she shouldn't. So wooden furniture gets sprayed with anti chew stuff. Thankfully she has stopped a weird habit that had appeared out of nowhere, when she pee'd on the couch or one of our beds. It would seem this behaviour is relating to wanting to fit in and wanting to smell of 'us'. Don't ask me how that works, I read it on-line it could be bollocks.

My toy!

The past few weeks, she seems to be noticeably more settled and her and Luna love nothing more than tearing about chasing each other around the beach, woods or a field. Luna on the other hand doesn't love Cassie when she's at home and is jealous if anyone gives Cassie attention and not her!

We're gonna need a bigger sofa!

I wonder how we went so long not having them? Walks are great for catching up on podcasts I'm behind on and more importantly clearing my head. Giving dogs that have been in the sea or mud a bath isn't that fun, but Luna entertainingly looks more like a Llama afterwards. They both enjoy going to the pub or visiting other people's homes.

There is nothing better than coming home from work to two dogs bursting out the front door, so happy to see me when I've been out at work all day.

ZzZzZzZZZZzzzzzzz......