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The Best Medicine – Never Happy
Weekly Writing Challenge: The Best Medicine – This week, write about whatever topic you’d like, but go for laughs.
Write about whatever I want? I can do that! No bother. Not a problem.
Wait a sec though – “go for laughs”? Well, there’s the rub. Humour is so subjective, and I’m not the funniest fella at the best of times. Tell you what, I’ll shoot for “mildly witty” and we’ll see where we end up.
The title of this post – “Never Happy” – is perhaps not a promising start. I don’t know about you, but to me that doesn’t scream “side-splittingly riotously hilarious” (try saying that three times fast). It sounds more like I’m going to have a rant, or maybe I’m going to wax lyrical about something that’s really getting me down.
So what, I hear you ask, am I going to complain about? I’ll give you a clue – I’m British.
That’s right! It’s the weather. That’s not what you guessed? Pretend you did! I’ll never know.
I’ve complained about the weather before (British, remember?). It’s too cold. It’s icy. It’s too windy. It won’t stop raining. Here’s a new one for you – it’s too hot!
“Never Happy” by DraliDoodles (TM)
Let’s take a quick Haiku-break.
Hostile sun blazing fire
Melting roads and hearts and minds
Air con broken
Hope you enjoyed it.
As I drove home this evening the thermometer informed me that it was 26 degrees C. I’ve just used the marvel which is Google and it informs me that this equals 78.8 Fahrenheit! I know what some of you are thinking. “That’s not very hot!” Well, it is to me. It appears that “too hot” is as subjective as humour.
My office is eco-friendly. We don’t have that planet-destroying toxic chemical-fuelled air con. Oh no! We have some sort of “comfort cooling” air recycling system. Today it managed to get the temperature to a not-so-comfortable 28 degrees C. Way to go, eco-friendly comfort cooling air con.
I didn’t wear shorts, but I did break out my trousers with the detachable legs. Detachable legs! What’ll they think of next? I was going to post a picture of me wearing the trousers with one leg removed so you could see the flexibility, but I thought that some of you might be reading this while eating dinner. I worried that the sight of my pasty-white leg might cause a case of the “tummy upsets”. So, no picture.
I also looked in my drawers for a light-weight T-shirt. It’s been so long since I’ve needed a light-weight T-shirt that it had mould on it from sitting in the drawer for years.
Mould!
And to add very serious insult to injury, it was my Red Dwarf T-shirt!
My poor mouldy T-shirt – please be OK!
I do hope the washing machine can work its magic.
It looks like I’m Never Happy.
Very sad.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Nostalgic
Simpler Times
I don’t remember these photos being taken as such, I was too young (I’m the one on the left in both photos). The other chap is my little brother. I remember the setting on the right – outside our old house in Carnon Downs, Cornwall, where I spent the first 5 years of my life. These were taken in the early 1970s.
The little wooden fort below was made for us by our Dad – in the 70s you didn’t just nip out to the shops for new toys. Your dad would disappear into the garage or shed and emerge a couple of days later with a cool new fort! The drawbridge even went up and down (counterbalanced by a cotton reel my mum had finished with). We got years of use out of this fort. Again, I’m on the left, my brother is on the right.
Don’t I look smart in the photo on the right, ready to start “big” school aged 12?
This was posted in response to the Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge – nostalgic.
The Beast of Drali Moor
Prompts for the Promptless – Cryptozoology is the search for legendary animals, usually in an attempt to evaluate or confirm the possibility of existence. This includes looking for living examples of animals that are considered extinct, such as dinosaurs; animals whose existence lacks physical evidence but which appear in myths, legends, or are reported, such as Bigfoot and Chupacabra; and wild animals dramatically outside their normal geographic ranges, such as phantom cats. The animals cryptozoologists study are often referred to as cryptids, a term coined by John Wall in 1983.
Drali Moor. A wide expanse of moorland, marshes and woodland stretching from the centre of the land across to the small coastal village of Drali-On-Sea. An area of outstanding natural beauty (if you like that sort of thing), it is home to a scattering of farmers, sheep and, some say, the “Beast of Drali Moor”.
Few have caught a glimpse of the beast; no pictures exist. However, those who claim to have seen it swear it is real.
Artist’s impression of the Beast.
It looked way scarier in my head.
Facebook – Friend or Foe?
Weekly Writing Challenge: Mind the Gap – Facebook – to poke or to puke?
So this Facebook thing – a force for good, or an insidious evil? A social network – some may say the social network – in a world in which the inhabitants are increasingly obsessed with sharing every detail of their lives and of course with revelling in the thrills and mishaps of others.
Let’s break it down.
Responsibility – at the end of the day, what I post is down to me
Make no mistake, whether I intend the whole world to read what I write or it’s only intended for “friends”, what I post on any social network, including Facebook, is my responsibility. No-one else’s.
In the heat of the moment it’s easy to post something I may later regret. I rarely post to Facebook using my phone (which is always nearby) – my big clumsy fingers are not phone-friendly. I often find that by the time I’ve fired up the laptop I’ve gone off the boil. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to post that after all?
How many people have found themselves in trouble for posting something “inappropriate”?
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I totally didn't win!
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