Monday, August 31, 2009

Things that have made me very happy over the last few days

Lorraine visiting the UK and a great night with amazing people at my place to celebrate. That night I was really fired up afterwards and my rubbish Bible reading-progression lately just got blown to pieces at 4:30 am after the washing up, by a driving desire to dive into the Word! –and the music kept flowing!

When I needed speed and productivity more than in a long time it seems like my progression plan for my music productions are falling to pieces because of a current lack of access to manpower, but then new music starts pounding in my brain. Just when I need it the most! The first fact is sad, the latter is brilliant!

Sunshine outside Leeds City Art Gallery with Rose and Lorraine.

Thindwa/ Chikankheni retaliation dinner and subsequent picking of Blackberries in East End Park.

Amazing worship in Leeds and Bradford ALC!

Lenny Kravitz and Foo Fighters. Memories of early days and late nights of Lenny-sounds after Gospel Choir practice in days when mobile phones were the size of houses and were attached to cars. –days of more speaking and singing.

Buying new IK Multimedia plug-ins for Pro-Tools! Pretty happy-go-lucky, but man it’s fun! I like… so much!

But really: Dinners, Friends, Word, Music, Exciting!

Monday, August 24, 2009

Under Age 2

Can you believe it happened again?

I had a full beard when I was 15 and no one ever denied me purchasing anything! In fact, while attending air-shows I have been taken for a potential serious aeroplane-buyer. I can buy an aeroplane if I want it! No questions asked, transfer the money! "I'm sorry our Chief-Executive is in a meeting right now, can I take down your details and our Regional Sales Director will contact you in a couple of days." I'm not gonna name the company, cause you might well know them, and they were getting well interested in who I was in the end!

But this I can't buy...

I walked into Tesco's after Church one day. I found a couple of mini-bottles of red-wine that I wanted to have standing around the house as to marinade meat in whenever the occasion made itself present. Two small bottles of wine! Small! Very Small!

I walked up to the counter. The lady grabbed the bottles, scanned them, and with no hesitation she looked right at me and said: "Do you have any id with you?"

I started to laugh! Quite loud I believe. I reached back into my wallet and passed over a plastic-card and said: "Yes I do! Here is my drivers-liesence!" It says I was born in the late 70's, and that's a long time ago now. The old chap I met the last time probably had quite old eyes too, his glasses were thick and it was late in the day. This young lady had no excuse with the eye-sight for sure, since she hardly could have rounded 20 Winters yet. I was laughing to myself as I walked out of the shop. I think the lady saw it and it seemed like she caught the humor herself.

So what is it? I was never asked before, I could even buy an aircraft from one of the world's biggest manufacturers. But two small bottles of red-wine in a supermarket in England becomes a challenge!

Yes, I saw the Curios Case of Benjamin Button, but no, I was never that ugly as a baby!
What if I get any children? At the current development this is likely to happen: I rock up on first day of school with my boy and they try to enroll me! But whatever marriage produces of challenges, it presumably produces an answer to as well. I'll just send my wife! Ha-ha! But that's easy to say as a bachelor. What if she works in Father Christmas' administration at the North Pole and spend much of the year abroad? Then I'd have to go myself...

Man it's late... I should go to sleep.

Winter's Coming

I walked out on the balcony one evening. A friend of mine was sitting in the living room. I stepped outside and looked around. Then came a breeze from my left, from the river side. I turned my head and could see the fields on the outskirts of Leeds afar and I knew immediately what was happening. It was in the breeze, just in a tiny amount. "Autumn is coming!" I exclaimed, almost surprised to hear my own words. My friend in the living room started saying "No no no!" and telling me to keep my mouth shut! I didn't. I like the Autumn! I was born in the Autumn. In the Autumn, people come down from the mountains and I have them by myself.

Today, as I was walking from the cinema in Bradford I had the sensation again. Only different. I could feel the Winter! It's not very cold at the moment. Not cold at all in the days and I wondered what it was. That subtle bite of the chill after sundown marks the entrance to both seasons. But the air tonight was dead in that it had no sense of change to plants and greens in it. There was nothing apart from the background of the city. Few things can grow in the Winter and the air carries witness to this.

So is it because I'm an Autumn child? Is it the acquired skills of a trekking guide? Or maybe you think I am mad. I don't know, but I think the Autumn and Winter is so native to me that I can sense some of their traits. We will have many sunny and warm days before the seasons change still. They may not be sunny and warm by tropical standard, but by North-West European indeed! But the little tales of the change to come has made their presence noted. Change in many ways I presume since I graduate in October. Though my educational journey is not over, this journey I embarked on in Singapore in the Summer months of 2005 comes to a close. And that means that where next stop is determines how much of the chill I get to enjoy.

There is a native tribe up North in Norway that used to have an old practice I shared much respect for. They traditionally lived in tents and some still do. The practice was: if a child was born in the snowy seasons they would take the top off the tent on the third day and let it snow into the tent. The three day old newborn child would be held up naked against the opening and snow would fall on it. Not for long off course, but by doing so the loving parents believed they prepared the child to be extra resistant to chill for the rest of its life. To modern city people it may seem barbaric, but coming from someone who could run around in the snow in shorts and t-shirt it doesn't seem too bad at all. And I wonder! -had they ever found the chill resistance to be true throughout the life-span of a person? If they did maybe I should do it to my kids one day!

I used to think something like this had happened to me. I could cope with chill like a rock can, but in recent years I have found that I actually need clothes. If the change brings me back into the chill, maybe I'll regain some of my old winter-strength? If it keeps me where it is warmer I'm sure I'll gain or regain something else instead.

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