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Thursday 28 June 2012

Pushing the limits

I'm just back from the gym and for the first time in 5 weeks I was in tears in a class because I'd overdone it and my hip hurt and I hate that it is still controlling my limits after 2 years.  

It was my own fault.  So far in my gym classes I've been quite wary of anything that *might* hurt, ie. star jumps, running etc. Today for some reason I thought "well I've got to try it sometime" and for a bit it was ok, but then it all went wrong.

I've taken two steps forward over the last month, I guess this was my one step back.. time to back off a bit again.

But if we never push ourselves to our limits, how do we find out what our limits are....?

Wednesday 27 June 2012

Dreams....

Mr H and I are just back from a fantastic week in the far north west of Scotland, camping at a wee village called Scourie.

Since we got back on Sunday, I've had a couple of bad dreams where I am lying out in the dark on the edge of a hillside, feeling as though I'm going to roll or fall over the edge and getting distressed.

Last night, even though Mr H comforted me and I curled up hugging him, I still felt as though we were out there in the scary dark.  It was only after in my half-sleep I felt something with my feet and eventually worked out it was the blanket box at the end of the bed that I realised I was in our bed.

I think I may need a chink in the curtains tonight....

Monday 11 June 2012

TP 198: The Natural World

I thought I'd share this photo of a tiny crab on Kata Beach, Phuket, Thailand.  It was about the size of my little finger nail including it's legs, and would pick up a ball of sand from one side of its path, investigate it and then throw it out behind.  I can only assume that it was extracting some kind of food or nutrient from it.

At the sign of a shadow, it would shoot back into its hole, only to reappear when it thought it was safe again.



Job creation

The rich and middle classes don't want the poor or 'difficult' people living in their back yard, so all those poor or 'difficult' people either drift or are placed by the state into areas of social housing, or estates that have existing social problems.  

This tidily keeps them away from the rich and middle-classes, but means that emotions run higher in those 'problem places', often escalating into violence.   At that point the rich and middle-classes frown and say 'somebody should do something', the behaviours of the problem population get criminalised, there is a crack down on Anti Social Behaviour, and the middle classes exclaim that we should 'lock them all up and throw away the key'.

The government tries to shift from state delivered policies to community delivered policies, such as the incentive for local governments to help 'difficult' families escape from unemployment and truancy, as announced on the news this morning.  The community is held responsible for its own well-being and for sorting out its difficult residents, and is tasked with delivering social policies and engaging with their residents, but does anyone really want to get that involved beyond some public meetings and consultations?  Does anyone ask those poor or 'difficult' people or get them involved?  I doubt it, after all what would they know?  

My thought is: are the government and the rich / middle classes actually creating the problem places, which they then try to 'fix' ?  

Maybe it just a huge job-creation scheme for government and local authorities...

Thursday 7 June 2012

Human nature

So, you are asked to sponsor something, as in a sponsored walk / run / climb / swim / whatever.

I'll bet NONE of you have ever written an amount without first checking what the people before you have put down?   then weighing up everything before deciding on how much you will sponsor.  Obviously if you are the first on the list, then you have to - but probably everyone after you is basing their level upon yours.

Put too little and you look stingy; put a large amount and people will say 'wow!' and make all kinds of assumptions about you from your lifestyle to the size of your car.

Checking what other people think something is worth seems to be human nature, as is feeling the pressure of being compared.

I will test it out tonight... but I know that I'll be looking at the previous amounts on the form before I sign it!