Mitchell's Musings

  Every time I look at this photo, it makes me smile. I believe that this was the reaction that the artist who painted it was looking for.  A fox painted on a pebble, that was left on some steps a few weeks ago.  Placed randomly & deliberately to be found.   I saw it & it made me smile. After the year we have all had & in the uncertain days that we still find ourselves, a little joy can be a vital thing.  The disruption & separation that Covid has placed on us has affected everyone, I don’t know anyone that hasn’t struggled in one way or another through this. For me, at times the anxieties have been real & very present at times.  Maintaining my professional life, without being able to travel has brought its challenges. So a daily walk has become a very necessary tonic.  A simple thing that makes a big difference. There is a joy in creating something, but there is a deeper joy in sharing it, that is where the meaning is created - in its sharing. The fox was obviously

I bought a new bin.  Not the most interesting of introductions to our blog conversation & not before time according to my Mother, but there it is. Every time, I walk past the bloody thing the lid flies open. It's one of the automated ones you see, all you need to do is walk past it & the lid flies open. I bought this bloody thing because I had  hoped it would help me to finally gain at least the impression of control of  the chaos that is my kitchen. In reality all that has  happened is that it has introduced another new form of anarchy that I am not ready for.   The opening and closing of the bin lid happens in a way that I don't understand and have no control of.  All I need to do is walk past it in the vaguest way and the lid flies open in a very random & aggressive fashion reminiscent of the till in Arkwright's Store. I am reasonably certain that my younger son finds this hilarious as he breezes through the house lively and in full control of all the technol

Today's photo is of an item that every time I look at it I feel again some of the feelings I felt at the end of the Great North Run in 2014.  I've never been sporty, in fact I have always had a tendency to avoid it. Probably one of those issues that I have an unconscious chip on my shoulder about. As a child I was very clumsy and uncoordinated so sports were difficult and therefore avoided.  But, I have always thought that it's never good to allow the things that scare you or that you find difficult to prevent you from trying to achieve something. Maybe I'm just stubborn. The backdrop to to my involvement in the Great North Run that year was that some close friends were in the process of raising a huge amount of money for the RNLI. The friends I’m talking about are serious runners and have been very successful in taking part in many different events including the London marathon & have raised a lot of money in the process over the years. I began thinking that I real

Apparently, a good tale grows with the telling; this is especially true of me with my memories.  After all I do love a good story. One of my favourites is the tale I tell, when I explain to people how I met my oldest friend.  It is a good story and it contains the kind of elements that would illicit the response I tend to be looking for.   The first walk to the new school, the nervousness of being the new kid in class, the discomfort of new school clothes, meeting my new teacher, an argument with the annoying kid in class, who quickly became my best friend.    It is a nice whimsical story, but these days, if I am honest I have no idea if its true or not. This is because I was seven at the time & I have altered it many times since over the years.   I suspect Chris does not know either, but I know that his version of events will differ from mine.   It is well known that our memories are not particularly good.   The truth is, we all do this kind of thing with our memories quite a lot,

  I have struggled to write recently. There's nothing unusual in this. But I suppose in the circumstances that we're in it's happening more to us all in many ways.  It was helpful then that I have my friend Donna to bully me. She will no doubt claim that I was merely being "encouraged" to get my rear end in gear and produce something. I'm not fooled, but the point was well taken.  To ease my way back into things I thought I would revert back to the familiar.  This is my grandfather's Blowtorch, and it was one of the gifts that was passed on to me by my Aunt and my Mother. Most of the time it sits on a shelf in my living room and it has become another one of those curios that evoke fond memories. This struck me as odd when I thought about it properly, because I never actually saw my grandfather use it. So I have no real memory of it. It was just one of the items in the tool chest when it was given to me. In real terms it looks like what it is. An old tool t

This is my favourite mug. It’s the one that I always choose in preference to the other mugs in the cupboard.  The message on the side of it, now long gone used to read “Best Mum in the World” How I managed to attain this title remains shrouded in mystery, I don’t know whose idea it was, but there are a number of candidates upon whom suspicion naturally falls.  But to me the fact that I can be considered to be the best Mum in the world shows the kind of inclusiveness that really appeals to me. It was bought for me as a Mother’s Day gift several years ago now by some of my Son’s friends.  I smile at it every time I see it, which is several times per day. It’s the one I look for, I’m convinced that coffee & tea both taste better in this mug.   Maybe I am imagining this, but I am going with it.  This is the power of a simple thing to bring such joy, even if it’s only in coffee sized doses. The point is I drink a lot of  coffee and the kids that “adopted” me knew this. They did a simple

“Fugit Inreparabile Tempus” - It Escapes, Irretrievable Time" - Virgil, The Georgics. Time truly is one of the only really finite resources. We all lose & gain so much during our life in so many ways.  For example I can’t easily count how many jobs I have had or how many I have lost.  By the last count though I'm already on my fifth career change having switched paths on so many occasions before.  You can’t delay it, slow it, stop it, pause it, start again or buy it back. Ok, so far so obvious, get to the point. A lot of the time the idiom “Tempus Fugit” seems to be employed to exhort us not to waste our time, but to use it productively.  The internet and the written press is full of “influencers” and self-appointed gurus. They all seem to have a good idea about the best ways for us to spend our time, how we can use it better or how lazy we're being by not using it as they say we should be. They are also usually selling something. We all appear to have our consumerist

Every now and again people notice that I frequently wear odd socks.  Most of the time people who comment on it put it down to it being one of Mitchell's whimsical ways. An eccentricity that proves how ‘off the wall’ I can be at times. And this is not wrong, but as with many things there are deeper reasons behind why I wear odd socks. And today I will discuss them. In one of my earlier posts (Stuff 6 - Empty Cardboard Tube) I discussed how over the years I have made peace with my struggles with Dyspraxia and Dyslexia. I didn't expect my thoughts on this to raise any particular reaction, because I have been discussing this at length with my family and friends for many years now. So for me at times it can seem like an old issue. I'm lucky in that I am surrounded by people who understand it and accept me as I am.  If I'm honest I suppose I'm tending to take the view that the things that I'm writing are actually a form of narcissism, because essentially it's just

One of the results of writing this kind of self-absorbed nonsense on a regular basis is that you do start to remember things from the past. And if you're anything like me you then start to reconsider them. That's me all over you see I overthink things. It's probably a feature of everyone's life that we gnaw at the past even though we were different people then, can change none of it & wouldn't be the people we are without it. The occasion I remember is one of those schoolyard conversations between 7 year olds. It was the “What are you going to do when you grow up?” conversation. Amongst the group that were there were the typical answers "I'm going to be a footballer, policeman, soldier, doctor & train driver". I don't know why I said what I said it was probably the first thing that came into my head but I said "I'm going to build robots" Bearing in mind that this was probably around 1978 and the ZX81 didn't come out for a

I don’t know whose idea it was, but it was definitely one of my kids. The finger of suspicion with this type of idea usually tends to point at my younger Son.  This is not to say that the elder son is free of potential blame, he just tends to escape suspicion by keeping schtum & flying under the radar. If you have been to our house, it is highly likely that you will have been invited to make your own unique contribution to “The Welcome Wall”.  The Idea is simple, we draw a circle, you paint something in it that you feel represents you best. Over the 16+ years we have been doing this it has grown from a novelty thing we did for  a bit of fun, into something that we cherish .  For the 3 of us here at the Eastern Divisional HQ of the Mitchell Tribe it is an important thing to invite our family & friends to make their mark. It’s always an interesting process to watch.  We have identified 4 stages that most, but not all people go through during the process of making their mark: Stag

It seems that the older I get the more dyslexic & dyspraxic I realise I am. Before you all navigate away in disgust, no I'm not going to turn this into a hand-wringing piece about how bad my childhood was. Well not much, because the truth is these days I have no regrets about it. One of the reasons for this is that many years ago now my Brother gave me a piece of advice that has always stayed with me. I was diagnosed as Dyslexic & Dyspraxic at the age of nearly 29 when I was studying at City College in Norwich. At the time this came as a huge relief, finally having a reason for why I struggled so much as a child. With all I know now about living with both conditions looking back at my childhood it is blindingly obvious that these were the learning styles that I have. For many years I had a chip on my shoulder and an air of grievance about it. Particularly against the education system, because I performed so badly in childhood. But, as I have grown older I have become more c

Ok so having been told off by my Mother for two Blogs in a row, I thought I should move to safer ground in subject terms. Today’s item is a Collage that is currently hanging in my Living Room. It's called "A Few Good Nights" It is literally the product of the time a few years ago, when my house for a while became the place where my friends would congregate. Mostly because a few of us had kids of a similar age & consequently had little time or money to go to somewhere as exotic as a pub very often. You never realise how rich you were, until you have kids. Being the crowd that we were, there was always something new someone had found for us all to try, it became a bit of a voyage of discovery at times. We got into the habit of sticking the labels of a beer we enjoyed, or even a whiskey that we thought was fowl, both worthy of a place because they were enjoyed or laughed about at the time. The wrapper of the Cuban Cigar I shared with Phil, along with the label of the bot

Apologies in advance if you were expecting the usual whimsical nonsense, normal service will be resumed tomorrow or maybe the day after. Today’s picture troubles me. It troubles me so much that I have used a different methodology than I normally use to write about it. Today’s object is usually sitting in a prominent position on a top shelf in my living room. With this one I feel the need to choose my words carefully. Because today I am dealing with the subject of divorce. Picture the scene, I was attending the summer fete at my Children’s First School in 2003, my Sons were both also there, but were with their Mum that day. My five year old Son spots me & runs a few yards across the playground to greet me. "Daddy I missed your birthday, I have a present for you". He didn’t understand what was going on, how could he? Harry handed me a cheap plastic, slide whistle that he had just bought himself at the fete. Now we get to the bit that I have struggled with. Divorce is always

Ok so it's part 3 of my totally self-indulgent display of my favourite stuff and it's time to discuss knitted goods. Even if you have only the vaguest, most tenuous connection with my Mum there is a strong likelihood that you will have already received some form of knitted goods from her. On display today are two of my jumpers and my eldest son's jumper along with my teddy bear. All feature jumpers knitted by my mum. The chances of receiving the aforementioned knitted goods increase exponentially if you have had or are going to have some form of child, grandchild, niece, nephew or charity event. She's always got something on the go, several things on the go usually. We are all so used to seeing my mum sitting in a chair with a bag of knitting next to her feet and whatever project she has going on her lap. She only needs the vaguest excuse to launch herself into an exciting new project and the needles start whirring again. It's just what my Mum does. I've discuss

The next installment of my latest round of sentimental nonsense will be familiar to anyone who has known our family well at any point over the last 50 years. To frighten any friends from Oswestry this means that you have known me or my family for at least 30 years. The Kitchen is the heart of any home in my opinion and anyone who visited Roft Street will remember the kitchen in my Mum and Dad's house. For those who don't know it Trinity House is a Double-Fronted Georgian townhouse with bay windows. It was our family home from 1978 when we moved from Hertfordshire to Shropshire. The kitchen was spacious, but not cavernous, warm & comforting. The chair was a familiar fixture in the kitchen, and sat in a perfect position between my Mum's Welsh dresser and the kitchen door & close to the dining table. My Father as he often did picked it up in some long-forgotten saleroom or antique shop in Hertfordshire in the early 70s. And it has been a fixture in our home ever since.

Ok so I've had a few days away from bombarding you with my sentimental nonsense. In the absence of thinking of anything better I thought I would write a short series based on some of my favourite stuff. I am not going to be so shallow as to say that any of the items that I show are more preferable than any of the others or even have much physical value. But they are all irreplaceable to me. Today's item is my Grandfather's toolbox. From my earliest childhood memory it sat in the corner of his workshed in the garden of the mid-terraced house in Manselton, Swansea, that he shared with my Grandmother. My Grandfather was born to a poor family in Hampshire. I don't actually know much about his childhood, but I do know that as a young man he enlisted in the army probably because he had little other option. He joined the Dorsetshire Regiment. He remained proud all his life of his membership and association with that regiment. He spent perhaps the happiest years of his life pri

This is the last of this current series of musings that I will be doing for a little while. But don't worry I will be inflicting a new series of different photos on you before too long. I couldn't do a series based on my favourite photos of places without including Gorleston. I have lived here for well over 25 years, both my kids were born here. Under normal circumstances there is an attitude & a pace of life in Gorleston that I find really appealing and I never cease to appreciate it. The reality is that I have lived in Gorleston far longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life. The irony is I suppose that in my many years of living here I have generally been somewhere else, missing home. The Welsh have a word for this kind of melancholy 'Hiraeth' it is a word that conveys the homesickness, a longing or an aching for home or for the familiar. And I can't count the amount of times that I've been in some far-flung place just longing to be at home. But we

Ronda is a town that is situated on the top of a mountain overlooking the El Tejo Gorge about an hour from Marbella. The town dates back to Moorish times & is very beautiful. I went there as part of a work function where I had been required to attend a conference for 6 long days. We were all cooped up in a hotel in Marbella and were forced to listen to boring business talk from a hotel conference room overlooking Marbella beach. Anyone who knows me very well will know that this will not have left me in the most positive frame of mind. Especially given that, as goes with the nature of these type of events there was very little downtime. So my reaction when told we were going on a sightseeing trip to Ronda was unenthusiastic to say the least. I'm being polite there I was extremely unenthusiastic. But my boss at the time suggested that it wouldn't reflect well on the UK if we were to avoid, so we went. I'm glad we did go, because the view of the gorge from the top is stunn

OK, so here's the thing, today's choice in some ways could be considered controversial. In the sense that Southwold in recent years has become a parody of itself. It has started to believe its own hype & has become posh London on sea. The stereotype posh English seaside town, where the big brands have been encouraged to keep a low profile, even though they are really there. Punch and Judy are on the prom and posh delicatessen pies are extortionately priced in High Street. There are the arguments that local people have been pushed out, as has happened in many other parts of the UK, Pembrokeshire, Cornwall, Dorset, Devon, Gower and North Norfolk all being obvious examples. But it's ok it turns out that the Londoners like Adnams. Now despite all this Southwold has a particular resonance for me. Anyone in the know will immediately pick up on it. The Kev, Harry, Jeremy & I did The Random Show for two and a half years from Southwold and we love the place. But having lived

So far the photos that I've been showing you have only brought back positive memories. They have been snapshots of things that have either made me laugh or I just enjoyed them for their beauty. This occasion just made me uncomfortable and I suppose I'm pleased with this photo because it conveys that. The photo was taken on the 31st of October 2018. I would describe Pattaya as Thailand's version of Blackpool. It's a party resort that is a mecca for western travellers who want to have a good time. The seafront is beautiful and is lined with restaurants and bars. I had some brilliant fish the evening I was there. Leading off the seafront there are tightly packed streets, reminiscent of the Yarmouth rows or the lanes in Brighton. The only difference being that every building is a bar and there are hundreds of them. Every bar has a different theme and each bar has a band or a singer and every bar has has several call girls waiting for trade. I'm not going to get moralist

Today's photo takes us back to October 2009 and is in its own way a tribute to the positive power of the mad idea in the pub. The story goes like this: My friend Phil and another friend went to the pub one night during the summer of 2009 and in a moment of genius that has got lost in the passing of years and the alcohol infused mist that was produced at the time. We somehow agreed to take part in a Banger Rally where we had to circumnavigate the island of Ireland in a car that cost less than £100. The actual event started in Belfast within sight of the Harland and Wolffe cranes and finished 4 days later in Kinsale, County Cork. The picture itself is noteworthy for two reasons. Firstly it is the only day in the whole of our time in Ireland that there was a sun in the sky. Secondly it was the only day during the trip that our token American was allowed to drive the car. This was mainly due to our own incompetence in sorting out insurance at the time but has been laughed about on many