As I reach my half century, I can say I’ve seen and experienced a lot life had to offer, watching new life arrive into the world, and watched people leave this world. Ive even had a few NDE’s (near death experiences) myself. I’ve seen and experienced things, most people fortunately will never do. All these things have given me a perspective on life, that it’s fragile, and despite what we all think, when your times up, it’s up. No amount of bargaining, or anger etc will change it.

Despite all these events, and their consequences. its helped me to find peace within myself through a mixture of Wicca & Buddhist practices.

There’s lots of things on my to do list, that don’t get done…

What I need is something my grandma had for situations like this. You need a Tuit, but more importantly a round one. Like this

That way there’s never the same old excuse of, I’ll do it when when I get a round tuit.

My first computer was purchased in 1982 for the princely sum of £175, which was a lot of money back then but it was so worth it…

The ZX Spectrum 48K was the home computer that made the future feel like it had suddenly arrived in your living room. It packed colour graphics, crisp sound, and a full 48 kilobytes of RAM into a machine small enough to fit on a desk. Its rubber‑keyed charm hid a surprisingly capable system that opened the door to programming, gaming, and creativity for an entire generation. I had loads of coding books and remember coding for hours to play things like pong. While it pails in comparison to my current complete (Razer) it was the spark that started my love and curiosity of gaming.

I still have my Spectrum and all the books and tapes, (yes games were on tapes back in the day) stored safely in my office, as a reminder of happier carefree days.

Do you know what grinds my gears?

Stupid and inconsiderate drivers I’m talking about the school Mum that parks across a road so that she can drop Tarquin off or the Mum that just goes round the roundabout indicates to come off the island when in fact she’s indicating to pull over abruptly to let Little Theodore out of the car,

I’m talking about the people that park on roundabouts blocking the exit so that we can’t get off the roundabout our selves, then there’s the driver that doesn’t know the speed limit or doesn’t drive it i.e. doing 30 in a 60 mile an hour zone then when it comes down to 30 mile an hour speed limit they accelerate to 40 miles an hour or just slow driving generally.

As you can see these are just a few of the drivers I encounter on my daily commute from Home to my office. It’s worse in tourist season that I live in a town where we get a lot of tourists and the roads then get even worse to the point that I don’t go out during summer apart from to work unless I absolutely have to because the traffic is so bad there’s no parking it’s a nightmare.

So poor Mrs Bob gets to hear firsthand about all of this as I come through the door from Work so unfortunately bad traffic bad driving is that is the thing I complain about the most I guess.

I’ll answer these two questions separately…

My favourite sport to watch is baseball, I’ve been a San Diego Padres fan for probably thirty years, it’s a fantastic sport to watch and while I do jump out of my seat and yell at the occasional bad call etc, I find it very relaxing to watch. The only occasion it could get tense, is when Mrs Bob’s team, the Colorado Rockies play the Padres. Then all bets are off and one of us gets bragging rights.

My favourite sport to play is archery, while some of you might say it’s not a sport, I respectfully disagree. I can’t play many sports due my health issues, archery which is an Olympic sport is one i can, and I’m actually very good at apparently.

If I won the lottery (large amount) I’d purchase an old military base and then I’d get homeless veterans to help renovate the housing blocks, in exchange for wages and a subsidised place to live once completed. This way those of us that served our country and desperately need looking after, could have a safe place to sleep at night and an address to be able to open a bank account, and hopefully then they’d be able to apply for jobs etc.

The biggest issue faced on the streets, apart from the obvious ones due to sleeping rough, which as I know isn’t nice, and can be very dangerous, is you have no address, which means you can’t register for things like a bank account, doctors, employment agencies etc.

Once this phase was completed I’d then open it up to children who’re in the same position, this way I could at least try to use my money to help my fellow man.

I’d have to say there are probably two books that I want to read….

• Guru Granth Sahib. This is the Sikh holy book
• The Tripitaka. (Three baskets) Buddhist teachings

These two books would complete my reading of various religious texts. I started as most do with the bible in Sunday school and being brought up in a Christian household, from then in high school I studied that alongside Islam, and Judaism. So I read (English versions) the Quran and the Tanakh. In later life I read the Tibeten book of the dead, Bhagavad Gita, The Book of Mormon, and many books on various beliefs including a vast Collection on paganism and witchcraft.

I’ve a copy of the Tripitaka on my kindle, which I need to get round to reading, the Guru Granth Sahib however has proved elusive so far, but I’d love to add it to my collection.

The reason I’ve read these books was just to see the differences between the major belief structures or as I found out, what they have in common. This way I feel I’m better prepared to be more understanding of different beliefs and customs.

The thing I enjoy most is to grab the book from the top of my ever growing reading pile, get comfy and dive right back into it.