I wish I could slow down…

Not in the dramatic, sell-everything-and-move-to-a-mountain kind of way.
Just… slow down enough to notice the bits of life that don’t shout for attention.

Because the truth is, life has a funny way of slipping past while you’re busy doing the important things.
Work. Responsibilities. The never-ending to-do list that seems to breed overnight like gremlins in the sink. 

And before you know it, the day is done,
and you’re left wondering where it actually went.

I wish I could spend more time in those small, quiet moments.

The ones that don’t look like much from the outside…
but somehow feel like everything when you’re in them.

Sitting with a good book from the top of that ever-growing pile,
getting comfy, and just disappearing into it for a while. 

Or standing outside with a camera in hand,
trying to catch the moon before it decides it’s had enough of being admired. 

Or even just sitting in the shed, tinkering with something that doesn’t really need fixing…
but fixing it anyway, because it gives your mind somewhere quiet to land. 

I wish I could be more present.

Not half here, half somewhere else.
Not thinking about what’s next, or what I should have done yesterday.

Just… here.

Because if life has taught me anything, it’s that it’s fragile.
Painfully, beautifully fragile.
And it doesn’t wait for you to catch up. 

There’s no pause button.
No rewind.
No “I’ll get to it later” that actually guarantees you will.

I wish I could do more of the things that make me feel human.

Write more.
Notice more.

Appreciate more.

Tell the people I care about that I care about them —
not just assume they know.

Laugh a bit louder.
Breathe a bit deeper.
Let the world be what it is, without trying to wrestle it into something it’s not.

Because at the end of the day…

It’s not the big moments we miss.

It’s the small ones we never made time for.

So I suppose the real answer is this:

I don’t wish for more hours in the day.

I just wish I used the ones I’ve got…
a little better.

Stay safe
BC

You know, it’s funny—when you’ve got as many tattoos as I do, finding the space for another one becomes its own form of art. I mean, where do you put it without looking like a human canvas?

I’ve got most of the tattoos I’ve wanted, each one telling a story, each piece of ink marking a moment in time. But if I’m being real, there’s one I’ve always held back on, a tattoo that’s been sitting in the back of my mind for over two decades.

See, about 25 years ago, I made a decision—no regrets, just a choice. I got a tattoo on the back of my neck that, well, it doesn’t quite speak to me the way it used to. If I could spare the time and the funds for another therapy session at The Ink Inn, I’d cover it up with something that’s been on my mind for years: a crow in flight, based on one of my photographs.

The crow. Now, here’s where it gets interesting. You don’t just throw a bird like that on your skin without understanding the weight it carries. The crow isn’t just a bird—it’s a symbol, a messenger, and honestly, it’s misunderstood. People often link them to death or bad luck, but the deeper meaning is far richer.

Crows represent transformation—change that’s profound, often unseen, but always necessary. They’re tied to mystery, intelligence, and wisdom, connecting the spiritual and the physical worlds. They’re protectors, guides, survivors.

In a way, I see a lot of myself in the crow. I’ve had my own moments of darkness, my own battles with transformation, but that’s where wisdom comes from, right? In the chaos, the transformation, and the understanding that comes from it.

So, yeah. If I had the space, the time, and the cash for one more session, I’d add that crow. Not just for the aesthetic, but for the symbolism. Because life, like the crow, is all about navigating the mysteries, embracing change, and flying through it with purpose.

Stay Safe

BC

Resilient.

Not in the loud, chest-beating, “look at me conquering mountains” kind of way…
but the quieter version.

The kind that gets up when it doesn’t particularly want to.

The kind that’s taken a few hits from life—
and I mean proper hits—
and instead of pretending they didn’t hurt,
sat with them, learned from them,
and carried on anyway.

Because if there’s one thing life has a habit of reminding us,
it’s that it’s fragile… blink-and-you-miss-it fragile. 

So you adapt.

You bend a little.

You find your way through the chaos—
whether that’s through scribbles on a page,
a bit of soul-searching,
or just taking a quiet moment to breathe and reset. 

Resilient doesn’t mean unbreakable.
Far from it.

It means you’ve cracked a few times,
but you’ve learned how to put yourself back together—
not the same as before,
but maybe… a little wiser.

A little softer in the right places,
and a little tougher where it counts.

Stay safe,
Bc

Funny thing about compliments… the flashy ones fade.

You can be told you’re talented, creative, even “gifted,” and for a moment it lands — like a decent cup of coffee on a cold morning — but it doesn’t always stick.

The one that stayed with me?

Someone once said I had a good heart.

Not a good poem.
Not a good photo.
A good heart.

And that hit differently.

Because talent is something you do…
but who you are, underneath all the scribbles and noise — that’s the bit that matters. 

I’ve spent years trying to turn thoughts into words, chaos into something readable, something honest.
But if all of that adds up to someone thinking I’m decent at my core…

Yeah.

I’ll take that over applause any day.

Stay safe
BC

For me… it’s the train. Every time.

Not because it’s the fastest. It isn’t.
Not because it’s the fanciest. It rarely is.

But because it lets you breathe.

You see, I’ve spent enough time dealing with traffic, bad driving, and all the chaos that comes with it to know—it drains you before you’ve even arrived . Sitting behind a wheel, watching brake lights stretch into the horizon, isn’t a journey… it’s endurance.

A train is different.

You step on, find your seat, and that’s it. No stress about directions. No worrying about the bloke who can’t indicate properly. No sudden stops because someone’s decided the middle of the road is a parking space.

Just motion.

There’s something almost meditative about it. The steady rhythm of the tracks, the quiet hum, the world rolling by outside your window like a film you didn’t know you needed to watch.

Fields. Towns. People going about their lives.

You’re not fighting the journey—you’re part of it.

And maybe that’s the point.

We rush so much in life, always trying to get somewhere quicker, easier, sooner. But every now and then, it’s worth choosing the slower road… or in this case, the rails.

Sit back.
Watch the world pass by.
And just be in it for a while.

Stay safe,
BC

Confidence is a funny thing.

Most people think it looks like a loud voice, a firm handshake, or someone who never doubts themselves. The sort of person who walks into a room like they own it.

But in my experience, that’s not confidence. That’s theatre.

The most confident person I know was my grandfather, Walter S Christian. He wasn’t loud. He didn’t try to impress anyone. In fact, he was happiest pottering about in his shed or greenhouse, quietly working on something with his hands. 

What made him confident was something far rarer: certainty in who he was.

He believed in simple things — working hard, being honest, helping people regardless of their background or beliefs. He carried himself like a gentleman not because someone told him to, but because that’s the kind of man he chose to be. 

There’s a particular calm about people like that.
They don’t need applause.
They don’t need to win every argument.
And they certainly don’t need to tell you how confident they are.

They just get on with life.

If you ever met him, you’d understand. He was the sort of man who could teach you more in a quiet afternoon than most people manage in a lifetime. In fact, he influenced me so much that I even took part of his name for my own. 

So when people ask me who the most confident person I know is, I don’t think of celebrities or athletes.

I think of a retired firefighter, an artist, a gardener… and a man who simply knew what it meant to be decent.

Turns out, real confidence doesn’t shout.

It quietly gets on with being the kind of person worth remembering.

Stay safe

Bc

Negative feelings are a bit like British weather — they roll in whether you invited them or not. You can shout at the clouds all day, but it rarely stops the rain.

For me, the trick is learning to sit with it for a moment.

Meditation helps. Just a few quiet minutes, breathing, letting the noise in my head settle down a bit. Nothing fancy. Just stillness and a bit of space between me and whatever nonsense my brain is currently shouting about. It’s amazing how much calmer things look when you stop wrestling them.

And then there’s poetry.

Or what I prefer to call scribbles.

Sometimes I’ll grab a notebook and just dump the mess onto the page. No structure, no worrying about spelling or grammar — just thoughts escaping the pressure cooker. I started doing that years ago as a way to process what was going on in my head, and it turned out to be surprisingly good therapy. 

The funny thing is, once the feelings are written down, they stop rattling around inside quite so loudly.

So my strategy is fairly simple:

Sit. Breathe.

Then scribble until the storm passes.

Not glamorous.

But it works.

Stay Safe

Bc

There’s only a few activities that I can honestly say I lose myself in. Not the sort of “pass the time” hobbies, but the ones where you look up and realise hours have quietly slipped by without you noticing.

The first is poetry.

Poetry has been part of my life for over twenty years now. It started out as therapy, a way of processing the noise inside my head, but somewhere along the way it became much more than that. When I’m writing, the rest of the world tends to fade into the background and it’s just me and the page, trying to turn thoughts and emotions into something that resembles a poem. As I’ve said before, poetry became a place where my mind could finally exhale and where the chaos of anxiety and depression could exist without apology. 

Another thing that will happily steal a few hours of my life is comic books. There’s something wonderfully nostalgic about them. Sitting down with a good comic takes me straight back to being a kid again, when stories were larger than life and heroes always found a way to win in the end. It’s a simple pleasure, but sometimes those are the best ones.

And then there’s photography.

Photography is something I’ve drifted into in more recent years. I wouldn’t say I know what I’m doing most of the time, but I’ve been told I’ve got a decent eye for it. I enjoy grabbing the camera, experimenting with settings, and just seeing what happens. Sometimes you get nothing… and sometimes you capture something you’re really proud of. 

So yes, there’s only a few things I truly lose myself in:

• Writing poetry
• Reading comic books
• Taking photographs

Different hobbies, different moods… but each one gives me a little space away from the world for a while.

Stay safe
BC