Some people see bees and step back… I see them and start talking.
Mrs Bob’s late father was a beekeeper — one of those gentle souls who understood patience, nature, and the quiet hum of life. The kind of man who didn’t just keep bees… he worked with them, respected them.
And maybe that’s why, whenever one hovers near me, I can’t help but smile and say a quiet hello.
Because part of me is convinced it’s him… just checking in.
Checking she’s okay. Checking I’m looking after her. Still keeping watch, just in a different way now.
There’s something comforting in that thought — that love doesn’t really leave, it just changes form. Like the rhythm of nature itself… always moving, never gone.
When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was five, I probably didn’t have a carefully mapped-out career strategy, a five-year plan, or a LinkedIn profile (shocking, I know). What I had instead was a TV, an imagination, and the absolute certainty that adults were missing a trick.
Because obviously… I wanted to be in The A-Team.
Not “like” them. Not “inspired by” them. No—in the team. Driving the van, welding something together out of scrap in a barn, and emerging ten minutes later with a fully operational, physics-defying contraption. That seemed like a perfectly reasonable life goal.
Looking back now, it says a lot.
It wasn’t about fame or money. It was about belonging to something—your people, your crew. A band of misfits who somehow made things work, usually with duct tape, bad plans, and sheer stubbornness. There’s something in that which sticks, even decades later.
As a kid, you don’t overthink it. You don’t worry about qualifications or whether you’ve got the “right experience.” You just see something that feels right and go, “Yeah… that. I’ll have that.”
And maybe that’s the point.
Because while I never quite made it onto The A-Team (still waiting for the call, by the way), bits of that idea carried on. The tinkering. The creativity. The slightly chaotic “let’s see if this works” approach to life.
Turns out, you don’t need the van or Mr. T’s jewellery to live a version of it.
You just need a bit of imagination… and maybe a shed to build things in.
It isn’t built like the houses we trust, With brick and mortar confidence, With insurance policies and backup plans, With a neat little calendar reminder For when things go wrong.
No.
Life is more like glass.
Not the thick, bulletproof kind you see in films, But the kind you find in an old photo frame— Smudged with fingerprints, Held together with hope And a couple of bent clips on the back.
And yet…
We carry it around Like it’s indestructible.
I’ve seen enough
The arrivals. The departures. The quiet hospital rooms where time sits heavy in the corner, And pretends it’s not watching you.
I’ve brushed past the edge myself a few times, Close enough to hear the silence On the other side of the noise.
And here’s the thing
When it’s your time…
It’s your time.
No bargaining. No “just five more minutes.” No dramatic speeches that rewrite the ending.
The universe doesn’t negotiate.
(It barely even acknowledges the complaint.)
But here’s the bit people really don’t get
Fragile Doesn’t mean pointless.
In fact, it’s the opposite.
It’s because it breaks That it matters.
We spend so much time Armouring up for battles That may never come,
Saving the good mugs “for best,” Putting off the phone call, Waiting for the mythical “right moment” (You know the one— It lives somewhere between tomorrow and never.)
Meanwhile—
Life is happening in the small things:
A quiet cuppa in the shed. A daft joke that makes no sense but still lands. The way someone you love smiles And suddenly the whole room feels lighter.
Those moments—
They’re not the background.
They’re the whole show.
I didn’t learn that from books,
Though I’ve read enough of them
Holy ones, dusty ones, The kind that promise answers
And the kind that just ask better questions.
No
I learned it the long way round.
By living. By losing. By realising that strength Isn’t about holding everything together…
It’s about knowing it won’t stay that way And choosing to love it anyway.
I remember my first computer like it was yesterday. A rubber-keyed wonder that felt like the future had crash-landed in my living room. Hours spent typing lines of code just to make a dot bounce across the screen. Simple times.
Fast forward to now… and everything is faster, shinier, and infinitely more complicated.
Back then, if something went wrong at work, you fixed it with your hands, your head, or a bit of good old-fashioned teamwork. Now? There’s an app, a system, a login, a password you’ve forgotten, and a mandatory update right when you need it most.
Don’t get me wrong, technology has made life easier. Communication is instant. Tasks that once took hours now take minutes. I can sit in my shed, write a poem, take a photo, and share it with the world before the kettle’s even boiled. That’s not nothing.
But it’s also changed the pace. Everything is “now.” No breathing room. No chance to just get on with the job without something pinging, beeping, or demanding your attention.
I suppose the biggest change is this: We used to control the tools.
Now it sometimes feels like the tools control us.
Still… I wouldn’t swap it entirely. That old Spectrum might have started the journey, but it’s the modern kit that lets me keep rambling on here, sharing my scribbles with whoever happens to be listening.
What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?
I’d love to tell you I’ve got something impressive tucked away. Something flashy. Something that makes people stop mid-sentence and go, “well… that’s a bit special.”
But truth be told, I don’t.
Unless you count the ability to overthink absolutely everything at three in the morning… which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly a party trick.
Now—if we’re talking about wishing for a skill… that’s a different kettle of fish.
I think I’d like the ability to switch off the noise.
Not the world—because for all its chaos, it’s still got moments of magic tucked into the corners—but the internal chatter. The constant replaying of conversations, the “what ifs”, the “should haves”, and all the little ghosts we all drag around with us.
Because if I could quiet that?
I reckon I’d hear things clearer. See things sharper. Feel things without second-guessing whether I’m doing it “right.”
It’s a funny thing really… we spend years learning skills—jobs, hobbies, all the practical stuff—but nobody hands you a manual for your own mind.
So maybe that’s my secret non-skill.
Learning—slowly, imperfectly—how to sit with myself without trying to fix, fight, or flee from it.
Well… that depends on the day, the mood, and whether the kettle’s just boiled.
But if I’m being honest—proper honest, no messing about—it’s autumn. Always has been.
There’s something about it that just sits right.
Not the blazing heat of summer where everything feels too much, too loud… and definitely not the biting cold of winter that gets into your bones and sets up camp. Autumn’s that middle ground—the in-between—where the world seems to take a breath and say, “steady on.”
You step outside and the air’s got that crisp edge to it. Not unfriendly… just enough to wake you up. Like nature giving you a gentle nudge instead of a shove.
Leaves turning all shades of fire—gold, amber, rust—before they let go and drift down like they’ve made their peace with it. And there’s something in that, isn’t there? A quiet reminder that not everything has to last forever to be beautiful.
It’s the kind of weather where you can chuck on a hoodie, stick the kettle on, and just be. No pressure to do anything grand. Just exist for a bit.
Maybe sit in the shed, if you’ve got one… tinker with something that doesn’t really need fixing, or scribble a few lines that may or may not turn into something meaningful later.
And yeah… there’s a calm to it. A grounding sort of peace. The kind that doesn’t shout about itself, but you notice it all the same.
That’s a funny one, because the honest answer is… they never stood at the front of a classroom.
They never handed me homework. Never marked my work in red pen. Never told me to “try harder” or “see me after class.”
Instead, they showed up on a screen… late at night… while I was scrolling and trying to figure out where I fit in all this poetry malarkey.
I’m talking about Kyle Tran Mhyre AKA Guante and Neil Hilborn — part of the Button Poetry stable that, quite frankly, turned everything I thought I knew about poetry on its head.
Before that moment, poetry felt… stiff.
Like it belonged in dusty books. Like you needed permission to write it. Like every line had to behave itself, sit up straight, and rhyme politely.
And then I stumbled across slam poetry.
Raw. Honest. Messy in all the right ways.
I remember hearing Guante for the first time — reading “Ten Responses To The Phrase, Man Up”the way he delivered his words, not just saying them but meaning them — and it hit me like a freight train. This wasn’t poetry you studied… it was poetry you felt in your chest.
Then came Neil Hilborn, with “Joey” that unmistakable vulnerability, laying everything bare in a way that made you uncomfortable… in the way truth usually does.
And that was it.
That was the moment the penny dropped.
Poetry didn’t have to rhyme. It didn’t have to be pretty. It didn’t even have to make people comfortable.
It just had to be real.
That discovery changed everything for me.
Because up until then, I thought I didn’t fit into poetry.
Turns out… I just hadn’t found my kind of poetry yet.
These weren’t teachers in the traditional sense. But they taught me more than most ever could.
They taught me that:
your voice doesn’t need permission
your story is valid, even when it’s messy
and sometimes the most important thing you can do… is say the thing others are too afraid to
And maybe that’s what a real teacher is.
Not someone who tells you what to think, but someone who shows you that you can.
So yeah…
My most influential teachers?
Two poets on a screen, who had no idea I was sitting there, quietly learning how to finally find my voice.
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.
As it’s been a dry warm night, I decided to get my tripod and new phone mount and see if I could talk to my remote shutter controller.
Why I hear you ask?
Well, I’m looking at testing out the enhanced night mode on my new phone’s camera. As I’m planning to head somewhere secluded, ie no light pollution.To get some shots of the night sky.
(I want to make sure my kit works before I go out)
What tattoo do you want and where would you put it?
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.
This is the picture I had in mind
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.
The Ramblings of Bob Christian 