Drink !

Drink !

Drink !

(etc)

Played like Kenny Dalglish in his Celtic heyday. That's if he'd had a crap left foot, no pace and couldn't finish.
Great craic though.

So i thought I'd avail myself of the four free sessions on offer, as a form of self-love and mental spring cleaning.

well, it's not easy and at times the process has been a bit messy, very draining and, well, hard. But do I feel better for it? You bet.

Might go for a run later.

But let's just say I think Lenny would approve.

I don't do it very often. But I've come to the opinion that it may be even more beneficial psychologically than physically.

And baking and baking.

In the last few weeks I have made croissants, lavender cupcakes, peanut and chocolate cookies, lemon and poppyseed cake, carrot cakes, strawberry cheesecake cupcakes, tomato chili chutney, a Victoria sponge, a coffee cake and many loaves of bread.

I get my bike out of the basement, and pound the hell out of the pedals for an hour or so on the country roads around here. Can't beat it...

Green beans
Naked ladies
and masturbation...

Not always all at the same time.

Other than the obvious..

I will bike round to the gym, pound on a treadmill for half an hour and then chuck weights around. This I do two evenings a week. It sort of unwinds me but I wouldn't call it pleasureable.

The other days I'm in the kitchen. Cooking, for me, is a joy. Rattling pans with a glass of manzanilla to hand and something good to listen to is a proper way to undo the cranial knots.

My beautiful doggie.

And that's not a euphemism.

Near where I live. From the top you can see across the whole of north Auckland and the islands of the Waitemata Harbour. All the while listening to Word podcasts/Fighting Talk/Danny Baker. I stopped doing it for a while and noticed increased grumpiness. Although I did give up smoking too, which probably didn't help.

I walk home from work every day, it's only a brisk thirty minute walk but besides the exercise it gives me time to exorcise the demons of my working day as well.

it's by the armchair. It's an instant destressant.

Hit that ball rather than something else/

What's not to like about the modern world?
We have:
More music than you have time or inclination to listen to.
Hundreds of television channels with high quality pictures and enough quality programming to satisfy all but the harshest critic or 24 hour addict.
More live gigs available than I can ever remember.
Modern technology that means we can have the whole world of information in our pockets.
Available transport to whereever we want to go (if budget allows)
The Word Website.

stand on the train out of choice rather than necessity; Badminton once a week; a diet of fresh fruit and veg; not too much red meat; and all supplemented by far too much chocolate, wine and beer.

Nothing else is better for the head clearing than this imo. I always have a Danny Baker show on the mp3,I'm a future listener,i'm on 23 August as we speak.It also gives my time to read. Barcelona is undergoing a serious Indian Summer,23 degrees today and sunny.
I'll grab a couple of hours before work.
Exercise is off limits due to a F'ed up knee due to exercise. I,too,have a punchbag and you are right,Dave.It works wonders.

Walking.

Walking for miles and miles and miles. Walking balances the two hemispheres of the brain, allowing the emotional drama queen hemisphere to share a few drams with the analytical scientist hemisphere, while your body gets on with the profound business of moving from one place to another.

What still astounds me is the distance you cover. Urban living tends to break distances down into blocks, lots of short, manageable (though often irritating) sections. Out in the open, you can see the miles ahead of you and it's intimidating. But then you put one foot in front of the other and time and distance slips by, your mind clears, and troubles fall away.

mountain bike or road bike. 30 miles every Saturday morning & every Wednesday night come rain or shine you will see me in Richmond Park bothering the Deer with my super bright lights. Always finish with a beer or two which makes me kinda exercise neutral.

This modern life lark is much more manageable and less stressful if you organise your time better. While I'd advocate exercise, fresh air and eating well as mentioned above (not that I get enough of any of those), if you set aside time for your hobby, something you really, really enjoy, it's good for the mind.

Also, apologies for getting mawkish, but tell the people you love that you love them frequently. Hopefully they'll even say it back.

To be quite honest, I don't often find I need a coping method as such. I like my life, I'm delighted to be alive in Britain in the 21st century, and while I'm emphatically not religious, I don't half count my blessings.

That said, my daughters are about the best remedy for a shitty day, I find. They never fail to crack me up, move me, melt my heart and give me such a fierce glow of pride and love it feels like my chest will break. That'll do me.

And I love to cook. There aren't many more therapeutic things than roasting a chicken, some taters, some steamed greens and - I know it's not quite the thing, but I don't care - Yorkshire pudding. This came about because my sister loves Yorkshire pudding, but beef disagrees with her, so my mum always did Yorkshires with any roast at all. And I honestly don't think there's a finer plate of food in the world than a really good roast chicken dinner. But I'm happy cooking anything, as long as it's savoury. I'm not much of a pastry chef, and don't have a wildly sweet tooth anyway. But if it's got meat in it, I love to cook it.

I go birdwatching.

There. I've said it.

At weekends I like to turn the telly (especially the BBC news) off and relocate to the kitchen.

In there I'll happily cook breakfast for my wife and daughter. Thick American style pancakes, or egg on toast, or porridge or anything they want really.

Then I might bake a cake or a batch of scones or both.

For lunch I might whip up a quick tasty soup

For dinner I'll set too and make something big, tasty and easy like a Lasagne or a curry. Anything we fancy.

I like being at home away from work in the warmth of my family. Knowing I'm there with them and not attached to the ongoing bollocks of the outside helps me a lot.

Once I've consumed enough calories to stun a horse we'll stick the stout footwear on and meander about the local countryside for a few miles, chatting with each other or just soaking up the air.

Works wonders.

I find running my hand over gnarled tree bark very therapeutic.

running. I love running. Twenty miles a time. I lost over five stone when I first started and would go out happily in all weathers. But then fate said 'fuck you' and I have a knee problem that just won't quit. I still do 15 miles on a cross trainer but it is a soulless way to exercise and weights just don't do it for me.
On Saturday I brought a brand new all white Fender Telecaster and Fender amp and she is called Jenny and she is my mistress. She lets me take her any way I choose and all my problems just melt away.

Clinging grimly to the last traces of his youth, Paul resists the onset of middle age by listening to music he should have grown out of years ago, shouting profanities at professional footballers and eating and drinking more than is strictly necessary.

Not a bad philosophy, if I say so myself.

in the garage ...

Cycling blows out the cobwebs like nothing else I do. It needn't be in the country, pootling around London will do fine, as I've sussed out routes to my various workplaces that avoid main roads for the most part. A longer weekend ride in the sticks on a crisp sunny day is great too.

And then there's the zoo. As an incorrigeable milksop, I take great pleasure in looking at the new arrivals at London Zoo, especially the primates. I go often with my daughter (become a friend of the zoo and you're laughing); there's a new baby gorilla (a couple of weeks old) - when I was there last weekend, everyone in the gorilla section had beatific smiles on their faces.

Not a great cyclist, but got out my grown up sons 15 year old bike during the summer and fixed it up. I cycle to our local seaside, there is a cycle lane so I can do so safely in the dark. Put on headphones and set player to random until I hit the album which is right for that time.
Spend approx 15 mins looking at beach/sea and cycle home.

Bliss.

I also like to cook for family and friends.
Best time saturday night.
Bar all from kitchen.
Set out my ingredients.
Put on suitable music.
Have bottle of wine on standby.
The critical point is that the wine is not opened too soon or too late.
Especially too soon (and there is always temptation) as organisation and method will go by the wayside and we might be facing "gourmet night at faulty towers.

When dinner is served, I sit and join my guests, and let others worry about the desert/coffee and washup.

Bliss!

Nothing better than a clear starry night and a telescope. If you don't relax while viewing you tend to miss things and fail to really appreciate the greatness of what you are seeing.

and fine wines. Not necessarily at the same time.

I love it. Mr H bought me a workbench and jigsaw for Chrimbo last year.

Yesterday, I put white marble tile laminate flooring down in the hall.

I've just had 2 days climbing sea cliffs in North West Scotland.

We saw sea-otters and seals in the waves below; had a superb seafood meal at the local pub; slept in a van; met The World's Biggest Dog; and ended watching the sun set into the Atlantic, its lowering rays catching the snow-capped peaks of An Teallach to the south. It was sublime.

Days like that are the answer to any amount of 3am soul-searching.

I find playing the guitar is a great destresser. Usually a bit of vigorous finger picking. Making a row on electric is a good way of getting vibed up, but not for chilling.

...and death, in all likelihood, the end of conscious experience. It is also unlikely that your existence will be a continuous run of parties and extreme sports events, punctuated by high-fiving dolphins and rides on the backs of tame griffins.

You need to find some way of connecting with the understated beauty of the mundane. I see no advantage in sleepwalking through the ordinary and only opening your senses when the occasion seems to demand it.

I used work behind the reception in the Radiotherapy department of my local hospital. I remember one terminally ill patient who used to cycle to his treatment sessions. He was a tough guy; he didn't act like one, but he was. Even with his horizons closing in on him, he got as much as he could out of life and didn't lie down until he was made to lie down.

A few months after I first met him I was doing some filing and found his treatment sheet among a stack of those belonging to deceased patients.

when you are busy making other plans.

It's an unremarkable bit of the south coast but the sea itself always looks different and there really is something about the sea air that makes me feel better

Who takes us forward. Love you man.

Cycling and football, although precious little of either as a result of falling off my bike last weekend. I generally cherish solitude when things start to grate. I have a den at home with all my music, a quality hi fi and lots of related literature.