Likes

So I realised that it is all very well and good reading a blog about someone, but wouldn't it be better if you a knew a little more about me first? So without assuming you want to know, without being egotistical and annoying like that, here's some basic facts.

My likes:

1) Spending time with my loved ones. (You know who you are, enough said.)

2) Music; music of the soul, and that which tells a tale- Funky deep stuff, Folk and Country tales, Classical emotions and Gospel- God-loving worship. Favourite artists include: Stevie Wonder, Kirk Franklin, Tim McGraw, Alison Krauss, Faith Hill, Joan Baez, Nanci Griffith, Joni Mitchell, Amp Fiddler, Relient K, Paulo Nutini, Jamie Cullum, Afro Strut and many more. Music is a wonderful thing, it fills the soul with a strange feeling, you can cry to it, laugh to it, dance to it, chill to it. It is not greed to enjoy spending time with music, it is a gift given which I intend to enjoy more of.

3) Literature- (yes, I am an arts girl)- The classics- Austen, Bronte, Shakespeare, and more recent authors- Toni Morrison for example. Literature is, (or should I say arts in general?) like music in that it brings out the genius that is the soul. It is also extremely wonderful as it has culture in it that we cannot imagine- there is soo much depth to it and I take my hat off to most successful writers.

4) Film nights with my pals. Recently, me and my friend Emily watched part of Notting Hill. The writing is so witty I laugh every time I watch it. "Oh I don't believe it. My life ruined because I don't read Hello magazine." Classic.

5) Having a relationship with my Lord God, who is a God of Love and more than a guy in the sky. "Yeh, I said it," in the words of Stevie Wonder at Glastonbury this year!

6) Travelling. Unfortunately this year I have been unable to travel, as it became time to get a job and earn some dosh. In the past though, I have visited quite a lot of Europe as I got to go on tour with my then Youth Orchestra.

So there you have it! Some of my 'likes'. Forgive me if this has seemed that I have assumed you would be interested, but hopefully my writings in the future will make more sense now you know some of what I am/hope to do.

Logging off now, time for bed, work tomorrow!

Love

"Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Tho stretched from sky to sky."- Anon

What a beautiful poem.

Interesting People.

The other day I met the most interesting man on the train to York, I still can't get over what a successful life he'd had.
The strange experience began on my way to York- it was a busy train so I was forced to take whatever seat I could get. Thankfully, the man next to the free seat was very friendly.
For a while we just sat minding our own business, however, we soon entered a very long but intriguing conversation.

This man, around 80 or more I would say, ended up telling me his life story, which was amazing. At 18, he signed up to the Navy (this was during WW2). He quickly explained that you could either volunteer to sign up and have the choice of which force you went into, or be taken and signed up and not have the option. So he volunteered, and was in the Navy for 7 years.After this, he became a teacher for 15 years or so,and enjoyed it. However, he told me that he had "always had a bee in [his] bonnet" and wanted to work on a nature reserve. After he had got bored of teaching, he decided to follow this bee and go into the nature reserve buisness. After trying to get a job form many reserves, he wrote a letter to (what he called) English Nature. I realise now that it must have been the National Trust or something like that, anyhow, they replied in a form of a 'polite' letter saying that thankyou but he was not the sort of person that they employed.
Still reading? Good, cause this is where it gets interesting.
After failing to secure a job working for a nature reserve, he managed to somehow get a piece of land 5 miles long, from a local council. He turned it into a nature reserve himself, for many years enjoyed lecturing people about the reserve and showing groups of children the nature that evolved. He even wrote a book about the nature reserve.
One day, the same company that had declined his application wrote to him asking him if they could quote his book when they were writing their own official book!
With a wife and three 'successful' children, (one with a tudor house in sussex and a second house in france, and one who makes more in a day than his father ever made in a year), I wondered how this man had managed such a life? I also wondered what 'success' actually is? Is it all these things, or should it simply be how happy you are?