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Northern Line, heading into the City, morning

If/when the line goes down and all passengers have to use busses, find the nearest bus stop. This will be the one with a gaggle of unhappy people at it, trying to squeeze their way into the next oncoming bus.

Then, walk AGAINST the flow of automobile traffic to find the next available bus stop BEFORE the one with the huge gathering of people.

This way one can get on a bus BEFORE the bus hits the stop nearest the tube station that has the impacted service.

Well worth the extra few minutes’ walk :o)

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2209475275&topic=7092

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East London, District line

Saturday morning

Bring a book, get on East Ham, get off Kew Gardens Long ride, but worth the ride.

One can see a most interesting spectrum of people.

This is the most diverse financial range of people on this route, from the poorest in London (Plaistow, Upton Park) to the touristy folks (Monument,Tower Hill,Embankment) to the most affluent (South/West Kengsinton, Kew Gardens)

And at Kew Gardens one can step off to see the Gardens themselves! Well worth the trip.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2209475275&topic=7092

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East London, District/H&C line

Queue? What’s that? No such thing in East London.

Everyone gets on all at once, train, bus, shop entrance, doesn’t matter.

I never thought that 4 can enter a doorway all at once but mob rules here think otherwise :o)

I pity the fool who needs to get OFF at Upton Park heading into the City at 9 am, heh.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2209475275&topic=7092

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East London, District/H&C line

Elbows and shoulders are great tools in the morning :o)

Doesn’t matter if one’s been standing in a spot for 10 mins, there are folks who like to “walk with the train” whilst it is slowing down to stop. These folks will step over one’s feet to push their way in front of one’s self.

Stand one’s ground, look the git in the eye, and get on anyways even if it means stepping on said git’s feetses.

Gentlemen are not rewarded in this part of town, heh.

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East London. District/H&C line There’s always at least one goofball who leans waaaaayyyyy faaaarrr over the white line checking out to see where the train is.

Even if he/she can see the train, what difference does it make? …except to slow up the oncoming train, the conductor isn’t allowed to enter the station at more than 5 mph if he/she sees anyone on or over the white line.

I know this because the conductor gave us a beasting one morning after letting us on the train :o)

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2209475275&topic=7092

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I thought it was quite amusing that the first time I ever rode a mechanical bull was in a small village in England.

During a fancy dress birthday party where we were all dressed as cowboys or indians.

That was a really really fun night

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September Rain comes cold and hard

to clear the years of toil and love.

This month, dual joy and pain.

To celebrate life a year once more

yet mourn a life of patient hope.

Alas.  We are no more.

Go then; find what ye seek,

thou hast no life in me.

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This song

once my favorite, now my tormentor

will not leave my head.

Meant to open doors of reconciliation

instead opened doors to a deep unforgiving elevator shaft.

The building tipped, and in we fell.

Now this song won’t leave me

in my isolation

My temporary madness.

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(to the support group)

re: Intro post, some history, and many thanks (long)

I’m reading my original posting here, now that my lovely and I have decided to part ways.

Has it only been two years since I found this place of like-minded people?

Has it really been fifteen years since she and started our journey together?

I still love her with all my heart. It has been hard, living in a world of insanity, where her moods stike with impunity, and I’m not even part of her inner circle these last many months.

I was still working to make this work out. It was she who decided she “fell out of love with me” on some emotional binge and never recovered.

Our children. Ah what will become of them?

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Hello all

Well it’s been an interesting few years. 15 in fact. And interesting in the Chinese curse sort of way, heh.

She left. I didn’t. I don’t know what else to say or contribute.

This is turning out to be a four-shot whiskey kind of night. And I’m not a drinker by nature. Imagine the Simpson’s Flanders on a binge and you’ve got the complete photo here.

I’d love to offer hope or a ray of sunshine, but here in this place, there is little to be had.

“What Dreams May Come”?

Yes, that’s a valid movie connection here. Incredibly beautiful. Yet so painful. Ah, and without the happy ending.

Signing out
John

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An Idea

The length of a given summer in ratio to the age of a person decreases logarithmically as he ages. A correlation to this is that the year-over-year delta ratio also decreases in a similar logarithmic scale.

This leads to the conclusion that the summers of one’s youth are more memorable due to the proportional size of each summer in relation to the age of the person.

One can view analytical data for this concept further in this page here:

An Idea, in English

Summertime.

One of the four seasons we have learned to love, or endure – depending on where we live and the conditions of the season.

Think back to the longest summer you’ve experienced. Chances are you’ll recall a summer of your childhood.

Now, the most memorable summer may be because of a significant event like a wedding, childbirth, or moving experience (pun intended on the last one). But think of the longest summer, and I’ll take a chance and say this would be childhood summertime.

Think of it – school just let out, the ground is starting to dry out from the muddy spring season, and the hint of grasshoppers singing in the fields is just lurking round the corner, on its way out to meet you. There are a million things to do and next school session is too far away to even think about. Sunup to sundown lasts like 50 hours in the day and at night if the parents let a sleep-over take place then it’s noisy and fun for hours.

Looking at this a different way, it’s a million miles away from Christmas. Or, ask a child what he or she wants to dress up for on Halloween the day after school lets out and you’ll get a strange look as a response. October is far too far away to ask silly questions like that.

But summer, being one of the four seasons, is only 3 months long. Why then does it seem so long when you’re a kid?

The answer is – it’s all in the numbers.

There’s some bad news and good news in the answer. God, being smart like He is, gave us beings who experience time the way we do a way to deal with ageing in a manner only a divine being can do. He can’t remove the inevitable but He does make the inevitable work for us in quite a clever way. I’ll explain.

Let’s start with the bad news

Imagine a newborn child – actually about 3 months old. He was born at the start of summer. For this kid, a 3-month-long summer is all he knows. It’s taken up 100% of his life.

Now think of the same child, 6 months old. Summer has gone but it’s still been half his life.

The child celebrating his 1st birthday will have gone through all 4 seasons, and summer is still a major portion of his life – ¼ of it still.

The child, at 2 years, has seen two summers, and each summer he’s seen now makes up 12.5% – or 1/8 – of his entire life.

At 7 years, each summer makes up only 3.6% – or 1/28 – of his seven years of experience and learning and life in the world.

I think you see the idea. As we grow older, summers appear to become shorter, because we age and each individual summer takes up less and less of our total lifetime.

This is why the childhood summers seem to last far far longer than any other time in the world. Most of us haven’t a clue what a summer is until we’ve been in school a couple of years, so it’s safe to say that a 7-year-old’s summer is the longest one each of us will remember.

We’ll never have a summer as long as the newborn child born at the beginning of summer. Even if we live to be 200 years, we’ll never see longer summers. Especially if we live to be 200 years.

Let’s look at the good news

Ok that was the bad news. But, here comes the good bit, the part where God says, “Yes, we can’t avoid this. But here’s something to make up for this.”

Summers become shorter as we get older. But the rate at which they get shorter becomes smaller.

This means that each year, the summer becomes shorter for each of us, but only a little shorter than the previous year.

Taking the child’s example above, you can see that the length of summer at each ‘snapshot’ of his life is drastically different – 100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5%, 3.6% of his life. But each change is less dramatic from the one before it.

By the time the child is 11 years old, summer has ‘shrunk’ for him but only by 9% from the previous year.

By the time he’s 16, a summer is only 6% less than the year before it.

By 23, it’s down to 4%

When the child becomes 40, summers will be as ‘short’ as they will be until he reaches age 67. From there, the summer shrinks no more even if he lives to be 105 years old.

So what does this all mean?

I don’t know.

I just think the numbers make up a very interesting pattern, a drawing of a grand scale where the architect is wise and kind and caring for His creations.

This pattern shows me that the first experiences a baby encounters – in the womb, even – are infinitesimally enduring, if not in brain-memory then in heart-memory.

The pattern shows me the impatient storms of youth are very real to the youth but once these are weathered, the storms lessen as the youth grows older, and hopefully wiser.

It shows why our parents’ patience grows as they watch us grow; not only because they are learning about us children but they are also learning that time isn’t as scary as it used to be.

Now this doesn’t explain all, as we are each individual beings with our own driving forces, dreams, temperaments, experiences and environments. But it goes a long way in explaining some of the things I see around me.

Looking at the grid of numbers below, I see patterns between certain behaviours and ages also.

The Data

Below is a link to a copy of the workbook used to come up with this analysis.

summerflies <– Click to view dataset

For those interested in just the results, the graph and numbers are below for your perusal.

The Graph

Each line going up and down is a year in the life of a person, from age 1 to age 105

Each line going across shows how much shorter a summer is from the previous year for the person, from 50% to nearly 0%.

<– Click to view full-sized

Numbers for the graph

Below is a copy of the grid of numbers used for the graph.

Age days summer
(3 months)
as percentage of age		 Difference from previous year
1 365 25.0% 100%
2 730 12.5% 50%
3 1,095 8.3% 33%
4 1,460 6.3% 25%
5 1,825 5.0% 20%
6 2,190 4.2% 17%
7 2,555 3.6% 14%
8 2,920 3.1% 13%
9 3,285 2.8% 11%
10 3,650 2.5% 10%
11 4,015 2.3% 9%
12 4,380 2.1% 8%
13 4,745 1.9% 8%
14 5,110 1.8% 7%
15 5,475 1.7% 7%
16 5,840 1.6% 6%
17 6,205 1.5% 6%
18 6,570 1.4% 6%
19 6,935 1.3% 5%
20 7,300 1.3% 5%
21 7,665 1.2% 5%
22 8,030 1.1% 5%
23 8,395 1.1% 4%
24 8,760 1.0% 4%
25 9,125 1.0% 4%
26 9,490 1.0% 4%
27 9,855 0.9% 4%
28 10,220 0.9% 4%
29 10,585 0.9% 3%
30 10,950 0.8% 3%
31 11,315 0.8% 3%
32 11,680 0.8% 3%
33 12,045 0.8% 3%
34 12,410 0.7% 3%
35 12,775 0.7% 3%
36 13,140 0.7% 3%
37 13,505 0.7% 3%
38 13,870 0.7% 3%
39 14,235 0.6% 3%
40 14,600 0.6% 2%
41 14,965 0.6% 2%
42 15,330 0.6% 2%
43 15,695 0.6% 2%
44 16,060 0.6% 2%
45 16,425 0.6% 2%
46 16,790 0.5% 2%
47 17,155 0.5% 2%
48 17,520 0.5% 2%
49 17,885 0.5% 2%
50 18,250 0.5% 2%
51 18,615 0.5% 2%
52 18,980 0.5% 2%
53 19,345 0.5% 2%
54 19,710 0.5% 2%
55 20,075 0.5% 2%
56 20,440 0.4% 2%
57 20,805 0.4% 2%
58 21,170 0.4% 2%
59 21,535 0.4% 2%
60 21,900 0.4% 2%
61 22,265 0.4% 2%
62 22,630 0.4% 2%
63 22,995 0.4% 2%
64 23,360 0.4% 2%
65 23,725 0.4% 2%
66 24,090 0.4% 2%
67 24,455 0.4% 1%
68 24,820 0.4% 1%
69 25,185 0.4% 1%
70 25,550 0.4% 1%
71 25,915 0.4% 1%
72 26,280 0.3% 1%
73 26,645 0.3% 1%
74 27,010 0.3% 1%
75 27,375 0.3% 1%
76 27,740 0.3% 1%
77 28,105 0.3% 1%
78 28,470 0.3% 1%
79 28,835 0.3% 1%
80 29,200 0.3% 1%
81 29,565 0.3% 1%
82 29,930 0.3% 1%
83 30,295 0.3% 1%
84 30,660 0.3% 1%
85 31,025 0.3% 1%
86 31,390 0.3% 1%
87 31,755 0.3% 1%
88 32,120 0.3% 1%
89 32,485 0.3% 1%
90 32,850 0.3% 1%
91 33,215 0.3% 1%
92 33,580 0.3% 1%
93 33,945 0.3% 1%
94 34,310 0.3% 1%
95 34,675 0.3% 1%
96 35,040 0.3% 1%
97 35,405 0.3% 1%
98 35,770 0.3% 1%
99 36,135 0.3% 1%
100 36,500 0.3% 1%
101 36,865 0.2% 1%
102 37,230 0.2% 1%
103 37,595 0.2% 1%
104 37,960 0.2% 1%
105 38,325 0.2% 1%

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Today was a day of travel. In my heart and head and in body as well.

The trip to Shoeburyness was partly through the snow. Yes, snow in March, on Easter Sunday.

The C2C rail line cut from the inner boroughs of London eastward, through the gentle hills of the country, past the little towns of fishermen and ended at the far side of the English island.

People were in the train but I didn’t notice them really. They were background effects as I was focused on the decoration of white fluffy snow lightly covering the green fields of the land.

Took a short break in Southend-on-Sea to get coffee and stretch my legs. Town centre – which was just off the train station – was quite nice, streets cut off from traffic so people could walk around. The Odeon cinema next to the coffee shop tempted me for a while but I moved on.  Had a little excitement here as I misplaced my train ticket but it was soon found.

Leigh-on-Sea was quite pretty to pass through; I was tempted to stop here too and look around. Loads of boats and fishermen-type shops. Rich in atmosphere.

The end of the line was in Shoeburyness. Train station is literally across the street from the sea. Can’t go much further than that.

The walk to the water’s edge was cold and rainy. But like the people in the train, this was just background noise. The cold doesn’t affect me like it used to, it seems.

In certain areas, upended boats lay stacked on each other, far away from the water’s edge. On a nice sunny day they would have been hired out by visitors; on a cold snowy rainy Spring day however, these were just colorful additions to the scenery, unused for today.

The sand was packed hard in most places, but I could see footprints of all sorts everywhere, from adults’ boots to children’s shoes to dog footprints dug deep in the sand. This was all that proved anyone had been here; today no one was there but me.

 

 

Tiny birds were flying just above the water’s edge, playing “catch-me-if-you-can” with the waves as they touched down on the sand. They flew in groups, and not alone.

Other types of birds were sitting on the water, bobbing up and down as the waves eased back and forth. They stayed separate from each other, just content in letting the water move them about.

By this time my shoes were already somewhat wet, having walked through grass and with the drizzle of snow and rain coming down. It’s ok; they were purchased for this kind of work.

The mixture of snow and rain made a fuzzy sound against my broken black umbrella. Sometimes when my breath came back against me it would cloud my glasses until I breathed back in again or held my breath. I could see things far off in the misty distance in the water but couldn’t tell if they were ships or not. Added some sense of mystery to the place.

Having come this far, I had to touch the water. I needed to feel why I was here.

The cold of the water burned my hand, long after I put my glove back on. But it was a nice burn, offset by the frothiness of the water and the sound and smell of the sea. I could feel life here in this cold burning water that plays with the birds.

I love the seaside. It’s where the ever-changing meets the never-changing; where the fluidity of motion creates constantly mobile works of art against the canvas of the barely-yielding ground. I can see how life as we know it started so long ago at the seaside.

My footprints will be gone from there soon, or covered up when someone else walks that way. Such is the nature of the place. But it will leave a mark in my mind and heart for a long time.

It stopped snowing on the way back, as I expected it would. Snow this far South doesn’t stay long, and certainly not near the water. It may even snow tomorrow; who knows these things?

I touched the North Sea today. It seems to have touched me back.

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My children and close friends help me.  Even from afar.

It’s the little chats that help.

Don’t seem like much but they are nourishment in a cold place.