Category: Real Life

Birds Cats Feel GOOD! Nature Real Life Well, I Never!

Magpie Magic

By Tom Merriman on

Nature is amazing, isn’t she?

In the corner of the Garden is a little grave where Simba lies sleeping, since she took her soul up to the Great Cattery Heaven.

When she first departed, we marked where she lay with a simple but artificial red rose. We always say ‘hello’ to her, when we see her little place, but over time the rose became weathered and battered. It was replaced by another rose, but in time the same happened to that, and they vanished from the plot.

Recently, the corner of the Garden has just been bare, lawn-covered and bathed only in glorious sunshine.

Earlier today, two magpies were in the Garden, a mother and her baby. The baby was  lying on the grass, watching her mother busying herself doing what magpie mothers do. She hopped in the sunshine, and walked in the shade. Back and to to the dry tub where we normally leave water for the birds and other creatures to drink.

I went out to fill the tub, and the magpies flew just a little further away to a safe distance. I watched them for a while, as they watched me, and then I returned back inside.

A short time later, I looked out of the window, and saw the baby magpie lying on the lawn in the corner, seemingly pecking on something on the ground above where Simba lay. What the baby was pecking at was red.

I waited for the birds to fly away again before I went out to investigate what was going on.

Can you imagine my surprise when I saw a red rose on the place where Simba is sleeping? It was one of the red artificial ones, which have been misled for quite a while. But for it to be in the very spot where it lay originally, apparently placed there by a baby magpie – well, that makes you think.

I don’t know if you remember Simba, there are a few photos of her dotted about throughout the blog… she was a gorgeous black and white cat with the friendliest of personalities. Black and white. The colour of magpies.

Like I say… Nature is amazing isn’t she? Full of Fabulous surprises.

(The picture that accompanies this post is a quick and wobbly digital doodah of a magpie. Or that’s what it’s meant to be anyway! I can’t recreate the beauty of the real thing.)

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Confusion Feel GOOD! Questions Random Real Life

What is Reality?

By Tom Merriman on

I’m pondering reality today.

Quite possibly, I’m even questioning it. Mind you, with a reality like mine at times, there really is a lot to question!

Is reality what we see, hear, feel, touch and smell around us… or is it what we think and interpret it to be?

I’m now questioning myself. Am I real? Am I even here?

Lately, I’ve been seeing quite a lot of helicopters flying hither and thither up above. Travelling this way and that, some slowly, some at speed. Most folk would say that there’s nothing unusual in that, and they could even be right… but the fact that I am noticing more of them, does that make it unusual? Take Monday, for example. I was at the place of W, and there is a lot of wasteland at the back, after an old abandoned factory was demolished last year. There’s nothing on the vast open land now, apart from a few piles of leftover bricks. It gets very windy when the gusts get up! Hovering above the land was a helicopter. A black and white one. Just hovering there. Perhaps they were searching for someone hiding out in the open. I don’t know. It didn’t make sense. Maybe I’m looking too deeply into things, and the pilot was just practicing hovering, as a learner driver would practice reversing around a corner.

Another helicopter flew over on Tuesday, so low I could feel the pressure from the rotor blades… within my ears. Within my head, in fact. I do find myself pondering the notion that something is going on, something that we will NEVER get to find out about.

It’s not very secret, if that’s the case though. They aren’t being discreet about their covert activities.

See? Covert activities are taking place around me. Everyday. I’ve noticed them.

Walking down a street, I get the eerie feeling that I’m being watched. A person reading a newspaper swiftly pulls it up to cover their face as I walk by… and they cough. As in code. There. Over the road. That woman on her mobile phone. She’s in on it. She’s interpreting the cough as I nonchalantly glance around. And, right on cue, a helicopter flies overhead. A car sounds its horn behind me; although it is on the road driving away from me. The woman with the phone waves at the driver. The car stops and reverses around the corner, and turns back on itself, pulling up beside the woman, who swiftly jumps in. The registration number on the car is… there isn’t one! It’s a black car, with blackened windows all around, and it is now pointing towards me.

I turn. The man with the newspaper has vanished from the bench where he was sitting. The helicopter travels overhead again – it’s circling. I notice an electronic advertising sign change what it’s advertising – I’m sure just before it changed I saw a video of me looking around. Nah – I must have imagined that. Why would all these people be looking for me?

It’s because I know they’re up to something. That’s it. It must be.

I’ll just have to pretend I know nothing and carry on regardless. Or maybe, that is what they want me to think…

Gah! All this second guessing has me circling just as all those helicopters seem to be doing.

It isn’t only helicopters and strange-acting people, though. When driving, wherever, whenever, at whatever time of the day, if I drive past a road junction, a car will either just be pulling out, or just arriving at the junction. Traffic lights turn red the moment I reach the line. Cars seem to be racing behind me on dual carriageways, yet pull in behind and don’t overtake.

And people I think I know surprise me all the more.

Maybe I only know a certain aspect of their character, and I’m noticing a different side to them I haven’t seen before. Does this make them the same person, or a different one entirely???

Or is it little ole’ moi who’s changed, and I’m seeing all these subtle differences around me; noticing a shift in reality, only slight but most definitely there?

I don’t know.

So, I’m pondering reality today.

Have you noticed any subtle changes lately?

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Feel GOOD! Real Life

Letters To The Universe… The Just Be Happy Edition

By Tom Merriman on

Dear The Word Happy,
Such a cheerful word you are! I feel delighted every time I see you, even ecstatic at times! You invoke jubilant, pleasant and upbeat emotions which add to the Feel Good factor no end, and we here at Beyond the Sphere love to Feel Good! Thank you for being such a convivial word!

Dear The Word Convivial,
You roll pleasantly off the tongue. Such a fun and bouncy word, you deserve your own letter!

Dear Inner Typist,
Dear Fingers, to call you by your proper name, you do make me smile with your typos… but ‘thonge’ for ‘tongue’? I know the letters are close together on the keyboard, but they aren’t that close together in comparison for the word being typed. Still, thanks for the chortle!

Dear Spring,
I see signs of you sneaking in everywhere now! Thank you for your discreet entrance… however be aware that Winter is still hanging about.

Dear Longer Days,
So much better to see more Sunshine! Sunshine! Just the word brightens up the place, and yes, brings in the Feel Good factor. It’s nice to still see daylight at 6pm nowadays.

Dear Temptations,
I know you are teasing me into Feeling a different kind of Good… but I really am trying to Feel Good on my own, thank you very much. I will feel much happier when you stop tempting me. Just letting you know.

Dear Inspiration,
I’m looking forward to hearing more from you. I’m happier when you spring into my thoughts, out of the blue, so I can get really creative and caught up in the moment. Would you mind making me a little happier and calling by a little more frequently? Thank you.

Dear Negative Thoughts,
Would you mind awfully moving out of the way to allow more good and inspirational thoughts in? You serve your purpose as a means of balance, but you do not need to linger around once you have appeared. Your space will be better filled with inspiration anyway!

Dear Dreams,
Please call by and fill my mind with more good thoughts and ideas, more often of you can do it! And please flick the ‘remember me’ switch when you’re done and on your way out. I find it frustrating when the dream has been fabulously good, and I remember it being fabulously good, and I don’t remember what the dream was about! I’ll feel much happier when the sleep side of me is just as inspirational as the awake side.

And Finally, Dear Blogland,
It’s Friday! It’s a day to Feel Happy! Actually, every day is a day to feel happy, if you can allow yourself to do so. Even for a minute or two… just allow it! It’ll grow and grow. Like magic! If, however, you always feel happy on a Friday or any other day, continue to do so… or allow even more happiness in! There’s more than enough to go around… so go one, Blogland… Everyone… grab yourself a whole big bunch of happiness and remember to PASS IT ON!

Thank you for reading,

P.S. I thought I’d end this edition with a mere happiness quote…

… well, we are all of us, each and everyone, a creator and should be able to find or create happiness in everything that we do.

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Confusion Feel GOOD! Real Life Virtuality

One Minute Ramble: Searching, Ever Searching…

By Tom Merriman on

Sigh.

I don’t know what’s happened with the ‘world’s favourite search engine’ of late, but it has, in my humble opinion, become a trifle rubbish.

I think of somebody who I haven’t seen for many a year, and just do a quick ol’ search of their name and notice in the returned results that their surname has been struck through with the word ‘missing’ added. The same with their first name… but I have many results returned for, say, tables made out of oak, which had absolutely nothing to do with what I was searching for in the first place. If I’d have known that I was going to get rubbish back, I’d rather have saved my time than searching in the first place.

Mutter. Grumble. Gripe.

I read recently that this is because ‘they’ don’t just want to do a straightforward search, but want to do a ‘conversational’ search instead. For me, that’s pointless too. If I want to search for something, I just want to search for it, and not bother knowing what the search engine is doing that evening, or how the weather is in their part of the world.

If there’s nothing listed for what I search for, I’d rather just be told that and nothing else… I can then try a different approach.

Is that too much to ask for in this day and age?

(By the way, I wouldn’t mind as much if the results were humorous… but tables made out of oak???!!!)

(By the way again, all names have been redacted / extracted / removed from this post just so they do not appear in any search results. Although they probably wouldn’t have anyway!)

(And by the way – if you or any search engines out there are interested, it was a wonderfully gorgeous Spring Day today. Absolutely fabulous!)

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Abilities Direction Feel GOOD! Random Memories Real Life Time

New Year Mark II

By Tom Merriman on

January 4th 2018.

New Year’s Day.

Yes. I’m starting again.

Yesterday, I found myself slipping back into my old ways, the ways I want rid of… the ways I want improvement in. I’ve written off yesterday. It didn’t happen. Monday and Tuesday were fine, so they can stay, but my New Year begins again today.

I channelled my Inner Mrs Blotts yesterday and gave myself a Stern telling off. Not just a stern one… no – a Stern one. I was very stern.

(Mrs Blotts, by the way, was my Technical Drawing ‘teacher’ at school. She was one of the teachers who bullied me back then and left a lasting impression on me… only not the type a teacher should really leave. To put it mildly, she was hideous.)

(Mrs Blotts may have warmed to me by the time I’d left school, my Inner Conciliatory Adviser is whispering to me, but I could also just be imagining that to smooth things over. Mrs Blotts made me create the same design two times over after I’d been allocated to her class for a second time, although she marked me with an A+ the first time I did it. A waste of time the second round of ‘lessons’ were. I knew it. And so did Mrs Blotts. When I questioned why I’d been allocated the same course again, she merely snarled ‘Get.On.With.It’. So I did. Without listening. There are only so many ways you can draw a V over a W.)

After I let myself down yesterday, I took myself to one side, and in my finest Mrs Blotts’ voice I said, “You.Idiot.Start.Again.” Whilst pointedly pointing an imaginary finger at myself in an over exaggerated fashion. I was livid. Three days into the new year, and I was living as I had before. This is a new paradigm. A new way of thinking. Time for change and all that – but with me it was business as usual with the same old same ol’.

“No.Internet.For.You.” I/she(it) scolded. “That.Means.No.Blogging.”

(I know how to punish myself, I do.)

“OK” I thought, “I’ll just blog about it the next day. It doesn’t matter.”

Forgive and forget, they say.

I’ve forgiven myself for yesterday now, and everything is rosy and back to normal. New starts do that. Blank canvases do that also. I haven’t forgiven Mrs Blotts, however. No way. Bullies have no place in society and need reminding every now and then just how their actions can have a lasting affect on those who they targeted. Even if the bully ‘turns over a new leaf’. Even if the bully befriends their victim, and they eventually become the best of friends, they were cruel in their actions at the time and that needs to remain on their consciences. I don’t care how they feel about that. They did it. Live.With.It.

Ah.

New Years.

Blank Canvases.

Hehehe.

That brings me to my point of this rather pointless whiney post. I have a blank canvas.

Well… it’s blank for now. That can only mean one thing – yes! I’m feeling that ol’ paintin’ pull. I shall be focussing all of those negative memories from yesteryear and painting them out once and for all. I’m going to create some abstract pieces. Negativity morphed into powerful and positive images that probably won’t make much sense (pretty much like the majority of my blog posts, thinking about it!) but a way to release those bottled up feelings and move on.

It’s time to leave some of the past behind… although that might mean I may have to channel a few more of those bozos through my blog posts to get things started.

Ah well. I’ll keep things positive. It’s the best way to be.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Let’s Feel Good during 2018.

This is my blank canvas… it’s only small but EXTREMELY powerful…

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