Fergy's Rambles.

A day out on memory lane.

Good day to you one and all in whatever part of our sadly troubled world you may be. I trust the current virus pandemic is not affecting you too adversely although it is difficult to think of anywhere in the world, bar the Antarctic possibly, that has not been impacted and the Antarctic has problems enough of it’s own to worry about.

For the battle-hardened veterans that constitute my small band of regular readers, you know what to do, just skip the preamble and head South to the “main event” but for anyone who has stumbled upon this page for the first time by whatever means, a very warm welcome.

Cycling the Cut – the Newry Canal.

Hello again and thanks for checking out my blog as always.

Regular readers will know that I have just finished a lengthy piece (18 posts) about a little expedition I made as a series of day walks in 2013 / 2014 around the London LOOP Long Distance Path which circumnavigates my adopted home city. If you have not read it and wish to do so it begins here.

I thoroughly enjoyed writing it up but it took literally months and so I have decided to do a few shorter pieces whilst I decide on my next major writing project. There are a few options for this including three lengthy trips to Canada, three to Sri Lanka, a couple of trips round Northern Ireland and Scotland and several others. As always, if you have any preference as to which you would like to read about, please let me know.

So far on this blog I have back-dated everything to the relevant time in order to keep things tidy but this has the disadvantage of instantly “burying” the posts away down the order of the blog and so for these few small entries I shall post them immediately with a note as to the date they happened and see what transpires. It may work out easier, I just need to try it out. OK, how many times do I have to tell you? I am rubbish at technology and I don’t see it getting any better at my time of life.

If you want to see what I have in store for this post, you know what to do, just click on the “read more” button and hopefully I’ll see you there.

Lock-down Diaries #14.

Lock-down diaries # 14.

All together now, “Awwwwwwwwww”, isn’t he lovely?

Hello again one and all and thanks as always for taking the time to drop by my little blog here and, after the horrendously long offering last time, I shall be surprised if anyone can even face another excursion into the deranged world I inhabit. I promise you that I shall try to make this one a lot less wordy and there will be a few images to hopefully brighten up your day in these continuing awful times.

OK, I should probably qualify that last statement a little. If you are a professional photographer or even a gifted amateur like so many of my friends then my efforts with a succession of cheap compact cameras and absolutely zero talent for the medium will probably end up driving you into a fit of depression when you see them but I mean well, honestly. If you wish to have a look, please feel free to dive in by pressing the “read more” button.

Lock-down Diaries #13.

Well, what can I say apart from thank you? Following my last entry when I resumed blogging after my apathetic self-imposed hiatus for three months my stats for viewing figures went through the roof. It seems like I was briefly a (very minor) underground hit in the blogosphere as I believe it is called. Get me with the techspeak. Maybe the very old and fairly battered dog can learn new tricks after all. Honestly, thank you all so very much, it really is appreciated.

Shame it didn’t last long but my enthusiasm for blogging like my enthusiasm for anything at all in the miserable existence I am now leading evaporated as soon as it briefly flared up. If you want to know why I am writing this post now then you know the drill, just click on the read more button below. I’ll even throw you in a description of the stunning vista of the four walls of my living room for nothing!

Lock-Down diaries #11. Legs 11 (plus One)!

Hello again to all of you and it is good to be back. The day I posted my “comeback” entry after my three month hiatus I had no less than 102 visitors from 15 countries which does not sound terribly impressive when some people get thousands of views per hour but it is easily my biggest daily total ever so thanks to each and every one of you. I was pretty amazed when I checked the morning after, indeed my flabber has never been go gasted or should that be my gast has never been so flabbered, who knows? Who cares?

A quick word of explanation as to the title here. I originally composed the majority of this piece a very long time ago and it was destined to be Lock-down Dairies #11 but my last effort has rendered it #12 which ordinarily would not be a problem except that the first dozen or so paragraphs refer to the game of bingo which took me hours to research and I am damned if I am going to let them go to waste!

If you wish to know what a bingo call has to do with my health situation as of July 2020 you know what to do, just click the “read more” button below and you’ll be most welcome.
Continue reading “Lock-Down diaries #11. Legs 11 (plus One)!”

Lockdown Diaries #11.

Hello again everyone, and as usual I shall start with an apology and some thanks.

Apologies that it has been three months and more since I wrote anything here and if you are in the slightest bit interested in what I have been up to, which quite frankly amounts to absolutely nothing, then click on the “read more” button and I’ll tell you. The thanks are due to the decent amount of people who, for reasons which are still a complete mystery to me, still visit my pages even though nothing has happened on them. Please feel free to step inside if you want an update.

Lock-down Diaries #10.

Is there anybody going to listen to my story? Frankly, I would not blame you if you didn’t and I cannot believe what started off as a bit if fun at the start of what was just another Chinese virus like swine ‘flu or chicken ‘flu has now run to an entry in double figures in a world that has been irrevocably changed since the back end of last year (Western, not Lunar obviously). Yes, this is Lock-down Diary #10 and that in itself astounds me but what amazes me even more is the fact that people are still reading this stuff.

At this point I’d like to thank everyone that keeps reading this but especially to my new readers in Taiwan and Iraq, yes really. I know it is probably a generational thing and young people today consider this quite normal but for a man born in the 1950’s as I was the fact that people from those distant and hugely interesting countries, both of which I’d love to visit incidentally, would even be looking at my idiocy here is something that takes me aback every time I look at my stats page. A global village the world most certainly is now and if you want to enter my latest little ramble round it, you know the drill, just click the “read more” button below and I’ll see you on “the dark side” as I believe the Star Wars scriptwriters had it.

Continue reading “Lock-down Diaries #10.”

Lock-down Diaries #9.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, we’re so glad you could attend, come inside. Come inside one and all for what will be the ninth in this series which started as a bit of a piece of nonsense to pass the time during house arrest and has grown into easily my most popular group of postings notwithstanding the effort I put into my historical travel blogs. They seem to get somewhat swallowed up and disappear because I back-post them and only my close personal friends ever read them. There may be a lesson there somewhere.

As always, it could not be simpler, if you want to jump into my latest little adventure then simply press the “read more” button below and you’ll be most welcome.

Continue reading “Lock-down Diaries #9.”

Lock-down Diaries #8 1/4.

OK, I know it sohuld be 9 1/4 a la Harry Potter and sometime soon there will be a Diary #9 and so almost was a few days ago but technology, the absolute bane of my life, decided to take a hand as it so often does.

Talk about adding insult to (painful and still potentially dangerous) injuries (in the plural), my trusty old laptop which has been a veritable lifeline during the recent crises both personal and global, finally decided to give up the ghost. Not just a little glitch but complete death, something to do with Hard Drive #1 going to meet it’s maker (probably Bill Gates or someone like that) and I was utterly incommunicado on the verge of publishing #9. It would have made this so much cooler, 8 1/4 doesn’t really quite cut the mustard, does it?

Anyway, this is just to (hopefully) let my trusty little band of followers know that I am still around, still breathing and still utterly baffled by thechnology! I was in urgent need of something and so bought myself a little 14″ laptop thingy which seems light and will be good for travelling. The next trick is to learn how to use it. I am not joking.

There won’t be any images with this, it is literally just a telegram (anyone remember those) to state that “rumours of my death have been exaggerated” to quote from the very witty Mark Twain. I am in the midst of trying to download dinobytes (I just made that up, it is a unit of computer memory as used by old dinosaurs like me and means lots and lots) which I think I managed to save to a big, bulky external drive thingy before the last laptop croaked. Getting it all back seems a lot more difficult!

I would be remiss if I did not thank those of my readers / friends who have enquired after my health. Special thanks to Elizabetha, my pretty little ballerina, for her very concerned e-mail which was much appreciated.

I am now going to try to publish this and if that actually works I shall head out and look for a large fogbank somewhere to try and shovel, followed perhaps by a short spell of plaiting sawdust! I really am not hopeful but who knows?

If this does work and if I can actually recover the lengthy Diary entry I was in the process of preparing, it will be with all you lovely people in the next 24 hours. No promises.

If you want to see if I can master new technology to the extent of reviving my blog, then stay tuned and spread the word.

Lock-down Diaries #8.

Hello once again my wonderful, faithful and remarkably ever-increasing little band of followers. I am beginning to feel a bit like Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and Women obviously. Fergysrambles is most definitely an “equal opportunity employer”although I am afraid I don’t pay very well. All are welcome and it appears the offer has been taken up on a scale I had not really contemplated before.

If you want to know about it and what I have been up to since the last entry, you know the drill by now, simply press the “read more” button below and I’ll bore you rigid once again.

I do hope that this entry will be published a lot quicker than the last one which was delayed due to “circumstances beyond my control” as the saying is.
Continue reading “Lock-down Diaries #8.”