tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16388503241210873622024-03-19T13:28:52.925+00:00Sea PenguinSea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.comBlogger749125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-64007830559375859592024-03-19T13:28:00.000+00:002024-03-19T13:28:17.915+00:00Plague Island - or is it? Thankfully, the T-G hadn't bothered to lock up and it was fairly easy to gain access by sliding a stout piece of card between the two casements. Tuppence and I rolled up the Aubusson, tied it with rope, and shoved it out of the window. There was a lot of rustling as it slid down the ivy and the Moon was shining brightly upon the castle walls leaving us quite exposed to Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-71649478622695067462024-03-18T20:05:00.001+00:002024-03-18T20:05:59.251+00:00Life's Soundtrack. Nick Cave performing A Rainy Night in Soho at the funeral of Shane MacGowanWonderful song, wonderful, profoundly moving performance.You're the measure of my dreams...the measure of my dreams...Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-63555999305690030512024-03-17T18:02:00.004+00:002024-03-17T18:05:25.882+00:00We Set off to Retrieve the MapA Map - but not THE MapLast night Tuppence came round for his tea. 'It's your favourite. Mince and tatties!' I waved the potato masher as he climbed through the hole in the wall. 'Oh no. That's much too bland.''What? But you've always liked mince.''That was then. This is now and I only like mince when it tastes of something.''I'm putting plenty Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-56116368398123331652024-03-16T13:59:00.005+00:002024-03-16T20:14:00.173+00:00Today's quote - from 'The Unspeakable World' - Alan Watts (Music By Adi Goldstein)- 'Too strong a current for the wire'I can relate to this, and the more I'm thinking about it, the more it makes sense to me in all kinds of ways, as a person who has become very ungrounded at times. As I understand it, you have to have a framework, nothing rigid, but for the purposes of sanity you have to be grounded in the familiarity of a certain routine, certain domestic rituals such as the pipe and slippers perhaps,Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-78332650243880564762024-03-15T12:08:00.003+00:002024-03-15T23:55:50.213+00:00Plans for a Hate Crime Dobbing in Centre and Two for One Brazilian Butt Lifts 'We're going to drive new traffic to our yurt business by making it a dobbing in centre for hate crimes. So Val says. She says anyone promoting hate deserves everything they get and she's prepared to catch them herself, lock them into her therapy yurt and chain them to the massage table till the coppers arrive. She's even bought a hi-viz jacket and a cattle Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-79618077830308632912024-03-14T11:11:00.005+00:002024-03-15T15:44:44.168+00:00Life's soundtrack. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Wild God (Official Audio)Love this. The older I get the more I appreciate Nick Cave, who is even older than me by the way and still out there.Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are touring https://x.com/nickcave/status/1768562959574339655?s=20 later this year. Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-47008582601362644002024-03-13T15:23:00.004+00:002024-03-14T19:42:01.001+00:00Glancing blows, a blood-stained map, and a Potential High-end Tourist DestinationA gloomy lochan with an island in the middle A map. Or is it? 'You're WHAT?' I gasped, dropping my pipe (unlit, but stuffed with baccy) on to the threadbare Aubusson fireside rug. I knew it was an Aubusson because there was a faded yellowing note pinned to the wall beneath the fireside bell pull saying 'mind the Aubusson' in spidery handwriting with a Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-86202831937133819222024-03-10T14:04:00.001+00:002024-03-10T14:04:18.964+00:00 I'm having a pause at the moment, before writing again. Life's taken a dark-ish turn, or so it seems, I must get through it before doing anything else.March is always a difficult month for me. Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-20748046124560168582024-03-01T21:30:00.003+00:002024-03-02T10:25:18.510+00:00Life's soundtrack. Keith Richards - I'm Waiting For The Man (Lou Reed Cover) (Official Video)Interesting cover. I like it. The original has been part of my life's soundtrack, along with the rest of the 'yellow banana' album. Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-26901736540160937072024-02-12T09:40:00.005+00:002024-02-12T10:14:19.710+00:00Val's internal interminable monologue as she no bakes no bake gravel flapjacks So before the Cancer Research UK 29 day yoga challenge started, we left Dave pondering - well, pondering all kinds of things out on the moors.I expect he was having a mid-life crisis-style-event. Or not. Because I don't believe in mid-life crises, myself. Staring old age in the face as I am I've gone through enough 'crises' to know they don't just occur in 'mid-life'. Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-76968096366536327712024-02-07T16:54:00.026+00:002024-02-10T16:24:30.473+00:00My Book Seapenguin I published a paperback in 2017 - it's got almost all the original blog posts in it.https://youtube.com/shorts/YdNHC7NbbtA?si=KRYs-reVcmWGKwPqAbove is a link to a Youtube short regarding the book.If anyone's interested...https://amzn.eu/d/aCwEkyP And here is the link to my Amazon author page. https://www.amazon.com/author/katesmartSea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-21693972262682156982024-02-02T07:14:00.003+00:002024-02-02T07:14:44.622+00:00 I'm taking a pause here because I have something else going on writing-wise and I'm unsure whether to place it here or whether to start another, temporary blog. I'm having a quick think.Meanwhile, apologies for the truncated Dave post. He is currently Hereabouts in a yurt-cum-sweat lodge - Val found him on the moors, ending his brief burst of freedom and accusing him of Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-37252077996928750782024-02-01T19:38:00.000+00:002024-02-01T19:38:38.729+00:00 Dave. You need to spend some time alone mate. You need to reconnect with yourself.Dave thought back to when he was a teenager. Endless hours spent listening to Nick Drake on dull winter afternoons, smoking endless cigarettes and thinking endlessly dark thoughts. It was always late autumn or winter back then, or so it seemed. Everything grey and brown and muddy.Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-64665619457830832302024-01-25T16:33:00.003+00:002024-01-25T16:46:22.702+00:00Dave takes a Leap' I'm free, to do what I want, any old ti-ime', Dave sang softly to himself as he strode across the moors. ' I can manage on my own', he thought, 'Of course I can. I managed before I met Val - although that seems so long ago I can barely remember how.'Dave paused briefly on the edge of a peat bog before his long rangy legs propelled him over in a single bound.'If only I could manage to findSea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-13231817348959425382024-01-18T19:28:00.001+00:002024-01-18T19:28:36.108+00:00The Youngbloods - Get Together - 1967 - 5 .1 Surround (Stereo in)Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-36499088547432094742024-01-09T17:42:00.004+00:002024-01-09T17:42:30.860+00:00Dave Nark has an existential crisis'Does Santa wear a full wig, or is it a ring of white hair attached to his hat to make it look like a wig? What does he do for the rest of the year, what does he think about? Does he garden at all?' Dave Nark muttered as he paced back and forth in front of the row of composting toilets behind the yurts as the snow began to fall. He was wearing khaki-coloured fingerless gloves Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-22659878427108497192024-01-01T00:45:00.005+00:002024-01-01T00:45:44.540+00:00Beginning the year with TS Eliot Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-34412189679843427992023-12-30T12:04:00.006+00:002024-01-01T00:52:34.914+00:00Keep Going until you Can't 'Keep going until you can't,' said the T-G, pausing by the open flap door of Val Nark's Holistic Vaxing Yurt to pack some Black Bogey into his Meerschaum pipe (with its bowl fashioned into the shape of the Transantarctic Mountains). 'That's my motto these days, Santa. For what it's worth. Which is probably quite a bit, coming from me. Why do yourself down - that's Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-90330850042157371122023-12-29T17:43:00.003+00:002023-12-30T11:31:32.955+00:00Christmas Eve Christmas Eve was a doozy.Santa fell down the chimney in a cloud of soot, landing arse-first in our customary blazing pile of driftwood.As he lurched out of the fireplace we could clearly see that he was rather drunk. And - as his red white-bobbled hat slipped to one side - completely, as it happened, bald. Tuppence winked at Alexa, murmuring 'See?''Ho ho ho Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-67300396037868813402023-12-25T08:48:00.001+00:002023-12-25T08:48:12.657+00:00 Normal service will resume shortly. Merry Christmas to all.Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-80525014775972465512023-12-22T07:37:00.001+00:002023-12-22T07:37:15.026+00:00Jethro Tull - Ring Out Solstice bells BBC Promo Video 1976I wheel this one out every year.Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-88814650606527635572023-12-20T17:53:00.003+00:002023-12-20T17:53:39.606+00:00Existential Solstice Gloom 'How do we survive this darkness,' said Dave. 'This bleakness. This cold thorny wilderness. How do we get through?''This vale of tears called life,' murmured the T-G, leafing through last week's Bugle. 'We're all weak-eyed bats, no sun should tempt out of our four walls. Or something along those lines. Blindly groping our way in the dark. There's no easy way Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-72383277264829280042023-12-18T11:52:00.003+00:002023-12-18T23:16:34.641+00:00Bald Santa 'How do you know which one's the real Santa?' asked Geoffrey.We were all - all being me, Geoffrey, Alexa, Dave Nark, and the T-G - in Speedispend car park. Right next to a flashing sign in the shape of a large finger indicating Santa's Grotto was THIS WAY, an empty trolley bay, a rusting coin-operated kiddies' Postman Pat ride and the disabled parking spaces. Someone in anSea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-14302594614495398282023-12-13T18:01:00.001+00:002023-12-13T22:45:36.665+00:00Putting the Grot into Grotto'Shall we get Dave a Christmas stocking?' asked Alexa.'Oh why not get him two,' sneered Tuppence, who was not 'on board' with the whole giving-Dave-his-best-Christmas-ever deal. 'Might as well get him a pair. And while you're at it, has he written his letter to Santa yet?''There's no need for that attitude,' snapped Geoffrey. 'We intend to embody the whole Christmas spirit this Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638850324121087362.post-2031140259115687142023-12-13T17:14:00.002+00:002023-12-13T17:14:08.528+00:00Harry Nilsson - Sail Away (Audio)Love this. Sea Penguinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06606855616626032312noreply@blogger.com0