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Neil blog
Neil Smith

Neil Smith Blog

Not dead yet.

Blessington - Leinster

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Neil Smith

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1 more

6 months ago

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Reflections

6 min. reading time · 3 likes · 7 comments

Life Lessons

Neil Smith

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1 more

10 months ago

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Better late.

The envelope had been lying on the floor, along with the usual junk and bills. Waiting for her when she got in from work. · A glance was enough to see that it didn’t add anything to the doctor’s words from earlier in the week. · She finished scanning the letter, then hid it insid ...

3 min. reading time · 3 likes · 9 comments

Life Lessons

in Fitness & Nutrition and in 3 more groups

Footwear Review. Keen WK400

I don’t do a huge number of equipment reviews these days and do even fewer for items of footwear. · All decent outdoor equipment will comfortably exceed the needs of the vast majority of hillwalkers, so disentangling the minor differences between brands and models often feels as ...

3 min. reading time · 4 likes · 6 comments

Health

in Café beBee and in 1 more group

Potato croquettes

There are occasional moments when I step back and wonder if perhaps, I am not entirely the mature, balanced, adult I tell myself I have grown up to become. · This is one of those moments. · My first paid writing was technical articles written about items of outdoor leisure equipm ...

2 min. reading time · 3 likes · 5 comments

Food

in Café beBee

Can't buy me love.

I was thinking about some friends the other day. · Real friends, from real life, that I really have. Honest! · It occurred to me, not for the first time that I hadn’t met up with many of them IRL for quite a long time; years in some cases. This then begged the question of how rea ...

2 min. reading time · 4 likes · 5 comments

Life Lessons

in Café beBee and in 2 more groups

El aldacs

Testing times.

At the start of October, I turned fifty-five years old, and the realisation hit me that my dad was a decade older than I am now when he died. · I began to brood on my impending mortality and started a mental countdown from ten. · Logic and reason said this was a ludicrous overrea ...

2 min. reading time · 2 likes · 7 comments

Health

Neil Smith

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1 more

1 year ago

in Café beBee and in 1 more group

I'm Very Right Wing.

A short piece related to British politics, Media and a sense of humour. If you have no interest in British politics then do feel free to scroll on by. · The other day the BBC launched a new Sunday politics show featuring its former political editor, Laura Kuenssberg. So far so no ...

4 min. reading time · 3 likes · 2 comments

Politics

in Café beBee and in 4 more groups

Love Hate Love Songs

This is LOVE! Capital letters and exclamation mark included. · All things considered it’s a pretty damned exciting feeling. The sheer exhilarating rush of love and lust and desire and anticipation and kissing and touching and closeness and all that stuff is some huge, almighty ru ...

3 min. reading time · 4 likes · 7 comments

Music

in Café beBee and in 2 more groups

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Music in mind

Music has been many things. An escape, a motivation and an inspiration. An aural journey that started with early tracks from Buddy Holly to the likes of Springsteen, The Highwaymen, Blondie, Talking Heads, Eric Bogle and the classical music that sneaked in later. · Music though, ...

4 min. reading time · 5 likes · 9 comments

Music

in beBee Writers and in 2 more groups

That wanker down the pub

I would be amongst the first to point out that I am no expert in the geopolitical arena. Or at least, I would be if my friends weren’t kind enough to point it out first. · Repeatedly. · However, while much of the fine detail of the Russian invasion of Ukraine may be difficult for ...

3 min. reading time · 5 likes · 12 comments

in beBee Writers and in 2 more groups

Dennis.

‘How would you like to die?’ · The question set me back in my seat and I took a moment before answering. I had been listening to Dennis Brown speak to our group of visiting retail staff about the genesis of Northwest Podiatric lab and Superfeet insoles. Along the way he had menti ...

4 min. reading time · 6 likes · 4 comments

in Engaged Readers and in 2 more groups

Stand By Me.

Like a lot of people, I tend to sit and reflect a bit at the end of the year and these reflections take different forms depending on how the year has gone. This year has obviously been unusually shit, so I won’t bother myself with musing on the last twelve months simply because e ...

1 min. reading time · 6 likes · 5 comments

in beBee Writers and in 3 more groups

Classy man.

I’m drinking an Americano while I wait for my daughter’s ballet class to end. As I sit and sip on this pleasant Irish day, the thought occurs that this moment probably represents ‘peak middle class’ in my life so far. Ballet didn’t feature much in my youth or indeed, at all. Ther ...

3 min. reading time · 4 likes · 9 comments

in beBee Writers and in 1 more group

Daze of Blunder.

The clock is ticking down to the end of polling in the Shropshire North by-election in England and those of us who take an interest in such things are awaiting the result to see how much destruction follows in the wake. Not all by-elections register or are indicative of a change ...

3 min. reading time · 6 likes · 8 comments

in Café beBee and in 2 more groups

Two wheels good.

I’ve owned three motorbikes during separate and distinct parts of my life. · The first was a Honda CG125, a classic first bike used by many thousands of people. They were light; cheap to buy, cheap to run and amazingly reliable. They gave about a hundred miles to the gallon and t ...

4 min. reading time · 6 likes · 8 comments

in beBee Writers and in 4 more groups

The Empty Space

She’s gone a couple of days now so I’m not greeted by her loud complaining as soon as I walk in the front door. Home is quiet and there is less clutter than usual around the place. In the kitchen I switch on the kettle and make a note to get rid of any of her stuff that’s still l ...

2 min. reading time · 10 likes · 13 comments

in beBee Writers and in 2 more groups

Political violence.

The murder of the English politician David Amess has made all sorts of news headlines but the media discussion, above and below the line veers from sanctifying him to justifying his murder. In the midst of the vilification and hagiography there’s a real man with a real life who h ...

4 min. reading time · 6 likes · 4 comments

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Down but not out in Paris. Part three.

Working split-shifts meant that I had a few hours every day to do chores, go for a run or wander about town. After the first two weeks when the hotel was no longer taking the security deposit for the flat out of my wages, I found myself with enough extra money each week to do mor ...

4 min. reading time · 7 likes · 9 comments

in beBee Writers and in 3 more groups

Down but not out in Paris. Part two.

The staff accommodation was small and busy. The three-room apartment would have been perfect for a small family or a couple. With my arrival it was the crowded home to two French guys, three Algerians and a bloke from Cameroon who had the dubious privilege of being my new roomie. ...

3 min. reading time · 9 likes · 4 comments

in beBee Writers and in 4 more groups

Down but not out in Paris. Part one

‘Vous voulez laver les vassailles?’ · ‘Oui.’ · ‘Mais Pourquoi?’ · I then pushed the absolute limits of my schoolboy French attempting to explain to the bemused man across the desk that I was inspired by George Orwell’s description of life as a scullion in ‘Down and out in Paris a ...

4 min. reading time · 5 likes · 6 comments

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