Season's greetings

Hi there, gentle readers

Best wishes of the season to you - whether you celebrate Solstice, Christmas, some other festival, or no festival at all. Having had a vaguely Christian upbringing, and living in a country where Christianity is still the official state religion, Christmas is what I'm used to, even if the original religious aspects are now largely submerged in an orgy of commerce.

At the moment, it's looking as if it will be a white Christmas here, as there is still snow lying on the ground, despite several days of temperatures just above freezing, and hence a slow thaw. I've lived all my life in southern England, and this will be the first time that I can remember snow on Christmas Day!

As is traditional in my family, I will be spending Christmas with my parents; I will be away from later on today until some time on Tuesday 28th. I'm likely to be "off air" for the duration - I may read e-mail, but I very much doubt I will be active in blog-land.

At this point I think I should also continue one of my own traditions here, and introduce new followers. This time round there's only one, Micky, whose blog It's Getting Better is doing me a great service in keeping me up to date with news of gay rights issues and other political matters.

I think that's it for now - present-wrapping and packing beckon...

Take care

Mark

Last Thursday in November

Hi there, readers

Yes, it's Thanksgiving in the United States: given how many of the people that follow me, or that I follow, are American, I think it's appropriate to wish all of you who celebrate Thanksgiving on this particular day a great time, whatever you're doing.

On the subject of followers, I should welcome two new ones, curiously both called Daniel:
- Daniel Jason Binks (Daniel's Life, posted almost daily, despite posts not appearing in my Blogger Dashboard)
- Daniel (Up and About)

Jay in VA's post today invited readers to consider their reasons to be thankful. I started to comment on it, but then I decided I had makings of a blog post of my own, so here goes...

Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Britain, of course, and my own view is that there is no-one to whom I should offer thanks, but nevertheless I think it's a good idea to pause once in a while and reflect on one's good fortune. As a particular example, I'm very glad to have found blog-land. In the last nine months, it has provided a focus and interest in my life that had been lacking for several years previously: it has been very good to look outward and think of others, instead of focusing on my own narrow circumstances. I have found a lot of people that I would like to consider as friends; it's a regret that so many live so far away from me (it would be nice to meet in person, as well as electronically), but it has also given me perspectives on life from other parts of the world that I would never otherwise have had. I hope that my own comments on others' blogs have returned the favour to some extent.

It is, I suppose, typical of the British frame of mind that I should next turn to something that I am not thankful for, and it should be the weather. The last few days have seen the very early, and largely unwelcome, arrival of winter: there's already snow in parts of Scotland and northern England, expected to head south over the next few days, and the rest of the country is enduring temperatures around freezing. No doubt many Canadian and US readers are wondering what I'm complaining about, but for Brits who would expect November daytime temperatures of at least 40F (5C), it's rather a shock to the system.

Anyway, I should probably post this while there's still something left of Thanksgiving, even over here in the UK.

Take care

Mark

He's off again

Hi there, readers

"What's this?", I hear you say, "Another Wandering Pom post? That's four in two weeks! What are they feeding him?" I'm afraid this one's much less exciting than the last several: principally advance notice of some more short-term disappearances from blog-land:
- tomorrow (Fri 5 Nov) to Sun 7 Nov: Dortmund (Germany) for some railway wanderings (again!) around the Ruhr area
- Fri 3 Dec to Sun 5 Dec: same again, this time around Munich (Germany)
- Fri 10 Dec to Mon 13 Dec: repeat visit to the friend in Jena (Germany) whom I called in on last month. This time I hope to see a lot more of the surrounding area.

Next, I should welcome some more new followers. I continue to be pleasantly surprised that anyone wants to read this stuff, but it's very much appreciated that you do. At least now there's something here to read, unlike for my first half-dozen or so followers! I have a bad memory for who started following when, but I think at least these people have come along since my last "welcome" post:
- Closeted Dave
- Jay in VA
- Aidan W (The Epitome of Inconsistency)
- JSL (too late for regrets)
- Jack (Confronting the Confused)
Please feel free to introduce yourselves :-)

Many thanks also to those who've commented recently; I'll try to respond with follow-up comments, but it's probably not now going to happen until at least next week. If you click that little "Subscribe by email" link below the comment box on any post that you're interested in, you'll get my comments (and anyone else's) automatically, instead of having to come back and look for them.

I think I also ought to say something about my own following and commenting on blogs (for me, the two go hand in hand: I almost always follow blogs that I've commented on). I'm afraid that I'm commenting a lot less frequently than I would like on many blogs at the moment. This is partly because there's more real-life stuff happening (all of it good, but it's still time away from blog-land) and partly because I'm following a lot more blogs than I used to (have a look at the blog list in my profile), and hence am spread rather more thinly, as it were. However, I'm still reading everything posted on the blogs I follow - this is probably not much consolation for those who would like to see my comments, but I am at least trying to keep up with what everyone's writing, and I have a mental list of posts I'd like to come back to.

Anyway, I think that's all for now.

Take care

Mark

The last light of the sun

Hi there, readers

First, many thanks to all those who commented on my last post. I have responded there with some further thoughts of my own, some general and some specific to individual commenters.

I picked the (perhaps depressing) title because yesterday was the last day of the year when I can go home from work in daylight. To explain:
- British Summer Time (our name for daylight saving time) finishes tonight.
- Sunset is currently at a little after 5.30pm (BST); as of tomorrow it will be just after 4.30 (GMT). It will of course get steadily earlier as the year progresses towards the winter solstice.
- I finish work at 5.30, and leave the office somewhat later to catch a (nominally) 6pm bus home.
So for the last few days, the last light of sunset has been in the sky while I have been waiting for my bus. As of Monday, that will not be the case, and it will remain so until the days have lengthened enough, some time in March. The effect is worse now, of course, because it's sudden - over one weekend. The change the other way is much less perceptible, because it happens by a few minutes a day over a period of several weeks.

Meanwhile, the next fortnight sees a trio of shared, but very different, elements of British culture. My British readers probably don't need me to tell them about it all, but I thought people overseas might be interested.

31 October: Hallowe'en
For this one, the UK seems to have imported, wholesale, most of the American features of this occasion: trick & treating, carved pumpkins and all the rest of it. I don't think we used to do this; I'm fairly sure that forty or fifty years ago Hallowe'en in Britain was treated quite differently. I should ask my parents about this sometime...

5 November: Guy Fawkes' Night, or Bonfire Night
This one is a very English event: we are (at least theoretically) celebrating the failure of what might now be regarded as the world's first terrorist attack. In 1605, Guy Fawkes and others plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament when the king would be giving a speech there (at the State Opening of Parliament), thereby killing most of the country's leaders. He and the others were caught, tried and executed. In celebration, bonfires were and are lit, on which an effigy ("the guy") is burnt, usually these days accompanied by fireworks. In practice, it's now an excuse for a big outdoor party with fireworks - Cambridge usually has a good display, with a huge bonfire and a funfair. Incidentally, if Wikipedia is to be believed, this use of "guy" is the origin of its current usage in American English.

11 November: Remembrance Day
This one is very different. 11 November was the date on which World War I ended (strictly, the date on which the armistice was signed, ceasing hostilities at 11am), and this day is now marked with communal remembrance of those killed in that and more recent wars. Artificial poppies are worn as a mark of remembrance for a week or two, up to and including the day itself, and there are ceremonies at war memorials all over the country, particularly the Cenotaph in central London. The traditional two-minute silence at 11am seems once again quite widely observed, after a period when it was less popular.

So we go from supernatural revelry (with some very deep historical roots), to a four-hundred-year-old celebration of the survival of the state, to national mourning for those killed serving the state. It's a strange time...

Take care

Mark

Coming out

Hi there, readers

This is my coming out story. Some of you (one in particular, I think) will be asking why it has taken me so long to get round to posting this, or, conversely, what has made me suddenly do so now. Why I didn't post: I'm not particularly proud of how I handled much of this period of my life, and I'm also reluctant about posting personal material like this, even anonymously and to this particularly accepting corner of blog-land. Why I'm posting now: I have given various people little bits of this story over the last few months, and it seems like time to tell it much more completely.

Before I start, I should thank several people: particularly NewLeaf (My Travels Out Of The Closet), who asked me the right question in an e-mail over six months ago, and got as the answer the text that follows; also JSL (too late for regrets), whose blog provided the occasion for that question; and various others, most recently Peter (Love<~Peter~>) and Jack (Confronting the Confused), who have got bits of the story.

NewLeaf asked me:
So it’s none of my business – but you said that can identify with some of what JSL is going through. Were you married? I just get the feeling that either you were – or you came out later in life. Don’t feel obligated to answer.

And this is how I responded:

I'm happy to answer - I've said very little about myself anywhere in blog-land yet, so it seems only fair that I should explain myself at greater length to someone (maybe there's a future blog post here...). The short answer is that I wasn't married, but I did come out later in life: at age 32 to most of my friends, a couple of years later to my parents.

The long(er) story... I was and am something of a loner, and quite geeky, I suppose. As I recall, I was more or less aware of my sexuality, or at least a definite preference for boys, in my teenage years, but didn't act on it, not that that would have been easy in rural England in the 1980s anyway. I don't recall feeling any social pressure to have a girlfriend - I think most of my close friends weren't in relationships either.

Then I went to university. I read the student handbook with its section on LBG life, and suddenly something clicked: oh yes, that's what I am, it all makes sense now. But the mindset from my teenage life continued: I had this happy expectation that at some point Mr Right would turn up, but continued in my own little bubble, not doing anything to bring it about, and of course remaining in the closet.

When I finished university, I fell off the academic conveyor belt into a real world that I was wholly unprepared for, and at a time when the UK was in recession. I spent three years unemployed and under-employed, with my confidence steadily evaporating. Eventually, a friend found me a job at the company he worked for, in computer programming (something I was good at and enjoyed). I spent the rest of my twenties recovering my self-esteem, developing some new interests and building up a new circle of friends. I think the mental scars from that time are still there, somewhere deep down.

By the time I was thirty, I was starting to get stressed. I wanted to come out, very much, but I was very afraid of the consequences of doing so. My thoughts went round in circles: must come out, daren't come out, must come out, ... It felt almost like being in a vice in a workshop, with the ratchet being tightened another notch every so often. Despite all this, I would not actually lie about my sexuality, rather just evade the question if it ever came up. Eventually, one of my more perceptive friends noticed what I was doing (there had been several instances of this close together), took me aside and asked me what was going on - or, more accurately, phrased the question in such a way that I could only truthfully say Yes. We must have talked for an hour or two after that. I went to bed that night relieved that he had taken it well, but also very uncertain what the future held. Then, the next day, I contacted another friend, and came out to her - and suddenly the ratchet was undone. I spent the next few days walking on air, no doubt grinning from ear to ear. It was the happiest time of my life, without a doubt: I felt like a completely different person. I came out to most of the rest of my friends over the next few weeks, as circumstances permitted. I must admit I had a very good bunch of friends: they were all entirely accepting, and I could have saved myself several years' stress if I hadn't been so lost inside my own head. I already knew some of them were bi, so why I should have so afraid of telling them I was gay I don't know. Oh well.

So, here I am ten years later. Still no Mr Right, but I am at least comfortable in my own skin.

With hindsight, I wish I had come out much sooner, as you might guess. Those university friends, and even school friends, that I was still in touch with when I did come out turned out to be entirely accepting. I suspect that I've been very lucky with my friends, even for the UK, let alone elsewhere. Nevertheless, I would encourage others to come out (when they feel it's safe to do so) simply for the peace of mind that it gives, from the freedom to be oneself, and not have to hide all the time.

Take care

Mark

Well, I'm back

Hi there, readers

I'm back from my holiday - in fact I arrived at home on Wednesday evening, on schedule. I had a good time, travelled something over 2,500 miles (4,000 km) by train, and did just about everything that I intended to.

Once I got back, I dived into blog-land, and the first blog I went to was Timmy Still Waiting. Timmy had gone into hospital for a fairly heavy-duty check-up on 29 September, and there had been no news before I left on 8 October, so I was quite concerned. However, my worst fears did not encompass the grievous news that I found: a post from Timmy's brother explaining that Timmy had died even before I went on holiday. I'm still struggling to come to terms with this: a wonderful person with an exuberant sense of humour has left the world many, many years before he deserved to. I think we are all the poorer for his absence.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to catch up with all the blogs I follow, but it may be a while before I'm back to commenting as usual.

Take care

Mark

Updates

Hi there, readers

This post is a miscellany of news, principally updates on previous posts and responses to comments on them.

First, I should welcome all my new followers: thank you for your faith in my future posting, though I'm afraid I can't promise anything more frequent or interesting than what's already here. I'm far more likely to be busy commenting on your posts than writing my own!

Second, health - more specifically, the state of my back. The sciatica finally sorted itself out in early August: I found that I needed fewer and fewer painkillers each day, and I haven't taken any since mid-August at the latest. However, I still get the occasional twinge if I bend too far the wrong way, for example, and the sensation in parts of my right foot is still not normal. So, after a certain amount of NHS bureaucracy, and the exercise of my own well-practiced ability to procrastinate, I finally had an appointment with an NHS physiotherapist about ten days ago. Somewhat to my and his surprise, it turned out to be a neighbour of mine - so, as I observed before I left, "there's no escape": whenever I bump into him outside our houses, he will ask how I'm getting on! In the event, there wasn't any actual physiotherapy (though there was quite a lot of hands-on diagnosis): the recommendation was that I should try to improve my posture, especially when sitting at a computer screen, given how much of my time I spend doing just that. *sits up once again*

Jay asked whether my backpack has a waist belt: it does, and I do normally use it. I'm fairly sure I was using it in June. This time round, I'm hoping that I will not already have an episode of back problems in progress before I set off, and I may well try to get the waist belt a bit lower down than usual - around the hips rather than the waist - so that the load goes more on the pelvis and less on the back itself.

Third, holidays. I'm now expecting to be away a couple of days more than previously indicated - I have a friend in Jena, in eastern Germany, whom I haven't seen for a while, and who can let me stay for a night on my way back from Slovakia. So the plan now looks like this:
- Fri 8: fly to Cologne (Germany)
- Sat 9: organised railway tour around the Cologne area
- Sun 10: Cologne - Linz (Austria)
- Mon 11: Linz - St. Pölten (Austria)
- Tue 12 to Thu 14: touring from St. Pölten
- Fri 15: St. Pölten - Prievidza (Slovakia), possibly via Budapest (Hungary)
- Sat 16, Sun 17: two days' organised railway tour in western Slovakia
- Mon 18: Prievidza - Prague (Czech Republic)
- Tue 19: Prague - Jena (Germany)
- Wed 20: fly back from Nuremberg (Germany)
As usual for my touring holidays, all this travel will be by train, in this case making use of an InterRail pass. There's a range of these, giving more or less unlimited rail travel in individual countries, or across the whole of Europe, for various periods. For people not resident in Europe, there's a similar pass called Eurail.

As previously indicated, I don't expect to have internet access at any point during the trip, so no e-mails or blog posts or comments. I'll try to catch up as quickly as possible after I get back, but it may take a few days.

At this point, I should (rather belatedly, I fear) thank naturgesetz for his suggestions for places to visit. I'm not following any of them up for this trip, because the middle section is aimed principally at visiting railway lines in Austria that are thought likely to lose their passenger services in December. Some of these should run through some quite scenic country, and I suspect that there are some interesting historic towns along the way too. However, I will bear them in mind for the future: Bamberg was already on my list to visit, given its architectural heritage and place in German brewing culture, and, having passed through Würzburg several times, it looks well worth a visit too. Germany was a country I ignored for many years, but I'm coming to appreciate its virtues, and I'd like to see a lot more of it.

Take care

Mark

More Wanderings

Hi there, readers

Yes, I'm going off on holiday again - plans for the next couple of months are currently as follows:

Friday 27 - Monday 30 August: Dortmund (Germany), exploring the Ruhr area by train and tram, no doubt sustained by tasty German beer and substantial German food. I'll be away from early tomorrow evening (26 August) to late Monday evening, both UK time.

Saturday 11 - Monday 13 September: Antwerp (Belgium).

Friday 8 - Monday 18 October: starting in Cologne (Germany), finishing in Slovakia, with a gentle progress across Germany and Austria in between. Hopefully with pleasant scenery, and a good supply of local food and beer.

In all three cases, I expect to be without internet access while I'm away.

Meanwhile, to all those who are waiting for me to post about my June holiday, I apologise: there almost always seems to be too much else going on for me to concentrate on writing my own blog. I hope to get round to it at some point, but please don't hold your breath.

Take care

Mark

Blog comments: links and formatting

Hi there, readers

Over the last few months, several bloggers have mentioned to me the ability to add web links and basic formatting (bold, italic, underlining) to blog comments - something which I do fairly routinely, but many others do not. So I decided to explain the techniques, and concluded that a blog post was probably the best place to do it.

It's all about using so-called tags, which are bits of text enclosed in angle brackets < >. These are in fact elements of HTML, the language in which web pages are written, and they act as instructions to the web browser, to tell it how to display parts of the text.

For example, if you want a piece of text to be bold, you put <b> where you want the bold text to start, and </b> (note the slash '/' before the 'b') where you want the bold text to end, like this: <b>bold</b> - which should appear in the posted comment as bold. You can include more than a single word between tags, so <b>here's some bold text</b> becomes here's some bold text.

Similarly, for italics, use <i> to start, and </i> to end - <i>italics</i> - and for underlining use <u> to start and </u> to end - <u>underlining</u>.

As you can see, there's a pattern here: a tagged section of text starts with something in angle brackets, and ends with the same thing, preceded by a slash, also in angle brackets. This doesn't work for all the letters of the alphabet, but there's at least one more that you might want to use at some time, 's' for strikethrough (<s>strikethrough</s>).

"So what about links?", I hear you say. Once again, it's the same basic idea, using tags to mark off the section of text that you want to be the link. For historical reasons, the letter to use is 'a' - not 'l', as you might expect. Also, of course, you have to say where the link should go to - the web page address that's usually shown somewhere near the top of your browser window - so there's more information to go in the starting tag. Thus the format ends up being like this:

<a href="http://www.blogger.com/">Blogger website</a>

which appears as this:

Blogger website.

Note some important bits:
- the space between the 'a' and the 'href' is necessary - the tag won't even be recognised without it;
- the 'http:' bit is also necessary - the browser won't know what to do with the link without it;
- the double quotes around the web address are probably not necessary but will help web browsers to recognise the address properly.

You can of course put any text you like between the tags, so if you want to display the actual web address as well as providing a link to it, you do something like this:

<a href="http://www.blogger.com/">http://www.blogger.com/</a>

which appears like this:

http://www.blogger.com/

Wandering slightly off the original topic, you can do more things with links than just connect to web pages: for example, you can provide a link to an e-mail address, which will open up an empty e-mail window. In this case, the 'a href=' bit is the same, but the contents of the double quotes are different, like this:

<a href="mailto:wanderingpom@orangehome.co.uk">send me e-mail</a>

which appears like this:

send me e-mail

Comments are welcome, and I'm happy for you to try out the things I've suggested in comments to this post.

Take care

Mark

A Visit To The Doctor

Hi there, readers

Thanks to all those who've commented here so far, especially with good wishes for my health. There are some snippets of actual personal news in what follows, so even the Brits might want to read it...

In my last post, I made some mention of arranging an appointment with my doctor regarding the back pain and sciatica I was suffering from. That appointment took place over a fortnight ago, and I thought it might be of interest, especially to readers from outside the UK, to describe what happened and how the health system here works. You may notice a certain amount of rhetorical flourish in what follows...

So, UK residents are supposed to registered with a GP (general practitioner) - it's not compulsory but it is recommended. The GP is supposed to be the first point of contact with the healthcare system for any non-emergency condition - they will diagnose the condition, prescribe drugs, and refer patients to other parts of the system for hospital or other treatment. There is a network of GPs across the country (one per so many thousand of the population, theoretically) so there should always be one reasonably close by. Oh, and registration with a GP is free.

I had to make a couple of phone calls in order to get an appointment at short notice, but I finally got one on the Tuesday morning - not bad after arriving home on the Sunday evening. I went along and was examined; my self-diagnosis of sciatica was confirmed. I was prescribed diclofenac, a stronger painkiller / anti-inflammatory than the over-the-counter ibuprofen and paracetamol I had been taking previously. After I had pointed out that this was the third episode of back problems in the last year, they agreed to refer me to a physiotherapy clinic for further investigation. The GP's appointment was free too.

On the way home from the GP, I called in at a chemist's (pharmacy) to get the drugs I had been prescribed. I had to wait fifteen minutes for the package to be made up (time to get some late breakfast), and I was charged £7.20 (about EUR8.00 or USD11.00 at current exchange rates). This is a flat-rate charge for any prescription, irrespective of the actual cost of the drugs, and many low-income groups are exempt from even this charge.

The diclofenac is highly effective; since starting on it, I have been mostly pain-free, and a lot more mobile than before, with detectable improvement on quite a few days.

The next step is the physiotherapy. I have now heard from the physiotherapy clinic: they want me to fill in a questionnaire, giving details of what I'm suffering from: information which I had expected my GP would forward to them! Then they will phone me to arrange the appointment - so there's still some way to go. However, when it comes, I know that the physiotherapy will be free too. If the physiotherapist identifies that some further procedure is necessary - a scan of some sort, or even an operation (a surgery, for Americans) - that, too, will be free.

So, I've now said, repeatedly, that this or that activity within the healthcare system is free. Americans in particular are probably screaming at me by now, saying "How can this possibly be so?" I am of course guilty of deliberately loose phrasing: all these things are free to users of the system. However, this vast edifice of medicine, the National Health Service (NHS), is certainly not free to operate - and the funding comes almost entirely from general taxation. I think the UK is unique in this respect: many other countries have similarly comprehensive healthcare systems, but I think they are all supported to a very significant extent by healthcare insurance for those who can afford it. In practice, I suppose, it doesn't much matter: those who can afford to pay, one way or another, contribute to cover the costs of those who cannot afford to pay. I am, though, immensely thankful that I live in a country where I have access to decent healthcare, and one where that access is not determined by my ability to pay for it.

Comments are welcome, as ever, and I'm looking forward to seeing the postbag I get from this one :-)

Take care

Mark

Well, I'm back

Hi there all

Yes, I have returned from my travels across Europe. Generally I had a pretty good time, with plenty of things of interest - I'm hoping to do some more descriptive stuff when I have some time. There was one downside though: a recurrence of the sciatica from which I suffered earlier this year, which probably had a lot to do with the heavy backpack I was carrying around. It's now significantly better than it was earlier in the week, but I'm still rather slow-moving, and dosing myself with painkillers.

More soon, I hope

Mark

Test post

This is a test post, to see whether I have posting by e-mail set up right. It will probably be deleted.

A Pom goes wandering (for a while)

Hi there, followers and everybody else

This is the scary first blog post that I've been procrastinating over for nearly four months. Just to confirm my unorthodox approach to blogging, this is not the traditional introduction, let alone any baring of the soul (though these may come later).

All I want to say is that I will shortly be going on holiday. I will be away from home from this Thursday evening (17th June); I don't expect to be on Blogger after tomorrow (Wednesday) night. I expect to be back some time on the evening of Sunday 27th June, unless there's another dose of volcanic ash from Iceland, or something equivalent. All times are for the UK - add or subtract for your local timezone as necessary!

For those interested, I'll be indulging my interest in trains, and doing some more conventional tourist activities, travelling around Europe by train. The itinerary at the moment is this:
- Thu 17th, overnight: ferry to Hook of Holland
- Fri 18th: Hook of Holland - Nuremberg (Germany)
- Sat 19th: Nuremberg - Salzburg - Graz (Austria)
- Sun 20th: Graz - Ljubljana (Slovenia) - Rijeka (Croatia)
- Mon 21st to Thu 24th: touring in Slovenia
- Fri 25th: Ljubljana - Innsbruck (Austria)
- Sat 26th: probably head north; details to be decided
- Sun 27th: continue north through Germany; fly home from Dusseldorf

I will try to get caught up with everybody's blog once I get back, but I can see that it might take quite a while for normal service to be resumed.

Take care

Mark