Steve from England

I’ve decided that the only way to find my lost 62GB memory stick is to buy another one. I visited Amazon and found the old purchase at £35 but now it is £14.99 except, underneath it said it had been replaced by a USB3 version for £13.99, a result I think! Whilst I was there I also bought a tea strainer as that too has gone missing! I quite like leaf tea but can’t stand all the large leaves at the bottom. I particularly love Jasmin tea, it’s just sort of yummy and fresh and in my special china tea service too from China … OK, it was made in China but was actually bought in Spain at a theme park in their land which they call ‘China’ so, one way or another it’s authentic! Cortana was missing as a working version from Windows 10 but strangely, now it works! I changed it all to USA location and it worked straight away, it wouldn’t with UK settings. I decided I really didn’t want my PC thinking it was American though so reverted back to UK and, as if by magic, Cortana works so, she doesn’t...

I am in love with Dennis pure and simple. Yes, I understand that some might find it difficult to understand how I can be in love with someone the other side of the world who I have never met. Clearly it is possible because it’s real and, Dennis feels it too which, let’s face it, is a good thing! We speak just about every day between 12-3pm or as much time as we can on Skype otherwise on Viber. Time always flies by so quickly even on those days when we barely say anything. God willing Dennis will be over here next April time for a month to get to know me in the flesh and also to get to know the family a lot more and those friends who would like to meet him. We are, of course, relying on the UK Border Agency approving his tourist visa but that should all go through OK. I shall probably go there to visit over Christmas 2016. Dennis only really gets two longer breaks from work in April and December so when we can travel is restricted. He is a teacher living, hmm, about an hour or so ...

Whether we like it or not, Windows 10 is upon us. I was a little nervous about it to be honest with you. I was thinking we’d be dished up Windows 8.1 with some backward looking features to Windows 7. I am pleasantly surprised to be telling you that what we actually have is Windows 7 with the best bits of Windows 8.1. So far, so good. I think it’s rather possible that Microsoft have released it a little prior to everything actually working so, expect a service pack some time soon but, on the whole, it seems quite a neat package

Yes, my blog is often about current affairs or, more likely than no … me. Not this one, this is about fairness and morality and parenting. When someone has a child they believe they get automatic parental rights . There is no such thing, what they have is parental responsibility , they are two totally different thing. It means that until they are old enough to look after themselves (legally), as a parent there is a responsibility to support that child emotionally , physically and financially . Failure to do any of those consistently or at all is unacceptable by any definition unless there is the sort of situation which makes it impossible. As a parent there is no right to opt out of their lives unless you are so far up your own backside you wish to put yourself first all too often if not all the time. This applies to mothers or fathers, I am not singling anyone out here for special criticism, I’ve know both genders who felt it was totally fine to leave the kids with another parent ...

He’s so lovely that even though he’d had a really busy day today he still waited up until gone midnight just to say ‘Hi’ before he went to bed. I am a very fortunate man to have found him, we talk every day

After deciding not to cycle last weekend we were all looking forward to it today. Putting the bikes on the car and we discovered Daisy had a puncture. Only store open for repair kit (No, I don’t know why we didn’t have one either) was Pitsford 6.5 miles away so we drove there. As our destination was Salcey Forest we then drove there to repair the puncture and set off 17.5 miles. Upon arrival we discovered it’s worse than that (it’s dead Jim), the brakes were hanging loose with the bolt missing! So, we headed off for Halfords and, two hours after leaving home headed back home again, another 9 miles so a total of 33 miles and two hours for nothing really :-( All rather frustrating

I love this country of ours, because of you there are so many glorious colours all around us. The grass is as rich a green as anywhere on the planet. Beautiful blooming flowers to brighten our days, we should be so very grateful. Can I ask though, would it be just too much trouble to move those clouds elsewhere, you know, perhaps during the day? Let a little sunlight through, we all need a little sunlight and, part of your job is to ensure a balance, not too much of anything. Could you, perhaps, offer us some truth and honesty? I mean, each day you tell us tomorrow will be fine and sunny and then you give us cloud and rain. No one likes a liar, just be honest with us. If you got out of bed wrong today then, that’s fine, it’s cool, I get that but, every day? Surely if it is every day you’re doing something wrong my friend. Perhaps you need to relax, lower the bluster, stop crying those tears, let the sun shine through, it would do us all good. Hey, nice of you to be listening, I a...

That’s a bit like Valentines day isn’t it only, not February, more sort of, well, if Valentines day hadn’t been chosen for February then it would have been July, I am sure of it. Not that it makes much difference because the love of my life lives 6,688 miles away on the assumption I was a very strong crow that can fly that far. It would also be a rather dull trip not flying over anywhere well know at all. Thankfully we have airplanes. The quickest route is a direct London/Manila flight, that takes 15 hours, add two hours to get to Heathrow, 3 hours waiting around at the airport, another maybe 2 hours from Manila. I could be there, if I left right now and a plane was waiting, at 10 to 6 tomorrow evening only then it wouldn’t be 10 to 6 tomorrow evening (Weds) it would be 10 to 1 on Thursday morning but, that’s so dooable … if we assume I could afford £650 right now and that a plane were actually waiting at Heathrow which it isn’t. So, even if someone had already seen sense and changed V...

Not that I remember much of it and, no, no booze involved just busy and enjoying life. Dennis makes me stupidly happy. I could just sit and look at him all day but not today. Today he helped me with something I was going to do on my own. I am not used to this having a boyfriend thing so, was glad when it just sort of came together. I needed to get a collection of tracks together to listen to in the car. My last one was a bit too familiar so I needed some good music to add. Dennis came up with quite a few I’d forgotten I loved. The past couple of days, thanks to tech, we’ve had meals together, me, Dennis and the family over there. It’s good to discover what we’re each eating. Obviously I wish he were a short or even long drive away, it’s horrible not being able to be together but, we can wait, we’re making plans. We’ve had Matt, Anne and the children over today too which is always good. Started playing Minecraft on the Xbox One tonight. Matt & Sean had been at me for ages to ...

I turned up this morning at 9am and we went through all the possible issues which could still exist with the Ray Ban glasses. It didn’t make sense that if they were the same prescription as the Superdry glasses I am wearing that they should be OK. Now, on the subject of the Superdry glasses I was given these because when the lenses turned up, or so I was told, they were not verifocal but single vision lenses. I discovered today that they are verifocal so, in effect, there is no real problem with these glasses. Anyway, we decided at 10:45 that we’d get my sight checked again and rather than trying again to get lenses in the Rayban frames that I’d prefer it if they used the Ted Baker frames instead. So, I had a short break then went back again at 12:20, got my eyes checked and they are going to increase the prescription slightly but not so much that I cannot switch between glasses, my vision should be just slightly improved using the Ted Baker option. Left there finally today at...

I knew the tyres on the front were a little low, borderline illegal but, I was showing Robin earlier and discovered a large nail in the rear tyre. Fair to say I am very thankful I don’t pay for the three tyres which needed to be replaced! Would have come to the best part of a grand, ouch!

Some may ask why I went into so much detail yesterday. You know, I'd really rather not have to. Sadly, so many people are judgemental. Each have their little opinions and, even when they don't voice those opinions it's so easily obvious to tell. For example, I know if I were dating a man from England and meeting him each day for an hour so many people would be involved wanting to know how it is going, wanting to meet him, know more about him just as it should be. Because my man doesn't live in this country is almost like the elephant in the corner, the awkward subject people don't like to talk about because, basically, they are just waiting for it all to go wrong and ... after all, everyone has heard those horror stories of how British people get robbed by Johnny Foreigner. Well, my answer to that is yes, of course that goes on. Then again, it's not so damn wonderful here when we have partners who cheat on us, some get beaten up and so on, no one can ever be tot...

I’d very much like to thank the many friends and family who are concerned enough about me to be worried about my involvement with the Philippines and any future relationship I might have with someone there. Now, over the past couple of years I made some mistakes. I didn’t know enough and I screwed up basically. With Jo I had doubts from the outset but he was rather handsome and was funny and I thought, what the hell, it’s a cultural difference, I will adapt, we’ll meet each other half way and everything will be OK. So I arranged to visit. I could have kept it cheap but instead I opted for OK hotels and condo’s for a month and, when I was there we ate out all the time and I was paying. To make matters worse, I went and added two weeks in the States on the tail end and, well, that wasn’t cheap. The first night in GenSan and already I knew something wasn’t right. There was an incompatibility that I really didn’t think I could live with. I spent many hours my first night there and first...

The above pictures are the sorts of locations where I feel really happy and relaxed and I like being happy and relaxed. Most are taken of and from Goodrich Castle whilst the last one is the River Wye near Symonds Yat. The car park there was £5 no matter how long the stay so I decided against staying longer than it took me to take the picture. I was over that way recharging my batteries, in need of a little me time. Since June 9th I've been chatting to someone a very lot. Yes, I know, he's in the Philippines, bad experiences lessons learnt and all that but, my mind matches younger guys better and most younger guys in the UK think anyone over 40 is their sugar daddy or their headmaster or whatever role-play they are into. I just want to be with someone who can relax without being boring. So, I started talking to Dennis and love our chats on Skype He'll probably hate that picture but, I think it shows his fun loving personality really well. We're playing the long game...