Reflections two days before

However you look at this unparalleled period of rapid changes, reversals and general reversal of much we've taken for granted for well decades when it comes to travel, contact overseas or just the ability to see each other.

Sometimes that feeds into other things to such as how broken contact and rituals - as people we seem to just love them to varying degrees - can bring about fresh thoughts and changes.

For some people as awful as coping with the forever changing restrictions have been it's helped the shift out of relationships that just dragged them down.

With others it may be much less about being with those people so much as just what it is they like to do and present more as around them and when like me you're very much around the (adult) Little Boy area it may not be necessarily the most understood thing in a world that likes grown men and little boys very much apart and dressed very differently

From not exactly going far for me lead to thinking more about what I do wear especially more when I do go away looking at and trying things on as things started to improve from the mid to late Summer of last year.

At least one thing posted last November showed a newer part of how I might well look that I feel good in that fits around my perception of where along the continuum I slot in, liking short trousers and nearly always from a more adult as child angle where much of that adult world just doesn't apply.

Wearing my latest white lined grey short trousers with the blue banded turn over socks the decision not just to return to grey short trousers from longer karki almost Bermuda ones but to have my shorts taken right so proportionately the are as short as they were when I was in juniors just feels right for being stripped of anything remotely adult.

I reality I was that boy and I'm a zillion times better today for just being him.

You ain't going nowhere

 

I haven't really been very far in the last few days which meant I wasn't able to make much out of the more settled weather after the severe storms of the last week which on Sunday and Monday were genuinely frightening.

Trees were swaying and indeed in the woods a number of branches did fall and fairly substantial ones at that littering the trails with quite noticeable flooding too for good measure.

Thus I was reading things like this fortnights Match Of The Day magazine, the beano and playing indoors for most of the time.

So it was really disappointing to wake up just before four in the morning, then experience a most agonizing, horrendous pain in left calf muscle as it was "twanged", gritting your teeth as you felt like screaming and improvising at speed compression over it trying to get into a halfway comfortable position in bed.

When I eventually got up, it was a struggle to get dressed as I found the tightest most supporting pair of turn over top socks to wear before having several attempts to get upright and hobble in agony to the bathroom.

Then I found the stairs were too step to walk on without putting too much pressure on that calf so I ended up going down the stairs clutching my plushie in my grey three inch inside leg shorts feeling very little to get some brekkie sorted.

That was the point I realized I would need to keep movement to the minimum as getting about on your bottom is slow and literally a pain in the rear.

I'm feeling a bit better with it but I'll need to give it time to fully recover. 

Comic relaxing

 

We're nearing the end of February and you might just wonder why I'm featuring an annual, something we'd associate with Christmas and one reason would be I've haven't been feeling that great  so something like that cheers me up.

The other reason is some people may not of realized beyond the D C Thompson titles, there is a traditional more eight, nine plus comic annual that's not more like  Young Adult graphic novel but still pitched to a younger crowd.

Drawn by a team of young artists who see the value of the traditions this is great laugh a minute read updated for the modern age.

It's been a pretty wet week over all but I was out in Dufflecoat and traditional short length short trousers exploring around when I spotted these berries just starting to come out and a few insects flying about.

Three hundredth post

 Surprisingly this marks the three hundredth post on this blog that had some older posts around photography restored to it after being started just before I joined Tumblr originally because they kind of connected to what the remainder of it was all about.

Photography as a medium lends itself well to the capturing of moments and memories and some of these may be of those points in our pasts we recall well, of people and places that may no longer be the same or even around.

To even look at pictures of others pasts in the same era often is to unleash vivid and most powerful memories  and a homage to past days and memories is in part really what this blog is all about.

The past for some of us is in the present as we follow similar interests and where we can relive our best moments caught in the moment playing and exploring in a carefree way as we we leave the parts of the world of the adult to one side having discharged any responsibilities and obligations to it.

It doesn't matter exactly where it comes from or what name you give to it in the end, it's that a new-old more child-like headspace helps to restore what you loved about your life back then and that in truth no one needs to jettison for the advancement of your birthdate.

You may of felt lost trying to find your way along the track but you can find your way back and in these days when covid has left many of us feeling weary, it's what we need. 

Symbolism

 

This post isn't about Jefferson Starship formed from the legendary Airplane of the nineteen-sixties as much as I followed that bands evolution.

No, it's really about visual imagery, which makes for a great cover photograph.

What we have is this young boy who is a Scout chasing that object eyes trained upon it as he tries to capture it. He's running with and for that freedom being who he is.

He's neither daunted by the challenge of gaining it nor by the consequences, the need to handle that well to make the most of what it has to offer. 

That's why I've always loved it

A new short wave portable radio

 The history of World Band Radios and me goes back a long time and they tended to come in two forms with their own compromises.

There were desktop communication receivers such as the Yaesu FRG7000 that with extra modules did pretty much everything but were too heavy for regular carriage and then portables that traded performance and a mass of extras for ease of carriage and battery operation.

The portables tended also to offer things such as FM radio so they could be used as a regular radio.

The first one I had bought for me was a Russian Vega Selena B212 when I was in my mid teens which while crude technologically had a beautiful wooden Cabinet.

Later on as I became unwell, struggling to use the Yaesu, I got the Éton E5 which as based as a fair number were on a Sangean design with presets and FM stereo.

That's showing some issues and the plastic case has decayed leaving it tacky and prone to deep marks.

I bought recently a new portable that has much of that sets functionality and some different features.

One the first changes between the sets is the XHDATA D808 uses a replaceable 18650 Lithium battery which is charged within the set using a regular USB charger rather than four AA cells of the Éton reflecting concern about the environmental impact of regular cells and that modern rechargeables have plenty of hours usage.

Like the Éton this does have the ability to receive CW and SSB transmissions used by Amateur Radio operators on their own groups of frequencies called "bands" as well as some commercial broadcasters.

Unlike the Éton there is switching for both Lower and Upper sideband reception which improves reception in crowded bands.

The filter on the XHDATA has a steeper curve that makes it easier to ensure the ability to reject transmissions either side of the station you want to hear is achieved improving reception.

It shares the same high capacity memory that can set in pages for frequently listened to stations.

Time and for FM RDS data is displayed on a switchable bright backlight display.

For Medium Wave colloquially and misleadingly called AM band reception, the tuning steps can be switched from the 9Khz ones used in Europe, Africa and Asia to 10Khz ones used in North America from the front.

This set uses advanced DSP (Digital signal processing) technologies to clean up long, medium and short wave reception which the Éton lacked and at one time was a  "high end" receiver feature.

It shares the FM stereo coverage that covers from 64Mhz into 88.7 to 108Mhz so it will work in parts of Europe and Japan as well as the "International" radio Band II frequencies with the stereo output being available for headphones.

It loses the dedicated Line Out of the Éton but you can use the headphone jack to hook up to a separate amplifier or recorder using a 3.5mm to rca phono lead which are easy to buy.

One massive gain is the addition of the 118-138Mhz Aircraft band which saves having to have a separate dedicated portable that the Éton didn't have and the scanning function works on it.

The set comes with some accessories such as a carrying bag, an plug in external antenna for shortwave and a usb connector.

On balance I feel this is a better set of its sort for the money as much as the looks of sets such as Grundig's legendary Satellit 2100 and 3400 sets from the seventies and eighties appeal still to some at cost.

G is for Garters

 Bit of short post this week not being helped by being quite ill here but here goes.

Socks are a thing we are very familiar with and generally we wear long socks, traditionally with turn over tops with our short trousers but as most of us can recall one common problem tended to be that some socks seem to slide down very quickly.

Because generally it is held we should look smart and presentable at all times, most of us got told to "pull your socks up" literally a good number at times at school and other similar setting with standards.

Quite why some socks seem to stay up well for long and others do not isn't something I have cracked although it may be connected with the tightness of the sock weave and material.

In girls socks today the use of lycra in the elastic tends to work well in keeping them up.

Boys usually rely upon sock garters to hold them up that usually come in two forms, this which tended to be more common  is more like an adjustable elasticated band that once tightened and locked can be slide over the sock and is then covered by the turn over top of your socks.

The other is more familiar to us in traditional wolf cubs/cubs is a piece of elastic sowed together that holds the decorative sashs as here typically green which peep out of the turned over portion outwards.

Garters do play important part within boys and adult school boys lives, are items that are checked upon in certain contexts and are a part of our presentation.

Picture credits: Albert Prendergast Ltd of Derbyshire.