Thanks - Half a Million!

This blog started in January 2011, just over 2.5 years ago.  I'd written several "twitlongers" on various subjects (mainly legal or political points) and people were encouraging me to write a proper blog instead.  I thought that kind of them, but that it would be a little self-important of me.  I also wondered who on earth would want to read my musings.

Then, my grandmother died.  I was in shock, to be honest, and just really wanted to get the story of her life on record and to share it, and various photos of her life in West Prussia, with my friends and followers.  I sat there and didn't stop until I'd written it all, in one go.  The result was my first blog post.  I found writing that piece incredibly therapeutic.

I wrote it both for me, and to share it with others.  That's exactly the spirit of all my posts since: I often really enjoy setting out my thoughts on things, and find that ordering them in the form of a post helps me work out what I actually think.  It's a bit like essay writing, which I loved so much at school and university, except I get to choose the title.  Frequently I really enjoy it, sometimes I find it cathartic and healing, and I miss it when I'm do busy to do a post.

I write about all sorts, from abseiling lesbians, a practical guide to Twitter (it's not just for beginners!), Julian Assange, thoughts on absence, gratitude and loss and to the serial fraudster I helped uncover, Matthew Brown.

"Daddy's on his bloody computer again, rather than walking ME"

I tend to steer away from politics (too much strife and argument) and from law (I don't know enough about it any more, not having practiced in years).  Often it's deeply personal: sometimes a bit too personal and I've removed two posts subsequently for that reason.  People online tend to be very kind and good, but I've had some nastiness in a couple of comments and I don't want to attract that if I can avoid it.  Sometimes I think "Oh god, now I've written that I don't have anything else to say and probably won't blog again".  Then something pops into my mind, usually when I'm walking Oscar, I plan it in my head, and I write the thing out.

I don't have advertising on my blog: it's for pleasure not money-making.  I'd personally feel a bit cheap if I were promoting my stuff to get a few pence back in advertising revenue.  I'm flattered when people give me positive feedback and of course I love it when posts are RT'd.  I write for my own pleasure, but of course I like others to read it too.  If no one read my posts, there would still be value in it, but it adds something big when others enjoy them too.  I like the blog to be colourful and fun: I shove in loads of pictures and I often make the tone a little tongue in cheek.

I'm genuinely so humbled that I've just hit an amazing 500,000 views on the blog.  I've been watching the little counter going round this morning and am so glad I managed to screen shoot it.  That's an average of over 16,000 hits a month since January 2011, which is heck of a lot of hits on a private blog about nothing in particular.  I do only have 4500 followers on Twitter, so I wonder where all the traffic comes from at times.

Anyway, thank you, all of you who have ever read, RTd, or commented on here.  You've actually made me enormously happy.  Here's to a million! *beams from ear to ear*

Peter x

Getting Older

I had a weird thought this morning.  Okay, this happens quite a lot to me, but this one actually prompted a blog.  The thought was this: I compared an average life span of say 80 years to a calendar year.  It occurred to me on this basis, that I was in June.  That's an odd thought, but not an unpleasant one.

Then I decided to be a bit more precise about this.  If we take a good life span as 85 years, and spread that across the year, I'm actually on 29 June (day 180 of the 365 of the year).  My Mutti is on 5 October.  My boyfriend (still unacceptably young) is about to burst into blossom.  He's on 31 March.  But here I am, in the "summer of my years".

Hitting 40

Like everyone I have fretted about my age at various times.  I remember thinking that I wanted to stop the clock forever at 24: the perfect age.  30 is of course a big milestone, though to be honest it wasn't one that bothered me particularly.  40, hung over me, however, like a giant circling vulture looking for a tasty sheep carcass to feed on.  From every birthday 35 onwards I feared it's approach.

For a gay man 40 is particularly significant, you see.  In "gay years" (akin to dog years) you're dead at 30.  At 40 you're a zombie, who has been dead, buried, exhumed and then cremated.  So in fact you're zombie ashes.  You don't really exist.  At least that's the perceived wisdom out there.  When I got to 40, was I bothered?  No, it was wonderfully liberating to stop worrying about it.  I just thought "meh, I look great, feel great and who cares".  And of course shortly afterwards I met my devastatingly dashing boyfriend just to prove what nonsense all of this is.

Celebrate Every Stage

Every stage of my life has had something wonderful to commend it.  I had the most ridiculously fortunate, happy childhood.  I was nicknamed the "Cheshire Cat" because I permanently had a happy grin on my face.  It was a childhood full of love and joy and huge amounts of travel.  We moved house 12 times in my first 12 years and I'd been to 20 odd countries by the time I was seven.  Being an "army brat" meant for me that my family was a constant source of stability, and we were used to being outgoing, making friends rapidly and settling in quickly.

Cheshire Cat (Centre). Ugly/Annoying big bros (R/L)

Let's skip over my teen period, because let's face it no one wants to hear about living in a bungalow in Cowplain (aka "Cowpat") in Hampshire and being a spotty youth who spent hours torturing himself over being gay.  I soon snapped out of that, and from sixth form onwards things improved rapidly. 

University (Cambridge: get me, first from Cowpat Comprehensive to get in!) and law school were all good, with loads more travel at every opportunity.  I found the constant moving of my things in and out of rooms frustrating though and longed for a place to call my own.  That came when I moved to London, my first proper job in a big law firm, and moving in with my then boyfriend.  I could start to put down roots, and it felt fantastic!

Living in Amsterdam, late 20s

Since then, well things have just got better and better, despite some bumps along the way.  I'd say I've never been happier than right now.  It's the summer of my life: the garden is planted, it's coming into full bloom and life will pan out (baring any unexpected disasters) on the course that all that hard work in the earlier months of the year have set out.  All the angst of wondering what I will do, where I will be etc are long gone.  I'm blessed to be incredibly healthy and I take good care of myself.  I'm materially well off, and I'm so lucky to be able to travel crazy amounts still.

I've experienced people I've loved dying and this was not something I'd known before.  Even people of my own age or younger, which is a huge shock to the system, and truly brings home the reality of mortality.  Of course there might be storms and dark, frightening times (who knows what lies round the corner), but in general there should be long, light, sunny days to look forward to for many months to come.  Late June is a great time of year!

Enjoying summer! Me with my loved ones

Time Speeds Up

Life definitely speeds up as we get older.  At least our perception of it certainly does.  Apparently it's to do with new experiences: if we want to "slow time down" we should expose ourselves to new things.  If you're doing things you're not used to, time seems to pass more slowly.  I was thinking about one day I had on holiday in Switzerland recently: we packed an impossible amount of things into one single day (a cable car, scooter bikes, driving along lakes, husky trekking and fondue on a mountainside) and I remember virtually every minute.  I compare that to one day at the office, when week after week merges together and I can't remember a single thing that stands out.  

Where there is monotony, contrary to what you might instinctively think, the years fly by.  Consider it this way: when you were 7, a year seemed an incredibly long period of time.  Everything was new and fresh, and you perceived it in a different way, full of exploration.  Nowadays the months merge into each other and the years "fly by" - unless you're doing lots of new things and trying out experiences you never have before.  If you've been on a long motorway journey it can seem to go on forever, but often when you arrive you can't remember any of it.  Apparently we go into a different type of consciousness (similar to a trance) and that's why we don't register the time in the same way.

In any case, doing new things is apparently how to slow time down, if you wish to.  If you're used to lots of travel and each trip merges into the next, do something different for a change.  I went on "Go Ape" recently: where I was hanging from a zip wire up trees in Thetford Forest for 3 hours.  It was amazing and something I'd never done before.  Again, I remember every minute of it.  If you're used to hanging from trees, go the theatre.  If you go to the theatre weekly, take a Japanese cookery course.  Etc.

Autumn and Winter

My summer will eventually come to and end, and autumn will loom.   What's the point in regretting that you're no longer as young as you were?  Autumn offers warm evenings in front of the fire, interspersed with still many sunny days, and perhaps changing the pace of what I do.  I have a feeling I'll be just as happy then as I was then.  Perhaps I'm essentially just a dog (click on the link for an explanation) and every time of life is my "favourite thing".  It's not a bad philosophy.

Winter will follow, and there's no changing that.  Winter too has much to commend it.  There is nothing more certain than the cycle of the calendar year, and the fact life will at some point end for us all.   If you make it to the end of December I think it's fair to acknowledge that this is of itself a wonderful blessing, and far from everyone has this opportunity.

Oscar (11) is nearing his winter days. What a great life he's had.

So, whatever date you are on in your life (see below), I hope it's a good one for you.  There's no winding the clock back, and gay boys... you don't die at 40, or even 30.  There IS life after death!

Peter x






To find out your day, divide your age by 85.  Then multiply the result by 365.  Google for example "200 day of the year" and the exact day will appear as a result.