Rainy day

Posted on June 19, 2019 by john graham

It was a rainy day today.

A go away day.

A stay indoors day.

An excuse for doing nothing day.

 

But it’s not a hurricane day.

No floods to hold back day.

Not even a thunder and lightening day.

Just a drizzly miserable day.

A down pour of idleness day.

 

Rainy days disrupt your plans,

Unless you are intrepid.

But if the rain goes on for too long,

You just become decrepit.

Maybe I should build an ark ?

I should have prepared for the flood.

Still the garden gains whenever it rains

But it’s a shame about all the mud.

The flowers are happy,

the rain is their hearts desire.

For me it’s just a good excuse,

to stay in by the fire 😀

 

“GOD GAVE TO NOAH THE RAINBOW SIGN.

ENOUGH OF THE RAIN, THE FIRE NEXT TIME”

 James Baldwin

 

 

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Cloud Surfing – Brasilia

Posted on June 16, 2019 by john graham

GrumbleSmiles was set up to provide innovative answers to tackling the problems of loneliness in later life.    Many older people are less able to get out and about, which can be the first steps towards a life of isolation.

My travel around the clouds continue you can see more of my travel adventures by clicking on CLOUD SURFING in the TAG CLOUD).   Today I invite you to join me on a trip to unknown destinations around the world and an opportunity to talk to new and interesting people.    All at no cost and from the comfort of your own armchair.

We are going cloudsurfing to a continent I am visiting for the first time in this blog.

Courtesy of a blogger and photographer Sonia Mascaro from Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Her photographs, which were taken in 2008, are of Brasilia.

 

 

Brasilia was the new capital built in the centre of Brazil in the 1960’s.    The majority of the buildings were designed by Oscar Niemeyer and were spectacular in their appearance.  This was shortly before the time that I went to university to study architecture and the buildings made a lasting impression on me.

For more photographs click on the link below.

https://leavesgrass.blogspot.com/search/label/Bras%C3%ADlia

In the weeks ahead, I will publish more blogs and photographs from my cloud surfing travels.

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Looney Give-Aways

Posted on June 12, 2019 by john graham

Now that Prime Minister Maybe Maybenot has resigned, there are a host of candidates putting themselves forward to succeed her.   All of them are competing to out bid each other by seeing who can come up with the most vote catching freebies.   However their suggestions are predictably unimaginative 😩

The Last Laugh Looney Party has decided to come up with some ideas that are likely to capture the elderly vote :-

  • Two weeks all expenses paid holidays on the Costa Del Sol for everyone over 60.   Every month during the winter, in exchange for giving up the Winter Fuel Allowance.     This should  save the NHS a small fortune because it will provide improved health and better Mediterranean diets and more red wine drinking😀
  • A Free Uber taxi ride to any local destination every week, paid for  by cancelling all MP’s expenses and closing down the House of Lords.
  • Free train passes for all retired people throughout the UK.  Paid for by cancelling HS2.
  • A free Healthy Food Hamper delivered to every pensioner household every week they are not in Spain.   Paid for by banning all packaging except for brown paper bags.
  • Free tickets to all major sports events, paid for by capping wages of all sports players to the national minimum wage.
  • Continue free TV licences for pensioners, by replacing all the highly paid presenters with retired people who will do the job voluntarily.

As political parties often say—— “these proposals are all fully costed”.

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Cloud Surfing – Mongolia

Posted on June 9, 2019 by john graham

GrumbleSmiles was set up to provide innovative answers to tackling the problems of loneliness in later life.    Many older people are less able to get out and about, which can be the first steps towards a life of isolation.

My travels around the clouds continue (you can see more of my travel adventures by clicking on CLOUD SURFING in the TAG CLOUD).   Today I invite you to join me on a trip to unknown destinations around the world and an opportunity to talk to new and interesting people.    All at no cost and from the comfort of your own armchair.

We are going cloudsurfing to Mongolia.

Courtesy of blogger and photographer Cap Chastain.    Cap is an intrepid traveller and I have published several of his travel journeys before.  When you consider he is now 82 and still travelling, this is remarkable in itself, but his posts make great reading.

 

Mongolia is not a place I’ve ever been to, nor am I ever likely to go.  I always think of it as a country in the middle of nowhere made up of nothing but a desert landscape.  Not unlike the picture below.

Cap Chastain went there in 2015 and the link below will show you some of the photographs he took on that trip.  They more or less confirm my view of what it’s like.  Nonetheless Cap found much, much more.  So you should click on the link below.

http://bobbacaps.blogspot.com/search/label/Sukhbaatar

This photograph is of Cap himself when visiting Mongolia and he looks remarkably like the images of Genghis Khan.  I can imagine he has now been adopted by the nation as a reincarnation of its founder 🙂

Once again my thanks to Cap for sharing his great photographs of his travels with us.

In the weeks ahead, I will publish more blogs and photographs from my cloud surfing travels.

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More Nonsense

Posted on June 5, 2019 by john graham

Clutter is another way to say jumble.

Jumble sales of all your clutter.

I woke up today with jumble in my head,

it wasn’t something anyone said.

It was just there cluttering up my brain.

 

Jumble is a word over which you can stumble,

just like clutter.

It is also a great word

on which to grumble.

 

If your apple pie goes wrong,

it becomes apple crumble.

If you trip over your toes,

you will certainly tumble.

 

Quietly spoken you’d be accused of a mumble.

Drop something down and that’s a definitely a fumble.

If you hear a buzz, it’s probably a bumble.

Dont mention it and you’re ever so humble.

 

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Cloud Surfing – Iceland

Posted on June 2, 2019 by john graham

GrumbleSmiles was set up to provide innovative answers to tackling the problems of loneliness in later life.    Many older people are less able to get out and about, which can be the first steps towards a life of isolation.

My travels around the clouds continue (you can see more of my travel adventures by clicking on CLOUD SURFING in the TAG CLOUD).   Today I invite you to join me on a trip to unknown destinations around the world and an opportunity to talk to new and interesting people.    All at no cost and from the comfort of your own armchair.

We are going cloudsurfing to Iceland.

Courtesy of a blogger and photographer Brent Green, who’s blog is called “Boomers”.  Brent is an author and marketeer from America who has been blogging since 2005.

 

Below is a photograph of Reykjavik which is the capital of Iceland.  Somewhere I’ve never been or am likely to go to.  I always think of it as a cold and bleak place as suggested in the second photograph.  But reading Brent’s blog on his travels to Iceland in 2016, it certainly looks like he very much enjoyed his visit and met some interesting people.

You can find out the full story by clicking on the link below.

http://boomers.typepad.com/boomers/2016/12/boomers-iceland-is-beckoning.html

My thanks to Brent for allowing us to travel virtually with him and see another interesting part of the world.

In the weeks ahead, I will publish more blogs and photographs from my cloud surfing travels.

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Advertising Income

Posted on May 29, 2019 by john graham

I must be coming into a fortune soon, because adverts keep appearing after my latest posts.   I seem to have become the must-have sponsor of  a lot of new products.

It all started with fitness and beauty products.  I could quite understand why companies would want to use me to endorse the new goods, in fact I was flattered.   I could immediately see the advantages of me becoming the new David Beckham.    Of course I am a bit too old for football now, but I will be well suited to TV appearances.

The latest advert to mysteriously appear with my GrumbleSmiles posts, is rather less glamorous.   It’s an advert about skin cream for moles.   I’m not sure this is something that I really want to promote as it doesn’t quite fit with my Beckham-like image of myself.  Also, I’m not sure if the product really works.   I’ve tried rubbing the cream all over my lawn and yet the moles still keep coming.

I wonder what on earth these adverts will throw up next!   Still, the millions of pounds of sponsorship money doesn’t seem to have arrived yet.    Perhaps they will come in tomorrow’s post.

Posted in SMILES | 3 Comments

Cloud Surfing – Alaska with Cap and a Moose

Posted on May 26, 2019 by john graham

GrumbleSmiles was set up to provide innovative answers to tackling the problems of loneliness in later life.    Many older people are less able to get out and about, which can be the first steps towards a life of isolation.

My travels around the clouds continue (you can see more of my travel adventures by clicking on CLOUD SURFING in the TAG CLOUD).   Today I invite you to join me on a trip to unknown destinations around the world and an opportunity to talk to new and interesting people.    All at no cost and from the comfort of your own armchair.

We are continuing cloudsurfing in Alaska.

Courtesy of a blogger and photographer Cap Chastain.  We visited with Cap earlier last year when he told us about his interesting experiences with a Moose in the woods.  Now it appears the Moose has followed him to his neighbour’s house.

 

His neighbours Bea and Terry have a remote cabin in the woods.

It looks like an idyllic getaway but it comes with some surprises when you look out the window and see a Moose eating your strawberries.

You can see the full story by clicking on the link to Cap’s blog below:

http://bobbacaps.blogspot.com/2018/10/oct-11-18-moose-moose-in-alaska-moose.html

In the weeks ahead, I will publish more blogs and photographs from my cloud surfing travels.

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LLLP FINAL MANIFESTO

Posted on May 22, 2019 by john graham

Over the last few weeks the Last Laugh Looney Party has gathered together a truly eclectic collection of candidates for the European Parliamentary Elections.   With the right sense of humour in the British Electorate, they are confident of being selected to enter the European Parliament, at least for the next few months until Britain finally BREXITs.

Their basic guarantee to the British Electorate is that they will spend their time in the European Parliament, jumping up and down and shouting their slogans.   Just like they’ve seen all other MPs do over the last two years, while they’ve been discussing BREXIT.  They will do this until the 27 countries in the European Parliament finally throw their hands up in exasperation and say LEAVE.

The LLLP will agree to this on one condition :-

The European Commission agrees to pay Britain £39 billion Euros in compensation for no longer being part of the European experiment 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Cloud Surfing – Washington State

Posted on May 19, 2019 by john graham

GrumbleSmiles was set up to provide innovative answers to tackling the problems of loneliness in later life.    Many older people are less able to get out and about, which can be the first steps towards a life of isolation.

My travels around the clouds continue (you can see more of my travel adventures by clicking on CLOUD SURFING in the TAG CLOUD).   Today I invite you to join me on a trip to unknown destinations around the world and an opportunity to talk to new and interesting people.    All at no cost and from the comfort of your own armchair.

 

We are going cloudsurfing to Mt Erie in Washington State, USA.

 

 

 

Courtesy of a blogger and photographer DJan who lives in Bellingham and regularly writes about trekking through the picturesque state of Washington.

 

 

This is a view one of DJan’s treks in April 2018.  It caught my eye because it’s from the Sugarloaf.  When I was a child, I used to walk up the Sugarloaf, but it wasn’t this one, it was a much lower mountain in South Wales.  It nonetheless in those days seemed like Mount Everest to me!

You can read more about DJan’s trekking by clicking on the link below:

http://djanstewart.blogspot.com/2018/04/mt-erie-and-sugarloaf-2018.html

In the weeks ahead, I will publish more blogs and photographs from my cloud surfing travels.

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