A Bulging Album

I had the need to take a look through my photos the other day, needing to see what photos I had of the town for a project that I'm working on. It's a sobering sight; looking at just how my photography has dropped off so dramatically in the last decade or so.

I'm one of the die-hard users of Google's Picasa software for quickly finding my photos and it can order by folder as well as show how many photos are in each folder. Because I always file my images by year and date it becomes trivial to see how many I'm taking each year. The headline figures are still scary - 156,000 images taken digitally on whatever camera was my main device over the years. There are about another ten thousand taken with phone and pocket camera as well.

Taking more than 60,000 travel photos out of the equation leaves me with something around 100,000 that have been taken right here on the Isle of Man and it's a staggering number of images that almost defy explanation.

Still, let's try.

Firstly, and by far the biggest count is photos of the TT. I'm trigger happy and I've experimented extensively with multi-shot composites of bikes over the years. Without adding them all up precisely, it's clear that between fifty and fifty-five thousand of these are photos of bikes.

So, we're down to those 50,000 or so that are photos of the Isle of Man. I can easily explain 2,000 of them away as the usual daily junk that I've taken with my phone. There are countless photos of screens or the labels on routers and printers that I just never get around to throwing away.

Then there are about 2,000, taken on one day watching the F4SA Powerboat race in Douglas when I once again got carried away. The same is true for roughly a thousand from the last Jurby air show.

A thousand more are panorama shots. That might not sound like a lot, but this probably also accounts for up to 10,000 of the remaining total, as they are the shots that the panoramas are built from and I still keep everything.

If I take a little time and look through the rest, I find many of birds and flowers. From perhaps a thousand attempts to get a photo of a diving gannet to dozens of studies of primroses, roses, daffodils and daisies, there's much that I'm glad I have taken.

Beyond that, it's landscapes, seascapes, woodland walks and failed experiments. There's no rhythm, rhyme or reason to them all, but they tell a story of the last 25 years.

6,000 images a year on average. I'm well behind and it's time to get the numbers back up.

Right in Front of Me

I suppose that I always feel that the longest day of the year is the most important of the milestones that we use to mark the passage of time. Whether it feels like the start of the long descent into a dark and dreary winter or the beginning of a warm an pleasant summer is a metaphor for the passing of another year and the state of one's life.

For 2026, I don't yet feel as if I have a handle on which way I think it's all going. We've been here in Ramsey for about ten months now and I think I can truly say that I am settled into life in the busier surroundings of the town. There is something quite satisfying about being able to walk down to the Co-Op when the sun is shining, even if it's somewhere close to my walkable limit right now, particularly if I'm going to carry shopping.

I mentioned in the last post a little about my enjoyment of the view from my window and this continues to draw my eye far more than it should. It's bordering on a distraction, but I'm only reaching for the camera - actually, usually my phone - when the sun is low in the sky.

The best view is the one you both look at and appreciate. My yardstick for this is now simply the view that I can be bothered to take a picture of. Ramsey, looking north-west is apparently one of these views.

An Office With a View

 

At some point in the last six months, things just began to click into place. I can't say that I ever missed being in Jurby per se, but for a while I did feel truly out-of-place. Slowly, however, that seems to be changing. Now, this little apartment on the edge of town is becoming home. Even more surprising is that my brother seems to feel the same.

For me in particular, a great deal of the reason for this has to be the view. It is, honestly, something we really didn't have in Jurby, despite the possibilities. In many ways, my two office views are similar. Both look out of a bedroom/office over the rooftops.

In Jurby, however, that view was of close bungalow roofs and only the sky beyond. There wasn't much to see out of the window, apart from the odd gull, rook or pigeon.

Here, in Ramsey, that is totally different. I still see the rooftops of the bungalows opposite, but here I'm high enough up that the view is of the whole of town, or so it seems on a bright and clear day. You don't really get to see the movements of people in the town, but you get a real sense of what the day is like. Trees blow in the wind, the mist closes in as the rain falls and the roofs get dusted with snow on those rare days when we actually have some.

The sea is tantalisingly just out of direct view. I need to stand in the lounge window and look out to the right to see a bit of the Pier and the bay, but even that minor detraction doesn't bother me anymore.

It's dynamic and interesting in a way that the view in Jurby just wasn't able to be. Now, if only I can manage to not let it distract me from either work or writing!

The MANXNET Thing

I'm trying my best to be understanding under the circumstances, but I've been bleating on about this happening for more than three years now and have spent much of that time trying to get people to switch to some other mail service.

There must come a time when, no matter how much you are attached to the nostalgia and familiarity of a thing, it is time to let go. Even that old car gets sent to scrap when your feet are rubbing on the ground as you drive along. All things must pass.

Rubbish

My fondness for the manx.net email platform is very different from that of anyone else. I earn so much from helping people to keep it working that I'll actually be sorry to see it go. Well, I'll be sorry to see the income from it go, at least.

Frankly, for the last ten years or so, the service from MT for this part of their business has been abysmal. It's not just bad, it's bloody awful. In an ill-advised push to get everyone to use a web-based interface, they have neglected the support for POP3 and IMAP users on home computers and basically disowned them. Indeed, they probably only keep IMAP working for their thousands of mobile-phone users.

The Offer

So, for basically £80 per year, they will allow you to keep your email address and continue to use it with the same service provider - something new called Jumara that appears to have been created specifically to be a new brand. The backbone is provided by ATMAIL who are apparently respected in the field of providing email services to entities like MT. Sadly, they don't seem to be highly rated - https://au.trustpilot.com/review/www.atmail.com.

Some of the reviews hit home hard. Servers randomly down for indeterminate periods sounds eerily familiar.

Perhaps the oddest thing about all of this is that they are starting to sell this new service as a step forward at a point where the POP3 and IMAP servers are actually down for many people. They would apparently have been better to have taken manx.net out the back and quietly despatched it!

The Alternatives?

Well, whatever you do, don't go with their ridiculous offer. There are countless alternatives and options out there. Changing your email isn't as bad as you might think and it can be a good chance to get rid of all that stuff that you're subscribed to but never read.

If you already have a GMAIL, HOTMAIL/LIVE/OUTLOOK, ICLOUD or YAHOO address, then perhaps just keep on using that. If you don't, then these are good options for switching.

Slightly less well-known are providers like PROTON or MAIL.COM. Do a search for "FREE EMAIL PROVIDERS" and take a look at the many options out there.

Finally - and not as complex as you might think - is the creation of your own email accounts on a domain of your choosing. Almost any website hosting company will offer unlimited email addresses and massive amounts of storage when you buy a domain name. They can offer full functionality for a fraction of the cost. I pay less than £40 per year for my david@dkinrade.com address with FREEOLA.

The Bottom Line

Don't get caught by the trap. 

YOU HAVE TIME TO THINK ABOUT THIS

You do not have to stick with manx.net just because it is familiar. They are too expensive and far too unreliable to be worth hanging on to.

Explore the alternatives - this is what searching the internet is for.

Shout if you need help. There are always options and I'm happy to chat. I'll even try and avoid all the jargon and keep it in English!

India - There We Went

So, our epic Indian quest is over, with a high degree of success, tempered by one or two epic failures. I've finally managed to see a tiger - four of them in fact - but missed out on snow leopard and Pallas's cats.

Still, hundreds of new birds have been added to the list and I've discovered that I can indeed survive at 14,000ft, even if it's a bloody struggle.

The link to the trip report - with some photos - is on the right and the usual published book version will be coming along very soon.

India - Here We Go!

Well, we're nearly ready to go again. So much has happened in the last three months that, all things considered, it was touch-and-go whether I would cancel this trip at more than one point. In the end though, Dad would have wanted me to go, no matter what happened and that's what I've decided to do. There might even be a little bit of my usual nervousness having been responsible for my doubts along the way.

It's tricky, when everyone around you is either telling you that India is wonderful or that India is terrible, to come to your own view without actually going and seeing for yourself. I only have my travelling companions to truly rely on in this regard. Fred has consistently repeated, time and time again, that he really doesn't like India, for a number of reasons. However, he keeps coming up with an excuse to go back, meaning that there must be something really worthwhile to draw him, despite his reservations.

This time, that was a set of photos on a trip report made by some of his friends on Trip Advisor. All he had to do was show them to me as well and I was hooked. While the main focus of this trip might be those huge striped cats, there does really seem to be so much more to be seen.

Our trip will be a little bird-heavy. Sometimes this is a complaint, especially when it is in a place that you've visited before, but India's birds will be mostly new to me and that's just fine. I've called "Jungle Fowl" in almost every country in Africa, only to be consistently told that the roadside chickens aren't native. Now's my big chance to tick it off the list once and for all. That's probably also true for peacocks and pheasants.

So, I have my passport, I have my Visa and I have my yellow fever card. Cameras have been checked, new batteries have been purchased - at great expense - and my laptop has been cleared for the influx of photographs. I'm as ready as I'll ever be to experience India on my own terms and I'm ready!

Safari 2025 - Technically Not!

There's a pretty strong argument that the word Safari, although meaning a journey to hunt for wild animals, should be solely associated with doing so in Africa. Over time, of course, this definition has loosened considerably and I'm pretty happy to call this upcoming trip a Safari.

I'm really stepping out of my comfort zone this time. Twice - at least - my friends have planned trips here and I've declined on both occasions. The first time, I simply couldn't afford to go, but the second time I felt that it just wasn't a country I wanted to actually visit. Fred, in particular, keeps going back but constantly tells me that he doesn't like the place and there have been many pronouncements of "Never Again" over the years.

And, where is this place? India.

Now, India is a very big country and, as always, our time will be limited. This calls for careful planning and considerable sacrifice. Here's the basic plan for our trip:

• Fly out from Heathrow on February 25th to Delhi
• Overnight in Delhi
• Drive to Agra for two nights to see Taj Mahal, etc
• Boat Trip on Chambal River - looking for crocodiles and gharial
• Haiderpur Wetlands - Lots of birds
• Three lodges in and around Jim Corbett National Park -  six days looking for Tigers!!!
• Manila and Sattal in the Himalaya Foothills around Nanda Devi - scenery and more birds
• Drive back to Delhi for one night
• Fly to Leh in Ladakh
• Six days to explore:
• Khardung La and Tanglung La - High road mountain passes above 17,000 feet!
• Tso Kar - High mountain lake for rare birds
• Hanle - Possible to see a Pallas's Cat
• Plenty of time to look for Snow Leopard, Tibetan Fox, Wolf, Lynx, Red Fox, etc.
• Back to Delhi for one more night
• Return to Heathrow and then home on March 23rd

So, Agra is as far south as we get, but primarily this is Northern India in the extreme. For me, the highlight will, of course, be Corbett. In some ways, tigers are the only thing that make me want to go to India enough to finally do so.

Having said that, there's plenty more to be seen. This is the Himalayas. Nanda Devi is the highest mountain entirely in India and then we head even deeper into the mountains by going to Ladakh.

Leh, at more than 11,000 feet is our starting point. This is technically the low point between the western end of the Himalayas and the Karakoram range to the north, the valley of the Indus River. As we land, we might glimpse the summit of K2 at more than 28,000 feet. We'll head out wherever the roads are open. I've no real expectation of seeing either the snow leopard or Pallas's cat, but there is hope always.

That Elephant Encounter - Video

One of the things that I never - well almost never - manage is to take any video while I'm on safari. Once in a while I'll remember that I have my phone in my pocket and even more rarely I'll remember that video is a thing.

I'm just not a videographer. Photos are what work for me and I don't even have to think about taking them, it is just automatic. And that applies whether it is reaching for the big camera, the compact camera or the phone - indeed it is sometimes a case of reaching for all three to capture as much information and variety of shots as possible.

The point is, for the most part, I have to rely on others to capture video for me and, luckily, Emmy is often there to pick up the slack. Here is his short clip from our first proper elephant encounter from Akagera in Rwanda.

Safari 2024 - Trip Report

So, the 2024 safari to Rwanda and Tanzania is now over and we are all safely back home. It is, as usual, time to complete my trip report and start work on the book of the trip. As always, this is a fairly long and involved process, made simpler by my writing more than ten thousand words while away. I'm working on the final layout of the large-format book and, as I am still in the process of working on the whole series as a set of paperbacks, I am working on that version at the same time.

Each report gets longer and more rambling than the last and I should apologise for that in advance. I've broken it into what I hope are logical sections and it is all at the link on the right or by following this link HERE.

On Safari 2024

This is just a quick reminder to everybody that I'm off on safari again. I leave on the morning of 14th of February and won't be back on the island until the 10th of March.

We are travelling to Rwanda, but starting our actual safari across the border in Tanzania. We'll be exploring the southern shores of Lake Victoria as far as the Serengeti before turning round and coming back to finish with five days in Rwanda.

You might get me on email, WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger if you need something urgent, but clearly I won't be able to do much until I get back. I will be roaming in a very expensive country, so don't expect me to answer the phone.

The Communications Conundrum

The Year in Review

After more than three years at home, 2023 marked my return to travel and an epic return to Africa. The trip was the hardest we'd ever had together and it left me simultaneously drained and re-invigorated. On the one hand, I now hated the process of travelling and decried the failings of confused airline personnel. On the other, I had seen some magnificent mammals and birds and the new camera and lens combination had performed magnificently.

I had, as has become a habit, started work on the write-up for my coffee-table book about the trip whilst I was there. It gives me something to do on a very hot afternoon. I can sit on the veranda and work on my laptop for an hour or so every couple of days and be almost ready to go with the text as soon as I get back. I finished the book in record time and found myself really enjoying the writing process, almost more than the holiday itself.

Once I started, I couldn't stop. I'd always had a desire to write a novel, but also wanted to write an autobiography of sorts. I combined the two and, having satisfied myself that I could actually do it, buried the autobiographical novel in the depths of my hard drive to never see the light of an embarrassing day. But I had ideas flooding my brain and just kept on going. By August I had pretty much burned myself out for a time, having written and published 3 full novels on Amazon. I stalled in the fourth novel, however and only managed to come back to it at the end of the year, publishing it at the very end of December.

Meanwhile, I created a paperback version of my travel book and then went on to publish three small volumes of photographs, again on Amazon. Frankly, writing and publishing is addictive. As the year turns over, I have started another novel and words are flowing pretty well. So, 2023 is all about words. More than 300,000 published words if we are counting.

As for the rest of my year, I guess it has been much like any other. My blood-pressure has been brought under control by medication and my general mood seems to be improving, probably thanks in part to taking Vitamin D. I am indeed a year older and the aches and pains are probably to be expected. Nothing life-threatening though. I continue to work as usual, spreading my time out between the workshop in Maughold and my regular customers.

My friends and I have made plans to return to Africa in February once more. Again we will be in Tanzania - around the shores of Lake Victoria with a few days in Rwanda, a new country for me to add to the list.

The Conundrum

So, for all my personal success in getting words onto the page and out into the world, there remains the increasingly difficult problem of personal communications. I have written at length here in the past about my anxieties and mental health issues. It isn't something that just goes away and, indeed, it seems to come and go as time passes.

For much of the second half of 2023 I have had very severe problems with personal communications. I've always had issues with using the telephone. I'm always very happy to answer a call and get stuff sorted. I just always find it difficult to make an outgoing call. It's a problem that I've always been conscious of, but I do try my best to work around it. Sometimes, however, I just can't do it. This year has been particularly bad and this communications anxiety - for wont of a better word - has spread to other forms of communication as well.

I now find it almost as difficult to respond to an email, Whatsapp, Facebook or text message. I normally get there in the end, but at the very least it can take a couple of days for me to simply work up to formulating a reply. It's not always like that, of course. On some days I can respond quickly and simply to an incoming message as soon as I get the chance and spontaneous questions are far more likely to get a quick answer.

I'm far from convinced that it is something that I will ever get over. I can only apologise to anybody who has expected a response from me and not received one. For anybody who needs a more immediate response, then probably best to call me on my mobile. If I don't come back to you, then leave it for an hour or two and try again. If I answer, everything will be fine. If I don't then I may just be unable to return the call. Don't feel that you are bugging me, it probably is helping.

The Upgrade

If 2022 was the year of the camera, then 2024 is the year of the computer.

I last built myself a new desktop computer at the very end of 2017. I went all-out to build something that was close to state-of-the-art for the time in the hope that it would last me a while. I've had a couple of upgrades in the intervening six years, but it has worked pretty much flawlessly for that time.

Still, the art does advance and I was starting to find that some software was beginning to feel a little sluggish. I've discovered the power of Topaz Photo AI and frankly the processing power needed for it to work well is staggering. I had the graphics card, but the main processor and memory were lacking. Even some of the new features of Adobe Photoshop push the old system to its limits.

Anyway, over the last few months I've built up a set of new components and created a totally new PC tower that should hopefully keep me going for another few years. I don't think I've ever done a rundown of my hardware, so here goes.

It's now an AMD Ryzen 7 7700 processor with 32Gb of DDR5 memory on an ASUS B650 mainboard. Storage is provided by a 1TB Crucial NVME SSD as a main drive with a pair of 4TB Samsung 870 SATA SSD drives for data and main backup. I use an external 4TB portable hard drive for secondary backup.

Display is provided by an AMD Radeon 6600 Graphics card that drives three 32-inch ViewSonic monitors at 2560x1440 pixels. I run Windows 11 Professional and it is as up-to-date as possible.

I still have my 14-inch Huawei laptop that I use for diagnostics and travel as well.

Into 2024

So, another year has passed and we are all alive and reasonably well. I've a great holiday to look forward to in February and am keen to keep on with my writing.

Quick Update

 

So, this might be a bit of a roundabout way of doing things, but there are some updates on my publishing website and it's nice to make sure that people are aware.

I've published (or am waiting for final printed proofs of) two new books on Amazon. The first is the next in my series of small-format photo books and is dedicated to lions. Actually, the whole series hasn't really been pushed out here or on the other site.

The second is my latest novel, a sequel of sorts to Hard-wired for Love, entitled Another Horizon. It's a sexy, technical sci-fi tale about interplanetary love and the quest for the colonisation of distant worlds.

Hop over to ThePridePride for more details.

Safari 2024 - Tanzania (Again)

Well, the last few months have been a bit of a roller-coaster from a possible travel point of view. We went from being determined to not go again to possibly doing an epic Spine of Africa road-trip to finally settling on something a little more modest. This will be my tenth safari to Africa and, as always and despite the hard work that the last trip involved, I am really looking forward to it.

Preliminary Route and Location Map

Our usual group of four is down to three for this trip, Elizabeth deciding to stay behind for this one, leaving myself, Fred and Chris to travel out and join Emmy, our driver and guide, who is coming over from Uganda to look after us. Fred is doing a sterling job of organisation as usual, co-ordinating with local assistance to get us the best deals at the best locations.

We're going to start with a couple of firsts. It will be my first time flying out of Heathrow. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad one, but the times of all the flights mean that we won't have an overnight in either direction, having night flights for the long-hauls instead.

Secondly, as the map shows, we are flying direct to Kigali in Rwanda. Another country to tick off on my list. We're not just using it as a drop-in point, we are going to spend a few days in Akagera National Park on the way home.

Anyway, here's the provisional itinerary (and it may be subject to minor changes.

• February 14th - Fly from The Isle of Man to London then overnight to Rwanda.
  
  A long flight, but we can sleep through it and be fairly fresh for a moderate drive to our first destination.
  
  
• February 15th - Drive from Kigali to Burigi-Chato National Park in Tanzania.
  
  It's a fairly newly gazetted national park, but it will be well worth the visit. Sitatunga antelopes and Shoebill are high on my list of things to see here. Two nights at the Chato Beach Resort.
  
  We'll move on to have a three nights out on Rubondo Island. The whole island is a nature reserve famed for its primates and birds.
  
  Finally, back to Chato Beach Resort for one more night before moving on.
  
  
• February 21st - Sandmark Hotel on Speke Gulf
  
  Plenty to see and do on the shores of Lake Victoria for a couple of nights to break up the drive.
  
  
• February 23rd - Serengeti to Ikoma
  
  We drive east into the vastness of the Serengeti. I've been to Seronera briefly before, but it will be nice to go back, even if we are just passing through on the way a little further north to Ikoma. Lots of big game to be seen, but plenty of birds as well.
  
  
• February 26th - Mwitongo Lodge, Butiama
  
  We drive north to Butiama through the Grumeti Game Reserve. From Butiama we can explore the mouth of the Mara river and the hopefully bird-filled papyrus beds to be found there.
  
  
• February 29th - Speke Bay Lodge
  
  Hopefully time to get out on the water and explore the birdlife of the vastness of Lake Victoria. Plenty of game-viewing excursions to be had as well.
  
  
• March 3rd - The Drive Back
  
  We haven't settled on an overnight location on the long drive back just yet, but we'll find something.
  
  
• March 4th - Akagera
  
  Five days in the National Park at two different location should give us plenty of opportunity to see the big five and lots of other game. There are lakes to be explored as well.
  
  
• March 9th - Kigali and Home
  
  Return to Kigali for our overnight flight back to Heathrow.
  
  
• March 10th - Home
  
  Chris leaves us at Heathrow and we fly back to the Island.

So, three and a half weeks to explore the southern shores of Lake Victoria. No doubt hundreds of bird species, but I'm looking forward to seeing my fair share of big game and there are always some surprises to be had.

Red White and Royal Blue

I know what you're thinking. He's been watching more gay romance, hasn't he?

Well, yes, yes I have.

Following on from my enduring enjoyment of both series one and two of Heartstopper, I finally got round to watching Red White & Royal Blue. These light-hearted gay romance movies and shows are now becoming a more accepted and common feature in the schedules of major streaming companies and this is Amazon at it's very best. That such a movie can go right to the top of their streaming viewership is no longer a surprise.

I haven't read the best-selling book that the movie is based on yet, but I do intend to and it has been on my radar for a little while. No doubt there are changes from one medium to another, but this is true with all adaptations and one needs to learn to roll with it.

I get that the whole enemies to lovers trope has probably been played a little too much over the years, but it is a tried and true method to introduce just enough drama into a movie and here, although it is managed with maybe just a little too much lightness, it does work well. From the outright antagonism of their first on-screen encounter at the wedding it does seem to move towards grudging acceptance of each other just a little too quickly for me. I can accept that the movie needs to move the story along, but I would like to see them struggle a little harder to find common ground.

The big take-away from the film, though, is that movies can now show gay couples being intimate without it appearing to be anything other than loving and enjoyable for all concerned. The fact that they can do this while maintaining a 12 rating (though possibly only just and rated by Amazon) is even more of a positive. When so much of the world is moving in the wrong direction on LGBTQ+ rights, it is wonderful to see modern media in the west just getting on with it.

What is also made clear as the plot progresses is that for many people, that fear of leaving the closet is a very real and deeply affecting one. I have to admit to being able to relate to this in a very personal way and perhaps this is what makes this sort of movie a delight for me in my latter years. That continuing feeling that I would have lived a better life if the portrayal of gay relationships in the media were like they are now when I was much younger never leaves me. It is tempered by a hope that, for young people who now do have the opportunity to see such endearing and uplifting work, they can gain strength and comfort from seeing excellent representation in the media.

Ultimately, everyone enjoys a happy ending and Red White & Royal blue delivers where it counts.

It is available to stream on Amazon Prime HERE.

Heartstopper Season Two

I don't generally wait with much enthusiasm for a new television show's new season to be released, but I'm definitely prepared to make an exception for Heartstopper. I'm not going to go so far as to suggest that season one was life-changing, but it really was life-affirming. I've already documented here just how much it made me reflect on my past and how things could have been so different if the world was a more tolerant place when I was the age of the target audience for this wonderful show.

It's taken me a couple of watches to get my thoughts in order about season two and overall I'm very happy with the series. It truly carries on where it left off and follows the original material close enough to give a number of nods to the scenes in the original graphic novels. As many commentators and reviewers have pointed out, one of the key successes of Heartstopper as a whole is the family-friendly nature of the show. It may be unrealistic to portray a couple of teenage guys limiting themselves to kissing, but it makes the show suitable for the target teenage audience.

As is to be expected, the acting is of a very high standard and the whole cast seem to slip seamlessly back into their roles from season one. There is a little more drama this season and the underlying issues with Charlie's mental health are strongly hinted at as the season progresses. The storyline is shaping up to potentially be one of the best depictions of teenage mental health and eating disorders ever. Even Isaac's turmoil and uncertainty about his potential asexuality are well handled. I'm sure everyone feels the need to tell their friends to mind their own business once in a while. 

The overarching theme of this season is that coming out is hard and it shouldn't be. I can only agree wholeheartedly. Straight people will never understand because they never have to explain. I've been lucky enough to have had no negative experiences in my personal journey of self-acceptance, but I'm certain that the story would have been very different if I'd been honest enough with myself to be open about my sexuality forty years ago.

Sadly, as I've made clear here, there are still many places in the world that are not as accepting, tolerant or understanding and perhaps shows like Heartstopper that emphasise that love is love can slowly make these places understand the reality of life.

So, if you have Netflix, I'd recommend giving Heartstopper a try. Do watch the first season though, or the story will make little sense. Personally, I'm going to struggle to wait a year or more for season three.

I Will Not Go Back

I might have mentioned, when writing up my trip report on my recent safari to Tanzania, just how saddened I was by the fact that Tanzania is one of those African nations with a poor LGBTQIA+ tolerance record. Fundamentally, the more comfortable I become with myself, the less comfortable I feel being in the intolerant places.

Uganda, perhaps more than the other places I have visited, has consistently had the most toxic atmosphere when it comes to being gay. This week, they have once more voted to make the laws surrounding homosexuality even harsher than they already are. There's been a lot of hype surrounding the use of capital punishment, but this is meant to be only for "aggravated homosexual acts". Yes, maybe, but the wording is so vague that anything could happen to anyone.

What is much more egregious, however, is the fact that it will be illegal to even identify as gay. Just saying "I'm gay," could leave you in prison. When I travel to Africa with my friends, I'm the gay one. I'm the one with the pride badge on my sun hat and the jacket with rainbow-flag coloured, almost kissing, male lions embroidered on the back to travel in. I travel to Africa because I love the scenery and the wildlife. I don't travel to Africa looking for sex - frankly, with the HIV rates across the continent you'd be insane to do so -  but then I don't travel anywhere else looking for sex either!

Lake Mulehe and the Virunga Volcanoes, Uganda

Uganda is a wonderful country. It has stunning scenery, magnificent wildlife, welcoming people and a vibrancy that is hard to compare. I have travelled with these people, work even now with some of them and would love to go back to those places that I like so much again in the future. Like much of Africa, however, the country is dragged down time and again by corruption and self-interest.

With great sadness, I will not be going back for the foreseeable future. It's bad enough when a place has laws that makes it illegal to love, but when they step over the line and make it illegal to even say who you are, then they've gone too far.

We, the collective West - although these days that really just means Europe and the predominantly white Commonwealth nations, you are getting to the point where the USA isn't a tolerant country anymore either - will not change the minds of the people in power in Uganda. They are driven by hatred, greed and a constant desire to find someone else to blame for their own failings, politically, socially and economically.

They may change their minds, if other nations threaten to review their aid programs. They may say tourists are welcome, whatever their orientations or identities. They will, one day, come to realize that inclusive society is a better option than an exclusive one. There will be pain and there will be suffering before they realize this though.

More likely, they will simply happily stew in their religion-fuelled self-righteousness, praying to God that their wives don't find out about their mistresses and thanking Him fervently for giving them the wealth to pay for one more night with their favourite prostitute.

The world is short-sighted enough without bigotry and the only choice I can make is to leave them to it.

Farewell, Uganda, I'll miss you.

Romance and Love. Heartbreak and Heartache.

Romance

I've been reading a lot of romance lately. I don't know what started this change in my reading genre - possibly Heartstopper - but I actually enjoy a good love story now and I'm clearly not ashamed to admit it. Also, rather unsurprisingly, there's a lot of really good gay romance out there to be read. Now, some of it - quite a lot really - gets a bit steamy (well actually really steamy), but I'm okay with that too from time to time. Some of it is a bit to "angsty" for my liking, but you have to take books one at a time - not all will be to your taste. Just like most people though, I do love a happy ending!

The best part is that there's loads of it available for free - or for cheap - on sites such as Tapas.

Aromantic

I do think it's odd though, that I like reading about love and romance, as I don't really relate all that well to the whole romantic attraction thing. Thinking about it, I begin to wonder if I should class myself as "aromantic". That's one of the meanings for the A in LGBTQIA+ - the other being asexual, which I'm definitely not.

Like every term on the queer spectrum, being aromantic can be a matter of degree. Most people, myself included, are not totally one thing or another. I'm most comfortable these days defining my sexual orientation as gay, but for a time I preferred bisexual, as I do have some attraction to the opposite sex - just much more towards men than women. Being aromantic isn't an orientation and can mean different things to different people and isn't an all or nothing state of being. See HERE. 

So, for me, I can and do feel physical - or sexual - attraction, even though I don't feel it strongly and never really had a crush on anyone as a teen. I don't, or at least only very slowly, feel any kind of  emotional attraction or romantic feelings for someone, even if the physical attraction is there.

Coming back to fictional romance, I can now see why some of the protagonists have a hard time with that big declaration of love. Saying "I love you" in a romantic situation is a big deal for many, and possibly an even bigger thing for someone who is - knowingly or not - aromatic.

Love

When I first told someone that I loved him, it was because I though I was losing him. I told him that I loved him as a way to make him understand how I was feeling - of course - but, also, as a way to articulate what I though I was losing. Now, I know he didn't feel the same way, but for me, even thinking about our relationship in terms of love was something of a difficult concept to grasp.

We'd been in our comfortable, fairly casual, mostly uncommitted physical relationship for a couple of years. I really hate the term "friends with benefits", but in some ways that does describe what we had fairly well. When he decided he wanted to step back from the physical side of our relationship - he wanted to be straight (or at least thought he did at the time) and was going to date a girl - I spiralled because I though I would lose my friend as well. It actually took me a while to realize that I was actually in love with him and he was breaking my heart by - in my mind - abandoning me and what I thought we had.

Heartbreak

Alfred, Lord Tennyson may have been genuine in his feelings when he wrote " 'Tis better to have loved and lost" when speaking about the sudden loss of a dear friend, but most scholars accept that he was talking about brotherly love, not romantic love. That's "brotherly love" in the sense of friends and family.

Whatever Tennyson thought, having one's heart broken is a very real and painful thing. I took more than two years to recover to any real degree. I needed therapy and I needed medication, to deal with the associated depression and anxiety. This despite the fact that we soon returned to our normal friendly, beneficial relationship status.

I had taken years to fall in love with him - or at least, years to realize that I loved him - and only moments to have my heart broken by him. There is no blame here. He said and did what he felt was best for himself - and maybe even for me - at the time. I cannot and do not blame him for being him.

Our relationship was never quite the same afterwards. We still sometimes needed each other physically, but we just seemed a little distant. Very slowly, we drifted further apart and finally just stopped even contacting one-another for several years.

When we did, after a long break, finally talk to each other again, it was a very different dynamic and it was clear that much had changed between us. He was gay, out, open and in a long-term relationship. I was still me. It is possible to still be friends after being more, but it really is difficult and almost seems to be too - I want to say tentative, strained, anxious - forced. He did make me realize that it was okay to be gay though and that helped greatly with my own decision to come out and be more comfortable with myself.

Heartache

So, I might be aromantic, but given time - and, of course, the right person - I can feel love and be in love with someone. Sadly, that also means that I can have my heart broken.

Heartbreak turns into heartache in time. For me, just as I was so slow to love, so am I slow to recover and the heartache remains - perhaps for all time - as a dully remembered pain deep inside my chest. Sometimes, the related depression wells back up to the surface and, perhaps for a few days when the nights are long, dark and lonely, I feel the heartache more strongly and struggle to think of the good times rather than the bad.

The worst part is that, having loved, I now miss the feeling. Even if, for me, the feeling can take so long to develop, I sometimes wish I could feel love for someone again. All my other anxieties and fears make this highly unlikely - I'm never going to get out there and socialize, am I - but now I have a few nice romance novels to lose myself in when the need arises.

Tennyson may have been right, but a part of me still thinks that, if I had never fallen in love with someone, I wouldn't now have to live forever with the heartache of losing him. And, sometimes, randomly, it does still hurt - and I hate that!

Therapy is HARD

This is one of the hardest posts I've written in some time. Any that are tagged as self therapy or mental wellbeing are deeply personal and emotionally draining. I'm afraid that that's the point of what makes them therapeutic. The writing process here gets this stuff out of my system and, ultimately, I find this helpful. even if no-one reads them, I still have the knowledge that I bared my soul to some degree.

Writing about this man who played such a big part in my emotional and physical life is also hard. I'm very conscious of not saying too much and have even gone back and forth for several days now, unsure of whether to post or delete this. Wellington may have said "Publish and be Damned!", but I don't seek damnation or notoriety. I don't just write a stream of consciousness and press post. I, hopefully, pick my words carefully.

Very few people even know that there was anything more than a friendship there and no-one knew at the time. There doesn't need to be a name here. It's not my place to say. If he happens to read this, I hope he understands that it's a commentary and not a condemnation.

The Pride Pride Updates

I've just been doing a little work on The Pride Pride website. It is always a work in progress, but I do like to keep things up-to-date when there's the possibility of a new book (or books) in the works.

Hop over using this link or by clicking on the option on the main toolbar above to get all the latest.

Tanzania 2023 Trip Report

As always, there is a comprehensive report on my latest Safari trip to Africa. It's been more than three years since the last one and I've worked hard to get this one done quickly.

I found it a very hard trip - I am older every time after all - but much of that was soon overcome by some fantastic mammal and bird sightings. As a big bonus, the camera and lens that I'd worried so much about spending a small fortune on worked wonderfully and helped me capture some of the best pictures I've ever managed.

Follow the link to start reading: Tanzania 2023

(Note: I updated the text on 8/3/23 to bring it in line with my master for the upcoming paperback version and the version available on Blurb.com)

A New Toy - Ricoh Pentax K3 Mark III

Couldn't Resist

I'd pretty much always planned to replace my main camera at some point, but particularly if I was going to go back to Africa. I had resigned myself to waiting until the end of the year and seeing if there might be a bit of an offer around Black Friday. It was always going to be expensive, but the current camera is more than eight years old and starting to get a little bit twitchy in the buttons. It really doesn't owe me anything, having been to Kenya, Namibia, Botswana, Uganda and Zambia with me and taken almost 60,000 photos.

So, I've splurged far too much money on a new one, as the prices were heavily discounted and inflation is rampant. This is a Pentax K3 Mark III, and it's better than the old K3 in just about every field except perceived battery life. I'll need a lot of time to get used to it, but I've still got a full six months until I head off to Tanzania and I should be used to it's quirks by then.

I'm starting off slow with a few simple landscapes and lots of plants to test out the colour response, but so far, it is nothing short of fantastic. Everything is quick, intuitive and very smooth. I've got to do lots of adjustments to get the Autofocus response and the colour settings just how I like them, but that shouldn't take too long once I spend a few hours just taking photos.

Sadly for my bank account, I couldn't resist finally getting something to replace the venerable - but now long gone - Sigma 50-500mm zoom as well. That something is the Pentax 150-450mm HD D-FA F4.5-5.6ED DC AW. (That's quite a mouthful, but it describes a 150mm to 450mm zoom lens designed for full frame with fancy glass in the lenses and special coatings on the glass). It's been back-ordered, so a good job I decided to get it now rather than in the autumn.

That's by far the most money I've ever spent on a single item without wheels - twice in a row. The lens is even more expensive than the camera body and I've now got to try and get my money's worth out of the combination.

A Few Samples

I'll add a couple of photos here to give just a hint of the quality that comes right out of the camera. They are all taken with the K3 Mk III and my trusty but compact Tamron 18-200mm walk-about lens. I'm starting off slow, trying to get a feel for the colours and focussing abilities first.