Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

March 2013

May 2013

What a difference two months makes. Enjoying seeing the changing English seasons for the first time in a number of years, after being based overseas. Today I did another 17 miles (that's 56 miles in the last 8 days). I'm training for Trailwalker UK in July which is 100km in 24 hours across the South Downs for Oxfam. All is going well and it's great to get out and about in the fresh air and appreciate the beautiful scenery around Hertfordshire. 

You will never influence the world by trying to be like it.

Art is a lie that makes us realize truth. Pablo Picasso

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And what I can do, I ought to do. And what I ought to do, by the grace of God, I shall do.” ― Edward Everett Hale

To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first. -Shakespeare

“I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me. Its because of them I’m doing it myself.” – Albert Einstein

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. Thomas Hardy

April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. William Shakespeare

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.” Pablo Nerruda

“The deep roots never doubt spring will come.” Marty Rubin

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Ralph Waldo Emmerson

“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness. Han Suyin

If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. ~Buddhist Saying

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. Rainer Maria Rilke

There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire. Jules Renard

“People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.” ― Emma Goldman

"No man knocks himself down; if his destiny knocks him down, his destiny must pick him up again." Charles Dickens

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. George Bernard Shaw

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. Charles Dickens

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. Charles Dickens

“Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.” ― L.M. Montgomery

Although it is not Mother's day for another week,
 it doesn't look like I will make it home.
So, I have  painted  this picture for my mum.
She will know why I have chosen this scene.

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.

A view of Sheffield City Centre from Meersbrook Park

“Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer the goal.” ― Elbert Hubbard

   

  

“But he who dares not grasp the thorn Should never crave the rose.” ― Anne Brontë

"If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us…” ― John Bunyan

The Chiltern Way

Bower Cottage, Lilley

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course. William Shakespeare,

Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. Joshua J. Marine

I went to the Natural History Museum, London, for my birthday, to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. The photo used for the publicity is of a raven, entitled 'Fluff-up'. Here's my interpretation.

“Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear. ” Marcus Aurelius

“With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable” ― Thomas Fowell Buxton

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty. John Ruskin

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong..” ― Winston Churchill

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened. Dr. Seuss

'