I'm back

I thought I'd tired of this blog, early last month.
It's all very well writing something every other day, just to prove one can still do the job, but it all gets a bit daunting to think that you're doing the thinking and typing and correcting stuff for an audience of just one or (perhaps) two. And let me hasten to add that I appreciate the response of my fellow, and fine writer, friend Jack, from over the waves.
My conscience tells me I've over-full of conceit. Did Shelley compose poetry aiming for mass response, or just for personal satisfaction? How about Shakespeare and his "deathless" prose, Mark Twain, or Charles Dickens?
Well, I'm sorry, conscience, but I'm confident they all, and most of their successors, expected loads of praise, at least, if not financial reward.
Not that I, of course, am really anywhere that ambitious (or deluded, as my wife would say, if asked). My days of writing for payment, or in the hope of changing history (local and rural) are long past, and "good riddance" I say, as I head for my dotage.
But I can't help remembering the complaint of a much neglected king, in a chilren's poem by (@) Mr A. A. Milne . . . . "Is there not just a little butter for the Royal slice of bread?
And so, of you happen to be visiting this site for the first time, please read on - find your way back to the beginning if you wish. Feel welcome, and I'd appreciate your comments.
(@) If you were raised without benefit of Milne's charming poems and tales, then you've been sadly deprived. Look him up, or "Christopher Robin"

A winner lost

I was part of a great idea, one night about 15 years ago. It was my "big chance for fame and fortune! "
I was on an anchored offshore yacht that evening, well launched into a bottle of fine red wine with a long term yachtie mate.
"What do you think of this for an idea?" I asked. I reckoned that my proposed remodelled gadget should be a big seller, and my friend (a former engineer) agreed. It would need to be properly designed, tested, promoted and financed, but "If we do it right we'll both make a fortune. We'll sell them all over the world!" he said.
So we finished that bottle and made good headway into a celebratory next, before acknowledging that a day's sailing makes you quite weary. . . .
A couple of months later I remembered that invention, asked my mate and he remembered it too.
Trouble was that he just couldn't remember just what that gadget was, or what it was for. And, to this day, I can't remember either.
That was a frustrating end to a short-lived dream, and I still test my memory of it during moments awake at night. I'm sure, too, that the yachties of the world are missing a gadget that would have changed their sport for the better.
Never mind, though - this (true) tale is just one of many great memories of a recreational obsession that lasted about 30 years.