Today, Saturday 31st March 2007, I walked round the neighbourhood soon after 9 p.m.

As I walked out the front door, a fox in the front garden was taken by surprise and shot off at speed out of the front entrance, across the road and into a neighbour’s garden.

It was a great example of the flight response. Later, as I walked up Wimborne Avenue I experienced the fight response as a dog with a loud and fearsome bark sent out a challenge to me.

This week I have been writing about Samantha Mumba, the Irish singer sensation who now lives in Los Angeles. Harvey Goldsmith the impresario sees LA as ‘la la land’ where people live in the land of dreams rather than reality.

However, most of the world is ‘la,la land’ since so many of us relish dreams of success without taking the steps necessary to achieve it. Harvey succeeded in getting Samantha to reluctantly take enough steps to achieve some success at least.

West Ham scored two goals today and are beginning to believe they can achieve something from each game. Belief, as always, is key since it can lead to confident action.

Today, Wednesday 28th March, I took the long neighbourhood route before lunch.

Yesterday, I had taken my camera and photographed some more lamp posts, the taxi with the Flora ad, several trees and several houses.

A few people were about. One girl stood at her door with the inevitable mobile phone to her ear. The mobile phone is like the old cigarette which was everywhere not that long ago.

Hopefully, the mobile phone will not lead to cancer in the way that some rumours have suggested. Similar rumours about cigarettes became accepted facts later on.

A dog barked at me in Kevington drive but it kept a respectful distance. It was nervous but excited and enjoying itself at the same time.

My granddad used to encourage his lakeland terrier to bark. He seemed to enjoy the barking almost as much as the dog. He was a great man and I regret not fully appreciating him till he was gone.

There is much, like good health and energy, that we do not appreciate until they have gone. At least, everyday I appreciate the fact that a comfortable bed is easily available any time I feel like having a nap.

In fact, I will have one now!

Today, Sunday, 25th March 2007, was the start of British Summer Time. It is now 2.31 p.m. instead of 1.31 p.m. The clocks have gone forward one hour.

The person who thought up this clever little scheme was William Willett whose memorial can be seen in the header to this blog. He lived in the Chislehurst area and at least one road is named after him – Willett Way.

I ran into my next door neighbour, Doug, as I walked round the neighbourhood at noon today. He was not happy about British Summer Time:

“I wish they’d leave that blasted hour alone!” he opined. “The kids have been up half the night!”

He then rushed on. He only pauses long enough to utter one or two witticisms or statements that make me laugh and then is gone.

In a way, we have been robbed of one hour although we will get it back at the end of summer time.

It is amazing what can be achieved in one hour a day. If you work at a skill for one hour a day for six months you can reach a level of competence.

An hour a day for a year or two can work miracles. Maybe Doug is right: “Don’t you mess with my hour!”

J called to me out of her upstairs window as I walked past her house:”Are you doing your daily dozen?”

She was very busy so I walked on to Clarendon Way. The sound of a high powered car could be heard as it approached at speed.

It was bright red and had the prancing horse symbol of a Ferrari. You could see how proud the owner was to possess this huge status symbol.

He roared up and down Clarendon Way several times and then disappeared in the direction of Petts Wood. Good luck to him.

Life is so short that no should be grudged anything that fills them with enthusiasm so long as they do not harm anyone else.

Today is Saturday 24th March 2007. I first visited Morrisons in Petts Wood and used all available stairs to improve my fitness.

There are two sets of steps at the railway station and one set in Morrisons. It is better to avoid the lift in Morrisons and lose some calories before buying some more!

Walking and running up hills and stairs until you are breathless are considered by many experts to be the very best form of exercise.

I then headed over to Eltham to collect my step brother for his birthday lunch. As I walked along Archery Road I passed two teenage boys. One said to the other:

“I don’t care. If he beats me up I’ll put it in him.”

I assumed, possibly wrongly, that he meant he would put a knife into whoever he thought might beat him up. 6 teenage boys have been knifed and killed in the last week or two in London and many teenage boys carry knives for self-defence.

Obviously this is not a good thing and is illegal but it is understandable. Stephen Lawrence was knifed to death in Eltham on the road which leads to Woolwich.

If he had had a knife with him, he might have escaped death. Bullies are probably less keen to use their knives if they know their victim is armed and might hurt or kill them.

The name of the road, Archery Road, suggests the times when English men were commanded by the King to practise archery every Sunday in case their skills with the bow were needed to defend England against her enemies.

King Henry VIII spent some of his youth in Eltham and may even have developed his archery skills there!

In the evening I walked round the neighbourhood. One or two people were out and about but I did not meet anybody that I knew.

I stepped off the pavement to let a couple and their dog pass. The man said ‘Thank You.”

He was the complete opposite of the youths I had met a few days ago who blocked the path and did not show any appreciation of the fact that I walked in the road to avoid bumping into them.

Today, Tuesday, my walking was done near Orpington Hospital after I parked my car up a nearby road.

The Hospital car park was full. I chatted to the lady sitting next to me in the waiting room after asking her what number she was in the queue for a blood test.

She showed me 70. I had already been waiting an hour with my sister whose number was 3. In fact the lady’s number was 4. She had been reading the wrong side of her ticket.

She told me that she had ‘rubber legs’. I tried to cheer her up with the fact that everyone’s legs started to weaken after 40.

“I’m well beyond 40″ she said.

I explained that Italians had strong legs for longer than most because they had so many loos you could not sit on but had to squat over. This explained their footballing success.

By this time she was probably regretting the conversation and wondering what kind of person she was sat next to!

Fortunately my sister’s number and hers were called out soon after.

I enjoyed my trip to the hospital partly because I had taken a copy of Larry Winget’s book “It’s Called Work For A Reason!” with me.

He makes the point that there are few secrets of success. Most of them are simple, obvious truths. They are not complicated but may demand hard work. He writes:

“There are more than 500 books about the secrets of customer service. How about trying this. Be nice. Is it much more complicated that that? Isn’t that what we are all looking for? Someone to take our money and be nice to us.”

Today, Monday, bad weather is threatened so I went for the long neighbourhood walk quite early. It was colder than usual.

A lady walked towards me with her tiny dog straining at the leash towards the grass verge of the pavement.

” A bit different from last week,” she said.

“I quite like the cold,” I answered and hesitated.

“So do I but not for too long.”

We had achieved agreement very quickly. Cold is fine but
not too much of it.

Groundforce a paving company have been doing a lot of excellent work in this area. People see a good job done and then trust the company to do a good job for them.

I, on the other hand, have stupidly trusted some companies without checking out their work and references first. I lived to regret this!

Always check previous work and ask for the address of happy customers so you can check with them. Ask around in the neighbourhood. Check on the internet or elsewhere for all the details you can find about a company.

Groundforce do not ask for any deposits until the work is done to your satisfaction – a promising sign.

Today, Sunday, fierce winter weather has been forecast so I got in a walk round the neighbour hood early.

I had no need to look out for alligators, snakes or bears although you never know when a crazy human being might attack.

Yesterday, I watched Bear Grylls on TV survive several days in the Florida Everglades surrounded by a million alligators not to mention rattle snakes and bears.

He armed himself with a sharp stick in case of attack and kept constantly aware of what was going on. If he saw some bubbles in the water he kept well clear.

It could have been gas or it could have been a large alligator waiting to attack.

Last Wednesday in London a young boy of sixteen called Kodjo Yenga was knifed to death. He was a Christian and not a member of a gang.

He was also very popular and had ironically spoken on television a few days before his own death saying that the knife threat was getting worse but was not as bad as the media made out.

The media is probably not exaggerating the threat. Yet another boy has been knifed since Kodjo’s death. As a self-defence instructor I am amazed that more people do not learn self-defence to give them a better chance of survival if attacked.

Oneof my students was attacked in Australia and survived using self-defence techniques. Another was threatened with a knife in Woolwich and again used techniques he had learned to disarm the attacker.

You can’t go around carrying a big stick but you can have one easily accessible at home in case you have intruders.

There has been some hail since my walk but nothing very severe.
In any event, I prefer this cold weather to the humid weather of the Everglades.

This Thursday morning, I walked at about 11 a.m. round the neighbourhood.

As I went up Clarendon Way, a car came hurtling down the road and passed me. I noticed that the driver had grey hair and looked quite old.

Old men can drive fast but cannot compete in Formula One. Even the young men who do, need to keep very fit to cope with all the pressures of maintaining enormous speeds for one lap after another.

The incident reminded me of an intriguing quote from Michael Gerber the author of the E-Myth:

“To live through an impossible situation, you don’t need the muscles of a Hercules, the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the mind of an Einstein. You simple need to know what to do!”

Sometimes knowing what you need to do beats having a high IQ!

Today, Wednesday, I did the short neighbourhood walk. I had some difficulty walking yesterday after landing heavily on the floor at my martial art class on Monday evening.

I was demonstrating what I thought would be an impressive rear elbow technique on a shield when my I trod on my over long trouser leg and found my left foot shooting from under me. I crashed to the floor.

I was surprised that no one laughed! They all looked astonished and concerned! Fortunately no bones were broken and I was soon back on my feet.

Today, I am almost back to normal and can now put my socks on and walk about fairly freely.

There were three young men and a girl making a noise at the end of my normally quiet road. There is a very comfortable wall for sitting on surrounding the last house in the road.

Don’t build a comfortable wall around your house unless you want gangs of youths, with nothing better to do, to sit and chat outside your house.

I walked on past them and passed another two young men. Everybody eyes everyone else with suspicion at night time. There are too many knifings and other killings taking place each week even in ’safe’ areas like ours.

I finished my most recent book today: How To Win The Game Of Life – Success Lessons From Sports.

I might now create two or more ebooks from this blog and the previous format – Life Lessons In The Woods.

Today, Saturday, I walked down Eltham High Street. I gave some money to one of the collectors who always greets me like a long lost friend. The other collector just stands there looking neither to the left nor the right. You can guess who gets the most money.

Last Thursday, I walked in the woods for the first time in a couple of months. It was good to be in amongst the trees again. There were lots of well fed crows
walking about looking almost too heavy to fly.

I met a friend who was walking two dogs. He gave me the latest news. One or two walkers had dropped out as their dogs had died. Dogs do provide huge motivation to their owners. Once people lose motivation they will take the easy route and stay home watching the TV.

Mind you, rugby union is back on TV today with two matches. Scotland are playing Ireland and are holding their own although Ireland are ahead by four points.

This morning I had my TV’s and video recorders checked out by an expert. It was a lesson on the power of expertise. Within seconds he had figured out the problems and within minutes he had fixed them. He had done in 20 minutes what might have taken me months to figure out on my own.

Never underestimate the power of an expert.