Today, Monday 30th July 2007, was a sunny and pleasant day.

I passed a house in Clarendon Way with a circular flower bed in its drive area.

The flowers were so tightly packed that I could not see a weed in sight. Maybe, we should treat our minds the same way.

Norman Hallett started saying positive affirmations as he drove his car. At first he was reluctant to tell himself a pack of lies or half truths but gradually noticed that his life was improving and his negative thoughts were far fewer.

A friend commented that it might be dangerous to drive and say positive affirmations. Norman felt that this was no more dangerous than driving and thinking negatively.

Today, Sunday 29th July 2007, I walked round the neighbourhood at noon. The weather was cool – just the way I like it.

In Wimborne Avenue, I chatted to the owner of a house. He had hired builders to do a large extension. He needed more space for his growing kids.

The extension was sturdy but the work was ’slow’. In other words the builders were somewhat lazy.

In any profession, the fast efficient workers will corner the market. At the moment a company called Groundforce has cornered the market in paving work for my neighbourhood.

Their signs are everywhere and their work looks impressive.
Their workers are always working. I never see them taking long
tea and lunch breaks.

Today, Saturday 28th July 2007, I walked round Petts Wood to do some shopping before heading for Iceland where my favourite counter assistant did a great job as usual of packing and sorting the goods.

She works incredibly hard and seems to keep it up all day. As a result she stands out from the rest of us who are comparatively lazy to put it mildly.

Marlon Sanders, the internet entrepreneur, says we should welcome the fact that there are so many lazy people around.
This makes it much easier for the energetic to wipe the floor with the competition!

In the evening I walked round the neighbourhood. In Wimborne Avenue, I came across a boy and two girls playing football amongst the cars.

I wondered whether to tell them off for playing where they might damage people’s cars but at that point the ball came fast in my direction.

At once, my attitude changed. I was part of the game! I sliced the ball badly and moved on embarrassed by my lousy performance!

Today, Wednesday July 25th 2007, I walked round the neighbourhood twice. In the early afternoon, there was a cool breeze blowing. In the evening it was drizzling lightly and the weather was still cool.

Quite a few slugs and snails had moved onto the pavement to avoid drowning. Three snails were moving slowly across one pavement slab in the same direction.

They reminded me, of a picture I had seen of the three ships that formed Columbus expedition group to sail to ‘Asia’. They were moving very slowly in the same direction across a calm sea.

I learned yesterday that Columbus had been to Galway on the West Coast of Ireland and had noticed the objects like large beans which had drifted onto the beaches of western Ireland.

He saw these as evidence that there was land to the west. I had never heard about this extra evidence before. Clearly belief of the power that motivated Columbus had to be based on considerable evidence.

Belief grows more strong as new evidence is discovered. We need, like Columbus, to search out the evidence for the belief that we, too, can extend the limits of our own universes.

Today, Saturday July 21st 2007, I did my walking in Eltham High Street. Everywhere I went, the service was excellent.

The cashier in the Halifax was cheerful and efficient.

When I entered the Nat West further down the High St an old lady asked me to keep her place in the queue. I did and let her in, in front of me.

“You’re a good boy,” she said to me.

The man behind me said jokingly: “I wouldn’t have let you in.”

“Don’t you love me,” she riposted.

“Only on Friday nights,” he replied.

I suggested she had better go and stand next to him.

The cashier here was astonishlingly swift. I was soon out and on my way to Iceland. Here the young woman at the counter insisted on going to get a free product I had failed to collect even though I said it did not matter.

“Thanks, love,” I said, “What great service!”

This evening I saw a great fight on TV between cruiserweight
Enzo Maccarinelli and Wayne Braithwaite from New York.

Enzo dominated but Braithwaite was unbelievably brave and kept coming back. Enzo commented:

“He took some tremendous body shots that would have crippled most people.”

Enzo had to work incredibly hard for his victory and so did Braithwaite for a very honourable defeat.

Boxers command universal respect in the martial arts world because they have to work so hard both in and out of the ring. Nothing is easy for them.

Today, Friday 20th July 2007, I went for a walk at about 5.15 a.m. I walked down the middle of the roads as no traffic was about. It felt good. Cars may well be more of a curse than a blessing.

One car did appear at speed in Clarendon Way. Several snails appeared at a much slower speed on the pavements of Clarendon Way. The rain brings out the snails whilst the sun brings out the ants.

I went out again at about 11p.m. It was wonderfully cold in Marlings Park although it seemed warmer in Kevington Drive.

Despite the heavy rain early in the day, cricket took place at
Lord’s thanks to the drainage system installed there two or three years ago.

After over a hundred years, solutions are arriving to solve the
age old problem of playing cricket in poor weather.

We should never give up hope! Even after years of hopeless failure, solutions can be found!

Today, Sunday 15th July 2007, I walked round the neighbourhood at noon. It was very hot apart from a cool breeze in Clarendon drive.

Ants came to the surface of the pavements and ground as they do in hot weather. I avoided most of them but may, carelessly, have trodden on some. I should have been more aware of where they might be.

I passed the place where the taxi which advertised Flora is normally parked. It was not there today. He may have taken his family to the seaside.

The taxi now advertises the O2 arena formerly know as the Millenium Dome. The arena was used last night to feature the amazing fight between Ameer Khan and Willie Limond.

At one point Limond had Ameer on the floor. He tried to follow up but in the next round, seemed to have lost the killer instinct and allowed Ameer enough breathing space to recoup his energies and come back at him and knock him down.

The fight was stopped because of injury to Limond’s jaw. Too many of us like Limond stop when we are on top and let the opportunity for a great victory slip away from us.

The next fight was between heavyweights Michael Sprott and Matt Skelton. In his last fight Sprott had knocked out Audley Harrison, the Olympic gold medallist, but last night he seemed to have lost the will to live let alone to fight.

The fight was rightly awarded to Matt Skelton but was one of the most boring fights I have ever seen. Possibly, Sprott was waiting for the perfect opportunity to knock out Skelton. The opportunity never came.

Some one should have told Sprott that the time to start fighting is now i.e. when the bell rings. Waiting for the perfect opportunity is a loser’s game.

Today, Wednesday 11th July 2007, I walked round the neighbourhood in the warm evening sun. It has stopped raining now that Wimbledon has ended.

I learned one powerful lesson from the Wimbledon final between Nadal and Federer. When Federer was under pressure, he was able to bring out his deadly weapon – his serve.

Your serve in tennis is the one thing that depends on you alone. Your competitor can not stop you sending down a good serve or an ace. It is entirely under your own control.

We all have a circle of influence. We are right in the centre and we have complete control over ourselves just as Federer had complete control of his serve.

We have only limited control over those outside this circle so it makes sense to work hard on ourselves and what we can achieve. In tennis, this means making sure that our serve is as good as we can make it.

We all have a Ferrari on our hands – ourselves. We can either muddle along at ten miles an hour or make full use of the power of the Ferrari. We cannot influence the speed of other cars.

I passed a deserted house on my walk with a warning notice pinned to the fence around it. The owner would face criminal charges and a fine not exceeding one thousand pounds if he failed to repair the windows, tidy up the land, remove rubbish and cut down the undergrowth.

He had a month to appeal against this notice. He could argue that the demands were excessive or that he had been given too little time to complete the list of tasks.

The obvious thought occurred to me that we are all faced with demands every day. We can either complain that they are excessive and that we don’t have the time to meet them or we can get on with dealing with each demand one at a time.

Today, Friday 6th July 2007, I walked round the neighbourhood at about midday.

The wind was strong for the first time in ages. It reminded me of the ten years I spent in the Isle of Man in my early days. The fresh sea air was almost always driven by a wind of some kind.

Little leaves on the ground today, suddenly became animated by the wind and for a moment made me think a frog or mouse had crossed my path.

I met Steve, my window cleaner, en route and we discussed how to achieve a higher metabolic rate.

One way is to become very strong and let your muscle mass increase your metabolic rate. I suggested Steve would find extra strength a big help if his ladder slipped and he was left hanging on to a window sill.

Steve, unlike me, does not need to lose weight since he is active all day long and I am sat for ages in front of a computer.

Steve suggested more walks and movement. I mentioned that I ought to mow our lawns myself instead of paying him to mow them. When I reached home today, I did just that!