Today, Sunday, 30th December 2007, I took the short route around the neighbourhood.

A few family groups were out walking. They were probably staying with relatives over Christmas and the New Year period as I had not seen them before today.

I finished an article about New Year Resolutions before my walk. About 90% of people who make such resolutions fail to achieve them and some give up before the end of January.

In my article, I suggested three steps that could help anyone to achieve their resolutions.

The first step is to take action now rather than postponing it into next year. Take action on your resolutions on January 1st and keep going on a daily basis.

Plan how to keep your resolutions. You plan can be simple.
A Japanese marathon runner had a simple training plan. He ran in the morning and in the evening. His plan worked. He won the Boston marathon.

Finally use affirmations and visualisation and other mind control techniques to program your mind for success.

The acronym APA can help you remember these three steps –

• Action
• Plan
• Affirm

My ongoing daily plan is one I can recommend. It can be summed up by the acronym SOG – Skill, Overwhelming task and Goal.

I began today by finishing my goal – to finish my article on New Year Resolutions and submit it to the Ezine Articles directory.

Secondly I replied to some of my email – a huge daily task.

Finally I worked on the skill of learning html – I am still working on this.

Christmas and Boxing day are over now. Today, Thursday 27th Dec 2007, I took the short walk round the neighbourhood.

I met a neighbour en route whose son died earlier this year. She still has another son who spent Christmas with her.

Even at times of happiness and celebration, people remember the times of sadness and miss the presence of those they love.

They do, however, still have the memory of those they loved and the realization that life can be very short and that death can come unexpectedly.

My neighbour said that she had realized that, if you are healthy and still alive, you should enjoy every moment. You just do not know how long you have on this planet.

There is no need to wait till next Christmas to celebrate life and to show kindness to others.

Today, Friday 21st Dec, 2007, I walked along the short neighbourhood route.

It was a cold and foggy night but I used the deadline of the evening post at 6.30 p.m. to get me out of the house into the kind of murky night that Jack the Ripper favoured to kill and then escape so efficiently that he was never found out.

I have also been inspired this week by watching a DVD by Geoff Thompson, the great self defence instructor and martial artist.

The DVD is about restriction training which involves the idea that you grow when you accept what is uncomfortable and even painful in your pursuit of growth and self-control.

You accept the cold weather, for example, when you walk. You welcome the chance to train in a cold hall. You practice strikes when you are in awkard and uncomfortable positions.

Your reward is that you become tougher and more skilful at whatever you do. People will sense your increased power when you walk into a room.

You restrict yourself by placing limitations on yourself by, for example, training in confined spaces. I practise nunchaku in my bedroom at times. When you remove the restrictions, you experience freedom and power and everything you do seems a lot easier.

Finally, on Tuesday 11th December 2007, the gates of death have been closed reasonably well! In fact they have been closed for the last two or three days.

I am grateful. It is good to be grateful for what we have but we can also have ‘grateful intentions’. Rhonda Byrne, the author of
The Secret has explained what ‘grateful intentions’ are in her lastest book which is now available on Amazon. The ad for it on Amazon goes as follows:

“The book is full of affirmations and insights written by Rhonda Byrne that allow you to bring joy and harmony to every aspect of your life. Inspired by Rhonda’s writings, every day you will write a list of things you are grateful for now in your life, followed by a list of Gratitude Intentions – all the things you want to come into your life.”

It is believed that ‘Gratitude Intentions’ can attract into your life the things or experiences that you do not yet have but still want. Be thankful for them ahead of time and they may well arrive sooner than you think.

This kind of thinking has been lambasted as wishful nonsense which ignores the importance of hard work. This criticism is unfair.

Many law of attraction thinkers stress, like Christopher Westra, that you still have to pay the price for what you want and that there are no shortcuts by which you can evade some kind of hard work as you strive to achieve your dreams.

On December 9th, Santa returned! He is an image of Santa Claus which is desperately climbing up the wall of a house in
Clarendon Way to get in through the window. He is using a rope to help him climb up.

I have been looking forward to seeing him again all year! I feel like knocking on the door of the house and congratulating the owners for making the effort of putting him up. I would probably frighten them by doing this!

I will, however, try to take a photo of Santa unobtrusively and post it on this blog later.

After early December, more and more Christmas decorations are gradually appearing. I particularly like blue lights on the bare branches of the trees.

There is also another Santa standing on a roof with his sleigh. He has not appeared yet but I saw his owner standing on a ladder putting up some lights.

I am hoping his Santa may be up by tomorrow. I did not go over to talk to him as I didn’t want to distract him into falling off his ladder! I still remember my loft ladder collapsing under me a few months ago.

Keep off ladders if you possibly can. Do not eat large raw carrots in case you break your teeth and it is a good idea to
avoid crusty rolls especially when they are stale.

You will probably guess that the a crusty roll has caused further damage to my teeth. Fortunately, the damage is now repaired!

Today, Friday 7th December, I walked round Petts Wood village at noon but yesterday on my walk round the local neighbourhood I checked the gates of death once more.

The gates to the EDF energy electrical installation were wide open once again. Some very feeble attempts had been made during the week to lock the gates up but the attempts looked like the work of a seven year old child.

Robert Ringer has described clearly what people expect when they ask for a job to be done. They expect the job to be done correctly and accurately i.e. for the details to be taken care of.

The details of the lock had not been taken care of. First a shoelace and then a nail in an already used hole?!

People expect a job to be done urgently. In this case death could be the result of not doing the job. Almost a week has passed since I and the nearby house owner asked for the job to be done and it still has not been done!

People expect the job to be finished and if delegation occurs, that a senior staff member will ensure that it is finished. This is clearly not the case in connection with this electrical installation.

People do not want to know about any excuses for not doing the job. They do not care if you are tired or busy. They just want the job done properly on time.

Hopefully no one will die before this job is done!

Today, Friday, I checked the gates again in the evening at about 10.30 p.m. and the padlock had been fixed a little better than usual but it still does not look very secure. At least the
gates are currently closed!

In Petts Wood, this morning, I bought some car mats which were heavy enough not to slip. Dodgy car mats are dangerous as they can slip amongst brakes and accelerator and help cause accidents.

There is new notice about a fatal accident just a few hundred yards away from my house. Traffic is crazy this week as people do the Christmas shopping. One family at least will not be enjoying Christmas this year.

Today, Mon 3rd Dec 2007, I walked round the neighbourhood at noon.

I checked the gates of the electricity installation that were wide open yesterday (read my last post if interested).

Either the owner of the closest house or the police or EDF energy the company concerned had closed the gates and tied a shoelace round the lock.

I suppose this was better than nothing but was hardly adequate. Hopefully, a more thorough job will be done later in the day. We must all hope as well that no one enters the installation in the meantime!

I received a book on how to deal with bullies from the USA today.It suggests some amusing ripostes to make the bully think about what he is saying.

e.g. Bully says: Go to hell!
Victim says: Go to Disney land!

Victim: Let’s be friends.
Bully: You’ll never be my friend.
Victim: You’ll never be my elbow!

Whether these replies would work or not I am not sure
but they would certainly surprise the bully and, if
necessary,give enough time to land one on him!

Today, Sunday 2nd December 2007, I walked round the neighbourhood at about 8.30 p.m.

A little dog barked at me from across the road in Kevington Drive as his owner walked him along on a lead. A fairly young fox limped or loped across the road in front of me at Wimbourne Avenue.

As I walked up to where Clarendon Way joins Marlings Park Ave.
I noticed that the normally locked door that shields an electrical installation from the public was wide open.

There was a notice saying “Danger of Death”. I remembered an incident as a very young boy seeing a young man die or get severely shocked when he jumped up to touch a live wire.

The wire was hanging low on a kind of open parade ground in
the Japanese concentration camp where I and my family spent much of World War II.

I knocked at the door of the nearest house and apologised for knocking so late. The man said he would ring the electrical company next morning.

However, it occurred to me that this might be a bit late if a school kid decided to explore the site on the way to school early tomorrow morning. I rang the police when I got home. They said they would look into it.

I was a little surprised that the owner of the house near the
installation was prepared to leave matters until the next day.
It seemed like a big risk in a situation where there was a ‘danger of death’.

I expect he probably considered that after I had gone and may have rung the police himself.