Strong words that don't get shouted loud enough

For context: I wrote this whilst laying in bed on a Friday morning. It's a response to a post on Facebook from a guy who goes by the name of Inja. The post asked for guys to stand up and admit they have mental health issues. That suicide kills more young men every year because they are told to 'man up'. Well I'll tell you what I think of that phrase......

Life is tough no matter what your beginnings,
Man's told he gotta be tough to be respected?
I ain't listening to that stuff!

I've cried twice this week,
And yeah that's a good week.
5 months in pain with a bad back is not the furthest I've been down the track.

But I am so much more than what's happening today.
If I told you the full story your hair might turn grey.

The world feels cold when you live in dismay.
You might think that no one got your back.
But brother, sister you should lean right back.
I've been down at the bottom and dragged myself back.
It wasn't pretty or easy but I made myself a new.

Admit defeat and stop fighting yourself.
Cry out in anger and fucking scream and shout.
It took me many years to admit that the problem was me and how I coped.
Should have been obvious really but drugs and booze is such an easy way out.

This isn't a poem or sad story to lament,
I look back on everything that happened to me and I think that I'm lucky to be able to say, I'm ok...

But the most important lesson Ive learnt is that it's ok to not be ok.

The other lesson I learnt is not to bottle it up. Don't ever think you got no one. Hold out your hand and reach out. Go to your doctor and have a chat. Ring the Samaritan and see what they say. The man will be fine and help you if you just cry out.

Don't worry about others if they can't understand how your feeling. This road through life is always uneven.

Just remember the most important person in your life is you. No one else can help you through unless you want it too.

Peace.

The National Trust and me.....

I'm in this little video. One brief shot of me face and then it's all down to how well you know my hands and legs to spot the other appearances.

I'd give anything...... No I'd give everything to not have the back pain and be in a financially secure place to go back to doing this kind of thing again. (The back problem is nothing to do with the best 3 and a bit years of my working life.....)

You may be thinking that it can't be like this everyday but those people in the video with me are some of the best people I've ever met. Even a shit day with this lot was better than the best days anywhere else...... I mean..... How often do you get to be friends with ponies and then the ponies follow you for no reason at all in your job? I know that hasnth happen in any job I've had since.

Working for the National Trust firstly as a volunteer and then as a paid ranger made me appreciate life in a way that I didn't quite understand before. I'm no longer materialistic. I don't care what people think of how I look or what I say. What I say has feeling and meaning attached to it and is not there to impress anyone.

I miss those people and those places so much. My aim in life used to be to just get to the next day with as little stress as possible. Now all I can do is gaze into the future and hope that one day soon my back in good enough to manage the journey to these places so I can visit my friends and see what they are up to.

One day soon.......

Twitter @gordonpr1c3

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Product Review: Fitness Tracker by NOVETE

 A few months ago I decided that I wanted to see how many steps I was doing a day whilst working for the construction company I was employed by. As I worked for a construction company dealing with concrete and slabs and other heavy things I figured that I would probably break what ever tracker watch I bought so why buy an expensive one? After skim through Amazon I came across this one

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B078WRP4H6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

For the money I thought this would probably be crap. I thought the heart rate and bluetooth would be unreliable or just vague at best but after a few months I was pleasantly surprised!

So the good points, its cheap. Don't believe the RRP for a start, this is an £18.99 watch all day long. The heart rate monitor is on the back and uses green LED's to read, and it is very accurate. The step counter is also very accurate. Construction wise its quite a thing, the strap comes off to reveal a USB plug which is nicely sealed from the elements, the strap can be used either way round depending on your preference. Its nice and light and comfy and the gel strap is fine to wear all day even when its hot and sweaty out. It survived 2 months of daily use on a construction site with only a slight scratch on the screen but this does not affect its use.

Features wise the watch has a single touch interface that scrolls through the Time, Heart rate and activities functions. With the activities you can customise to suit your needs from running to mountain climbing. It records data fine and the data is easy to read in the app.

The other good point is battery life. I get 13-14 days on a single charge and charging takes a couple of hours from a USB socket.

But here is the not so good things about this watch. The app is very system heavy, unnecessarily heavy, also the app needs to be force closed or it will drain your battery. If you remember its not a problem but its easy to sync it and then forget to force close the app.

With the app you do get plenty of data. The home screen shows your activities for the day, there is a tab for sleep and heart rate too. The data is displayed in nice graphics and charts on the main page but this is just the start of the data. Hit details and you can look at your activities, sleep and heart rate for the week, month or year.

The device tab gives you more options that I have not bothered with........ There is so many more features on this watch that I have never turned on. Call alert, Text Alert and even camera remote control. The reason I have never played with these functions is mainly because I didnt like having my Honor 9 on me all day when working for worry it would get damaged. I did lend the watch to a friend and he reported back that all features worked with his LG android phone so lets just say they work and if you want them they are great.....

The worst part of this watch is the compatibility with other apps. I haven't yet found an app that this will work with despite there being a Google Fit logo and button within the app. If I could use a different app this watch would be perfect.

But..... Here is the thing. If you just want a basic tracker that you don't need to care about then this is perfect. It's £18.99 and its a bargain. Yes you can spend more and get one with a better app or even more features but unless you need a specific one for the life insurance/health plan you are on don't bother. Get one of these and spend the money you would have spent on the nicer one on cake, healthy cake..... MMMMMMMMM CAKE.

Want to see more reviews of random stuff? Questions Comments etc...... drop me a line on one of the links below!

Twitter @gordonpr1c3

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2018 so far.

Well it seems that all my old blog posts have vanished, so lets start from the start eh? Well not the very start, that's a little far back....

Lets go back to January 2015, the end of January 2015 to be exact...

I had scraped myself off of the bottom of the barrel and started to get my life back on track. The breakdown was behind me and life looked to be going in the right direction. I arrived at my new digs in Rhossili ready to re start my life as a volunteer for the National Trust. By the end of 2017 I had graduated from Volunteer to Paid ranger on the Save our Magnificent Meadow project and everything was kind of OK. My contract with the trust had ended and I was looking for work again this time in Cardiff.

With the help of my Amazing Girlfriend and Friends I had a great place to live and was content delivering Pizza for a well known company. That fell through when the insurance they had clashed with my own insurance. So again no job. But I persisted and got a job working for a Sports Grounds Company. Just 3 months into that I hurt my back. A lovely bulge on my L5/S1 and a lot of pain everywhere else meant that I couldn't work and after 3 month off sick we separated ways in an amicable fashion. Not financially beneficial but the door is open to go back once my back is sorted.

And once I have received my new Birth Certificate as here in the UK you need to prove your a citizen with either a valid passport or birth certificate. Neither of which I have it turns out. My passport ran out last month and who knows where my birth certificate is? I have ordered a new birth certificate and am awaiting that to arrive.

Add into that multiple trips to the vets with the cats totalling over £1200, persistent car issues and just dealing with the feeling of sinking depression everyday and i'm doing surprisingly well. That is all down to the amazing lady called Liz. She is my girlfriend, best friend and without her I would have completely lost the plot, again.

Anyway...... That's the introduction done. Briefly, there is a lot more detail I could put in there but you don't have that long, no one does, What you will see here on a semi regular basis are posts about cats, cars, art projects, and anything else that I feel the need to write about.

So please do follow if you want to read more about the life of a guy who has and is dealing with all that life throws at him in a somewhat stable and coherent manor......

Social media links as follows.......

Twitter @gordonpr1c3

MeWe https://mewe.com/i/gordonprice

G+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GordonPrice

Donate paypal.me/RangerPrice