Feeling Good.

I thought this morning after inflicting my picture beaming out with my two recently published books I would put on a more realistic self-portrait this morning. This is one of the first attempts I made at painting on my IPad and drawing the lines while still learning to get the Apple Pencil correct.

I did feel a bit like this picture when I decided to take the photograph of me holding my two published books. 

The bottom line is that I do feel so fortunate to have been able in my life to do so many things that at the age of fifteen I was told I would never achieve. I can still remember the feeling the night my parents came home from a parents night to tell me that had been told to take me from school because education and learning were never going to be one of my blessings.

So here I am today having to some extent managed to prove them all wrong. I do not say that with any sense of big-headed pride or anything of the sort, just simply a sense of satisfaction that my life has not been one of total failure.

it has had its ups and downs, happiness and sadness, but in many ways fulfilling. Way back when a group of us wrote some hymns and sang them in church. I wrote one or two that I still feel proud of. it has not at all been all bad since then.

Before I get too content there is another book needing a lot of work on it and much yet to be achieved before I, as we say here in Scotland, kick my clogs.

I feel fortunate indeed. yesterday I heard a true account of somebody else who had a feeling of good fortune that was in many ways tempered.

David and Deanna Gonzalez paid a little more than £100,000 for a house. The house needed a lot of work, and while tearing out a wall insulated with old newspapers, David discovered a copy of Action Comics No. 1, an extremely rare comic book.  This would almost cover the cost of the house. 

He did have some bad luck, though. After the discovery, the back cover of the comic book was ripped during an argument between David and his wife's aunt, a tear that auction appraisers say reduced the value by about £75,000. 

When you feel things in life are going well beware it often has a habit of hitting back at you.

I met an old friend who one day told me something similar. he was bemoaning his health and his present situation but trying to stay positive he described what life was like.

He said to me.

I am so rich, I never thought I would be so well off.  Silver in the Hair, Gold in the teeth. Crystals in the kidneys and sugar in the blood. Lead in the bowels and iron in the arteries, and an inexhaustible supply of natural gas. 

I never thought I could accumulate such wealth.

Have a great day and enjoy any success but beware, it might not last, so make the most of it.