David Jenkins' weblog

Life’s too short to drink instant coffee

Category: reminiscence

  • All the countries I’ve ever visited (part I)

    All the countries I’ve ever visited (part I)

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    I’m fortunate. I’ve enjoyed lots of travel and had good experiences as I’ve done so. For much of the time it’s been business travel but a lot has also been vacations when I’ve shared it with my family. In this and subsequent posts I’ve tried to be consistent with what is a country. It’s an…

  • 1975: part 1 the sport

    1975: part 1 the sport

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    At the time I felt that I spent a lifetime in Indonesia but it was barely two years. I arrived in Jakarta the middle of 1974 and left in August 1976. But I was there for the whole of 1975. This was 50 years ago and much has changed. Technology has transformed communications of course…

  • Cuba remembered

    Cuba remembered

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    Last night at the Cambridge Camera Club we saw the results of a recent trip to Cuba by Roy Essary (https://shuttershot.co.uk/). It prompted me to go back and look at the photos I’d taken when we visited in 2009. I was using a Sony DSLR A300 in those days and although most of the shots…

  • 1974: a big transition

    1974: a big transition

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    It began with the miners strike and it ended with me sat at a pool bar in Bali. It was quite a year. (the photo above is a passport photo I got taken early in the year in anticipation of what I would need for visas and the like later on) In summary it was…

  • 5 from 50

    5 from 50

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    That’s 5 photographs from 50 years ago. I’ve published two collections of my first two decades of digital photography starting in 2004. As chance would have it I bought my first SLR (single lens reflex) camera in 1974 so I’ve started to see if I can put together similar collections for the 30 years since…

  • Mates

    Mates

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    It seems to be an accepted truism that men don’t make and keep friends like women do. I can relate to that and given that I’m (a) a bit of an introvert, and (b) not inclined to retain contact with people it’s certainly true of me. Today I’ve got lots of people with whom I’m…

  • References in time

    References in time

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    People ask you. ‘What were you doing in 1994?’ for example and it’s generally difficult to answer. Our memories are good but they’re not stored in date form. But there are exceptions and these do enable you to work out an answer to the question. They’re the years for which you can always respond ‘yes,…

  • 5 highlights of 2023

    5 highlights of 2023

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    It’s been a full year but strangely I’ve had difficulty teasing out five particular highlights. However I do have a list even though number five is perhaps a bit of a cop-out. Three good holidays with eight excellent hotels. First my trip to Jordan, then Juni and I had a wet but nonetheless excellent week…

  • A picture for every year: 1962 to 1976

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    This second set of pictures starts where the first left off with a picture free year in 1962. That was the year I turned 15 and started in the fith form at Hawarden Grammar School.

  • A picture for every year: 1947 to 1961

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    I’ve been doing my best to pull together an archive of pictures of my life. It’s rather sparse and for some years I’ve been able to find nothing. However I’ve done what I can and these are from the first 15 calendar years, 1947 to 1961 when I became 14.