Walk On

Daily writing prompt

What daily habit do you do that improves your quality of life?

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She was trying to cope with the stress of having been in Abba, and it showed her on her daily walks. She emphasized how much walking helped her. Walking didn’t mean much to me then, but I can see her point now. And of course, I think of all the delightful family walks as a kid and as a parent throughout my life. I sometimes listen to music or sermons on my walks, but other times, it’s just nice to enjoy the silence and to notice little things, such as trees.

I’ve run out of things to say, but perhaps I can continue my series on old TV shows that I remember. I’ve covered 65-69, 70-74, and 75-79 in my previous couple of posts. So, today I’ll cover 80-84. I’ll bold the shows produced in Ireland. Things got more complicated after that because we got cable TV and video. I probably mainly watched UK TV after 1985, and I just didn’t watch as much TV in later years.

Here’s my Top 10 among these shows:

• Strumpet City: I was amazed at the quality of this Irish series in Spring 1980. It inspired me to read the book that summer at lunch time in Irish Dunlop, Cork.
• Minder: I didn’t get around to watching this until many years later. The first time that I noticed it was the Christmas song, What’ll I Get for Christmas for Her Indoors. But I have all the DVDs nowadays. I must watch it again soon.
• Fawlty Towers: This may have been a later series. I’m quite sure that this arrived in Ireland around 1974, but I couldn’t find it in the old newspapers that I have access to. Anyway, it was absolutely brilliant. I only recently discovered that John Cleese’s real name is John Cheese 😀.
• War and Peace: I watched that in 1982, and again, we got the DVDs in later years, and we watch it regularly. I “sort of” read the book, but I tended to skip the war bits. Too much boring detail.
• The Late Late Breakfast Show: I particularly remember that in Autumn 1983, when I’d come home from college in Limerick to Cork. I rarely missed an episode. It used to be on around 7pm on Saturday nights, so it really was a late late breakfast.
• Treasure Hunt: Anneka Rice travelled around the UK in a helicopter picking up various clues. I haven’t seen it for years. One of my retirement goals is to revisit every year of my life, listen to all the songs and watch all the old TV shows from that year. Treasure Hunt was quite a long-running show. The initial version with Anneka ran from 1982 to 1988.
• Glenroe: This was an Irish rural soap, a little bit like a modern version of The Riordans. I was a little late getting into it, but it was compelling viewing, and everyone would be discussing it throughout the week.
• The Barchester Chronicles: This was another one I really only watched in recent years, but we watch it every couple of years. It’s based on Anthony Trollope novels.
• MT USA: Pop videos got very big in the 1980s. I think that this show started in the Spring of 1984. I remember watching it on Sunday afternoons. It was hosted by Vincent Hanley. We hated most of the videos, but now and then, you’d get a good one. One of my favourites was Human Racing by Nick Kershaw from the autumn of 1984.
• Technical Studies: I was training to be a metalwork teacher at the time, so I always watched and recorded shows like this. Another one that I remember from that era was Out of the Fiery Furnace. I probably still have these on video tapes in my attic, but it’ll be easier to watch them all on YouTube. That’s another thing to add to my bucket list.

Getting back to walks, I always like to end with a couple of Bible verses.

Proverbs 13:20
“He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

Colossians 2:6
“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in Him.”