When I started out on the series of “Count Your Blessings” I wasn’t sure how far I would get, so it was nice to get to 100.

I thought I would use the opportunity to find out which posts get accessed the most. It’s not a very scientific number, because it’s only based on one way that people access the posts. It looks like the top 10 over the last few months are these ones:

• Count Your Blessings #79 – A Little Bit of Extra Freedom
• Count Your Blessings #91 – Decorating Christmas Trees
• Count Your Blessings #83 – Psalms
• Count Your Blessings #92 – Law and Order
• Count Your Blessings #89 – Childhood Memories
• Count Your Blessings #82 – Sparrows in the Rain
• Count Your Blessings #88 – Rainbows
• Count Your Blessings #94 – Happiness
• Count Your Blessings #39 – Frosty Morning Memories
• Count Your Blessings #90 – The Alarm Call of the Blackbird at Dusk

I’d love to know different this list would have been if I’d had the numbers from the start – unfortunately I don’t.

I’ve had all sorts of feedback on the series; I’d like to say thank you for that. It’s nice to know someone is reading.

As a young teenager I earned some much needed money doing a paper-round. It meant getting up early in the morning and dashing around a set of houses on my bike. One of the first things I did with the money that I had earned was to buy a mobile cassette player. I can’t remember what make the first one was, but I can remember what it wasn’t. I wanted a proper Sony Walkman, but I couldn’t afford a proper Walkman, I had to settle for something more affordable.

(For anyone out there who is younger than 20, the original Sony Walkman had nothing to do with phones or MP3 players, it played cassettes. If you don’t know what a cassette is then I’m sorry, it’s not my problem that your education has been so incomplete.)

Every morning (except Sunday, because that was someone elses problem) I would get up, reach for the portable cassette player, select a fresh tape from the pile in my room, stick the headphones on and set off. It wasn’t the safest thing to do, but the music on those tapes made a tough job enjoyable. One day I would be joining U2 at the live Under a Blood Red Sky concert. The next day I would be taken to the strange world of Talking Heads. On another day it would be OMD. Listening to the music took me to another place where my fingers weren’t frozen to the handlebars, or where the rain wasn’t seeping down my back.

I probably spent a disproportionate amount of my paper-round money on batteries keeping the portable cassette player and bike lights running.

There were a number of portable cassette players that joined me on that journey. Each of them would eventually buckle under the strain. The first one was probably the size of 3 or 4 cassettes, eventually I worked myself to a tiny player (JVC I think), that was bright red and only just the size of a cassette box. I thought it was tiny.

As the years passed I changed my job. My brother got a job as a Chef in a Hotel near Scarborough. I could earn more working in the kitchens at weekends and holidays than I could on the paper-round. Scarborough was a 40 minute train journey from home so I would travel up, work, stay over work and then travel back. The train journeyed through some fabulous countryside, but the travelling was made even more enjoyable by the accompaniment of Bob Dylan and Depeche Mode.

I never had a portable CD player. Not sure why, I think that portable CD players became the accessory of choice during the time Sue and I spent every waking hour together, so there was no need.

Then I learnt to drive and a new type of portable music came into my life. Having money meant that I could experiment with all sorts of music, it was at this time that I discovered Bruce Cockburn whose songs still speak volumes to me.

My portable music is now on my phone, 2GB of it. I can’t imaging how many cassettes I would have to carry around to have access to that much music. I’ve started appreciating my portable music again. Most mornings I try to go to the gym or take a walk for exercise, I take my music along with me. There are times in the gym that I would stop and give it up, but the music keeps me going. I’m currently listening to all sorts of music, the newest is probably Delirious?.

Music plays such a huge part in my life, it fires my imagination, it takes me to other places, it lifts me up, it spurs me on, it calms me down. Being able to take it with me is such a blessing.

When I take a walk in a morning I am very blessed by having loads of different routes available. I have come to know how many people I can expect to meet on each of the routes. Sometimes I choose a route where I know I am likely to meet a few people walking dogs who will give me a hearty smile and a “good morning”. At other times I deliberately choose a different route knowing that I will be the only one there. My favourite lonely walk is actually down the drive of a nearby hall, although you’d expect to see people, I have never seen anyone down there early in a morning.

Sometimes I feel like I need to recharge my batteries in a way that only lonely places can. I suppose it’s a bit like a mini wilderness time.

There is something very special about these lonely places, they seem to open up a different type of intimacy with God that just can’t be experienced in crowded places. I have felt an intimacy with God in very crowded places, but the lonely places bring something that is more personal.

Jesus had times in lonely places too:

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5:16

If it was good enough for him – then it’s certainly good enough for me.