Who is this Biting Midge?

Who am I really?

Biting Midge is a moniker I used when I started exploring the Internet and it rather seems to have stuck!

Pretty well everyone who's into making things, small boats, photography, woodwork, a particularly fruity brand of computer and a myriad of other things, pretty much knows that Peter Hyndman is really Biting Midge.

Even my own daughter signed me up to FaceBook using that moniker, so Midge I remain.

I'm just a bloke who loves his wife and kids, and talking about them, work and talking about it, building stuff and talking about it, taking photographs and talking about them, drawing and talking about it, music and talking about it, travel and talking about it, sailing and talking about it, driving and talking about it, reading and talking about it, making books and talking about them, and when I can't talk about it, well I just feel compelled to write about it.

Through accident of birth, I've not experienced war, famine, true poverty or hunger, which of course has given me the opportunity to pursue all these lesser pursuits, something for which I become more grateful each day.

Its much easier for others to make some sort of objective description of oneself. My friend Michael Storer wrote of me a little while ago; "architect, boat builder, photographer, artist - someone has to get all the short straws" and he may well be partially correct although I am, it must be said, strictly speaking, currently none of those things even though I've dabbled in them all, and a bit of planning and building to boot, not to mention the years well spent, sailing and travelling, mixed with a bit of fiddling round the edges of the computer world, nor those spent making sandwiches.

But those are only things I have done.

If I may quote from A. J. (Sandy) Mackinnon in his wonderful book "The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow" who in turn was quoting from the at least equally wonderful C. S. Lewis' Narnia stories:

The children meet a retired star, a silvery old man named Ramandu who has come to rest awhile from the great celestial dance on a remote island. One of the children, on hearing his tale, splutters out in disbelief, 'But Sir, in our land a star is just a huge flaming ball of gas.' Ramandu replies, 'My son, even in your world, that is not what a star is, but only what star is made of.