Dreamyoga.co.uk Blog

The penguins have been kicking off at about 3a.m. under where I live at Ollie’s Cottage. It is incredibly quiet here at night,  only the ticking clock and the sounds coming from the sea. But lately, out of the quiet in the early morning a whole penguin building site has set up. It starts with a general calling together of the workforce, there can be a few screams attached to this as a few of the gang would rather be lying on their back in the water and gazing at the sky, who wouldn’t? These are only Little Penguins, about  18inches high and with gorgeous plumage of torquoise, navy and a pure white chest……………………………………………………So the work begins, I hear thumping and reverberation of rocks being moved and a general kind of penguin shouting and swearing, after a couple of hours there’s  total silence as they all march off into the eldritch light and back into the sea. Some nights there is so much continual noise from the workforce downstairs that there is no chance of sleeping. Locals say that eventually there gets to be a terrible stench coming up through the floorboards, but no sign of that yet…………………………………..I’m already assessing the  packing up as I leave in 2 weeks, but also still taking time to enjoy the Island. On Sunday I went swimming with a couple of women in a small - kind of private- bay in the center of Tryphena, you can’t see it from the road but you go along a short path and there it is 20 foot below. Gael has red-hot-poker abundant hair, Jelly also has quite bright coloured red hair and I’m sporting a red-orange haystack look just now. Anyway we all strip off and jump into the bright bright blue sea and were playing and laughing, just then a young family appear above us on the cliff  and a little girl of 2-3 years old is looking down at us in the water and pointing at us  ”Mermaids ” she says, it made our day! ……………………………….I went fishing yesterday, I wasn’t about to join in, I was just trying to keep my eye on the penguin population to see what they’re routine was during the day. There seemed to be a lot of rods on the go for the two that were fishing and I’m asked to look after a rod that bursts into life as soon as I hold it. The water was incredibly clear and at a depth of about 40 foot when I saw this big huge-eyed fish coming up out of the dark. As it came from the water it showed all its flying equipment, big wing-like spurs to both sides and on the back. The fish itself was a Red Snapper, pinky white underneath and a beautiful salmon-pink on top with small turquoise spots and a large dab of turquoise at each eye-brow. I felt there was a bit of tension on the boat as this was a really nice big fish and it was up to me whether I threw it back in or not. I looked at it in the eye, no recognition or slight lift of the turquoise brow, I might have saved it from the pot, but there wasn’t a flicker so it went to the fish eaters later on, they said they had a wonderful feed. Still not sure how I feel about instigating the murder of an innocent and beautiful inhabitant of the Deep Blue!……………………I had to go to bed at 7.15 last night I was getting viciously bitten by mosquitoes, it seemed easier to write the proto-type of this under the mosquito net then cover myself from head to toe in gunk, then find some bite cream for the ones that got through, then a fly whisk as a last resort!……………………….I come home to Blighty on 6th May and will stay at Lydia’s on the Quay until I go on my European Tour from 22nd May to 22nd June……………………..It’s very sad as my truck days seem to be over, and I’m a bit homeless until I get back to NZ mid November. I suppose the truck life couldn’t go on forever, but it was such fun and a really wonderful 12 years of my life …………..so maybe when I come back from Europe I’ll visit all my pals in the south of England and one or two in Wales, let me know if your up for a visit. With Love, as always, Grace

Though it is, as always, wonderful to be here and I’m in the best of health and enjoying life fully, things have been fairly difficult this time……. It began with a bad back on my arrival here in November, then I had Guardia for three weeks (that’s a bug you get from drinking water you shouldn’t). Guardia is like being in the first trimester of pregnancy, constant nausea and gut-pain. Then a bee stung me, my whole leg went like cotton wool and I couldn’t walk for a while and then the calf muscle swelled and became covered in large bright red blisters, it was really painful and I had my leg elevated for 4 days.  A few days later a dog bit me, just a small terrier who tried to remove the skin off the back of my hand in a big round piece. Then I got dashed up against the concrete edge of the boat ramp by a big wave…………….Since then Cyclone Wilma has been in the front door of Ollie’s Cottage and out the back, leaving chaos in her trail. I’d gone out for the evening securing the doors because I knew the cyclone was coming, I’m unable to lock the door because I don’t have (or need) a key, so friend Janet waltzes in, leaves a note on the table for me and doesn’t close the door properly. There was a cloud of moisture in the room when I came home and 2 days later the whole of the interior of the cottage was covered in mould, which gave me a 40-a-day smoker’s cough. So I had to abandon ship and stay at a friend’s house for a week until I managed to dry everything out…………Two weeks ago I went across to the mainland on the ferry (saw a huge whale and dolphins on the way)to visit Northland, thats the pointy bit at the very top of New Zealand (Moari land)……………….  The first day of my travels, in Whangarai (pronounced fanga ray) I headed for tourist information,  which was a heck of a long walk from the center of town, I was very tired after the 5 hour bus ride. Next thing four big Moari girls are standing in my path, threatening me and carrying on like they’re going to beat me up. I pretended I didn’t understand english and gently moved the one in front of me to one side and walked on slowly, my back ram-rod straight as if I wasn’t almost poohing my pants (which of course I was, I was really scared). They were shouting and screaming after me and I popped into Tourist Info just in time.  The lady behind the counter said “And how are you today?” at which I burst into tears and told her what had just gone on. Next thing two cop cars pull up and I have to give a statement and the girls are hauled off to their just deserts, it seems they had been going around making a nuisance of themselves for some while…………….Next day I’ve hired a car and I’m in Waitangi, a very interesting place where Queen Victoria signed a treaty to give the Moari rights on the land she’d stolen from them (of course she didn’t go personally because she was probably off her head on her latest dose of Laudanum) Anyway, it was all very interesting, we got the Haka and the QE2 were out in the harbour and all the crew were in admiring the bare-chested young Moari men doing their dance. I made the mistake of needing to go to the bathroom at the visitor center. All the toilets were full ie in content rather than people, there was no sign on the door to say there was a problem. The clear solution to me seemed to be to pull the chain. Unfortunately the water supply to the toilets had been interrupted  which caused an airlock in the u-bend with the result that the whole contents of the toilet spurted up and out and covered me completely in other people’s effluent from head to toe - ugh what a horrible mess!!!…………That night I went on the ferry to Russell and stayed in maybe the worst place I’ve ever stayed in (including some awful places in India).. It was FILTHY. The accommodation comprised a very small room with 2 pairs of bunk beds, right next to the windowed wall was an aviary. I went out to a fabulous dance evening called Rythm of the Spirit, it was great, and came home really tired and went straight to bed. The noise from the TV next door was full on and a conversation, loudly, went on outside the door until after midnight. At 2am the woman in the bunk under mine got home, noisily, from work at 5am, the man opposite got up, noisily, to go to work, at 7am the aviary kicked off, the dogs began to bark at the birds and the cat got scared and began scratching at the door to get in, I thought I might as well get up then as I hadn’t slept a wink all night!  As I drove away something caught under the front bumper of the hire car, this later cost me $250. As I drove along I thought bad things happened in threes, so I’m free now, leaning back against the seat to relax I got a bloody great bee sting between the shoulder blades, was that painful - wow. But I was on my way to Opononi, which was wonderful. Stayed in a great little cabin, all to myself, on the edge of the water for the same amount the horrid backpackers had cost me. Next morning took a really beautiful walk along a promontory and down to the sea, the water was full of fish and I had to physically move them out of the way to swim, they didn’t seem in the least worried about me…………..So I’m safely back on the Island now, in Paradise. Its still really warm and sunny and the sea is welcoming, I’m going for a big snorkel tomorrow with my friend Coral, all is very well here and I hope all is very well with you, sending my love Grace

Looking forward to Christmas here on the Island…….It’s very warm, the sea is beautiful and we’re getting a lovely northernly breeze (that’s the same as southerly to you in Europe)……I  didn’t cover up very well yesterday after snorkeling and now a bit burnt……Life is extremely sociable here, I suppose because we live outside a lot. I’ve been invited three or four different places on Christmas day, can’t decide where to go yet………..The good thing is I have a vehicle now, so can get about and participate in several people’s festivities…………My vehicle is what they call a ute (meaning utility vehicle)….Yesterday I was driving up to Corals for the swimming and I saw a load of kids hitchhiking on the road, so I told them to jump into the open back of the ute……everyone does it here, I didn’t know it was illegal……At Christmas time we get a load of police people from town (Auckland) to check on car licenses and drink driving etc, they only stay a day or two, and you never know when they’ll turn up. So I’m driving along with 6 teenagers in the back and the Police drive past the other way, as they disappear around the corner, the kids all start banging on the back of the truck looking terrified, so I pull up and they all jump out and run away shouting and laughing “your going get in loads of trouble now, the cops are gonna come and get you ”  freaked me out a bit I can tell you as I don’t actually have an international driving license and didn’t want to be checked, so I went and hid at Coral’s for the day and no-one came and arrested me last night, so its all good (as they say here)…………..I love their sayings here we’ve got “the Bum for Bum creek” “the Count of No-account” “I wouldn’t know her from a bar of soap”…………The NZ national news and weather program can also be a learning curve. …..”Ah the weather, who knows what the weather is doing eh?”  The news told us someone had been poisoned in a bar “We think it’s a spiking of drugs, or some of those herbal remedies”…………..The emailing place finishes shortly until 6th January. The power gets turned off and unless you’ve got a pal with a lot of power your offline for a couple of weeks…… So Wishing you all Love and Safety and Joy and I’ll be sitting in meditation on Christmas day especially to send you love. G x

I haven’t added to my blog for a while because I just can’t seem to get it to paragraph etc…..but while I was in Portugal I started to read Jose Saramago, their greatest writer, who is famed because he uses no punctuation or paragraphing… so I’m going to do that now too. By the way I’m reading his novel called Blindness at present, its gripping, but I’m out having so much fun at the mo that I’ve only got to page 17 in 2 weeks!………………. I left wonderful England on the 9th November, it was cold rainy and very windy up where I live at the top of the hill in Paradise, my new roof was flapping wildly (but very waterproof)  and the whole place getting shaken to bits, with the door shut in  my 8′x6′ floor space it can also get quite claustrophobic, so delightful friend Matt and I will build something new when we get the £20k to do it with, so if anyone has £20k they don’t know what to do with, please get in touch immediately and  I would be forever grateful (and as an added bonus you’ll probably go straight to heaven)…The trip was 35 hours door to door from my truck via a taxi, to the railway station, to the airport, 8.5 hours to Dubai then 18.5 hours to Auckland with a stop on the way in Melbourne, my friend Joe picked me up and I had 4 lovely days at her house, and the long flight seemed to have absolutely no reprocussions at all, in fact I felt even more normal than usual!…..  So then onto the ferry for the 5 hour trip to Great Barrier Island, I began to get a little twinge in my back, then I couldn’t stand or sit or lie down.  There was a very nice christian couple on the ferry and he did some healing on me and asked Jesus to take my pain away forever! I was thinking that would be wonderful, as its been there for 30 years.  All fabulous as ever at Ollie’s Cottage, so grateful to be here. Settled in and got up the next day and was in agony. Went to call the Doc out, not realising that they don’t come out here. So got a ride to the Doc and was in there for 3 hours - yogic panting and moving and intramuscular Tramadol, nothing worked for 3 hours and then some Diazapam, wonderful relief. There couldn’t be a more different health care system than ours in the UK. In Lancaster I’d have gone into the Infirmary and no doubt waited several hours in intense pain and eventually communicated with a Doctor who didn’t understand my language and given some pills and sent home. But here at the medical center Dr Frank saw me straight away, gave me a strong pain killer and I was then told I couldn’t leave until they could see it was working, after 3 hours in a lovely room with a patchwork blanket and cups of tea and lots of sympathy, the Dr and nurse Leonie visiting several times, they let me off home, The whole procedure cost £7.50 for the drugs and £7.50 for the Doc, marvelous eh?……… I was in bed for 9  days taking strong pain relief, with nothing to do or read, in Cloud Cuckoo Land.   The noise at night was incredible, it seems that little blue penguins are now nesting under Ollie’s Cottage and one of them had decided to die by choking to death - it took him three days and nights, poor thing and then he was dead on the beach a few yards away, a beautiful looking little bird, just over a foot high, with a very white close feathered chest, turquoise wings and the most fabulous looking feet/claws you ever saw……….Anyway I managed to get a fantastic cure for my back (that I have divulged to v close friends indeed, as that was all so long and boring, most of you won’t be interested), this treatment took several hours but the pain went altogether and is less now than it has been for a very long time, but Jesus hasn’t quite taken it away just yet………………..Don’t like to mention this but the weather here is stunning, sat in the garden on my reflexology couch at 4.30 last evening and started my tan, the heat was wonderful……….. I’ve been snorkelling with my friend Coral (great name for an Advanced Diver)  because I am still so fearful of the water (sharks, stingray etc) Coral said she would take me out and hold my hand if things got scarey. So off we went into the ocean blue, Coral all wet-suited up and me in my bikini (yes I know I’m to old for a bikini, but no one has actually told me that point blank yet, so I will carry on with wearing it). Anyway we get into the water and I said look a jelly fish, she says “thats only one” then I show her another one and she says “thats only one”  I thought that surely Coral is 2!….. Anyway we get in Coral busy looking for crayfish and me watching upwards as eventually we are in the biggest school of jelly fish in the world, hundreds and hundreds, as I look up there is no space to see the sky through the surface of the water, then I’m gesticulating to Coral pointing up, she is still, head down, busy looking for crayfish, and smiling and waving, then I get a sting on my left temple and I’m out of there…………Had a dinner party 2 nights ago. A couple called Adam and Peter have just opened a department store on the island, its fab , they looked fun so I invited them to dinner. Peter came in the door first with a massive plate of starters, homemade greek bread, humus, cheese, then Adam followed with a huge champagne glass filled with a trifle, he’d just whipped up. We had a delightful evening, with Geof who came on his quad piled high with booze, Murdock with armfuls of flowers and chocolate and Debs with coffee, cheesy starters and more. What a lovely night!……..There’s been a huge grey NZ Navy destroyer thing out in the bay, as soon as it arrived the weather broke and black clouds appeared, it got stormy and then rained hard in the middle of the night, sounded lovely on Ollie’s tin roof……everyone is delighted as their hasn’t been rain for a while and a lot of people rely on water from the roof as there is no central water system or  power, lots of people were starting to run out of water, at Ollie’s I have a little creek next to me and my water is piped from there, I’ll have friends popping in for showers, no doubt, over the summer. Time’s marching on - Must go much love. G xxxx

I came back from Lisbon and three days later was at Subud Congress in Great Malvern…… I’ve been a member of Subud for eighteen years now and practice the Latihan (spiritual exercise) once a fortnight, this is said to cleanse the soul.  I think it is the only totally constant in my life that I have done regularly, even more so than the yoga.  We usually practice the Latihan with two or three other members in Lancaster, but at Congress there was nearly six hundred of us, it was totally incredibly - wonderful.Great Malvern is a fabulous place and the Congress was held at a very old and beautiful girl’s boarding school, Griffins on the gate posts and convoluted corridors that went on forever. I stayed close by in one of the girl’s boarding houses. This fairly small looking house was a bit of a Taj Mahal, and this was how I got from my room to the front door of the house;-  My room was called Aphrodite A1. So out of Aphrodite, across a small corridor turning right at a door with carpented holes in it, along this new corridor past the men’s toilets turning right down two flights of winding stairs, across a large red-carpeted room with a bright blue suite, turning left through a small room with a round white rug in the middle of it, through a fire-door across a games room complete with full-size ping-pong and  billiard tables, turn right though another fire-door, down some steps and through a long corridor with tartan curtains against the windows on each side, through a white door with a brass letter-box, past a room with Vesta written on the door, turn right and cross a room with an antique plate rack, past the little phone box space turning right, across the hallway with a balloon painting and ascending stairs and out the front door.  I had to write it all down or else I may have got completley lost, having once made the mistake of going up the ascending stairs in the balloon room and spending absolute ages finding my way back and ending up really, really annoyed!…………..So five days of spiritual wonderment was followed by the Big Chill Music Fest, only one railway station away from the other, a bit like magic really, each event being so entirely different from the other.  Subud Congress finished on Thursday afternoon and the Big Chill began Thursday evening, this was a highly disorganized event!I thought I would go for a wander on that first night, unlikely to get lost of course given the lie of the land, constant change of the landmarks, the influx of forty thousand people and the complete dark.  Started my foray at about 6pm and ended phoning friend Matt several times between 10.45 pm - 2 a.m feeling exhausted and in tears.  The security people on all the gates had no map, they had only been shipped in from a large north-eastern city earlier on in the evening, and hardly knew where they were themselves, so no help there. The only guide available was a kind of Disney map with pretty trees and lakes and people having fun, it bore no reality to anything in the real world, or particularly to where we were.  Eventually I got to the head of security, who also didn’t know where my little camping place was, at 1.30am  Matt decided it was his bed time and looking on his phone, left in tent, realised I’d been ringing him since 10.45 he hopped on his bike and came and found me. Having had a cross and loud voiced father, then marrying the same type (twice) I felt I must have been really annoying so was dreading Matt being angry, all he said was that he was just really pleased I was ok………I am learning that loud and angry was not the usual male default setting, and thank God for that………….Next day Bev turned up. She is one of my students and has just become a Yoga teacher, lovely woman, what a great time we had. We had many common interests, the yoga each morning, the fabulous wigs we wore each day (funded by Bev), Gregory Isaacs, the Jolly Boys, the Cider Bus and Hot chocolate laced with a little rum  at the Solar-powered cafe before bed and the general wandering about taking in the madness and vagaries of the human being.One of the new things we tried was the Oxygen bar. This looked just like a cocktail bar but you would stick a little plastic cannula up your nose and have five minute O2 for £5, it was marvellous, everything felt vital and alive and amazing and the tiredness from being the wandering nomad the night before just left completley, eyesight felt maximised, aches and pains gone and a general spring in the step……………What a business  opportunity! if anyone wants to fund the set-up of an O2 Bar in Lancaster I’d be REALLY interested……………..Back home and the real world, two days(yesterday) after I got home my back went completely and I lay in bed unable to move, lost, tearful and in very great pain. Then the troops arrived, Ireene came from the house and with her hand on mine listened to all that boring moaning and groaning, then friend Pat turned up with lunch and gave me two hours healing, my little Sis told me she loved me via text, friends rang and texted and before long all was well, still in quite a lot of pain today, but it’s all ok when you know you are loved, eh?…….Off to London in a couple of days, talk soon.  Sorry after I  edited this realized that the punctuation had somehow failed and so no paragraphs, how annoying

I’ve got the fan whirring away next to me, the manager here, Ryadh, says it is a “special fan” because it is older than him and he is 33!   I am staying in the center of Lisbon at the Hospedaria, pronounced hospa diahrea - but lets move swiftly on, as my freind Pennie says “enough about your digestive system”

I’m loving Lisbon city apart from the deadening heat, 42degrees today, and the deafening noise.

The City has a huge river on one border called the Tagus, it is over 11 miles wide, totally filthy and has enormous nasty  pink jelly fish that look like some monster’s afterbirth.

 The noise at the Hospa is myriad and full on . We are two floors up, so after climbing those two floors in the heat you are keen to get out of the corridor with its bowls of sand and fag ends and into this amazing, shiney clean accom.The doorbell is a natural ding dong ding dong, ding dong ding dong sound, then the whole sequence repeated again, just in case you didnt hear it the first time, this can go ten times during the night and double at weekends, and may not be ignored by anyone no matter how fast asleep you thought you were. This one-floored hostel consists of a long corridor of doors, bathrooms down one end and my room at the other, the floors are hard and echoey and anyone visiting the bathroom during the night shares this journey with all the other tenants.We are on a very busy main road (there goes the doorbell  twice) with a junction just outside to control the busy 6 carriageway traffic, there are many buses, electric trams, taxis and strange little yellow scooters that have their own individual sounds, and as in all good story telling I leave the best and biggest until last. Right across from my window is a Brazilian Dance Club, the music kicks off post-pyjamus and doesnt desist until dawn, getting up to a heck of a tempo, with added input and encouragement from the crowd inbetween, who sound as if they are having a cracking time(more doorbell)

On the next balcony to mine there is a tall african man(reminds me of a pal of mine)  who shouts to his pals, in the bar across the 6 lanes of traffic, when he gets their attention he makes  a TEE HEE noise with a YIPE at the end, then he raises a pretend glass to pretend drink, all very amusing when the hour is late.

But I have had a wonderful week here, the place is scrubbed clean to within an inch of its life by Ryadhs wife Fatima, they are a lively, freindly muslim couple. Ryadh calls me Miss Grace in a kind of gone-with-the-wind way, I like it.  Next to me is another Fatima with two little boys, she is a hairdresser and  works long hours and is from Cap Verde, I think she has run away, but we don’t share a common language so it is hard to know. Fatima and I  cook and do our washing and raise our eye’s when the newly arrrived german couple get the recently used toilet paper out of the bathroom and use it to clean the chopping board

I’ve been travelling around on the Metro and the electric trams to see Art galleries, listen to the Portuguese singing, Fado, which I love. In the art galleries I’ve seen Paula Rego, Max Ernst, Georgio Okeefe, Andy Wharhol and the amazing work of the Pandolpho brothers. They are identical twins who became famous for graffiti in all corners of the world. What they do now is a kind of 3D effect, a whole wallful of hundreds of objects that you have to just keep looking at, it is happy, indepth and really interesting stuff. (doorbell has gone twice while I wrote this para)

The streets here are wonderful, very long without a gap, each old apartment building with exterior tiled walls,different colours for each building  the iron work on the balconies is so intertwined and floral its almost fragrant. The streets are made of diamond shaped cubes of white marble with some black tiles where there is space to make a pattern, these marble treets are probably ancient, they dip and sometimes have crumbled so you have to watch your feet. In that way its safer on the electric trams, all made of wood and on metal ruts into the ground and wired up overhead. (more doorbell)

The sign for Portugal is the Cock, in full plumage, proud and strutting, this is mirrored amazingly in the local male- the arrogance! We’re all chugging up the hill in the old wooden number 12 tram, which is bursting to capacity with passengers (doorbell once more) We have to stop because there is a man standing chatting to another man in a car, which is on the track, we beep beep and the standing man flaps his arm at us without looking, we stop and wait and beep and beep for 10 minutes,  while the standing man finishes his chat, seemingly totally unaware that he is inconveniencing more than 60 people. On our journey very small elderly men are hopping on and off, smiling and saying “bom dai” as we go up and down the narrow funneled streets. These lovely little old chaps are in fact the cities pick pockets, hard at work to pay for the Ginjahva, the powerful cherry liquor sold everywhere here. It is quite a delightful drink but a bit heavy when the sun is hot and your unused to strong drink in the middle of the day.

Home tommorow to impossible-to-travel-from Liverpool airport and rotten old Easyjet, who have charged me 18 pounds 3 times now on this trip for the same bag because my Bro (who paid for my travel God bless him) forgot I might have a bag. On my way from Lisbon airport to the Hosta I was well done by the taxi man. It was a ten minute drive he suggested 45E I said I think not and gave him 25, thinking I was doing well until Ryadh told me it was 7-10E, lets just hope for his sake I  don’t meet him at the airport, or as my Irish mother would have said he’ll get “who began it ”

After writing this last night was the worst night of all.  Doorbell, doorbell, lots of shouting which at 4am got to such fever pitch that Iwent out to the hallway  putting  on my best bulldog-chewing-a-wasp face and they all went off. Ryadh told me this morning that a tenant from upstairs had caused a row and then taken off after leaving all the taps running - it was hours before anyone spotted it. The Dutch boys, who had arrived that night,  tried to bring some girls in, they were discovered in early hours with accompanying din, later on they had drunk so much that they decided to be sick off the balcony onto the magazine man’s stand down below, further recrimations from him when he arrived at 6am. Lots of people left Hosta today very pissed off - glad I’m going

Only 12 weeks before N.Z. where does the time go?

Sorry, my site has been off-line for ages, my poor admin is the only excuse I have…………………………………………………It’s all as fabulous as ever on the here on the island……………………………….. …………….Still swimming most days. Someone has just loaned me a pair of flippers so I’m now swimming frighteningly far, I am still really scared of the deep water and all the possibilities of what it contains, there was a school of small sharks feeding out in front of the cottage the other day, though they were only about three feet long , I got really close, they looked really sharp and pointy and nasty. Its coming into autumn now so the water is quite cloudy and stormy,  when I get in with my snorkel on I can’t see more than a few feet in front of me, I could be right next to a huge shark and not even know it! Someone advised me to get into the water very quietly so that I don’t scare the fishes, so now I get in with the biggest splash possible so that the fishes maybe more scared than I am!………………………………………………………………………….Went to an unusual party at the w/e, will send photo. It was Manu’s 30th birthday party, Manu is an artist and lives up the top of a waterfall. The 2km path up was treacherous, slippery, wet, dark and frankly dangerous. But still we missed the worst bit which was a ravine that had to be walked in the past, Manu had built the most beautiful bridge, it was arched and curved with a great red ornamental handrail. Still arrived at the top puffed out and with my salad and cider pack still in tact, so that was the most important thing!  There was a huge animal on the barbecue, a fabulous band came from Wellington (how did they get the big speakers, instruments etc up the waterfall?) and lots of dancing, people being very silly and the usual party stuff……………………………………………………………..It was very dark on the way down, couldn’t see the slippery or dangerous bits, and therefore didn’t fall at all, I must have been cider -aided.  A friend gave me a lift as far as Gooseberry flats, which is a beautiful beach, and I took my shoes off and walked in the light of the full moon, disturbing the ducks that were sleeping on the beach and would rise up with huge quacks whenever I nearly trod on them - don’t know who was more scared the first time they did it, them or me.  Getting around to Puriri Bay where I live, there was the little blue penguin waiting on the corner by the left side next to the sea, and on the right a whole lightshow of glow worms in the hedge…………………………………………………………………………Next morning -7am- Bang bang on the door- “Tsunami alert” everyone living on the beach had to get off, but apart from enormous differences on the incoming and outgoing tides, very little happened and I was back at Ollie’s Cottage by midday……………………………………………………………………………..I’m going to town next week, I haven’t ever left the Island before during my stay, but I’ve been offered five reflexology treatments and a free ferry trip, so I will go. Also that weekend in town a Succulent Woman Party at a friends house, I haven’t been to one before, and I don’t know what it entails but I’ll keep you posted……………………………………………………………….I’ll be off-island for 5 days and will come back on the eve of my birthday. Couldn’t imagine trying to organize something in 24hours so I’ve got a Chef coming in to Ollie’s to cook for 6 of us, a sumptuous 3 course meal, it will cost us all $25 a head (£10) and they all bring what they drink. I will get ingredients for irish coffees, in town,  and then I’m looking forward to another great St Patrick’s night on the island ……………………………………………………………………..So lots of love to all of you, I’m coming home a month earlier than planned, arriving 21st April, stopping at Louise’s in Perth on the way. I’d forgotten I couldn’t be out of UK longer than 6 months without risking my pension………… Send any comments on my new email address     gracegypsydeepwater@gmail.com

After an almost sleepless night woke up at 6am on 27th December with a massive roaring, kind of crackling static noise in my ears.   The noise became so overpowering I stuck my fingers in my ears to keep the sound out, and then found that the noise was internal.  Couldn’t work out what was going on and fell back to sleep.  I woke again at 3 hours later all back to normal……………………………………I thought about it a lot during the day and then the evening news came on the radio. “A pod of 63 Pilot whales have been beached off the Colville  Channel at 6am this morning, 21 died at this time and the others were rescued by trained staff and holiday makers”……………………I look out to the Colville Channel 9 miles directly across the bay from me.Do you think I was switched on to their sonar system?By the way its a Blue Moon on  New Years Eve. Happy festives to all of you

I had my first rowing lesson today….but let me start at the beginning of the story………It was a full moon last Wednesday 2nd December. I was sitting in Ollie’s Cottage reading a crap book, so I thought I’d walk down to the little wharf about a mile away and look at the incoming high tide. I hadn’t gone far when a one-armed man in a camper van pulled up and offered me a ride, I thought he looks ‘armless enough so hopped in. We parked by the water with waves lapping against the tyres and got stuck into the beer bottles in the back and our life stories. We chatted until dark with the hook in Fred’s arm being used very effectively as a bottle opener all the while…………………………………………………………………………………………Fred Simpson is a gypsy and lived  on a boat for 30 years until his arm was pulled off by a very speedy anchor 5 years ago…..ouch!   Since then he has lived ashore with his wife Mary who is quite sick and in a lot of pain. So I offered to do Mary’s feet in exchange for a lovely few days of solitude on their fabulous 35ft wooden boat out in the bay, but first I had to learn to row!……………………………………………………………………..It looks easy enough, I watched people from my living room window rowing out to their boats for several days, in practice as it were, just dip in the oars and pull on them,  piece of cake……………………………………………………………………………..Fred stood on the wharf shouting and pointing while I learnt to ship the oars of the tiny tin boat. The first major problem, I found, was that I am very  dyslexic with left and right, as anyone I’ve taught yoga to will remember. So Fred is shouting “right oar, no right, RIGHT” so I try both sides because I’ve got really no idea until I get some approval which is the right oar. Then I had to keep the oars square, dip them into the water (both oars at the same time) and pull on them. Now I didn’t realise you were rowing forwards when you were actually not facing the way you were going, so in fact your forward rowing is with your back facing the way you are going, now thats not logical is it? By this time Fred is shouting “Yes Grace we know you’re good at backwards, so can we try forwards now?” I’m still confused and actually haven’t got the hang of rowing myself toward what I can’t see, so have to try backwards and forwards several times and wait for a prompt from Fred. Fred is looking concerned rather than irritated and I was laughing so much I couldn’t see and the oars got all over the place. Then we all settled a bit and everything came together and I’m heading towards the wharf (backwards going forward) a little too fast with Fred shouting “Left oar Grace, no left one,” then “the other left one”……….Do you know I didn’t realise how much swearing was involved with rowing. When I eventually got in Fred said “your not a natural”…………………………………………………..Then Fred and Mary, the dog and I were motored out to the big boat the Owaka (not sure why Fred doesn’t want me to use the motor) Mary made tea and we had some delicious moist christmas cake  and then I had to row everyone back.  The little tin boat was almost letting in water over the sides it was bearing such a heavy load. I could see the dog wasn’t keen and kept looking over the side thinking she might be safer making a swim for it, but it was all good. Mary said I kept nice and straight. When they dropped me off I ran and picked up my swimming stuff, thought I’d better keep the swimming going in case the rowing doesn’t work out!

(soz spacing stopped working)I LOVE HONG KONG…………………………………………………………………………………………………It is a stunningly beautiful place, particularly from where I am……………………………………………………… ..My sojourn in Lancaster this time was wonderful, apart from a little trouble with the truck (ie leaky roof, diminished solar power, door dropping to bits) and feeling really unwell most of the time due to the remnants of the falling-off-the-balcony-accident in Melbourne, I actually sorted that out eventually myself after lots of help from therapist friends by going on an 8 day fast, just water, all the swelling went from my legs and feet and I stopped feeling so weird …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… But, yes, this trip I had a very good time and saw lots of my friends, gave some good treatments, practiced yoga every day and travelled a fair bit, Amsterdam, Brussels, Geneva,Cardiff and Wiltshire, ending my time at home with a great going-away-party hosted by my friend Lydia on the Quay……………………….This journey has had an iffy start! It began with, somehow, my luggage being 6 kilos over weight! I have actually been even more over the permitted  weight before, but this time I was charged 30 quid extra, which was fair enough really. Then take off was 90 minutes late from Heathrow, so we arrived with only just enough time to catch the HK flight, even though it had looked at one time as if there was 3 hours to spare there…. ………………………….On the plane I was sitting next to a very nice Australian who had been a diver in the Navy for years, he had actually checked out the Queen’s yatch and saved it from a terrorist attack. He was very funny and made me feel very funny also, so we laughed a lot, starting from when he expressed his hunger by saying “I could eat the crotch out of a low flying seagull”. ……………………………..Anyway arriving at Hong Kong at the luggage carousel, waited and waited for my bags and nothing arrived, when I think of the time and care I took with the packing!…………………………..Wonderful pal Anna had arranged for me to stay with her pals Mark and Vida in HK, turns out they live in the most luxurious part of the capital, from my bedroom I can see the whole city from one window and the very beautiful harbour full of ships from the other, it must be one of the best views possible here, I have spent ages taking photos from the windows, I have sparkling evening shots of all the towering lights, moody foggy morning shots and then the sun coming up over The Peak at midday making the sky scrapers look enormous…………….My hosts are very kind, Mark works in shipping in the City and reminds me of the witty cockney lads I knew when I lived down in the smoke and elegant Vida and I have been having a great time seeing the city and lunching and shopping together……………………My first night here was an interesting one. I met KP  and Mei Sien, two of my favourite yoga students from Lancaster who moved to HK a year ago. We had dinner in a grand vegetarian restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, gorgeous food, then further down in the building we had desert, KP had Durian (converted to english means swallows dribble) , which he swore was vegetarian and smelt awful. After that I was invited to a hen night with one of Vida’s chums, so KP dropped me off in a taxi at The Spicey Fingers and I went in and joined the girls, to be honest it was very like any other late-night club anywhere else in any other major city on the planet, lots of inappropriate dancing and large spaces left for giant egos,  had a fairly good dance to some excellent music, and spent 4 times over the odds on a small cider, but took some great pictures and was very glad for the experience…………………………………….. ………………………………..Went to the Ladies Market yesterday, but because I am a Gwala (a ghost so called by the Chinese because we are pale) I was pursued relentlessly by the stall holders, just taking a peak at something would set them off and they’d name a price and then reduce it by a third in seconds and then run after me constantly reducing the price - horrendous, it made everything seem worthless……………………………………………………………… Then last night out on the tiles again, actually had a fabulous evening, saw the best band in Hong Kong and was the oldest woman out in the whole city. We went to several night clubs and in each one there were lots of middle to old aged quite unattractive men surrounded by young girls (several of them really young) some guys had two or three each and it seemed to me that these amazing sexual  gods they thought they had become were not in fact very endearing to us ordinary mortals. I was screamed at and threatened in the street by some plonker who was being totally obnoxious and pushed a philapino girl really hard off the dance floor, so I tapped him on the shoulder and reminded him of his manners, went to see the bouncer who had a word with him and went over to his mates and told them to keep him in check. As V and I waited for the taxi I got a real going over of abuse, he mentioned my relationship to my father, my lower body’s struggle with gravity, and the fact that I wasn’t in the first flush of youth, the feeling from him being that I wouldn’t survive the evening if he had anything to do with it, all interspersed with fairly continual use of the same expletives, not very imaginative or interesting at all really………………………………………………………………………………………….. Today mark and Vida have gone to the races, they do have a good life and I will pack and make my way to the airport………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Then on Monday back to Paradise and Great Barrier Island, much as I like being here, there is nothing like the heat, the turquoise swimming, the good clean air and the very clear starry night skies of that small island, also looking forward very much to meeting up with all the lovely people I know there……………….Lets hope the rest of the trip goes smoothly. Bags arrived eventually all in one bit, pretty lucky eh? Lots of love, and don’t forget to write! it can get a bit disheartening when I’m writing to you all with my news and I hear not a word back from anyone