Dreamyoga.co.uk Blog

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

I’m over in Europe mostly to visit my eldest son Sid, his partner Sylvia and my beautiful grandaughter Toni. They all live in Amsterdam at the moment and Sid invited me over to a large event called The Earth Festival he helps run every year at the A.D.M (Amsterdam Dry Dock). This is a large ex-industrial area at the side of the North Sea Canal basin.

My first visit to this site was 10 years ago and what a sad festival that was! My daughter and three year old grandson Lucas had been at the A.D.M for several weeks helping out. When I arrived on site Lucas and his pal were playing on their little toy cars between two large entrances in and out of the massive warehouse, as soon as I saw Lucas I felt he was in danger, so I grabbed him and we ran off. Seconds later a car roared through the space killing a young Italian DJ called Antonio and carrying Lucas´s pal off on the fender, the little boy was unharmed thankfully.

This was a much happier occasion. My son had since become a brewer and was still busy with the organisation of the festival and running his micro-brewery.  That’s a new plus to being a mother, free beer!!

There was a heck of a lot going on among the camper trucks, tents, Mongolian yurts, and art installations.  The main attraction on the first night was “the Dirt Babes”.  Two almost naked women, who kist each other ferociously at the start of the bout, and then proceeded to trow each other around in a huge mud bath.  I couldn’ t see all that much as most of the big blokes were standing at the front in the way, but perhaps that was all for the best. 

The next day my sons beautifull partner, Sylvia, who is a professional trapieze artist, was hiked up to the sky by an enormous crane and proceeded to whirl and rotate and do the splits against the background of a glorious sky, long skiens of lilac tulle floating behind her.  The effect was elegant and the strenght of her body astonishing.

On the last night we had an earthquake, it had all been prepared over the weeks and was entirely staged but so realistic, this is what happened:

the ground began to shake under foot, air raid sirenes began to scream, people were running around with stretchers carrying individuals covered in blood soaked bandages.  Onlookers were kept in line by “armed guards”, uniformed personnel, and the same militia ran by the side of the “President’s” huge winged car.  The tutored crowed began to howl and hold themselves at the car wind screen and were thrown to the ground, twitching and screaming. 

If I hadn’t known it was all staged I would have been really scared.  Lots and lots of other stuff going on, to much to tell, though I did love the enormous box that sat there lazily blowing out smoke rings.

On the train the next day to friend Karina’s in Brussels.  Karina lives in the most elegant apartment in the world, the palace is across the road and this apartment was to house the King’s mistresses at one time. Karina has two well behaved children, Mira 8 and Victor 6.  Karina is a geologist and investigates the soil and the water of Brussels and tries to fix it.  She was married to a Mongolian for years and now they have been separated for some while she thought she would rescue the childrens cultural heritage.  So they returned from Mongolia last week after two months of travel with lots of interesting stories and photos, that stirred my interest again in religion.  Mongolians on a general level worship through the Shamanic Buddhist tradition, first thing theu do on waking is to read the sky and have a believe it will tell them what is happening. 

I love the architecture and art galeries in Brussels. Yesterday we went to the Magritte exhibition, he is from the turn of the last centuries surrealisme school.  There is his drawing of a pipe and underneath the picture it says ” this is not a pipe”.  He wants people to understand that it is only a representation of the pipe and a little movie runs along side showing him cutting out the pipe and lighting it to show in fact that it isn’t a pipe.

Today piep….

Tomorrow we will go and look at the Art Deco parts of the city and on Saturday I am going to Geneva to stay with friends Nelly and Erling, I so looking forward to see them, I haven’t seen them since their fabulous wedding two years ago in the south of France.

So that’s all my news and as they say here ” Ajus”.

I’m having life changing events occur just now - must read my astrology chart to see whats going on!

I bought 1,000 shares for £4k nearly 10 years ago, as soon as I bought them the price fell and they were worth £150, a friend nudged me recently to have a look at them. Late at night two Saturdays ago I did and was convinced they were worth £31 each. I texted a much wiser, accountant, friend to look and he said “yes £31 pounds each”   Hurrah!    I sent off the share certificates to instigate the name and address change so that I could sell them, these arrived yesterday and I phoned to sell my fabulous shares for a large 4 figure sum.

In the intervening ten days I had mentally given half to my son, paid off my debt to a very patient friend, paid for my air fare back to NZ and 6 months living out there, and a new Apple Mac Notebook (only £700)  I was even thinking of ordering the Cashmere Company catalouge! But all was lost when I phoned to sell my shares, the man at the other end said they were worth  £291 thats 31p each! Why won’t God trust me with the money? I’d be really careful, honest!

Well I will certainly be ready next time a huge pile of money comes towards me out of the blue, can’t say I’m not a tad disappointed though.

A bit more bad news. My back has been very sore and stiff, since the Oz accident and I felt I couldn’t move either quickly or with any suppleness. I went for a treament to a marvellous friend on Tuesday, as the treatment finished I realized I couldn’t get up off the couch or move. My therapist happens to be a very handsome, charming chap, as he manipulated me to a sitting position I had my arms around his shoulders and he had his arms around my waist. Chests together I just had to say “OOh Alastair I didn’t think we knew each other this well”

Walking very very slowly back to town, a woman I knew flew towards me arms wide about to give a big hug - terrified - I caught her wrists very tightly and hissed “DO NOT TOUCH ME”  She looked really scared, don’t think I’ve had that effect before, I enjoyed it to be quite honest.

Last week I hurt so much I cancelled all my classes and gave up teaching Yoga, life feels strange and I really miss my students, some of them have been with me for over a decade.

But on a positive note I have moved back into my lovely green ex-army truck, and parked again in the back garden of a large mansion house. Everything in my truck works, solar power, cooker, radio etc though it was all in a filthy mess, as it had been abandoned 3 years before, without a backward glance, and there has been a certain amount of weather through the leaky roof since then. All wooden surfaces were covered with a glorious black mould and the ceiling cloth was hard and brown and had kind of orange-peel fungus hanging prettily and damply from it.

 My friend Pennie and I attacked it with rubber gloves, face masks and some really horrible chemicals, the ceiling cloth came down and was optimistically put into the washing machine and came out as new - a miracle! It was 100 degrees inside the truck as we worked, sweat pouring into our eyes and flowing over our masks and there was great hilarity as I asked Pennie solicitously if she was warm enough. She is a very brave woman and the help she gave me cleaning my truck was way beyond the call of friendship.

I’ve been here for 3 weeks now, high up on the hill with a glorious view of the park and the city 2 miles away and the sea and mountains even further, sunsets are really special events up here. 

My garden was in a mess, but I found lots of the plants I had left behind, still in pots but needing a bit of love. A beautiful Honeysuckle, just about to flower, a huge succulent my daughter gave me years ago, a giant Poppy (not looking that well) and recently recovered from my friend Georgina’s garden where she had been diligently looking after it for me,  a glorious fragrant yellow rose called Alfred Bell in full flower. I have made a bamboo support trellis for it and put it next to my truck and the fragrance drifts through in the warmth of the day. The large iron Ganesh statue I had in the Yoga Studio stands facing my truck door in a protective kind of stance. All is very well up here in Paradise.

I’m glad to be home and grateful to all the people who I’ve met and who have helped me on my travels, I am blessed with my friends. I reckon I’ll be off again in November, back to Great Barrier Island, New Zealand, to swim in that beautiful blue South Pacific…….. I have a charmed life really.

Waiting for the last leg of the trip at Singapore Airport.

This unexpected 24 hour stay in Singapore worked out well. I found a wonderful part of the city I hadn’t been to before called Katong, only 10 minutes from the airport and holding all my hearts desires. Went for an early swim in the outdoor pool, enjoying the 32degrees, then  a lovely reflex treatment, visit to a fabulous Ganesh temple and glorious South Indian lunch, all less than five minutes walk from each other.

I’ve been in a fair amount of pain since a balcony collapsed under me three days ago and I was nearly plummeted 120 foot to the ground (*see foot note). I was in Melbourne and in the house by myself, it was a beautiful sunny day so I thought I would go out and sit on the balcony. As I walked across the tiles 2 rows of them dissappeared underfoot and I went with them, with only my boobs to stop me falling, I knew they’d come in handy for something!  I was worried about struggling to get off and out as I thought the whole structure might crash on top of me. When I realised that the railings would take my weight I hiked myself up, using a HUGE amount of strength I didn’t know I had and managed to pull three quarters of my body weight out of the hole of masonary and back into the house.

I lay on the carperted floor totally freaked out, trembling all over and in a great deal of pain, a huge haematoma came up on my right shin and there were cuts all over the lower half of my body, 3 days later I have a rainbow coloured bottom! Nice

So hobbling home tomorrow morning looking forward to seeing all those Lancaster friends

Footnote* It wasn’t actually 120 ft drop from the balcony it was about 12 but as a wise man told me  recently “why let the truth get in the way of a good story” It made it much more exciting though didn’t it?

Tasmanian politics may be even madder than the British version. There was a budget here a few days ago. The age to receive the pension has gone up to 67! They are closing the Government departments of Arts, Heritage, Tourism and the Environment, but paying $15,000,000 for Hawthorne Football club to come and play six games here (whoever heard of Hawthorn?)

A couple of nights ago I went to the Uni Reveiw, I got a cancellation, it is so popular here the seats are booked up to a year ahead. There was lots of nudity and political jokes and at the end a girl rushed onto the stage and said “read my lips, no more Bush” at that she lifted her skirt and showed us her shaven crotch, very funny!

Was taken  out on the boat today by my woofing host and his son, it was very cold and blustery with little squalls of snow and quite a swell on, but lovely to be out on the sea. When I got back we saw some birds wheeling about in the sky (we are high up here) so I went out with the binoculars. There in a tree right next to me was a pair of Wedge Tailed Eagles, they are quite rare world wide and  there are only 80 pairs in Tasmania. So they sat in a tree, very close to me and I sat on a wall watching them for about 10 minutes, after a while they took off, it was gob-smacking, HUGE birds with an enormous wing span,  just took off, it made me gasp they were so beautiful!

Yesterday I went to the Female Factory, it was a place in the mid 1800’s where female convicts were sent from England and Ireland. The area is freezing cold, there was snow on Mt Wellington behind, and the river close by often flooded at that time. The woman slept in tiny stone cells with no glass in the windows and no fires, they had very light clothing, were without socks or underwear and slept on hammocks because of the flooding. The Factory was used by pardoned male convicts and local men as a marriage bureau, but if the women did’nt please their new husbands they were sent back to the factory (often if they were pregnant, because the men didnt want to feed another mouth and the woman could’nt work) and the man could pick another woman up. When they came back they were punished for being unsuitable by being put in complete darkness in a tiny cell for up to 3 months, during this time they would wear a 3kg iron collar with spikes inside it so that they couldn’t lie down or sleep. The worse thing though was a display someone had made of 1,200 tiny baby bonnets, to represent the 1,200 babies who died in the female factory from malnutrition or by the cruel conditions, the 300 babies who survived were weaned at 9 months and taken to a childrens home and never given any details of their mothers, I had to leave at that point because all those tiny bonnets were just too much.

I have loved Tasmania, not as much as Great Barrier Island of course, but I will be back as I havent seen enough of it yet. Off to Melbourne tomorrow and my flight home two days later. Previous return trips have filled me with dread, nowhere to live, maybe not enough money and a real lack of confidence in myself. This time I am so looking forward to coming home and seeing all my pals and my Grandson, can’t wait! I really think that the 5 Tibetan healing rights I’ve been practicing have been so good for me.