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?

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 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.

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?

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.