thank you!!

Thank you to everyone who posted such lovely comments on my post yesterday. It means so much to me. It's great to "meet" a few more of my readers and be assured I will be checking out your blogs over the next few days. Audrey Hepburn eh? *grins*

A little slow on the uptake I've started a yoga related Twitter stream. You can follow it here if you like.

My Saturday has so far consisted of a six mile bike ride, hot soup, a long nap and chocolate biscuits. No yoga, Saturday is my day off! And you dear reader?

Enjoy your Saturdays, whatever you are doing :)

things i love thursday (3)

It is another grey and cold fenland day, one of those days when being mindful reminds you that right now this minute everything is a bit.... well grey! So forgive my list for some of its trivialities today. A girl finds joy where she can. :)

* Finishing Chapter Six of that novel I'm writing! This is exciting for me because it's a strange and pivotal chapter that I had been putting off for about a year.
* Australian organics hair products.
* The sense of contentment and perspective I get when I talk things through with Himself. He really is "Don't Panic" personified!
* Hummus and avocado wraps.
* Dave Grohl being discussed on Home and Away - it's like a fangirl party in my television....;-)

I am sad that my spring bulbs haven't come up yet. I suspect those furry feline fiends of digging them up.

an early christmas present

Everybody has something that they covet over anything else. It could be an end to war, or bigotry. It could be a first edition of Keats' poems. It could even just be wealth, health and happiness.

For me would it be one of the original cassettes of Pocketwatch. I think only 200 were ever released, scattered around the globe; those that still exist, stuck in dusty boxes in people's attics. Most of them are probably destroyed. The mastertapes certainly are.

I've always hoped to come across a copy at a record fair or a car boot sale. There have been a couple of occassions when a copy has popped up on Ebay but Himself and I just haven't had the money to justify buying it (they go for £100s).

Then a couple of weeks ago this came up on Ebay. It's not Pocketwatch per se, but it is a 7" vinyl pressing of one of the 1990 tracks.

And until I have a copy of one of the original tapes, this will make me grin with delight. Best Christmas present ever! Many many thanks to dearly beloved Himself for always watching out on Ebay :D

What do you wish for this Christmas?

happy things to be thankful for

• Teaching again. Last week and this week I have been teaching yoga again for the first time since we moved (about 3 months). Whilst it has rendered me bone tired having been crazy busy at work again, I had forgotten just how much I love it. The first night I was so nervous but as soon as I started it all came flooding back and I thought "oh how I've missed this!"
• A vat of homemade Yellow Split Pea Daal which has kept me fed during a week when I have had next to no time to cook.
• Organic gin. Abel and Cole have their Christmas goodies in so we got some of this last week. My, oh my is it good (although of course I can only have one small one because of headaches and falling asleep!). Himself has organic Scotch, but hasn't tried it yet.
• Vegan hot chocolate (even though, despite checking everything for traces of dairy it still gave me tummy ache - why do all the yummy things hate me!)
• Binge reading.
• 100% support from Himself on a new project I want to work towards when I actually thought he would try and talk me out of it on the grounds of "doing too much".
• The "it's nearly here" feeling of a 10 day break over Christmas!
• A rumour that (shhhh!) it might snow!!!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

There is an irony the fact that a couple of days after my last post I had the worst fibro flare up I’ve had in ages! Plans cancelled! Catastrophe!

Hey ho and never mind, we had fun anyway. As you can see we put our tree up and everything is coming up Christmassy! I’m starting to get excited about Christmas now and really looking forward to the break. Our office closes on Christmas Eve and doesn’t open again until 2010 (which is ages in the future, right?) and we’ve elected for very simple celebrations this year. On Christmas day itself we are going to the seaside (yes, I know, in England, in December, we’re insane), then I think we’re seeing family members the day after Boxing Day, going to a dinner party on New Year’s Eve at a friend-from-work’s house and who knows what in between. We’re definitely hoping for a trip to London (I want one of those Top Shop style advisor appointments before I’m too old for Top Shop) and bowling. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without bowling.

How about you, dear reader, what are you up to for Christmas this year?

This week I am also thankful for:-

• The writing/editing course my parents have bought for me.
• Pain medication for flare ups.
• V+ (the recording device on cable TV) which is very handy when Dave Grohl and Rhys Darby are on at the same time on different channels.
• My lovely life with Himself and the kitties (only one kitty present in the photo though!)

Reasons to be Thankful

"So who wants to live forever when these moments will only come the once?" -- Justin Sullivan




This week I saw the best band in the world. Every time I hear Vagabonds live my heart bursts. Dancing to NMA for 2 hours is worth feeling as though my sacro-iliac joint is on fire the next day. Never, ever stop touring. Never. One Family. One Tribe.

Also this week I am grateful for:-

* Poetry
* Foo Fighters on VH1 Storytellers (even if they did bleep out all the "fucks" - meanwhile Jay-Z is allowed to call women "bitches" without being bleeped!)
* Desperately needed days off work
* Donating blood (another one off my list). Having needed blood myself in the past I always swore when I was well enough I would give it back.
* Yin Yoga
* Cooking for my family (which included British wine. Yes that's right, British wine! And it was nice!)
* Sunday morning power walks followed by curling up on the sofa
* Reading a whole book in a weekend (I used to do this a lot, I just haven't found the time in the last couple of years)
* Things to look forward to

Friday Link Love

I am prone to melancholia. After years of thinking I had to be joyful all the time I am starting to come to terms with the fact that a little bit of melancholy teamed with a sarcastic poke in the eye and a big dollop of realism is OK. In fact it's what keeps me grounded. Times of joy in my life are important but like the times of tragedy they pass and life continues in its endless pile of laundry and cat litterboxes that need cleaning. I continue to work on finding balance.

You, dear readers, keep me on my toes as do the blogs I read. So I decided, on this cold winter morning on the fens to share the love (very difficult to pick just five, but please consider yourselves all equally loved!)

1. Fiona Robyn - a published author so always an inspiration, but also a realist as can be seen in this post.
2. Eco-Yogini - her attitude to yoga, saving the earth and life in general is just right - we could do with more of her in the world. Passion without fundamentalism. Awesome.
3. Green Ink - seems to always post something that echoes my thoughts at that moment. Plus she originates from my favourite place in the world :)
4. Rand(om) Bites - next time I'm in Sydney I am so meeting up with this girl for a beer! :D
5. Strictly Writing - inspiration and cynicism mixed in with procrastination. What more can a girl want!

(and a special mention to Just Wafflin' - I love this woman and her funny, passionate very British posts!)

The Suburban Yogini's Ten Commandments

As inspired by Kathleen and The Happiness Project.
(Kathleen also inspired me to choose my word of 2010 which will be "mindfulness" - but more on that later)
--

One: I am Rachel.
Not anyone else’s perception of Rachel,
Or an imitation,
but true to myself.

Two: I will accept
that not everything will always go to plan.
I will accept
that this is just the way things are meant to be.

Three: I know my strengths.
I know my weaknesses.
I embrace them
and am honest with myself about who I am.

Four: I will be conscious,
I will be mindful and alive
with all of my senses
at every moment.

Five: I will accept
my limitations as part of who I am,
and work
with them rather than against them.

Six: I will learn
to receive as well as give,
to be inspired as well as to inspire,
to be kind to myself as well as to others.

Seven: I will love
with every ounce of my being.
I will say
“I love you” more often.

Eight: I will accept
my past self as part who I am.
I will no longer
be ashamed of past actions.

Nine: I will always remember
that living is so much more than getting through the day,
and only I
am responsible for my own happiness.

Ten: I am not my scoliosis.
The reality is much deeper within
than even my own spine.
It cannot hold me back.

Reasons to be Thankful

It's been a rollercoaster of a week and on this Sunday afternoon in November I feel somewhat drained by it all. But the rollercoaster has brought with it some amazing things. The two most important are somewhat interconnected and need some backstory.

Learning to Love London Again and the Return of my Writing Mojo

It only took two and a half months of living elsewhere. On Wednesday night, for a moment, I missed London. Don't get me wrong, moving out of London was the best thing I've done in a long time, but I guess it's natural I will miss it occassionally - I lived there for ten years after all.

On examination however it wasn't London per se that I missed - it was a specific part of London. A part I haven't visited for a long long time. A part, I'm sorry to say, I have never visited with Himself.

When I first moved to London as a wide-eyed 25-year-old the Ex and I lived in a gorgeous flat in a beautiful Georgian house conversion in Highgate. It was like my dream of what London should be. We had parks, we had Coleridge's house, we had a cemetery (where EVERYONE is buried), we had Hampstead Heath just across from us in which we had Keats House. My writing muse had never been stronger than it was there. I wrote all the time. I wrote for the Ham and High paper. I wrote for the local magazine Buzz. I wrote my first (unpublished and will undoubtedly remain so) novel. Looking back it was wonderful (I look back with rose coloured spectacles here of course, it wasn't that wonderful as my health was diabolical - but isn't nostalgia and hindsight all about forgetting the bad stuff?).

We were there for just under a year - then we moved and everything started fucking me off and my hate-hate affair with London began.

Over the last week or so my writing muse has returned for the first time in ages. To put this in perspective I have written two mediocre poems in the last twelve months and that's it. No magazine articles, no short stories and the only thing I've added to my in progress novel is a comma, which, like Oscar Wilde, I later removed. (Please note the only resemblance I have to the genius of Wilde is my constant input and output of commas, nothing else. I would never assume such arrogance!) This week I have written the first draft of a poem and a short story which just may amount to something and have sent off a little something to a magazine.

And so I remember Highgate. And I want to go back and take Himself. I want to show him my past. It feels important and necessary. We're going before Christmas and I'm excited.

Other things to be thankful for this week
* Being given two weeks' worth of cover teaching for a yoga teacher I hold in very high regard.
* The latest nephew being born without a hitch and absolutely perfect apparently! :D
* Doing a presentation at a sixth form open evening for work and making lots of good networking connections. This also made me feel nostalgic for my years at sixth form and especially the Latin stall at open evenings. I ran the A Level Latin stall two years in a row. Hardly anyone ever came :(
* Solo Acoustic Everlong.
* My new Foo tshirt.
* A day off with Himself, drinking Christmas flavoured soy latte in Starbucks and discussing the future.
* Yoga with my mum.
* Walking with my face against a November storm.

Happy Halloween

Samhain greetings bloggers and a very happy Celtic New Year to you all :) Reading your blogs it seems you all had a lot of fun! As you can see, our pumpkin lantern was not the most artistic one this year, but at least he looks happy!

So this seems as good a time as any to post a list of things that have made me happy this week.

* Kicking piles of autumn leaves into the air on the way back from the Post Office.
* Scratching furry cats' bellies.
* Watching Himself carve the pumpkin lantern.
* All of my yoga practices but especially class this morning because Himself came too.
* The awesome costumes that the little trick or treaters that knocked on our door last night had come up with (my favourite was the toddler dressed as pumpkin and taking it very very seriously).
* My dad winning the big tin of choccies at our work fundraiser on Thursday and giving the whole tin to me :D
* Pictures of my friend's new kitten.
* Having my medicine cards read by my office mate and them just being spot on.
* Making plans for the future.
* Just breathing.

Day 22 - Sunny Weather

As you can see from this article, we are having unseasonably warm weather here in the south of England right now.

When it comes to warm weather, the English fall into two catergories: those that put on shorts and sundresses at the first sign of the sun (regardless of temperature) knowing, as we all do in this country, that it may not last. Then there are those that might put on a pair of flipflops and stop wearing their winter coat but still have a few layers. Followers of that ancient saying "ne'er cast a clout til May is out" (ie, keep your vest on until the end of May!)

I fall into that latter category. Whilst I agree the sun is warm, it is only April and in the shade or in the wind I think it's still quite chilly.

But whatever we choose to wear, good weather really does change everything. After a long, hard winter everyone is coming out of their shells. Their are more smiles on the street, more people acknowledging each other. And that is never a bad thing.

Now I'm just sending out messages to the universe that this fantastic weather will last right through to the autumn and this is not a quick introduction to the summer before the universe let's it rain on us all summer again!

Day 4 - Nearly holiday!

I have just finished teaching my Saturday morning pregnancy yoga class - 6 round women this morning, and in a particularly rowdy mood. Took me ages to settle them to get started and they bordered on the hysterical whilst we were doing partner squats! Must be something in the air - everything is in full bloom and the air smells of sunshine and spring. Spirits are lifting from the dull days of winter.

So now, time for some lunch before a private session with a client this afternoon. She is one of my regulars from my Wednesday night class who comes about once a month to work on her own self practice. She likes to pay particular attention to core strength so I incorporate quite a bit of Pilates into her sessions.

Once she goes I have no more classes or clients until Tuesday 14th April. Whilst I love teaching, I love time off just as much. It helps me gain that perspective I was talking about.

I hope it is beautiful spring weather for all of you.

Namaste!

Six Things

I do hundreds and thousands of memes over on my LJ blog, but never here, mostly because I dont' think enough people read it to tag me. However K in her Square One Blog has tagged me! Yay!

Link to the person who has tagged you.Write down six things that make you happy.Post the rules, tag six others and let them know you did it.Then tell the person when your entry is complete.

1. Writing. This takes on many guises. I have always fancied myself as a novelist - I have one finished and two unfinished novels yearning for a publisher (although yearning won't actually get them out there). I write poetry (I have no idea how bad or good it is), I write every night in a paper journal and have several different blogs. On top of that I've written several articles for yoga magazines and am trying to write a book about yoga and scoliosis/chronic pain - the drafts of which are here. Basically I just can't stop myself writing. It makes me happy and has a certain cathartic effect as well.

2. Reading. I've always been addicted to a good story. I like anything with a hint of magic and the supernatural and good historical fiction. I am also a sucker for old fashioned crime stories (Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Colin Dexter). My favourite genre is Victorian gothic and end of the century novels and I am especially loving the new wave of this from modern authors such as Michael Cox.

3. Cooking. I can and will cook anything and I love it. I am very unmethodical, hardly ever follow recipes and make up my own stuff all the time. I have cooked and baked since I was a child. I am passionate about good food, organically ethically sourced ingredients and cooking everything from scratch. I love experiementing with flavours and on top of all that I love to eat the results :D

4. The sound of the sea. I don't actually have to even see the sea, just hearing the waves lap against the shore is enough for me. I feel at home, at one, comfortable, relaxed when I can hear the sea. Seeing the sea of course is even better, inhaling the ozone, feeling sand between my toes. It's a little part of the world where I can actually feel content and one of the reasons I miss Australia.

5. Cambridge. The town I grew up in. The town I did my Masters degree in. It always feels like my town. My health is always slightly better there. I love the ancient alleyways, the antiquarian bookshops, the market, the fact it still has record and vintage clothes fairs. I am looking forward to being in a position to move back there next year.

6. The Foo Fighters. This is perhaps the most important one really. If in doubt play the Foos. It is guaranteed to ALWAYS cheer me up. Every girl needs a fangirl crush and an obsession to get through the days and Dave Grohl and the Foos is mine :)

I'm not going to tag because I think only a few people regularly read this blog! If you do do it though please let me know!