I just had to come and say 'HI' and Happy new Year to you all from Oz.
The wedding was amazingly and surprisingly wonderful.
With the sand between our toes,the wind in our hair, surfers strolling past and the crashing waves, it was natural, personal, intimate and touching. I truly never expected to feel like this at all. If I could go back 30/40 years and have my life over, this is exactly the wedding I would choose for myself.
The rest of this experience has been a total 'mindfuck'.
From doctors, cancelled tickets, fevers, more doctors, decisions, decisions, decisions, changed tickets, travel insurance, non-refundable money, fevers, doctors, we both eventually made it, coming on seperate flights, arriving where we wanted to be in the end.
Since the wedding on the 29th, it has literally rained and rained and rained. 'Most unusual for this time of year here in New South Wales' we get told over and over, it's tropical, humid, and just sheets of it....
We are in a lovely lodge overlooking green fields, with cows and calves grazing, and it could be England, except for the sound of the kookaburras in the mornings. And still it rains.
A very confusing time it has all been and continues to be.
We are here till the 11th January and are relaxing, reading and I'm painting, so all in all a forced rest.
But in time I will no doubt make some sense of it all and what it all has meant..ot maybe I won't even bother!
Showing posts with label son. Show all posts
Showing posts with label son. Show all posts
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
Saturday, 22 December 2007
Tangent: Horizon
At this time of the year, we are all looking towards the horizon.
What will 2008 bring for us?
My New Year's Resolutions (in no particular order) are:
Make the very most of my trip to OZ (specially after the last few days).
Increase my Charity donations and do more for those in need.
Learn to draw and paint properly.
Appreciate my health even more.
Enjoy my 60th year on this earth.
Learn to say 'No'.
Renew my belief 'life is a journey, not a destination'.
Make more people laugh.
Try to re-unite my sons.
Most of all:
The Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The Courage to change the things I can
And the Wisdom to know the difference!
Happy 2008 to all.
IF: Horizon
Thursday, 20 December 2007
Tangent: IT AIN'T OVER TILL THE FAT LADY SINGS
I have always liked the saying 'it ain't over till the fat lady sings'
IT AIN'T OVER TILL THE FAT LADY SINGS
We ARE going to Oz.
We HAVE managed to find two tickets on the 24th December.
We WILL be at our son's wedding.
We WILL get well in the sunshine!
IT AIN'T' OVER TILL THE FAT LADY SINGS
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Tangent: The men in my life
The challenge this week on 'Please Draw Me' is to draw the person/people who are very special in your life.
I painted this today, sitting quietly, listening to 'Jigsaw' by Campbell Armstrong on my ipod.
I painted this today, sitting quietly, listening to 'Jigsaw' by Campbell Armstrong on my ipod.
They are all precious to me, they all give me pain in one way or another, they all mean the world to me!
It's also obvious that they don't have much hair or good eyesight !
Friday, 21 September 2007
Sunday, 22 July 2007
Thursday, 14 June 2007
Six: Visit Cemeteries
I know that this one will intrigue a lot of you because the thought of reserving a burial plot may have entered your minds. Let me state that this is not my reason for doing this.
It all started a year or two ago when my eldest son, Steve, announced one Sunday at lunch that he enjoyed going to a nearby cemetery and reading there in the peaceful surroundings. Everyone at the table almost choked. I looked at him to check whether this another one of his wry, dry jokes as he often comes out with them.
Let me tell you a bit about Steve. He is unique - unequivocally unique. Highly intelligent, exceptionally well-read with a selection of interests, unusual ones of course. These interests have varied from teaching himself Italian and Chinese cuisine, to writing novels and poetry that have never been published, yet show an extremely agile brain and a huge talent. Not to mention his penchant for all things artistic. He has delved, trifled with and also totally immersed himself in Buddhism, Salsa dancing and an MA in Linguistics. He is ultra sensitive and heavily bogged down by his emotional baggage that he carries, but he is the closest person to a 'soul mate' that I have ever had in my life.
Your own son, your soul mate? Well, why ever not? We are so alike, it is sometimes quite scary. That doesn't mean that I have the above attributes, but I recognise all of them in him as a bit of each is in me too.
When Steven says something, I always listen. So the day that he mentioned the cemetery, I was not only bemused but my curiosity was aroused. Up until this time I had only had a bad and sad relationship with cemeteries, going there to bury my dead. It never struck me that the very fact that the place is filled with dead loved ones meant that it possibly could be quite dramatically settling to ones psyche.
Anyway, time passed as it does, and I never thought about it again. He mentioned this place now and again, but I suppose it sort of went in one ear and out of the other.
Then a few weeks ago, after breaking up with his girlfriend and feeling bitterly low and smashed about, he decided to spend a Sunday afternoon in his 'local' cemetery, so we went to join him there.
Obviously the time was right, it's all about timing after all. As soon as we walked into the place, I could feel not only the quiet, but also the serenity, the dulling of all traffic noises; in fact it was like a tomb closing in around me, but not in a bad way. It was a particularly warm day and cemeteries always seem hotter or colder than anywhere else on the planet.
We wandered around looking for an ideal spot, not too hot, not too shady, not too near the smelly trash cans, not where a new grave was being dug, just the right place. When we settled down, I felt a sort of languor creep over me and I felt extremely relaxed and at ease. It dumbfounded me. I felt regret when we left and could quite happily have stayed another hour or two.
So, I started thinking about my list and decided there and then that I would visit other cemeteries in London this year to:
a) enjoy them
b)compare them
and, yes,
c) possibly choose the one I would like to settle in when I'm gone.
It all started a year or two ago when my eldest son, Steve, announced one Sunday at lunch that he enjoyed going to a nearby cemetery and reading there in the peaceful surroundings. Everyone at the table almost choked. I looked at him to check whether this another one of his wry, dry jokes as he often comes out with them.
Let me tell you a bit about Steve. He is unique - unequivocally unique. Highly intelligent, exceptionally well-read with a selection of interests, unusual ones of course. These interests have varied from teaching himself Italian and Chinese cuisine, to writing novels and poetry that have never been published, yet show an extremely agile brain and a huge talent. Not to mention his penchant for all things artistic. He has delved, trifled with and also totally immersed himself in Buddhism, Salsa dancing and an MA in Linguistics. He is ultra sensitive and heavily bogged down by his emotional baggage that he carries, but he is the closest person to a 'soul mate' that I have ever had in my life.
Your own son, your soul mate? Well, why ever not? We are so alike, it is sometimes quite scary. That doesn't mean that I have the above attributes, but I recognise all of them in him as a bit of each is in me too.
When Steven says something, I always listen. So the day that he mentioned the cemetery, I was not only bemused but my curiosity was aroused. Up until this time I had only had a bad and sad relationship with cemeteries, going there to bury my dead. It never struck me that the very fact that the place is filled with dead loved ones meant that it possibly could be quite dramatically settling to ones psyche.
Anyway, time passed as it does, and I never thought about it again. He mentioned this place now and again, but I suppose it sort of went in one ear and out of the other.
Then a few weeks ago, after breaking up with his girlfriend and feeling bitterly low and smashed about, he decided to spend a Sunday afternoon in his 'local' cemetery, so we went to join him there.
Obviously the time was right, it's all about timing after all. As soon as we walked into the place, I could feel not only the quiet, but also the serenity, the dulling of all traffic noises; in fact it was like a tomb closing in around me, but not in a bad way. It was a particularly warm day and cemeteries always seem hotter or colder than anywhere else on the planet.
We wandered around looking for an ideal spot, not too hot, not too shady, not too near the smelly trash cans, not where a new grave was being dug, just the right place. When we settled down, I felt a sort of languor creep over me and I felt extremely relaxed and at ease. It dumbfounded me. I felt regret when we left and could quite happily have stayed another hour or two.
So, I started thinking about my list and decided there and then that I would visit other cemeteries in London this year to:
a) enjoy them
b)compare them
and, yes,
c) possibly choose the one I would like to settle in when I'm gone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
