Hello new year, new beginnings

The beginning of a year always (? - well, maybe mostly!?!) seems to be a special time. A whole new blank canvas ahead, with who knows what adventures to come.

Looking back, 2013 was a very mixed bag for me. A lot of time spent dealing with my mother's estate, and the sale of her house. Then packing up/dealing with the contents of that house, which was (unsurprisingly) quite an emotional experience. And all through that I was dealing with various health issues - some of which were no doubt related in some way to the emotional stress of losing one's mother. And all of which meant I wasn't able to practice yoga for many many months. Finally I decided it was time to take control, to just get back to the mat no matter how much I was coughing! I made a decision to go to Dena Kingsburg's Bali retreat again, and had such a great time, I haven't looked back!

And behind all of those events I have been working through my own 2 or 3 year plan, to move down to northern NSW. I spent a lot of time fixing up things in my house, and finally when I got back from Bali it was time to get the real estate agents in. The house has been on the market for a couple of months now, and there have been at least two potential buyers who were very interested in it. Although in the end these fell through, I'm still very heartened. I always knew it would take a while to sell, as it's in the country, and needs a particular type of person who likes that sort of life. But I do feel confident that things will move in the not too distant future. And then it'll be time for me to move!

So, 2014 and New Year's Resolutions ...

There is much to look forward to, and one thing I really would like is, (as a friend on Facebook said) 'more yoga'! But I also really want to remember / be aware, that this all isn't a dress rehearsal. This is my life and I want to be living it now, not waiting for things that I want to happen in the future. To stay connected inside to reality and to just enjoy the ride!

I wish that for everyone ... :)

Post Bali wrap-up

Back home now after a truly wonderful few days in Bali. My experiences last time (of being sick) had somewhat coloured my memory of Bali, and all those stupid worries I had about whether I was healthy enough to go and take on the intensities of a yoga workshop just made me scared to commit. I knew inside I was being pathetic (!) and, oh I am so glad I went. Bali is just a magical place. The people are so uncomplicated and happy. The way ceremony and their religion intertwines throughout their daily lives every day is just amazing ...

But - despite all of the beauties of Bali, this trip really was all about the yoga for me. Dena is such a wonderful teacher - the way she is just really clicks with me. (I think I've said it before, but she so reminds me of my favourite friend, Wendi!!) Another thing to look forward to when I move down to Ocean Shores is that she will be my yoga teacher down there ...

Anyway - I will have had 3 days at home before I go back to work tomorrow ... when I guess the normal day-to-day stuff will come back in and take over more of my consciousness - sadly! Going to a yoga class this evening ... it was a choice between choir practice (for the Messiah) and yoga, and I'm afraid yoga wins out over choir!!

Almost there ...

Have been keeping it very quiet (blog-wise) but I have paid everything for the Bali trip, and it's now just 2 days till I fly off!

My practice is definitely getting stronger - managed to get through a led series of sun salutes at last weekend's class which always has more than 5 of each! But for a reality check - I am only now just about able to grab a finger in Marichyasana A for goodness sake! I guess that's what 12-14 months away from yoga does for you, but ... ! In fact, I'm not even really supposed to be doing that - Richard hasn't given me that pose back! But I am practicing certain missing poses 'on the side' so I can do a more straightforward practice in Bali.

Today's my last day at work. Tomorrow (my normal day off) I will be supervising the arrival of a large (4,000 gallon) water tank to replace one that rusted away ... Luckily there are going to be 4-5 people to do the 'manhandling' of it! It will have to be rolled part of the way as after that water tank was originally installed, a row of golden cane palms was planted in front of it. They have gotten huge! I've had a couple removed and the others thinned out. So there should be just enough room to roll the tank between the edge of the house and the palms!! Fun ... must remember to take a photo!

Tempting fate

I was tempting fate when I made my last post about all the 'progress'! I think it was actually the next day that I suddenly developed some kind of muscle strain in my back! In fact it is/was remarkably similar to what I had a year ago ... My osteopath tells me that it's muscles that attach to my diaphragm and the strain/whatever is caused by coughing!!! If only I could stop!!!

Again I am finding myself unable to do anything involving a forward bend ... not so much the going down as the coming back up - my back can feel really unsupported (and painful!) But it's worst at night. I've once again established a close relationship with Voltaran - after only a few weeks away from it!!!

So, I don't know how many times I've said/done this over the last few weeks - but I will make a final decision on going to Bali after I see my osteopath again this evening. I'm pretty sure I'm still going to go. I just don't know how I'll manage sun salutes etc etc. What a pain!!

I wasn't able to practice on the weekend - had visitors, but yesterday I tried again. Sun Salutes were difficult - I ended up have to kind of 'creep down' onto my hands & knees to get to the floor, and then on with the sun salute. (Only tried one!) I did manage to do padangusthasana although coming back up from it was difficult. The Prasaritas weren't so difficult - maybe the wide-angled stance helps ... Maybe when I do my lunchtime practice in the uni gym today things will have got a bit better!

Progress

Things are ticking over ... my shoulder injury is largely fixed (fingers crossed!) and I am back to doing 'normal' sun salutes and vinyasas. The only weight-bearing pose that still gives my shoulder a hint of a twinge is purvottanasana, so I'm leaving that out for the moment.

Mind you - I'm only talking about the effects of the shoulder injury (bursitis) being largely 'fixed'. The year or so of no yoga still shows in my practice (and what my teacher will let me do) ... Because it's only 3-4 weeks till the Bali workshop I decided to take things into my own hands and start practicing poses at home that officially I haven't been given back yet. Really, just in an attempt to be able to practice all (or most) poses up to Navasana while I'm at the workshop, which isn't a huge practice anyway ... I expect my teacher probably has an idea I'm doing this ... :)

Things are moving along on the home renovation front! Swimming pool/pond is gone, replaced by a lovely big deck area. New water tank should be delivered just before I leave for Bali. Just a few more tidying up type things to do and then I guess I'll have to get the real estate agents in ... (Scarey!!)

Bali workshop booked!

Yeay - I gathered my courage and booked my flight to Bali for Dena's workshop in October! I still don't know what shape my practice will be in by then - don't even know if I'll be able to do normal sun salutes but really hope I will have got over most of the shoulder problems by then!

It's funny - I was so scared to commit, but now that I have I'm really looking forward to it - duh!! I realised/was reminded that you can't live your life worrying about things that might or might not happen ... just have to step forward and 'carpe diem' ... it's the only one we've got!!

Off to Melbourne next week for the Blackboard conference (LMS software I am involved with at work). Will be catching up with some Melbourne friends while I'm down there which should be nice - also hoping to do a bit of shopping on the day before the conference <grin>.

Yoga, baby niece, house-hunting ...

A lot has been going on! First of all and most importantly, Jo and Emma have had a baby girl in London - Charlotte! Lovely ... born the same day as that 'royal' baby! So happy for them - can't wait to see her, though I will need to - they aren't due back in Oz for a visit until January.

Progress (slow but steady) is happening in yoga. I'm still not doing proper sun salutes, but am now doing a deeper version of the one I was doing, and I've also been given back the initial (knee on the ground) version of parivrtta parsvakonasana.  It all felt great at class yesterday ... even my balance in UHP was (amazingly!) much better. But I better not get too excited about that - balance is a very variable thing with me!

Still haven't quite decided what to do about going to Dena's Bali workshop at the end of September. I will need to commit soon as the flights will all fill up. I guess I'm still wondering how much I'll be able to do if I go. But it's two months away, and I would hope that I'd have managed to get back a lot of my practice by then. (And even if I haven't 'officially' been given poses back, I expect I will be doing them in my home practices, and at the workshop!) Probably I'm scared of getting sick yet again and not being able to go. But I can't live my life like that! Hopefully I'll manage to book something this coming week!!

I also went down to Ocean Shores for a couple of days at the end of the week - to check out property etc. It was good - even though a lot of the houses are suburban brick-types, there are definitely some houses are are more my style, so I feel fairly confident I'll be able to find somewhere really nice ... We also had a lovely time going to the Mullumbimby farmers market on Friday morning - there are heaps of markets around there, and there is just nothing here (well, nothing that's not an hour's drive away!) I was also introduced to someone who runs a community choir down there, and then there's Dena's shala in the district ... It will be good ... :)

Fingers crossed - back to yoga!

Finally! I can't (and don't even want to!) begin to work out how long it's been. And it's been just one 'interruption' after the other! At the beginning of May after everything that'd happened I finally made a start on practicing again, and made it to one class. A couple of days after that I started to feel like there might be something going on with my knee - yes, the same one I had that meniscus tear in, just a couple of years ago. And sure enough, after a couple of days the knee started 'clicking'!! Horrors!! Luckily I happened to look back in this blog to when that happened last time, and discovered I'd noted down something my osteopath had showed me - how to walk without letting the knee click.

The added freakout for me here was that my osteopath had just gone to Vietnam on holiday and I couldn't get an appointment for a couple of weeks ... Still, I did manage to get a cancellation for just after she came back. And she said that it wasn't a tear again, but something I'd done must have just twisted the meniscus a bit or something! And finally, after seeing her again today she said it's ok to go back to yoga, but very very gently and carefully!! As if I'd be anything else - well, at least to start off with. I do tend to get impatient with being (as I see it!) held back, but ... :)

But I'm so happy now! I'll do a very light practice at home tomorrow, and then go back to class on Saturday afternoon. And maybe, if all goes well, I might try and go to Dena's Bali workshop later in the year - beginning of October. But I'm going to wait and see for a while first ... :)

The roundup

Well, everyone else is doing it ... I've looked back through my 2011 blog posts, and I actually don't really know how to sum it all up. Some bad things happened. I got a torn meniscus in my knee. I did get to Bali, but was pretty sick the whole time! And - don't think I ever posted about this, but in the middle of the year my darling pussycat got run over - I was searching for her and had to pick her body up from the road. Too painful to blog about at the time, and although I'm now reconciled, I think that some of the pain from that may have spilled over into the way I was so freaked out/obsessed with my knee meniscus issue - probably explains a lot. (Never realised it at the time, but the knee thing happened only a week or two later.)

Something that I did learn from Dena this time was to 'enjoy what I've got/where I am in the practice'. I've just re-read a post from Bali about her concept of 'conscious samisthithi' before moving into each pose. To stretch the spine, then turn on uddhiyana and mula bandhas, and then move into the pose. One of the teachers at my shala reminded me to do that in my last shala practice before Christmas.

And don't let me forget that my meditation teacher Maharaji came to Australia, and I went to the 2-day event at Amaroo, and also saw him speak in an introductory event in Brisbane a couple of weeks later (having just flown back from spending 10 days helping my Mum when she got out of hospital). That was all really wonderful.

I'm hoping for a happy and healthy 2012! I will get another pussycat soon. I've reluctantly decided that while I still live in this house (which, although rural, has a road close by that cars/lorries drive fast along) I will have to prevent access to the wider outdoors. I've always kept my cats inside at night to protect the wildlife, but generally speaking I don't agree with keeping cats inside. But ... I just can't go through that again (finding her dead on the road), and have actually had part of the back deck fenced off, so I can give a pussycat limited outdoors access. I'm going to get an adult cat from the RSPCA shelter this time (although I'll definitely get an Abyssinian kitten again in the future!)

Anyway - let's just see what lessons 2012 brings to us all ... :)

Absence of yoga practice

This post is just a whinge (Australian expression!) about how sick I've been the last few weeks, so be warned if you read further <grin>

I have been sick for weeks and weeks. In fact I started coughing badly the minute I stepped off the plane in Bali nearly 3 weeks ago. Then by the middle of the week the rest of this flu/chest infection caught up with me and I had no energy to do anything except class with Dena, and possibly a trip into Ubud to get a massage. Not interested in eating - most unusual for me! I was almost glad to be leaving at the end of the first week, as it had felt harder and harder to be involved in the class - specially with all the paroxysms of coughing ... I don't know how I got through all that pranayama!

Now it's nearly 2 weeks since I got back and only now, the 3rd type of antibiotics finally seem to be working. The cloud is lifting from around my head, and I almost feel I might have the energy to set foot on my yoga mat again - but a very short practice, and at home only!

Still feels like it'll be a while before I feel 100% again. I took some time off work last week, but didn't have much sick leave so had to come in this week. All I could do when I got home was collapse in bed with a cup of soup!

Turns out I've had some obscure flu that is very hard to get rid off. My lungs got infected, and that made the whole flu virus keep re-infecting! Lovely!

Don't think I want to write anything much about Bali at the moment - want to wait till I'm better again and can see it all through clearer eyes. It certainly was hard this time, which I had never ever expected!

Anyway - I do feel better than I felt at the beginning of this week, and people at work even say I look better so that's good! Hopefully it's all upwards and positive from here on ... :)

Bali days

One of the things everyone seems to do in Ubud is have massages. I didn't last time I was here but yesterday I went and had a "deep tissue" massage Is that the right term? Not sure but no doubt you get the drift! The two photos above are from Body Works, the massage place (predictive text changed that to massacre!!!) When I walked into the actual massage room the music playing was the Gayatri mantra which was nice. It wasn't nearly as painful as I had been fearing and I slept really well last night. Think I'll do it again before I leave!

After you have the massage you are taken into the garden (pictured above) to sit and drink a mug of herbal tea and have some fruit ... Really lovely - can't imagine a massage place like this anywhere but Bali!



And this picture was taken just before an afternoon workshop. The ducks seem to live in the rice paddies outside the yoga studio, and gather together in the evening to be shut into their duckhouse ... :)

Today's workshop was really good. Dena was talking about 'conscious stamistithi', and taking those principles into every pose. In a nutshell (and if I've remembered it correctly!) she says that at the beginning of every pose you should first Stretch (or lengthen), then Protect (activate uddhiyana bandha), and then move into the direction of the pose. That makes a lot of sense. Can't wait to see if I can remember/do this!

She also talked about how the practice of yoga will help people stay healthy as they (we) age. Which sounds like a wonderful idea since we can't avoid the aging bit!

Apart from the yoga, I did a bit of shopping today with my friendly driver Sujana, from last time! At a batik place I had fun buying a couple of little dresses - for Richard and Katy's daughter Margaret, and if Elizabeth has a girl this time, then one for her too! It's lovely to have young children to buy presents for!

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Back in Bali!

Here I am back in Bali - that little island of paradise. I'm sitting on my balcony looking out at the rice paddies that run all the way through the hotel on a not too hot, overcast morning. Been for the first yoga practice, been for yummy brunch with everyone in the Indus restaurant across the road ...

Going to have a relaxing day today ... May go down into Ubud later, but mostly I want to just laze around, read a book, think vaguely about what I may want to do over the week.

Class was lovely. After we each introduced ourselves and said a bit about our practice, we did some breathing practice and then did a full led primary. I did all the poses in my modified practice and all seems good! Last week Richard gave me back 3 more poses and a couple of days later my knee wasn't at all happy. Which freaked me out somewhat (though I did keep Dena's wise words to me in mind!) But a couple of days rest seems to have done the trick - though I am more aware of being extra careful about alignment.

And I've met up with the other bloggers Bibi and V! Which is really nice ... :)


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How long has it been?

Seems like an age since I last posted here! Only 2-3 weeks but they have been extremely full weeks!

Full of people staying; spending precious time with Maharaji, my teacher; more time spent down in NSW helping my mother get over her fractured femur ...

And now it's only 15 days till I fly off to Bali for a week with Dena!

I only got back from Bowral (where my Mum lives) on Wednesday, just in time to go to Maharaji's public Words of Peace event in Brisbane. Then back to work for the last 2 days of the week. I went to class (yoga) last night, and will go to the Saturday afternoon one tomorrow. Then on Sunday morning I'm going to Helen's to do yoga on her back deck. I've been meaning to take some photos of that for ages - hopefully I'll remember this time!

Decided to give my knee (and strained right hamstring!) a rest today. I went to the osteopath yesterday (Thursday) and probably shouldn't have gone to yoga that evening as she worked on the hamstring. Maybe I've undone all her work - hopefully not!! But anyway, good news on that front - she told me I don't need to come again for my knee! So my knee is being released to do the final healing on its own over the next few months!

Actually, my whole attitude to the knee issue has changed following an email from Dena. I'd sent her an email 'explaining' about my knee injury and all the poses I couldn't do. When I didn't hear anything back for a few weeks, I sent another similar email (!) She replied very sweetly saying:

Stop concentrating on what you can't do,

and enjoy what you can !!

That really cut through! I've been obsessed for weeks - no months!! Seems so silly now. In fact I can't believe I actually added a whole section on one side of this blog about what poses I could and couldn't do! That is going - going - gone !!

So, thank you Dena!!

Yoga and visitors

Yesterday I was just hanging out the washing while waiting for Helen (my yoga friend) to come and do a yoga practice with me, when I caught sight of movement in a shrub next to the house. This is what/who it was!! A young-ish carpet snake, happily curled up on top of some outside lights ...  I showed it to Helen - and we agreed that (speaking generally) we don't worry about snakes with patterns on them like this. It's the ones that are all one colour - brown or black specifically - that you need to be wary of!

We both practiced to the Mark Darby Ashtanga DVD ... I did some poses that I'm not supposed to be doing again yet (naughty!) Like mariA and B (but the easy version of B). And then Supta konasana ... and even shoulderstand. I was careful (very careful) about not doing anything bad to my knee, but it seemed fine! Some other poses - eg. Janu Sirsasana C and Triang Mukhaikapada Paschimottanasana (which name I had to copy and paste from a website - too long to remember!!) Anyway, some poses I look at and think - it may be a whole year before my knee can cope with that again!! But still, little by little it is coming back, and I am taking the opportunity to concentrate on other areas of my practice, so it's all good.   ( I suppose !!)

This weekend Maharaji is speaking at a 2-day event at Amaroo - it's 2 years since I last saw him! I am so looking forward to it. I've got people coming to stay for it too. My Mum is coming out of hospital on the Monday and I'm going down to look after her for a week. She could have come out on Friday, but I had to ask her to put it off till the Monday so I could see Maharaji ... Luckily she understands how important it is for me ... :)

And then when I get back from my Mum's it'll only be 3 weeks till I head off to Bali for Dena's workshop!

Bali - flight booked!

It's been ages since I posted here (except for the burnt marmalade episode!) Quite a few things have happened in the past few weeks - some (one) of which will have to be its own post, when I feel up to talking about it.

But I really wanted to get back here, and ... late last week I got the wonderful news of confirmation of dates for my meditation teacher's events in Australia. Really looking forward to a wonderful weekend at Amaroo with him at the beginning of September!

Which also meant that I am now able to confirm my trip to Bali to Dena's workshop. Booked my flight on Saturday, and have emailed Dena with info about my knee issues ... :) Of course the flights were more expensive that I thought they'd be - but in a way that's something you have to expect! Partly because of having specific dates (which may coincide with some school holidays), partly because they never include all the extras/fees/charges in the online quoted price!! But anyway ... booked and paid for now!!

Apart from the yoga, and Dena, and the wonderful Ubud and Bali, I am really looking forward to finally meeting up with fellow ashtangi bloggers V (hiddenashtangi, which is really hidden at the moment!) and Bibi (pakistaniashtangi.wordpress.com/). You kind of feel you get to know people online, but it's great to have that face-to-face connection too ... :)

And, finally Masterchef Australia has finished (last night) so I won't be sucked into watching quite so much TV - every night!!! I have really enjoyed having a new focus on cooking over the past year or so and I'm sure that won't change. I used to cook a lot of Indian food ... now I'm drawn to more 'Asian' style food/ingredients - fish sauce, kecap manis (Indonesian soy sauce), 5spice, palm sugar, etc etc. I find when I go to the library these days I'm always picking up cooking magazines (Delicious, Master Chef) as well as books. And I bought that Jamie Oliver 30-Minute Meals book and have been cooking some of those (really yummy) recipes, though not attempting to do the whole meal, or in 30 minutes. It's lucky I'm a 'vegetarian who eats fish' though!

Yoga class again :)

Went back to class on Saturday afternoon - after 5½ weeks without yoga. It was so nice to be back ... :) Teachers didn't want to know about the Matthew Sweeney sequence - they have their own sequence (called the Laghu Krama sequence) they like their students to follow when coming back from injury, or absence from yoga practice of more than 3 or so weeks. We tweaked it a bit to take account of my knee, but really it is very similar to the Sweeney knee sequence (although shorter). So the plan is I'll follow this for the next week, and then he'll start adding poses back in, bit by bit over the next 6-8 weeks.

R kept a very close eye on my practice, and kept coming to give suggestions/advice. Although no adjustments at all, which seems pretty right!

This week I'm going to follow this sequence in my lunchtime practices (or as much as I can get through), and probably add in the couple of strengthening 'exercises' I've been doing - triceps dips and plank, plus a tiptoe one that my osteopath recommended.

There are many conflicting things going on in my life over September/October with dates still to be confirmed, so I'm still unsure whether I will get to Dena's Bali workshop at the beginning of October (much as I want to). I may not know dates for the other things for another month, but by that time I should have a better idea of how my knee is progressing, which should in turn help me to decide whether I should go (if it's still a possibility). I really want to go if I can. I know I can go next year if I don't make it this year, but I am really hoping to get to meet a couple of fellow Ashtangi bloggers who are going this year. Kind of out of my hands at the moment though ...

Bali again 2011

Well I've been trying for ages to work out whether I can go to Dena Kingsberg's Bali workshop again this year at the beginning of October ... Possible timing conflicts with an Australian visit by my teacher, Maharaji. I still have no idea - the proposed September dates for that haven't even been sent in as far as I know! And no idea of which dates in September ?!?! Whatever, I absolutely must see him this year - that is my first priority!

However, I know that last year Dena's whole workshop got 'sold out' at some point so I've decided to go ahead and pay a non-refundable deposit for the Bali workshop, hoping that I'll be able to get to Bali too. I was quite scared to actually do that, but now that I have I'm really glad! I'm only going (or hoping to go!) for the first week, but it should be wonderful.

My practice is slowly getting back together after the short enforced layoff! Went to my friend Helen's on Sunday morning and we did our practice on her back deck amongst much tropical foliage! One of these days I'll remember to take a photo. Today I did a short lunchtime practice at the gym at Uni, and tomorrow it's back to class.

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hot hot hot ...

It's been so hot here the past few days. Not so much temperature-wise - early to mid 30s, but extremely humid. That's OK when you're at work, or even at home in the air-conditioning, but yesterday afternoon's yoga class was something else! I said to the teacher as I came in - this is not going to be pleasant! And I was right ... ! Couldn't get the balance (?!) right between using my yogitoes towel or not. It was like my mat was getting slippery, but the yogitoes didn't have enough sweat (nice!) in it yet to give me traction. In one of the surya B downward dogs, the teacher was giving me some kind of adjustment and I ended up falling flat on my face as my feet slid out from under me!! Kind of dramatic, though didn't hurt at all!!

Anyway, I decided it was kind of like Bali heat, but without the advantages of being in Bali!!

Today I had arranged to go and do yoga with my friend Helen. I actually rang her last night when I got home to say I wasn't sure I could cope with it, but she said she'd put the aircon on, so I said I'd come. Then this morning I was really tired and wiped out, and so close to ringing again and pulling out. But I didn't, and of course I'm very glad I went!! Glad I remember that ... sometimes all you feel up to is 'showing up', and then it takes over ... :)


I also showed her the lovely photobook (see cover above) I'd made using iPhoto of photos from my overseas trip last year. I'm so proud of it, and really glad I did it. No longer will all my photos languish somewhere on my laptop, never to be seen!

Have also been having fun reading some 'iPhoneography' websites - iPhone Photography and Life in LoFi. I've never taken photos with my mobile before. Well, until I got the iPhone last year, I didn't have a mobile which had a camera - it was pretty ancient!! Looks fun - have downloaded some interesting photography apps and will see what I can do!

Apart from that, I'm having a pretty quiet weekend. Went to Bunnings (hardware store) and priced some roofing for the front deck that Ross is going to help me put on in the next couple of months. I will get onto doing some more work on the foame poetry website, which is due to go live with the 2011 issue next month. Was supposed to go to the movies this evening but I really don't think I'm going to make that this time ... maybe next weekend!

2011 stuff

No more bridge pictures! The water is now under the bridge, but as far as I know the road is still too broken up around it for the bridge to be (normally) usable. I'll drive down and take a look on the weekend - this week I have just been driving straight into work via the back road.

I'm kind of contemplating whether I should get into big New Year's resolutions again this year. I know last year I said I wanted

1. to be able to jump back. Well, failed but I tried, and I can sort of/partly jump forward now at least, so I guess that's something! and
2. to be more sociable and have people over for weekend lunches. That's pretty much a complete fail! I think the only thing I can put that down to is complete laziness!!

So -  I think I'll have to carry No. 2 forward again for this year, and the other? Well, I think I'll just aim to be able to bind in Marichyasana C - preferably on both sides. (I fool myself by putting the word 'reliably' in front of 'bind', but to be honest in the past couple of years it's been rare that I can bind even one side!) And of course there's a whole long yoga wish list in my head, but I think I'll just leave it at this and see what transpires in 2011!

I'm really hoping I'll be able to get to Dena's Bali workshop again this year. She's doing a two-week workshop this time but I could only go for one week. However, I'll just need to wait and see how other eventualities pan out, because if there's a conflict then this would probably lose out this time.

And gardening - I really want to do some more work in the garden this year! (We're off resolutions now, just plans!) At the moment I'm concentrating a bit on the pond (which used to be a swimming pool!). It had got really overgrown with pond weed, but now I've got rid of most of that, I am able to add some more plants again. Got a really nice water lily last weekend - 'raspberry red'! Sounds nice! It flowers from October to May, so hopefully I'll see some raspberry red water lilies on the pond this year! And this weekend a friend is coming round for lunch (see, I'm starting on the resolutions!!) and I'm hoping he'll help me put an old table together (that he found for me just before I went overseas) and put it into the pond. That's what I've been using to sit the water plant pots onto in the pool. I'm just worried that someone (me really as it's my pond!) will have to actually get into the almost black water to place the table!! Oh well ...

Back to yoga. Over the holidays I did practice quite a bit - mostly alternating standing and seated practices. Went to my first class back at the shala on Wednesday, and my lack of intensity over the holidays was really shown up! I was exhausted (and soaking) by the end! Did short lunchtime practices today and yesterday ... yesterday I only managed some sun salutes, and felt pretty grumpy  <grin> But today was better - I did all my 'forbidden' poses!

Yoga and some socializing!

Better late than never! Had a great weekend about 10 days ago (pre-Cardiff and Dublin)! On Saturday I met an old work friend Rachel, and we did our customary walk down Portobello Road, which was great. Bought some more old side-plates, which I can't seem to get in Australia any more, without paying huge prices. These were around the 1-2 pound mark, and will be put through the dishwasher!

Then on Sunday was the promised yoga meet-up! Because half the tube was out of action, it was easier for Kevin to get to Euston than Bethnal Green, so we went to AYL (my home away from home!) After practice we went to a nearby Pret for breakfast. Another yogi called Helen also came. It was lovely to sit and chat about yoga and Bali, etc etc. Hopefully I can do this again in the not so distant future!

After that I did have to go to Bethnal Green, to visit my friend (another Wendy! I have 3 Wendy friends!) This Wendy is totally into jewelry-making - she had made me a lovely silver necklace, and we spent the whole afternoon making earrings to match! What I mean is, she had me making them under her instructions! It was such fun ... Will meet her again for lunch before I go back, and am taking my Bali bangle along for her to cast a professional eye over!