Things are looking up

Although still suffering from a shoulder injury (bursitis apparently - developed/first appeared when I did that long drive down to NSW back in April!) things are ((fingers very crossed!)) getting better. I've been going to see my osteopath weekly for quite a while now, and last week she told me that she felt we had 'turned a corner' with the shoulder, and it was definitely starting to mend.

I had decided the previous week (ie. a week ago) that I just had to start doing yoga again, no matter how much modification I needed to do to the practice. So I went back to class last Saturday. My teacher got me doing a different kind of Sun Salute (no downdogs or anything that put any stress on the shoulder). I'd never seen this before - a bit like Surya Namaskar B, but from the utkatasana stage you step back and rise up into Virabhadrasana 1, then step back to utkatasana and repeat on the other side, then come back up to standing.

It felt so good to finally be back and doing a sustainable practice - by which I mean one that I won't have to stop doing again because I'm damaging myself again! I've managed to do 2-3 practices during the week, and this afternoon it's back to class. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can start to put back the ashtanga sun salutes, and then gradually the other poses/vinyasas that I can't do at the moment.

Apart from that I've been doing a bit of entertaining, again for the first time for absolutely ages! Had my aunt and cousins round for Sunday lunch a week or two ago, which went very well! I gave away various bits and pieces of Napier family 'stuff' that I'd brought back from Bowral (my Mum's house) for them. It was nice to share it around - and I've got heaps for myself already.

The proceeds from the auction of the contents of Mum's house have finally been sorted out/allocated to the respective beneficiaries. A mammoth task as there were two wills involved (my Dad's as well as Mum's) and in each will, different things were split between different people. And despite our best efforts, the sale list from the auction bore very little resemblance to the list we'd sent up to the auction! However, all done now!! Who knew there was so much hard slog involved in being an executor! But as I said to my nephews - I shudder to think what the solicitors would have charged if I had left that job to them <grin>

A road trip through NSW

Well, I'm back home after 2 weeks away ... I drove down to Bowral, NSW, to pack up my Mum's house. And with lots of help from family and friends, that got done (or pretty much so) in a few days. It was difficult emotionally, but we all did the best we could. House contents got sent to Sydney to auction, taken by family members, donated to St Vincents, etc. I arranged for a few large pieces of furniture to be shipped up to Queensland, and packed my (small!) car with boxes of mementos / stuff from the kitchen etc etc.

I had decided when I arranged this, to have a 2nd week off to 'de-stress', doing a slow roadtrip back home. So, first I headed off to Canberra (staying the night with an old friend - lovely to see her!). Mum had this silver tankard that had been handed down the family for a long time. It was made in Scotland in the late 1700s. And at some point, why no one yet knows, a depiction of a very early Australian painting - 'The squatters' hut - news from home' was embossed onto it. That painting is in the National Art Gallery in Canberra, and my nephews and I had agreed this was the best place for this to end up. The gallery was very happy to receive it!

After that, I drove to Mudgee to spend a couple of nights with relatives/friends ... not in the houses pictured below, although David & Clarissa do live in a very large barn converted into a wonderful house!!





After a couple of days there eating and drinking, I then headed north and east to Coffs Harbour. That was the hardest drive - about 8 hours. But a friend from home has just moved there for 12 months to do a traineeship, and so I really wanted to get there and hear about how it's all going. She'd actually only had her first day of work, but Helen seems very happy about it. I'm actually very sad she's gone for the year, as we were 'yoga buddies'! We used to do yoga together most Sunday mornings (although different styles of yoga). But she'll be back in a few months, so ... :)

The next morning I headed up to Ocean Shores to spend the night with my friend Vic ... he always plies me with real estate ads to encourage me to move down there!!

And now I'm back home. After collapsing yesterday, today I have unpacked the boxes of things from the car, and found homes for most of them! And I've still got a few days before I go back to work - which will be for a 4-day week from now on!! Hoorrrayyyy!

Easter update

So nice to have 4 days off to relax, catch up with friends, and catch my breath with what's been happenng over the last couple of weeks.

Health first ... Well, I'm finally and definitely feeling better! I'm coughing a bit less, and - just feeling a different person. I'm on antibiotics (don't ask!!) that I'll have to take for a few days each month for a while - maybe indefinitely. But it is wonderful to feel so much better - just shows how much it was affecting my general health. Hopefully the cough will get down to a very small issue - if not at the end of this course of antibiotics, then over the next month or so. We shall see, but I am hopeful!

I'm still not able to do any yoga (or physical exercise putting any weight onto my arms) until next week - because of the skin cancer surgery. But then I'll be able to start my practice up again, which I'm so looking forward to!

And the other big thing ... my Mum's house sold at auction last weekend. I went down for one night for it, and although it was torturous - bids going up by $1K at a time, and only after the auctioneer got to "and for the 3rd and final time ..." umteen times! But it sold, and at over the reserve price, so that was great. However, that also means that I now have to go back down and clear the whole house out before the sale completes in early May. I'm going to take 2 weeks' holiday, and will drive down in a couple of weeks' time. I've got lots of people - relatives and friends, lined up to come and help with various aspects of this. But I do know it's going to be a difficult time for me. It's not the house I grew up in, but there are/will be so many memories.

I'm hoping to only have to spend a week or so packing/cleaning up the house, and will then have a week to visit friends and slowly make my way back up to Queensland ...

Shoulderstand - I wish!

I saw a post this morning via Elephant Journal - 10 Reasons to do Shoulderstand every day ... And right now I am just thinking - I wish!! I really wish I could do shoulderstand. I wish I could do any yoga!

I had decided that I would do Sunday yoga with my friend Helen as my re-entry into yoga practice after many weeks of not being able to do any because of various back injuries (one following the other etc etc!!) My right shoulder had been feeling heaps better for days (in fact I had hardly felt it for days) and my right hip issue was completely forgotten. Of course I still have the awful awful cough which I knew would be exacerbated by downdog (or any kind of inversion) but I was completely ready to make a start on a limited practice. So ... I managed to get through 3 Sun Salute As (with many many stops for coughing!), and then did a restricted version of the standing poses (leaving out the parivritti variations). But by the time I got to the seated poses I was feeling niggles in my shoulder - and even my hip made an appearance! So I just did a few lying down poses like supta hasta pandangustasana. But my shoulder was complaining more loudly, to the extent that I had to do savasana lying on my left side ...

And now, 2 days later it is still an issue off and on, much like it had been ... sigh!! It's actually hard to think of yoga poses that don't involve your shoulders in some way. When I see my osteopath again tomorrow she will no doubt tell me off - last time I saw her she said I could only do 'restorative' yoga.

All this trying to get back to yoga was/is of course part of trying to get my life back to normal. To some extent it is working, though I have to admit to a certain amount of putting stuff to one side, not confronting things. But there's definitely a few things that I can't put off too much longer, like writing to people in the UK who may not have heard the news about Mum.  Heigh ho ... !

Actually, action is going to be forced on me as in two and a half weeks 3 friends from Europe are arriving to stay for 10 days (and there'll be a 4th Aussie friend staying too!) - our meditation teacher is doing a 5-day event at Amaroo which is going to be soo wonderful! And anyway - I'll really need to have made a start on all these letters etc. before then, otherwise it'll be 2 months late ...

Everything is different

It's difficult to know how to start this. I guess I'll just have to come straight out and say it. My mother died just under 3 weeks ago - on Wednesday 18th July. In theory it wasn't unexpected. Her doctor had told me (and her) that her time was very limited. But there's such a world of difference between 'knowing' that sort of thing in theory, even talking openly and freely about it both with the doctor and my mother. And being faced with the reality, the absence ...

I'd actually been down with her the week before, having received a phonecall from her summoning me down on the Sunday. And then as all seemed relatively well, and because I had doctor's appointments etc the following week, I flew back home on the following Sunday. I was actually with my doctor when I got the phonecall on Wednesday morning to let me know she had gone.

I went back down the following day, and began (with the help of my wonderful brother-in-law and nephew Peter) the task of organising the funeral (cremation) service, the memorial service, the order of service, etc. etc. etc. All in a complete daze - not really knowing what I was supposed to be doing. Thank god for the support of family and my Mum's many friends in the district. And of Sylvia, the wonderful wonderful neighbour and friend, without whom Mum's life would have been so much more difficult. It was her who helped me go through Mum's clothes, tidy up her room so that other relatives would feel OK about staying there for the memorial service, etc. etc.

My other (equally wonderful!) nephew, Jo and wife Emma arrived back from London for the memorial service, which was a truly lovely event. Over 200 people whose lives she had touched crammed into the local Anglican church, and in the church hall afterwards for 'refreshments'.

And now ... I'm back home in Brisbane (as of last week), and back at work as of this week. Still kind of bewildered - wondering if that really happened: surely she's still at home in Bowral, waiting for me to ring and have a laugh about things with her ... I guess this is 'normal', and it will take months to come into focus / reality for me ...

I am OK - but I don't have any parents any more and it feels really strange / on the edge ... (but, I hasten to add, not of anything I'm going to fall into any time soon!!!)