Yoga bookshelf!

Grimmly did a blogpost about yoga bookshelves and invited everyone to send in photos of theirs! Sounds like fun! I've just sent him a couple to choose from, but this one is my favourite because it shows part of the shelf below, and you can get hints of other books that I have! Remains to be seen which one he'll pick though ... :)

Full moon and stuff

This morning I was driving to where I catch the inter-campus bus in to work - around 6.15am, and a big, beautifully full moon was still quite high in the sky ... Such a glorious sight - didn't have my camera with me but even if I did, I know you (well, me anyway!) just can't take a photo that recreates that sort of vista! The moon always looks so much smaller in a photo than it does with real eyes ... :)

I don't usually pay too much attention to moon days (bad girl!) but anyway, having just had a minor op to remove a mole from my arm, I've been told I can do any 'strenuous exercise' for 2 weeks?!?!!! We'll see - I'm going to leave it till my arm feels OK (at least the weekend), and then very slowly and carefully feel my way back into my practice! Hopefully I can do a heavily modified practice - leaving out anything that puts any weight or strain on my left arm ...

The cooler weather is finally arriving here. Been putting a little electric heater on first thing in the morning - and this weekend I'll get some wood into the house (using one arm?!!) and get the combustion stove going, or at least ready to go!

Spent a couple of days last week on a course - learning HTML5 and CSS3. It was great - there is so much more you/we can do nowadays. Can't wait for the opportunity to put some of it into practice ...

Pussycat photos

Sleepy Jedda pussycat - iPhone photo using Hipstamatic app


And same pose, using the 'regular' iPhone camera


Sweet photos, I really like the effects the Hipstamatic app gives! Still have a long way to go before I really get to grips with it though!!

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!

Photos at last

Just a few at the moment ... Views of the hotel


The outside bathroom wall ... (I don't have an outside bathroom any more!)


And statue (not sure of who, not Ganesh) at entrance to yoga room ...


More (many many more!) will follow later ...

The Wedding (part 1)!

Can't remember if I mentioned the big family wedding that was happening in early January. My nephew Jo and Emma's wedding happened in Sydney on Friday before last - I went down for a long weekend for it and it was a really beautiful wedding on a lovely summer Sydney day. But I've been so busy at work last week I haven't had time to blog. Although I did find time to upload photos to Facebook and Flickr in the evenings. And then I've spent most of today making this iPhoto slideshow of photos from the wedding (mine and a couple of other people's) - and then uploading it to YouTube! First time I've done that ... Mostly as a present for Jo and Emma, although no doubt a lot of friends and family will be interested to see it too.



Now it's late and I have to go to bed ... but I will blog more about the wedding (before I forget things!) in the next few days ... :)

Apricot jam, and music, and the environment, and cricket ...

Back home after a lovely lazy fun-filled holiday! Down at my Mum's in NSW we celebrated Christmas on the Saturday (23rd) as the relatives couldn't come on Christmas Day ...

And on Christmas day we had a quiet day and ended up making Apricot Jam with the apricots from Mum's tree - which was completely laden! Such a nice thing to do (and it is delicious!!)










Then it was back on the plane and up to Woodford ... Here are a few photos ...

street scene


Flamenco Fire


Afro Dizziac playing


Street Performer outside the Circus tent


"Seagulls" at the Woodford cricket match, stealing food!!

Saw/heard some wonderful music, dancing, even a demo of Capoeira which is just incredible! If I wasn't doing Ashtanga I'd be really tempted to have a go at that ... Saw Tim Freedman (singer from The Whitlams), Po' Girl (a Canadian group), John Butler Trio - and heaps of others.

It was great to collapse in the village green area and find a Woodford cricket match going on! Complete with Tony Greig (sound-alike!) commentator! All the kids were joining in - and then these street performing 'seagulls' appeared and having interfered with the ball in the game, then decided to wander through the crowd and try and steal their food (chips etc!!) Hilarious!!! (I won't mention the 55+-year-old male streaker that appeared! Some things should be left unsaid - and unseen!!!)

And one of the (many!) really great things was getting a chance to hear Bob Brown (Australian Green Senator) speak a couple of times. He is such a wonderful speaker, and is so clear on the importance of our environment. Everyone there - we all wanted him to be the next Prime Minister of Australia! One thing he said really stuck with me. That when people say that the economy will go to pieces if we put the environment first, to remember that when women were trying to get the vote, everyone then said that if women got the vote it would be disastrous for the economy. And how ridiculous is that now!!! He also said that suffragettes fought for many many years to get the vote, but eventually they succeeded. And we have to be like that about the environment.

Back from WA

Long since time I should have been posting ... Seems like ever since I got back from the Western Australia trip the heat here has been going up and up and up ... 39 degrees yesterday - that's Centigrade!! And it's not even officially summer here yet!! Difficult to find energy to do anything in that heat. But anyway, it has cooled down a lot today, so here I am!

Had such a great time in Western Australia - here's a few photos.







It was so green and lush - I had no idea that anywhere in the west would be like that! After all, it's mostly desert!! But where we went (the south-western corner) it was rolling hills, very long grass and very contented cattle munching away!! Not to mention all the vineyards!

Of course, as I was sharing a room, I didn't get to do any yoga. But I'm back now - was incredibly stiff the 2nd time I practiced. My hamstrings felt like they'd shortened by about 30cm!! But they are returning to their previous length now - strength is very much down though! But that'll build up again I know.

Flowering pots

This is a picture of pots on my front deck - gardenia in the background and New Guinea Impatiens in the front. Look so pretty, and the gardenia perfume is to die for!

Went to see my 'surgeon' today. All is well (well, I knew that!) and she said I can start doing yoga again. And just to do what feels OK. So tomorrow hopefully I'll start again. Was going to be today at lunchtime but I took too long going to the doctor.

This time 2 weeks I'll be in the air flying to Perth - yippee! Really looking forward to that. Am starting to think about what to take (not too much as it'll be 4 people's bags in the back of the car!)

distracting ...

Yoga this afternoon was - hmm, a bit distracting! There were a couple of people there taking photographs (can't remember what for), and although in general I was fine with that, it did sort of take my concentration away a bit ... particularly because I'm actually doing a 6-week digital photography course with LVS online, and so part of me was thinking about focus and F-stops!!! (Which I have never known anything about before, having been just a 'point and click' photographer, but that's another story!!)

But anyway - the fact remains that I was really hopeless in the balancing poses - Utthita hasta padangusthasana was a joke!! (Except for my language!!) However, things did improve when I got to seated. I can bind on one side in Marichyasana B now, to my amazement! Once my left foot/ankle stops hurting from being squashed, I should be able to bind on that side too!! And Marichy C is coming along well too. I can bind on one side, not the other ... It's so nice, after maybe 2 years of nothing happening, to actually see myself moving into poses more deeply.

I've been having fun with the photography course. A bit overwhelmed with all the technical stuff, but still it's been really great. I've been taking my camera (Canon Powershot A520) with me a lot, and taking photos. Of course I have to do this for the course - after the first week when we all just posted stuff we'd done before, now we have to post 2-4 shots a week relating to whatever the lesson was about. The past week's one was on composition - below is one I took on Friday which I'm going to post! I was just driving home and saw the sky - if I hadn't had my camera with me ... !

Woodford Folk Festival

Well - Woodford is over for another year ... Such an amazing 6-7 days ... I did yoga, drove musicians to where they were performing, listened to heaps of wonderful and different music, rehearsed and sang in the festival choir, danced my feet off, sweltered in the 40degC + heat, and cooled down sitting in shady places ... Ate wonderful food, met up with friends, talked for hours, slept a little bit! And lots more!

Yoga wasn't ashtanga - run by a group called Radiant Light yoga. Still, so good to do yoga though, and a lot of the poses were the same. I'd done a bit of yoga in the week before down at my Mum's place in Bowral, but it was good to do a class for 3 days.

Really, 'Woodford Folk Festival' is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, there's some lovely folk music, but there's also heaps of blues, jazz, world, pop, reggae and other music. Pretty much the only music they don't welcome there is country (thank goodness!!!) Plus Tibetan monks, various types of dance, cabaret, circus (lots of that this year), puppets, weird and wonderful street performers and who knows what else!!

Music that I really loved this year included Chris Berry's Panjea, (American band including a wonderful anti-death penalty song - "Why do we kill people ,who kill people, to teach people that killing people is wrong?"!! Right on!!!), Bomba, (fabulous big reggae band), Fruit (3 women singing gorgeous harmonies) and Ash Grunwald - great young Aussie blues/roots singer.

Beautiful patchwork quilt

This is a photo of the beautiful quilt that my wonderful friend Doris in Cardiff gave me ... Isn't it gorgeous?! I was just stunned (although just before I left on my overseas trip I discovered she had made it for me).

Went to yoga last night ... and then when I got home in the evening I was just so exhausted! Don't know why - maybe it's just the whole 'end of year' thing! Don't know what to say about it (my yoga practice). It seems like it's just 'treading water' - waiting till I've had my Christmas break and then start again in January. I've only been able to practice 2-3 times a week this past couple of weeks. Christmas stuff has intervened!

And I've been feeling generally pretty unmotivated! Unmotivated to go out and buy Christmas presents, have not sent a single Christmas card ... maybe it's because I was away till the middle of November, and I just didn't get into the whole Christmas swing!! Ah well - there's always next year! And I saw most of the people I'd be sending Christmas cards to overseas anyway!!

Anyway - off down to Bowral (where my Mum lives) on Saturday. She told me on the phone yesterday she had lined up a whole series of social 'events' that we've been invited to! Visiting people that I haven't seen for a while, so that should be fun (on the whole anyway!)

On my iPod: Faithless - God is a DJ
(gotta love Faithless!)

India photos

Well, it's long past time I should be here again! (This blog I mean) Feel like I've been in a bit of a daze since I've been back. Constant running (driving) to rehearsals for The Messiah and consequent lack of sleep has no doubt contributed to this state! The first performance is tonight ... Having rehearsed in the cathedral a couple of nights this week I have to say I don't seem to know it as well as I thought I did!! The acoustics make it hard to hear what people around you (ie your voice part) are singing, and of course it's one thing to sing your part on your own, quite another to sing it against 3 other voice parts as part of a 40-50 person choir ... Still I do think it'll be wonderful.

Yoga has taken a definite back seat this week - haven't practiced at all! At least I know I'll be back in class on Monday night ...

Anyway - here are a few of my photos from India - enjoy!

Portugal

Wendi and Missilu at the Tavira market! Back in London now, but had such a sweet time in Portugal. Went with Wendi, Elena and Missilu (and Pascal) to the beach one day (far too cold to swim, though I saw with horror some English holiday-makers in bikinis - shiver!!) Went to a lovely gallery where the owners make these stunning frames specially for each picture that is shown/sold there. Even went to the movies last night in Faro - saw The Grimm Brothers (luckily it was in English, with Portuguese subtitles, not the other way round!)

At the market in the picture I got some honey (from the Carob tree flowers!) for Judy and Charles. Hopefully it will just have a slight caroby taste! Ate loads of local olives - yum! Wendi and Jack have olive trees and carob trees in their little wild valley. Such a lovely place ...

And tomorrow - probably my last practice at Hamish's ...

Expect the unexpected!

Yesterday I went to Brighton with friends Tina and Linda. We had a great day - they bought some lovely Arts & Crafts kitchen chairs (very plain, oak, but really comfortable) and I got some old sideplates from the same antique shop. I love using old sideplates, but most of mine have broken now and there don't seem to be as many in Australia. I think all the ones I had dated back to when I lived in London before! (Don't ask me how I'm going to get them home in one piece!)

Then we went out to lunch in a wonderful wonderful wholefoods place - it was like a cornucopia of fresh beautiful food! And finished up with a walk along the beach - not actually on the strange pebbley beach, but beside that.

This morning I had it all planned! Go to yoga, don't take my mat but use one there, and then go on out to meet Wendy and walk round some east end markets. Well, first of all when I got to the shala I discovered to my horror that I'd forgotten to bring my yoga pants! I was sadly getting ready to leave again, when Denise (who teaches there on Sundays) lent me a spare pair! Thank you so much Denise!! So that was OK.

But afterwards when I rang Wendy to arrange where to meet, turned out she was having a bad day and couldn't make it. OK - I thought I'd go to Soho and re-visit the wondrous Patisserie Valerie for cakes and coffee (which I notice has sprung up in a few other places now!) But either it's changed location, or my memory failed me! I looked in Old Compton Street but couldn't see it. So I had coffee and croissants somewhere else, and then discovered that I'd walked right past Valerie's without recognising it!! Probabaly that was a blessing in disguise - I would have seriously overeaten there!

Tomorrow it's a Moon Day, so no yoga (sigh!) And in the afternoon I'm flying to Portugal to visit Wendi and Jack, Elena plus baby Missilu, and Badger!!

Got my air tickets !!

They arrived at work today!! Wowww! Is that scarey or what?! I worked out that it's 8½ weeks till I stop work, 10 weeks tomorrow till I fly to London ... Lauren who I work with is going to housesit my house and Miss Mieke Pussycat (see sweet photo of her). So that issue is sorted!

8½ weeks also means it's 9 weeks till the event with Maharaji -woohoo! Can't wait! I'm running an internet centre at that - I'm sure there's stuff I should be doing now for that!! And Wendi and Jack (from Portugal) will be arriving in about 5 weeks - god it's all rushing up at me!! I really need to get focussed and - yes, write another list <.grin>

Flew down to Sydney on Friday - met Mum at the tax accountants, and then met Johm, Jo and Peter for lunch nearby. Great to see them all again - I guess it'll be Christmas till we meet up again. Then Mum and I drove down to Bowral (countryside) for the rest of the weekend. Had a lovely quiet, not too cold weekend. Wasn't able to regale people at work with my usual horror stories of Bowral winter - frozen water in the bird-bath etc!

Class (ashtanga) tonight - really looking forward to that. It's been 2 weeks since I went to an actual class.