Yoga and sunshine

Finally I made it to one of the Mysore classes at the Gold Coast Yoga Centre this morning. I've been going to the Saturday afternoon led Primary classes but for whatever reason it's taken a while to get to a Mysore class. And it was really great. Mark seems to be a lovely and encouraging teacher ... Every yoga centre is different - he told me he was happy for people to attempt all of primary, even if they hadn't done a pose before. (Of course in the led class this is what happens too.) So I'm just going to go with the flow and do this too. I've done/been given most (but not all) of Primary at some time. Although in the Brisbane shala, poses were taken away if you had an injury or something (as I often did!) and then it might be years before they were given back (if ever!)

Case in point is garbha pindasana. I used to do this years ago but - maybe it was when I got the meniscus knee injury, it got taken away and I haven't done it since then - probably 4 years. So when I started trying to do it again at one of the led classes I was completely hopeless! And I'm not talking about getting arms through lotus as I don't do lotus! It was the rocking round - I kept having to give up and move to the next pose in the led class!! Hopefully doing it in the Mysore class setting will give me the space and time to get it back properly again ... !

And also - Mark got my fingers touching in one side of Mari D! That hasn't happened since Hamish Hendry in London got me into that pose - again about 4 years ago! I was astounded!

It's a beautiful sunny day today ... hard to believe it's still 'officially' winter, although it gets somewhat chilly after the sun goes down. The Byron Bay Writers Festival is on this weekend - I'm going tomorrow for the day. My friend Victor is on one of the panels (on memoirs), and there are some great speakers whose sessions I hope to catch ... like Jeanette Winterson - I remember loving her first book Oranges are not the Only Fruit years ago ... Should be a fun day!

I Wasn't expecting this!

I really wasn't expecting to be confronted by this sight again so soon - only 2 years since the last time the Kholo Bridge was flooded! This is the way I drive home (viewed from my 'home' side of the river!!) I went to Sydney for the weekend (will post about that later!) On Sunday I'd heard the news about ex-tropical cyclone Oswald (who chooses these names?!!) wreaking havoc down the Queensland coast. And I emailed my neighbour who confirmed that the bridge would inevitably be closed by the time I got home on Sunday night.

But I really wasn't prepared for the unbelievably scarey drive home I had. For starters - below is the Mount Crosby weir with one-lane bridge over the top. Which I for some unknown reason decided to drive over, in the pitch dark of Sunday night. (It wasn't in that state when I drove over it, obviously - must have happened later that night!)

Having successfully navigated that, I then headed up to the Lake Manchester Road - the back road to get home. And it was completely terrifying! (Before I go any further - there are no rivers crossing this road, only tiny little creeks. I knew there was virtually no chance of me getting 'swept away' or anything!) So it all started when I came round a corner and down a little slope, when all of a sudden I was in water with a whole wave of water washing up over the front windscreen - completely obscuring any vision! And all I could think to myself was - don't stop, don't take your foot off the accelerator. Don't allow any chance for the engine to stall! That was actually the worst of it - that wall of water! I still had to go through several places where big pools of water were completely covering the road, quite deeply. And there were trees down all along the way - luckily only covering half or two-thirds of the road.

And this was all at around 8pm at night - absolutely pitch dark, no traffic lights or anything out there! However, I did get home safely! And even better - this time around the electricity was still on, unlike 2 years ago when I lost power for 5 days ...

And now, 2-3 days later, those bridges are still the same, but I have managed to get in to work for the last couple of days on the back road. Most of those huge pools of water had completely disappeared the next morning. so it's not too difficult to drive ...

Another Kholo adventure!!!

I spoke too soon!

Really shouldn't have said anything about the Kholo bridge being passable again! My neighbour saw my previous blog entry (linked on Facebook) and told me that 'they' were going to open the flood gates at the Wivenhoe dam that evening. And now, 3 days later, the water is 5m over the bridge!! That sort of height is almost incomprehensible! About 3 me's one on top of the other, on top of the bridge!! (Update: it's now 6.15m!!) And this morning when I drove out to go to work the back way, there was water over the only road out. I probably could have gone through, but I didn't trust that I'd be able to get home again, so ended up coming home and here I am today!  I'll have to see what it's like tomorrow ... There have continued to be spells of really heavy rain every half an hour or so.

Had a nice day yesterday - despite the rain! Ross came over for lunch and we managed to put a 2nd old table into the pond in breaks in the rain, and then moved some of the pond plants around.  The water lily is now in a new place, where it can hopefully spread across the surface of the pond.

Had fun cooking too - made a spinach tart, and also this amazing starter that my Mum does (from a recipe book called Easy to Entertain by Patricia Lousada) - grilled stuffed avocado. Sounds mad, but you mix some mayonnaise, curry powder, ginger, chopped up mint and some prawns, stuff the avocado halves and then put under the grill for 3-5 minutes, or until it starts to brown. It is is just delicious!!

Yoga on Saturday afternoon was really lovely. I felt focussed and strong (at least until near the end!) And then at the end the teacher came over and started talking to me. Said that my practice was really improving! I couldn't believe it! The previous class I'd felt like he was ignoring me, even disapproving of me (ever the paranoid one!!) Anyway, I know these sorts of things aren't supposed to matter, but I was really happy when he said that!

Spot the bridge ?!

And this is pretty much the same view as in the previous photo, but 2 days later! The whole bridge is now 3m under water!!! The main Brisbane water supply - Lake Wivenhoe, is just a few kilometers upstream, and on Tuesday night they opened the floodgates as the dam was overfull! Apparently the gates won't be closed again till Friday night, so not much hope of seeing the bridge again (let alone being able to drive over it!) until sometime late next week I reckon! Luckily the back way out is open now - though instead of a 15 minutes drive into Ipswich, it's now 35 minutes! And the way over the river is now over a weir and I noticed the water was only about 1m below that today!

It's funny - a similar situation happened just 2-3 months ago while I was overseas. Both my neighbour and my housesitters emailed me photos a bit like this, and I remember thinking - thank god I'm not there! Karma!!

I have been enjoying doing yoga with David Swenson - I have his old Primary Series DVD. It really makes me think I must practice at a much slower pace when I'm doing it completely on my own, as I'm breaking out in much more of a sweat than normal! My normal class starts up again next week.

Apart from that life is quiet. The weather is now improving, and I'm sure it's much nicer at the festival now. If only the weather situation had been reversed - nice at the beginning and awful during the end ... Oh well! I managed to spring Jedda from the pet motel (they normally won't let any animals out at all between Christmas and New Year!!) and she is very happy to be home - hardly letting me out of her sight  :)

Yoga and downpours

Well, I've managed to do yoga twice this week. Which I suppose is an advance on the previous few weeks when I was too sick to do anything that put my head lower than my chest ... On Tuesday I just did a really short practice - 1 sun salute (!) and a few standing poses - just testing the waters vis-a-vis inversions and coughing.

But today, I did quite a bit more - our Friday lunchtime yoga sessions started again after the finish of uni exams (which used the room). Just 2 of us were there, but I managed an hour of yoga. I was still careful about anything like downdog, did shortened versions of the sun salutes etc. And it's 3 hours since I did it and I haven't been coughing, so hopefully that means I can slowly build my whole practice up again, and won't need to be scared of inducing coughing fits.

I was supposed to go to class tomorrow in Brisbane, but there's a big thunderstorm predicted for tomorrow afternoon, and I don't think I want to be driving in that. Again! Yesterday I went in to Brisbane after work to have some acupuncture, and when I came out, the skies were black and I had to drive home at about 60kpg along the highway through pouring rain and thunder and lightning! Not fun ... :)

We've had the most amazing weather here these past few days. Huge storms, ripping roofs off, flooding creeks and bridges not to mention houses. I've been OK, no leaks or fallen trees or anything, but I did measure 235mls of rain a couple of days ago. That's 9.5 inches in the old measurement!! My water tanks must be full - it's been too wet to check. It's been great getting all that rain, but I'd like it to stop now please!

And I'm going to see the new James Bond film this weekend - yes!