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 ... :)

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>

Distinct lack of progress!

Well, despite my excitement and good intentions, I didn't make it to yoga class last week, and didn't again this weekend - sigh! I started feeling not good again and - well, just another of the obstacles that have been in the way of my yoga practice over the past few months. I did do a very short practice today, and am hoping to manage to practice a couple of times at lunchtimes this week. It's no longer as easy to practice at lunchtimes now - the place I have to go to is further across campus, and it's not always available. But never mind. Will see how I manage this.

I'm still thinking/hoping to go to Dena's Bali workshop in October  and it's probably a good idea for me to have something to work towards! I seem to remember that the first time i went to one (maybe 3 years ago) it really made me put more into my practice. Both the teachers where I go remarked on it ... :)

Apart from this, I've been doing a Coursera course - Internet History Technology & Security - and it's great! No coding, but lots of really interesting history of the internet stuff. Only in the 2nd week, but last week was all about Bletchey Park (UK World War 2 code-breaking) and Alan Turing. Really fascinating - I am loving it!! Well recommended - and it's online and free!!

And if you haven't heard of Coursera - just google it and/or MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course ... !) The big buzzword at universities at the moment!

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 ... :)

Space Oddity - performed in 'real' outer space!!

Amazing YouTube video of Canadian man on the International Space Station doing a version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" ...

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 ...