Myths and Mistakes

It has been so long since I posted I have had to seriously consider whether I should in fact close this blog down.  What happens when you delete a blog?  Can it be found floating around the ether?  It seems a shame to remove it completely.  
 

8 pm Fairhaven beach.  A rare still day. 

It has also been so long since I posted that I am starting to get vast amounts of spam comments to delete. (Why do the autobots target inactive blogs?  Seems counter intuitive to me.)  The other mystery of course is why do I lose followers when I don't blog?   Come on guys.  Hang in there. Surely infrequent posts are better than clogging up your reader with crap? 

I usually ask for no Xmas presents, but my husband ignored me

and this is what he gave me. A giant herb pot.  And still alive, last I looked.

 

So, I thought I would pop in to say, I am still here, alive and well (touches large piece of wood).

I have just had the most wonderful holiday down at the beach. We had a full four weeks away, which is the longest period of time I have had away from Melbourne since 1998.   So long that we returned to a completely dead garden.  Well the trees are fine, but the lawn, lavender, grass trees, jasmine and bay tree are dead or on the edge of death. So sad.  Perhaps we should have planned better.  But I didn't think Melbourne would have four weeks of no rain. 


So long that when I returned I really noticed all the cars and buildings were really close together, and felt cramped and busy all of a sudden.  Amazing what a change a few weeks in a different environment can make.

We spent our holiday swimming in the scary surf, doing Nippers with the children, cooking, roasting marshmallows, watching the tennis and cricket and old James Bond films, eating and drinking and sleeping.  Oh and reading.

Roasted eggplant, mint and pomegranate seed salad. 

 

I read a book every couple of days ranging from slightly trashy to sci fit to classic.   It was completely perfect.  

Wine, driftwood and trashy paperback ('Sister' - I wouldn't bother with it) 

I should say that I am not a particularly beachy person. I burn really easily, and I just had to stand on the beach, wearing hat and SPF30 mind you, for a few Nipper sessions for all my freckles to pop back up again.   And my hair.  Oh dear.   I just had to give up on getting it straight and shiny, and popped it back most days.  At least I have hair to complain about.  I can now finally say, 18 months after it started growing back, that is is almost where it was pre-cancer.  It takes such a long time to get back, much much longer than I had expected. 

540 Nippers posing for the news helicopter to

protest lack of government funding for the surf club 

 

And I also indulged my new addiction to Kundalini yoga, thanks to my Atlantan friend Jenny for the tip. I love Maya Fiennes so much I feel calm just looking at her face:

This book is brilliant by the way.  Easily available on line. 



I cannot emphasise enough how much yoga has helped me over the last few months. I really struggle with meditation - my mind races (yes I know the point of meditation is to control this) and it is very hard to get complete uninterrupted quiet in the house.  Yoga does require quiet but it is so much more doable with loud children around, and I still manage to get into quite a meditative state.   I highly highly recommend it.   And of course, you can do the Maya Kundalini yoga at home.   I prefer this to finding a yoga class which suits me (why are they always on Tuesday mornings or Saturday afternoons?)


I wrote a little article last year for the sometimes maligned Mamamia site.  It is about the myths which float around about cancer patients.  Mamamia annoyingly changed the title to 'Mistakes' which people make around cancer patients, which is the wrong word to use of course.  They have now published it (they didn't even tell me so I have only just seen it.)

I was going to ask you all to rush over and make nice comments about it, but there is not much criticism there, so it ain't necessary. But please by all means check it out at your leisure.  It is a consolidation of a lot of things I have been thinking for a while now.  Link is here. 

Have you been reading the GOMI thread about Aussie Mum Bloggers?  It's getting pretty long!  Leaving aside the 5% which is just very bitchy and malicious, I think there is something to learn in there for anyone who blogs.    And I have to be honest, some of the comments did make me laugh, and others I did agree with 100%.  Just makes me happy to not be a super huge blog with lots of sponsored posts and a gazillion readers. 

Another thing about being away for so long is that I arrived home and decided I am not completely happy with my house colour.  It is kind of this colour (Bristol Flagstone), we painted it 10 years ago.  

I want to paint it white, and give it a door like this.

(via a Beach Cottage)

 

Or this:

 

 

Is a white house really annoying? Does it get dirty and dusty?   I feel it is better for a house to recede than be out there and bright, but maybe a shake up is what is required.

 

I am going to do a juice cleanse for the start of February.  Given I do green smoothies blah blah I reckon it will be quite straightforward.  I wanted to do Orchard Street but irritatingly they only service Sydney.     So I am likely to go with Schkinny Manniny.  Silly name but it looks pretty interesting. 

 

That's all for now.