Dances with DS

Yesterday was a fabulous day spent with very dear friends cruising down the Thames in London. My friend has just had cancer surgery on her bowel and is recovering well all things considered, though the headstuff is as with WLS - huge. I am deeply grateful we still have her with us. Again I am reminded how frail we all are & how temporary life is. We better all be kind to each other -it’s about all we can do.

I love the London riverscape. I love the sound of the water sluicing under the bow of the boat and the wind and sun on the body. I love the easiness of not thinking - just looking. No mind at all.

We travel under old bridges - past the Houses of Parliament - all the way down to the distraught Millennium dome. It looks ill kept and grubby more a blight on the landscape than a shining pillar. What an enormous waste it is.
Gordon is at the helm & he’s an old river rat. He spins along tale of days gone by of wharfs that were used to hold ships from Rotterdam and the like. He marvels and despairs at the changes - he’s a living history book.

We turn around shortly after the Dome and wend our way upstream towards the demure suburbia and outskirts of London. Neat backyards festooned with nautical themes, green grass and waving children.

We dock near Chelsea harbour and eat a delicious lunch of cold meats and salads. Then we move on. When we stop people jump on and off the boat to visit - it’s really nice. We spend most of the day relaxing - the weather holds up too. After lunch we continue cruising along. Eventually we moor the boat in a green spot on the riverbank. Instantly a swan couple with one wee cygnet only come to beg for bread - we feed them. It’s so sweet this little grey piece of fluff - can’t be more than a few days old at most. After they have had enough, we watch as the lone baby climbs up on mums back & sits there safely enfolded in her wings riding piggyback style down the river!

Shortly after six I have a desperate urge to go to the loo. Wind gurgles in my belly and I am not too confident about expelling it - could be a bad slip that! Mmmm - I am not about to have everyone jump ship so I hold the beast in. By 7.30 I am in a bit of a state really - I have bloated up and feel at the edge of my endurance.
We walk from the boat to a nearby pub and I find some solace in the bathroom there. I don’t mind annihilating strangers!

I joke - but actually it is a bastard this. It had me wondering about my limitations & feeling frustrated and then crying this morning out of sheer self pity I’m afraid. Pete as usual helps me see the logic and we agree that ordinarily if I go out I know intuitively my cut off times and I also prepare well so that I simply don’t notice any limitations. This time I had expected the day to end at 4-30 ish. Wrong. My protein drink rolled out my rugsack so I was pretty low on protein too.
I think the confined social space that a boat is really needs more thought from me in the future.

Today - we decided to go and blow our money on some books to do with renovating a house - not much about. I found a lovely book on fusion interiors though which kind of embodies what I hope to do. I just don’t flourish in high chintz & traditional English wallpaper. If only I did! I’m pretty heartened to find other people live as I do & what’s more hold it in high regard so I don’t feel so odd anymore with my ideas that we should bring an oriental sense to our space as well as embody our African-ess at the same time not compromising a sale if we need it. The problem oddly is not with transfusing African & Orient - these do infact have quite incredible connections as I discovered when dealing in African & Oriental Art. The problem is that England is difficult to transmute. She resonates more with her European neighbours than with the dark days of colonialism. At most I have occasionally seen England transfused into old paisley shawls reminiscent of Indian textiles.

I’m always caught in my sense of Universality at times like this - I don’t want to live in a house of the place. I am like a fish out of water. This presents challenges even with things like the light, which lends itself to different colour palette than Africa/China/India. And then we must also consider who will our home appeal to when we are eventually ready to move on? So it goes on in my head. I have decided the only way forward is to begin with mood boards and a visual journal to help the architects understand where I am going & to help me understand too!

Sitting at my workbench this morning turning the lapis stone beads in my hand, thinking of creating an opulent Ottoman inspired necklace, I realise that Istanbul is not yet out of my system.

I catch myself thinking on it flash back style. To the Dervishes that are now employed to whirl publicly at various eateries…(those of you that read my blog will remember how it was that I could not unearth the elusive devils the first time I was in Turkey as hard as I tried-lol). This time they were whirling it seemed everywhere! Such a short space of time for a huge change. I briefly recorded a Dervish whirling at a restuarant … thinking on how Sufism is perhaps about to enter a new era and grappling to understand this.

At first I had waves of sadness thinking on how cheap it had become to conduct the Sema for the sake of a financial payoff and the entertainment of fat cat tourists that ruin everything (of course I forget I too am a fat cat tourist - ugh!). I wondered about the authenticity of this - I wondered if the Sufi’s are in deep divide over this? What impact it is having?

Oddly enough as much as I wish that all things mystic remain - just that I can see another angle too. Mysterious, unspoken only open to those who have mastered the ‘language’ and drawn a veil over it all so it remains a secret - there is also see the selfishness in that. I feel in my guts that by bringing the Sema to crowds of people it harks the revival of spirituality in everyday life. Just sitting with your cup of apple tea - in the dappled dusk you begin to hear the magnificent flute call you to attention. And here comes this figure who spirals into Bliss and draws it into the crowd. And it falls away who watches for entertainment, who watches in meditative resonance… it matters not.

In many mystical traditions allegories are drawn between ripe fruit & unripe fruit. The idea is if you are ready you will be open & receptive. If not - that’s ok too…there is plenty of time & eventually life will bring you to this state of ‘ripeness’ - this state of being able to finally let go. For me this new bold act on the part of the Sufi’s embodies that.

I think too of the Zen story of ‘returning to the marketplace’ after enlightenment has taken place…I love that about Zen. It is usually grounded in the everyday.
Perhaps Sufism too returns to the marketplace.
Perhaps there has never been a better time for mysticism to begin a public penetration of the world. This is one needy needy thirsty world that has been taken over by the protocols of orthodox religions. Perhaps - just as I knew when the great Buddha’s in Afghanistan were blown up that there would be great grief soon to follow - perhaps this presence of Sufism spells a resurrection for the Spiritual world? Who knows!

Many lessons here that come to me far away at my little workbench. I think on what does it matter what others think anyway - why worry and fret. Immersed in the whirl there is no worrying about this and that. If you have ever tried whirling you will see it is quite impossible to think!
Mercifully!

I think on the wonderful people - how strange it is that where poverty exists often one finds the greatest generosity. I think of the endless cups of welcoming Cay (tea) - the way the animals in the street are generally cared for - even the sparrows are fed bread in bowls. I think on the shop owner who invited us up on his top floor to show us the view from his place because it was so beautiful. Little Nihan who came to my rescue so elegantly when I was in the bead shop struggling with foreign customs and slightly afraid I might gaff! Bless the child.

Today as you can see I am not in the UK very much.

Well back to my beads now. Back to the lapis, silver and possibilities.

What a glorious day! I stole my hubby from his work this afternoon and off we went for a drive through the countryside in my little open top car. These are the things bliss is made of - sunshine on my body, wind in my hair, rolling hills and fields and the smell of green everywhere. And of course with my best man by my side.

We went to Fired earth first :

Shop is here!

They have lovely items. Bit expensive but great for ideas. I left with several sample pots of paint. We are doing our cloakroom & bathroom next so I have been thinking on what to install. This business has led us to try to assess how we will move over the next year - the big question is do we want to move? We have this idea of doing a two continent thing - retaining our investment & home in the UK perhaps and having a second home & business abroad??? - but where oh where? I have four potentially resonent places on the list.

We shall see - it’s early days and all up in the air still. To effect any such major parallel life we will need to capitalise on our existing house & push it to it’s maximum potential. Right now it is a hodge-podge of creative endevours half baked mostly due to lack of time & funds (my surgery wrung us out for a long time.

Hence my current deep obsession with decor and potential builds. Not only do we plan the bathroom but we are thinking of building as well - oh glory!
This is something I have always done so I have an inkling of just how much time it will take to project manage. In South Africa we did it very successfully selling our last home there at a premium price. I think our joint objective is to get as fully flexible as possible…so that at the end of this we can choose the next direction & godswilling bring it into reality as fast as we require. Not that we really have a rush - but it would be nice to be more comfortable in our house as well. It’s hectically exciting & very daunting all in one - but I am fired up to start shifting things now.

For the past few days I have been fomenting (or is it fermenting?) various scenarios. I have been in deep thought - trying out different things in my head. Part of it is visualising a room and a build and other parts are visualising a parallel Life with a foot on either continent. A great deal of it is making a clear definition in my head of how I wish to live & to meet this to Pete’s perception too. It’s not so easy but I feel the sweet scent of leeway!

My apologies to those I still have e-mails to reply to - this sort of process just seems to take an inordinate amount of energy, but hopefully I will have replied to you early next week - you are not forgotten! It’s just me spinning my next web.
Even my poor garden has faced neglect as I trundle around the internet collecting data, contacts, snippets, printoffs. Choices are huge. Which basin? Which tiles? Buy here or France? Indian Yellow or sienna earth? If I set up a business overseas must I live there too permanently? Do I need residence? Many ponderings.
I am lucky to be happily engrossed in such fickle matters I feel quite guilty. Right now things are far from fickle for some of the people I regard as my friends…I am hoping soon they too can relax.

Pete and I stopped off at a lovely pub in the village of Shere - it’s really a charming higgeldy piggeldy kind of village - with old Tudor houses, rambling roses and a river running through it. Wonderful. England enamours me yet again and I find myself thinking I would not wish to entirely give this life I have here up.
I eat homecooked thick cut ham, eggs and chips - soooo delicious. Funny how when I eat out I notice my restriction. Most of the chips and a chunk of ham had to revisit the kitchen sadly - mind you I had eaten at lunch a fair helping of bombay potato with cheese, a slice of burgens and half an avo.

I wish days like today would last forever. I love the sunshine & how everyone looks happy. I hope the weekend holds, I think I will do a traditional South African Braai if it does.

A short one as the sun (what sun?) goes down. A lazy day today. I have a delicious lunch with a dear friend and the afternoon rolls into evening. We talk and laugh. It’s good.

I have just phoned my mum and spent a happy hour chatting to her. I miss her brazenly. I think living far from our loved one’s is a curse. It’s the best to connect with her - she is one special lady in my life. I tell her of my flirtatious adventures, ‘like golden warm honey!’ she says. Oh, she makes me laugh. She’s positively wicked - I expected a telling off! We resonate. We share the same spirit - it is a strong heritage. We discuss this side of our family that is so fucked up and yet so creative, so passionate & I see how it wounds and saves us all at once. Family flaws. Perhaps the synergy is how we evolve in a strange and mysterious way. I just wish sometimes for deep peace to settle into our genes. Perhaps it will yet. Perhaps us that go on do this work unknowingly. Breaking old patterns. It’s not easy. I miss my daughter out there spreading her wings & wonder if ‘the missing places’ live in the same place in one’s psyche.

I reflect a lot of the time but I am not sure it is useful.

Zenni has been demanding. He needs his mum. Today he is not dog he is child.

Here I sit at my window overlooking my contemplation garden & trying to adjust to life in Hopfield Ave. I’m displaced and the ubiquitous lists of chores required around the house do not greatly inspire me.
I would rather be on some cobbled street listening to the sparrows chirping and watching the kids play, than here. It’s always an adjustment to be back in ordinary everyday suburban existence.

Still there is work to be done. There are some jobs for DS surgeons to be completed. My private project continues - it’s a big work. The herbaceous border needs more planting - I have dianthus, hollyhocks and a beautiful pure white clematis to plant. Yesterday we pruned a large tree in the garden to give it a mophead effect in time. It’s not a great time to prune with the sap rising but I have a wonderful bonsai sealant I use on the cuts to seal things fast. The tree looks fine today. Mark, who helps me garden from time to time looks bemused when I tell him we must talk to it to help it take the cuts! I nearly laugh at his expression of doubt but he’s polite in that uniquely English way.

Inside the house - the bathroom needs doing - it looks sad and dishevelled. I spend time in there on the lav and the seat is broken - yet again! Mmmmm - inspiring stuff!
A friend will be coming for lunch tomorrow - got to go buy some food for us too, prepare some upfront. Decide to do chicken livers in Madeira wine with onions, rose-harissa barley with sundried tomatoes, a walnut salad. For dessert I make a pineapple, mango and passion-fruit thingi - philadelphia cream cheese, jelly, cream, condensed milk & pulped pineapples. The mango and passionfruit is a bought couli, it just gives it some edge.

Zenni needs me too - he has shadowed me since I got back. He so hates it when I leave poor little angeldog. We do a lot of reconnecting lapstuff and much good boy noises and then he perks up considerably.

I am eating well again - the UK is so good for protein! I’m positively glorying in it and ashamed I take it so for granted. Today I have devoured eggs x 3 with cheese, tomato’s & onion sauce. I have eaten a philidelphia and hot chicken Burgen sarmi - bliss is mine! I polished off a punnet of Sainbury’s Prawns and smoked salmon in dill sauce - delicious! I have had 2 yogurt’s - that Tescos lemon one is heavenly. Mind you I am cautious and careful to space out my culinary delight!

Milk I cannot get enough of - it tastes right our British milk. In Istanbul it is strange watery herby milk with a bitter aftertaste. While I was there I wrote that I should become the worlds first milk taster - can you imagine: nutty and sweet with a hint of grass…or how about: refined, with a creamy nose and a tangy tilt of rosemary! In Istanbul one of my major struggles is protein. I fall way under target most days - partly my own fault as I could not be bothered to lug around more than two protein drinks & I am off protein bars…uuuugh! I meant to take biltong but life got crazy the day before I left & I never had a chance to buy some. So I suffer - I CRAVE the stuff by day 3.

On day three Pete and I went out for a meal as indeed we do every night. I look forward to these times alone just the two of us, no interruptions. We seldom tire of each others company though as you must realise by now living with me takes some doing. I think we are blessed with a deep resonance - something that is timeless and happymaking even when our chips have been down. Soulmate sounds cheesy but I suppose it describes it. I take forgranted our love, I just expect it to always be there like a light holding me together when I feel I can’t do this life thing alone…and we have an easy highly tactile relationship, always have had - I smile now remembering how our offspring have had to endure. The teenage years are quite something and your parents behaviour can certainly embarrass!

Standing in a hug posture together as is our habit, a man suddenly smiles and shouts out joyfully ‘happy couple!’ I am taken by surprise really but I want to say - ‘yep you are right my friend :-D!’ When I turn to do so he has gone, but it was a sweet open acknowledgement.

We find a lovely open air restaurant - traditional Turkish music & fare. Vines that grow overhead and low slung sofas covered with cushions and rugs - just right for lounging. Nearby people smoke the nargile stoking them with hot coals. I order a banana milk. It is so delicious. The meal arrives - chicken kebab & some barley. I eat well but inattentively - I am watching a Sufi ‘performance’ (more about this another time)spooning the food in sans thought. The chicken is quite spicy and I am thirsty. I order another banana milk.

All hell breaks loose for me 5 mins later. I realise that I have well exceeded my restriction & I am in grave pain. We beat a hasty retreat back to the hotel, me gasping & moaning. I feel the blood drain from my face. It’s so painful I frankly don’t give a sod who looks on in amazement - clutching my belly I just make it to the loo. I am sick, sick, sick. I feel that I am mildly dumping…omg. It is awful. I sweat and shake as my body goes into full ’sort out the crisis mode’. I am hurling and crapping, moaning loudly. Not a pretty sight to be sure. I am also totally shocked to be dumping, this has never happened before thank the dear lord and it will never happen again if I have my way. Good grief. Poor RNYers.

Dumping with the DS is really exceptionally rare & tbh I have to think about the whole mechanics of this. I have heard of this right in the very early early weeks but I must be the only Dser to have a ‘dumping’ thing so late in the day!

The day had been a long grazing thing - a few nuts here, a kebab there, milkshake, yogurt, etc - a kind of unregular day for me as I generally do a pretty set 3 meal - one or two snack thing nowadays. By the time I put the first milk into my tum my colon was backed up from the days grazing. I believe the 2nd milk was my undoing plus that some of the barley had begun to swell …double whammy. My body had to try to make space in the colon so first thing is to try to clear that, things don’t move fast enough - step two clear the tum somewhat. I vomit. (Extremely rare for me!) Now the pylorus swings open (mine can be mighty efficient!) and the body propels the tum contents rapidly & desperately into the intestine (type of internal vomiting …I say turning green.) It’s this that starts the sweats & shakes. Mercifully after a half hour or so I am feeling a lot better though I am as drained as hell. In the mirror I see my face is the colour of old parchment. I lie on the bed in Pete’s comforting arms, trying to regain my shaken composure.

The next day I felt a bit off kilter to start with. I am somewhat perplexed by the recent amount of tough DS lessons I am getting - I seem to be having a strange spate of things that induce pain. For well on two years I have had no episodes then suddenly this weird spate. It is I think partly related to me not getting that yet again I’m undergoing an adaptional phase. I think I have near forgotten I have the surgery at times and I then transgress the boundaries inadvertently. It’s crap but it’s also good. Even in year 4 my DS is working - it’s making me think and I know I have to do this - I have to have these re-assessment times.

Later the peakiness leaves me & Pete and I have a lovely Thursday. It’s a public holiday so he has the day off. We kick off by catching a tram to Emininou - a ferry port. I spend some time at the spice market immersed in the scent of a thousand seasonings. There are mounds of saffron strands, cloves, strings of dried okra, cardamom, cinnamon, peppers - it is wonderful. Here I discover a preserved meat not unlike biltong - it is called pastirma and has a fenugreek coating which I can’t adjust to covering it. I remove the paste of pungent red sticky fenugreek and push several gobs of it into my mouth - relief floods my protein parched cells. Pete finds it too crowded and leaves me to take it all in. When I find him outside he has had a not so happy encounter with a pigeon that must be in the early weeks of its DS - say no more!

We catch a ferry over to the Asian side of Istanbul. It’s a wonderful ride across the ocean - so relaxing. Once there we take a walk along the seaside watching the jellyfish in the water, the flower sellers and the kids playing and just enjoying each others company. We chill out basically.
On the way home we pop into baklava shop - Pete buys every type of baklava available. I still feel too peaky to eat more than pastirma - the day has been a struggle for me appetite wise. I think that’s good - it’s my body just needing a rest after the dire episode from hell.

We enjoy a quiet evening together, I need to rest. Actually it is not quite as quiet as it should be - he tries to push me out of the bed and I hook my feet and arms around the big brass head & foot board trying to hold on tight as possible. I am weak. But boy can I cling! My body goes into a perfect banana or boomerang shape where he is pushing me to my sure fall off the edge. I am laughing so hard it’s all I can do to keep my grip, so is he.

Later in the evening we walk through the beautiful park enjoying the fountains. The light is unearthly as dusk falls. It lights up the cities gilded domes. The seagulls whirl whitely light reflected off them, in vortices above the Blue mosque. Opposite the Aya Sophia glows her best earthy pink. I particularly love the sounds of Istanbul. Nearby a lone Dervish flute plays the sacred music (Sema) - it reverberates through me and the dusk air, melancholy and always always calling my spirit. I hear dogs barking. The Muezzin calls the faithful for prayer. The splash of the fountain water underpins it all. I lean on Pete. The roses are heavenly - huge fragrant blowsy things full of musky depth and scent. I feel profoundly happy. We find a lovely restaurant with loads of atmosphere & enjoy a really nice meal together.

Now that I am back home I can’t really work out my emotional connections to Istanbul - is it the way the light falls through the old Linden trees? Is it the landscape dotted with stars and domes glittering an old gold from a bygone time. Or the general kindness of the people? Is it the magnificent old architecture? Whatever it is I am hopelessly drawn into that city every time I go there. This time was no exception.

I hit Istanbul running. I am thirsty for travel. Demented for it actually. This happens because it has been a slow year on the travel front, other more boring issues have been pressing against Pete & myself making us both feel simultaneously liberated and cornered. Such is life.

It was evening when we arrived and the light was starting to cast that soft goldenness on everything - holding hands in the back of the taxi to our hotel, we drove past families having Sunday picnics all along the azure Bosphorus sea. I smiled at the multitude of makeshift hammocks - erected for the day & slung between the trees in which were lying gurgling deliciously olivine skinned babies. Nearby mothers did the barbecuing on strange cast iron portable systems - family members relaxed the air was aromatic with the smell of meat, laughter, olives and smoky herbs. Suddenly we are through the ancient stone archway wending our way up the old cobbled lanes to Sultanhamet.

Pete works during the day & I am free to be alone & wander & wonder. I decide this time I shall master the public transport system. I have to force myself to do this. I go through a longish process of bolstering myself each time. A lot of head talk: Jane to Jane: ‘you can do this now. You are not obese anymore so people won’t stare at you. It’ll be okay once you are there you’ll blend in with the crowd…you know you need to keep on pushing yourself to get out of the old fearful mindset… ‘ and so on. Hermit archetype is out in full force - stubborn old git it is too! I wonder if I will ever just beat that insecurity enough to not even think about it - just to step out without the headstuff . Oh, that would be nice.
It takes me at least 20 mins to motivate myself but I do it! Small triumphs for others - big steps in my brave new world. By the third day I am travelling by tram and ferry as happily as a springtime lark and released from the head talk, well, until next time.

I spend a lot of time exploring the grand bazaar & surrounds. It’s an incredible labyrinth. I was a bit dubious about going in there woman alone but it’s safe. One does get hassled to exhaustion though with peddlars trying to sell everything from socks to suitcases.

The quest is as usual, beads and old silver pieces. I like the hunt for elusive bargains but mostly the bazaar is greatly inflated. Eventually at one of the exits I do find bead shops and also really reasonable jewellery display stands. I buy some of the most astonishing lapis beads in the world here. The gold in them is top grade, the blue is deep and mysterious. They are really quite byzantine in quality. Also some good Turkish silver filigree beads at a reasonable price. Later I find a lapis pendant and the necklace comes together in my head.

After that I go back into the bazaar. It’s good for looking and the Ottoman antiques are glorious but priced beyond reason. The USA tourists have invaded bargain land & the traders want everything in US $$$. My advice to anyone going to Istanbul is to enjoy the markets and buy carefully if at all. Bargains is a misnomer but one can still get reasonable value provided one haggles. Know the value of things because to be honest ebay can be a lot cheaper than this market. I discovered this researching Suzani’s (old Uzbeki embroideries) at the local internet cafe one night.

This said I do buy several things - silk scarves and a Turkish glass tea set for herbal tea’s ( I like my peppermint tea!). I also find a magnificent Ottoman childs belt in the old antiques market( I collect antique buckles & belts) - the buckle is filigreed and gilded and it still boasts a purple silk sash, vegetable dyed and now faded but splendidly so - it is superb. I haggle hard and smile till my jaw aches and get it for a fair price.

Besides this there is a lot of learning to be done on the antiques front and I am game. I quickly discover if one is polite and ever so slightly subservient the men will spend time educating one. And more besides!

Late in life - and never having known what flirting is (married too young to indulge in it), I have this naive aspect that I am unaware of it happening in my face until it can no longer be denied. Strange but true. I just think everyone will be my friend and I don’t ‘get’ the subtle signs most of the time.

I think on this aspect of Istanbul - I think on how the men do flirt and how I, who recoil and get uncomfy, have to face that, mull it over & work with it instead of pushing it all away. I decide that actually it is quite healthy & I rather like it nowadays. Perhaps older age is nipping at me, but I do think there is something kind of acknowledging about it…it’s way better than the neutral stance of the Englishman. In Istanbul it is an art still - and it’s a good feeling to be appreciated for no other reason than one is a woman. Why not!

So it is that in a small shop in Curkcuma, Beyoglu, I drink several cups of apple tea with the owner who is 35 years old and a man with a good business head on his shoulders and a wicked twinkle in his eye. I’m drawn to him mostly because he has me in fits of laughter with his unbelievable sense of humour. More than that we share a great interest in turkoman jewellery (it’s his business) and I need to know about travelling in places such as Uzbekistan. The afternoon goes fast and I have bought several old pieces and need a taxi. Aziz is having none of it. ‘I drive you back to Sultanhamet on my taxi’ he insists pointing proudly at his slightly ragged motorcycle. *GULP*

Then I don’t know what possesses me, but I think what the hell, live for the moment jane and I am on the back of the thing being deftly woven through mad traffic, stray dogs and crowds of people, hair blowing in the wind with my eyes half closed thinking this might just be the day of meeting with my maker -lol! On the way to Sultanhamet Aziz stops and asks if I would like to visit something special. I am up for it. He takes me up the Galata Tower where we have quite the most incredible views of Istanbul imaginable. I am gobsmacked by how huge Istanbul really is from up here in the heavenly realms. Walking around the tower I forget that in fact ordinarily I go into vertigo when high up - it’s so fascinating one forgets one’s self!
I was engrossed in the scenery when Aziz decides to take things up a notch or two, gallantly kissing my hands. Omg. Trouble.
Flirting is one thing, getting amorous is something that is strictly something between my lovely hubby and myself. Aziz knows I am married and have a family & happily so. I reiterate my bonds with my Pete. He remains unphased, more hand kissing ensues which I find rather pure -lol. (no groin grinding here lol ). When I leave, with great sincerity he puts around my neck an Arabic necklace inscribed in. ‘Inshallah, Jane - remember me wherever you go as a good friend and you will always be protected by this holy necklace.’

Later on, still touched by his parting gesture and fingering the red drops of inscribed glass still hanging around my neck, I reflect on my risky impulsive behaviour. But I have no regrets, it was a day well lived.

This is my first tale of Istanbul - more to follow over the next few days! For now, I must plant a few plants in my newly dug flower bed while the sun is still out & there is a bit of light left in the day.

Last night threw me for a loop - I had extreme wind of the : ‘help call 999 she is expecting triplets variety’. In retrospect sitting windless and happily ensconced in my chair at the window today - I can see the exact cause - namely several biscuits that had ‘ols’ in them. I am near allergic to anything with an ‘ol’ in it. Oh mother of all pain. I felt cheated like at least at the end of the 2 hour stint there could have been a reward for my bodies efforts. Like I lift into the sky and float or something nice like that. Instead I was a wreck! I retreated sorely to my bed, colon aching and slept for two hours. I don’t curse my DS often but last night I wished mightily in the grip of the pain that I had never heard of the surgery. I’m not exaggerating - that kind of pain is so severe I thought I would throw up or faint at the peak. I swallowed 3 deflatine and 2 paracetamol and had a hot bath. Thank goodness it only happens once in a blue moon.
Today the offending biscuits have been ignored. I will take a couple of acidophilus and stay with protein my appetite is on the floor. Today I look at my body in the mirror & I am so damn pleased I had this surgery it’s unreal & I regret that last night I swore some and was bad tempered and a grouch bag.

This morning my tum returned to a nice flat shape I looked myself up and down in the mirror starkers. I still grapple with my image - it’s like I can’t memorise myself and how I actually look. I have fears that I am being body dysmorphic currently. When I was obese I had many episodes of dysmorphia(is there such a word?)…I simply could not see my size. I thought I was ‘medium sized’ of course until I tried on a medium size and had to resort to size 26 to get a fit! Even then I was still in denial pretty often. The true reality of being as large as I was, was something I really could barely face.

Anyhow infront of the mirror - I look at this bodies sags, folds and all and I reckon it is not toooo bad. I’m curvy as I wished to be and my tum is pretty flat for a mum of three. I have a broader upper torso and narrower hips. My panni overhang is more pronounced on one side due to skew Caesar incisions. There is a wee overhang an inch or two on the one side the other is negligible. Should I go for a tuck - I might, I don’t know, my case is borderline. I’m pleased my boobies are still a good 36C and I can see my rib and hip bones and other parts - lol. Standing there I take a long good look at my feet from an aerial perspective…it’s strange to think for many years I could not see my feet at all as my belly obscured them. I can’t resist bending my leg right back in a yoga posture - it’s just too wonderful how I can do full postures now rather than half baked versions.

My scars are barely visible at all now, they are a testimony to my skilled surgeon especially considering I do scar badly - my stretchmarks are way worse. I laugh at my flat bum - I don’t mind it really - no butt lifts for this girl!

Still, I’m thinking maybe I think I am slimmer than I actually am. I still have some problems in my head for example I cannot face the scale. I just don’t weigh myself at all. At first I made up excuses but the truth is I have real fear of the scale borne out of years on the thing - endless years - day upon day apon miserable day seeing the gauge go up. I can’t describe the sense of grief and despair I used to get if I went up and oddly enough as the weight was going down I never had that same velocity of emotion. I think the memory of that is very intense and still coiled inside me rather like my obesity is. Perhaps it sits together in the same place and when I use the scale I also simultaneously have to confront my latent obesity? It goes deep that is all I do know. And recently I have had fantasies that I am going to beable to put the whole mess behind me and actually really move on - so today I’m wondering if that is just not a further aspect of my denial-escape process. I hate being so honest and wish I could lie much better to myself.
Anyhoo - I can’t bring myself to do the darstardly weigh in deed, I get a near panic attack and my throat closes up. I know if I am even a kilo up I will feel shattered for no good reason & I hate the way my body does indeed go up and down in weight *like any normal body should*. For a while after my weight stabilised I did weigh in and it used to do my head in that one day I could gain 3 kilo’s and the next have lost it all. I just want a mind numbing constant. No ups & no downs. I don’t want to think about it. It’s utterly ridiculous considering here’s a girl who really is not offended by a bit of the old flesh in my case I’d be okay with sz 16 …so no comprehendos - but there it is and I don’t know how I am going to get past this in my usual DIY way. So I would rather get out my clothes with no give and get in them and they still fit just fine so that is my gauge for now - though I know soon I must really begin to overcome my fear of the scale.

My daughter should be in Scotland by now - she has gone on holiday with her boyfriend and they are driving up. I miss her awfully. I worry. It does not end this worry thing … I keep telling myself to let her go and to cut the strings but it’s hard. She was and is my little spirit flame child. Lights up my life. She’s a good person - solid and strong inside and I know she’ll be okay out there in the Scottish hills!
I’m thinking how am I going to cope when she moves out of the house? How? It’s so empty without her sparkiness. And my boys too will too soon be gone as well. I have these wry panics. I don’t like the idea of my kids leaving. I do what I tell others not to do - I think way too much!

Enough thinking - time to pack for Turkey. The weather there is nice - in the 20’s. T-shirt weather. I will contact a friend Ozlem tonight she will hopefully meet up with me for a meal. Pete has Thursday off as it is a public holiday in Turkey - we plan a long late lie in. We will be staying in
YesilEv (The green house)

I have stayed here before it is in an idyllic location. I am able to walk to all the major sights from here. I think ‘The Green house’ is an appropriate name for it, it is very much a house of the Heart. I don’t know that the interior is my kinda style but it suits the old lady. In the back is a glorious courtyard where meals are served beneath trees…there is a fountain and it is a sanctuary in which to sip a chocolate milk or a good glass of wine at night. At night I walk to the Blue Mosque to see the light show - it’s so beautiful how the old building is lit up in different coloured lights.

This time I plan to also visit :
KariyeMuseum
among other things. I am looking most forward to going & will update my blog when I return in a week from now.

Thinking hard on this one today and wondering how come if I know this it is so damn hard to keep it up!

In the past I have purposefully played with this concept and provided I have had a clear definition of what I want to achieve it has never ceased to amaze me that inevitably it does materialise. In the past Pete and I have moved what seemed insurmountable mountains by retaining our joint focus. But it does take a lucid energy that is gathered and focused as a key player.
A lot of the time my energy is like a leaking kettle and I struggle to keep it together. I find myself distracted by things that are irrelevant, I find myself having doubts about directions I want to take, indecision is often my half-sister. I’m born to the ADD brain wave, it does not help me.

I struggle to move past the new agey thing too as I see it really as just another set of constraints, like all religions a passage to move though rather than the great goal of humanity. I kind of cringe a tad at the blowsiness of such a bold statement but at the same time I know it to be astonishingly true. I also grapple with the idea of ‘control’ - I create my own reality smacks of ‘control’ . I have a natural aversion to ‘control’ factors. It makes me flighty. I don’t subscribe to the manipulative implication of it as I feel life creates a certain reality for me too & in this I am sometimes swept along and should be. When I live in the flow of life, in a sweet surrender and acceptance of it I experience a great deal of bliss compared with when I try to control things.
It seems to be about learning a synergy - it’s about looking at what life presents with the ‘clear eye’…and seeing that no matter what that is - *how I think about it is going to have huge impact for me*.
The other thing is that LIFE is not a static phenomena. It can’t be netted and pinned down. There’s part of me that is so contented in this that I honestly sometimes wonder if I even want to create any reality at all! But there we go - in an odd way I can fathom that entering this big reality that is LIFE full on in yer face high voltage life that has technicolour depth and radience is perhaps accessed via the miraculous things that happen when we do start to create our own realities.

Sometimes because I am overly attuned to the energy of things I fall into bad chi that hangs about - I’m thinking now of my dreadful driveway - it was a bad run that. I know it is only a driveway but for me it is also a metaphor in several ways. Around a year ago we got scammed by some conmen posing as a reputable paving company. They were well spoken, they showed us brochures and drove vans and played the part. They dug up our drive took money off us for bricks(bad mistake on our part) and off they went leaving behind them a mud pit, cracked drains and a load of rubble in a scenic spot near our local river. We could not trace them.
Short of cash and disillusioned Pete & I could not decide what to do - the whole episode had thrown us completely. We deliberated monthly - to tarmac, to brickpave, to shingle??? We could not decide. Meantime mother nature begins to lay a happy bed of nettles, dandelions and the like…it looked awful. Coming home is a nightmare - our yard is dragging down the entire neighbourhood. People walk past and point at the eyesore. It made me feel angry, embarrassed and depressed to look at it. We put up a lovely fence to try to start a process of yard rehabilitation - vandals kicked holes in it - my heart just sank. Looking at my small effort towards hope, now standing with great big holes in it, I could have wept for myself, the yard, the miserable kids who did it in the first place. My energy started to flow into that huge bad chi center at the front of my house and I would get frustrated and annoyed by my seeming lack of energy to get it sorted. One might say it is just a stupid driveway but really it was much more than that - it became a huge black pit of energyloss.

After months of painful inconclusive deliberation at last we decided late one night a few weeks ago - ENOUGH!. Next day I got on the phone we got 3 quotes we set up a paving job and now in a week it is totally transformed and so is my energy and Pete’s. We feel we can sort out things and move in the direction we want for our lives. Lesson number 10258 - where are the black pits of energyloss in one’s life? See it then correct it & *do it soon*.
The longer one remains indecisive the harder it gets to get one’s life on track and get on with the process of creating a great reality .
What frustrates me is I am aware of this and yet I continuously screw up to be frank.

For me part of it is this huge perfectionism - sometimes looking at the goal one omits to see the small steps that lead one there. I’m learning all about this sort of stuff even though the truth is for years I have known and for years I have seen it works firsthand. I also know if one puts it out there - if one reaches for change it is interesting to see how Jungs synchronicity theory begins to happen. Suddenly doors open, people you never could have imagined just say the right thing at the right time. Contacts are established and help is forthcoming. It’s amazing really.

Ultimately - the truth of it is we are all going to create a reality of some kind for ourselves like it or not. If we don’t know what kind of reality to create - if we are leaking vessels of energy, it is going to be a mayhem like my driveway (lol).
If we stop thinking so much and just focus towards the reality we want to create - it can happen. Then life is a dynamic exciting happening not a terrible depressing drain on our energy.

I am floating up my lovely driveway enjoying it - Pete said to me sometimes standing on it he thinks he has arrived at the wrong house -lol! I know totally that what has transpired with my driveway is a metaphor for my life too & I am embarking now on the best time of my life - I just know it completely. The bricks are laid, the energy is good - things are moving ahead beautifully…and this Sunday I will be in my beloved Istanbul once more.

Today I read a most awesome article about Masuro Emoto’s amazing work photographing water molecules. I have always understood the power of vibration having practised both yoga & tantra regularly in my life, but for years it has been scoffed at by mainstream thinkers. And here is this body of irrefutable evidence now in the form of Masuro’s photo’s.
I found an article about this - please forgive the context which has a slightly new agey tang & look at the photo’s which truly speak for themselves:

Photo’s are here!

Seeing the huge physical implications has had a strong impact on my perception. It’s one thing to intuitively know and acknowledge such things it is quite another to see the miracle of it imprinted in physical matter. Proof of how limited we really are in our understanding. Suddenly I am reminded of the power of our thoughts - how we need to learn and understand the true momentum of prayer…of chanting & of other forms of spiritual vibration. Mantra’s particularly carry pure seeds of sound that must indeed change the very molecular structure of the body in the moments they are uttered - perhaps these correct breaks in our energy to facilitate healing.

It strikes me how deeply appropriate water is the messenger in this case of another world that we so foolishly disregard out of ignorance. How appropriate that a symbol for renewal, regeneration, nurturing, extreme power, should prove to be a vehicle of discovery for us that all is not quite as it seems. It’s pretty bloody masterful actually & I have been chuckling about it all day long.

This is not an unexplored thing - the ancients knew of the healing power of sound & vibration. For a while we have known things such as that certain music can help ADD kids calm down so it’s not exactly new but selfishly speaking I rather like it that at last people like my lil odd self are not so very fringe after all - lol. The molecular biologist Candice Pert confirms this ancient view in her incredible thesis Molecules of Emotions. She explains that hormones and neurotransmitters throughout the human organism communicate with each other through definitive vibrations. When our bodies are in harmony then our cells are resonating along with an inner music that minimizes dissonance. To fall out of tune is to break down communication among our cells.

I never get bored with the magnitude of people such as Pert - I love to spin off such people’s theories my own hypothesis for the hell of it. Conjecture and opining it might be but never never underestimate the fun of it too! (If you knew me you’d know a great deal of what I do is of a hedonistic nature. I believe in fun, pleasure and
en*joy*ment so long as some one else is not wilfully being hurt by it.)
Long long ago I had an insight during which I loosely grasped that creativity is a state of being that can occur really only when it’s primary obstacle (’The selfish self’ or Ego ) is set aside or dropped. I was invited to a University to talk about this to the students who at the time were involved in learning about gifted children. Now again I am sensing that infact what stands between the body & the mind is perhaps an illusion…perhaps buffered by the self same Ego. If it dropped away would the body & the mind not be one in reality - the same thing undivided? I don’t know but it certainly makes for some interesting thinking.

In the maze of all of this wonderful mystery - I sense strongly how we do need as a humanity to connect with spirituality of any kind though there are times I despair for us all, it must be said, with our religions that so often end up enforcing the very aspect in us that we need to release. Suddenly I feel a tad more forgiving of the religions that have so often locked the door and chucked away the key for so many, under the auspices of freedom - here at the very least quite inadvertently aspects of religion do potentially elevate the vibrations of the human being - lol. It’s wondrous really that small shutter of awareness that opens for the human spirit even deep in the jungle of mindsets and beliefs. Prayer as a means of raising the human vibration - gawd I don’t think the churches/temples would be too delighted lol! Especially if we dare go a wee step further and ask why? Why would prayer have this impact???
(No I won’t answer it - some things are probably best left unsaid so that one can discover for one’s self. :-D)

Back to the delicious photo’s - seeing this I think on how negative thoughts and depression will act on our bodies and minds. I think on this internal enemy that humanity has and how many of us must struggle through it to some vestige of consciousness and compassion. I think of my own desperate hate of my diseased obese body - 20 years of blasting hatred at it and not just my own but on some level also the entire societies disapproval. It’s mindblowing really…no wonder depression exists for many morbidly obese people. Even if depression exists without obesity & obesity is not it’s cause, it is not helping to be the receivers of the vile thoughts we all know the morbidly obese are subjected to.
Still, it’s not in vain if eventually we create out of it something of beauty in our spirits. I sometimes think depression specifically marks a transition of some kind but that we can’t see this when we are in the eye of the storm. We can’t see that it is meaningful because when depression exists it is as if everything is meaningless.

I have decided in the beautiful light Masuro Emoto’s photo’s have produced for me - that daily I’ll increase my meditations to listening to some chanting. I will cook in an even more perceptive way - blessing our food as I go. My regular bottle of old still water I shall impregnate with a vibration of Thanks. It’s okay to be in cloud cuckoo land now that the photo’s prove the existence of it.
Pete tells me he is rather afraid he will turn into a giant frozen snowflake lol - this irrational fear arose when I told him each time I kiss him I will send through the kiss a mantra of lovingness so his bodily fluids make radiant patterns of wellbeing for him.

I suddenly flash on things like the good old fashioned chicken soup that helps one get better. Is it the chicken soup or the vibrational thought? - I suspect probably both converging.

I think too that my recovery from my DS was very much aided by several visualisations I did daily to heal myself. One of these was imagining a golden warm Light flowing over me on each in breath particularly moving into my belly area where it would be absorbed. I would do it several times finishing off when I felt saturated by letting this Light flow to my feet. It really helped me and it also helped me to be a lot less anxious and more peaceful about the changes my body had to go through. I also visited a local healing group for prayers. After these I felt much better and more clear in myself. I feel my strong recovery owed much to these things.

Fortuitously and auspiciously there is a new movie about to hit the silver screen that I shall greatly enjoy as it *appears* (I say hesitantly not yet having seen it) to be made of the stuff that greatly excites my feeble mind. I am hoping in to to see kindred spirits at play. Both Pert and Masuro Emoto’s work is covered in the movie.

http://www.whatthebleep.com/

Kent. Let me try to refresh my vision & I will tell you of fields that stretch for miles laden with the yellow sunshine of rape (unfortunate name) fields as far as the eye can see. Old farmhouses & small villages full of character. Chalk white cliffs topped with meadow flowers and a sea that moves between blues and greens despite the grey horizon. Oust houses and hedgerow. A smell in the air of wild aniseed and seasalt. Dappled Oak Woodlands and bluebells that shatter one’s breath with their blueness and presence. Blackbirds, white fantail doves cooing. Fat fresh asparagus full flavoured and delicious, from local farms. The freshest soft fish I ever ate. Zazenho! running with the wind and the elements on the beaches, smiling in dog language.

But alas not all the memories are tinged with bliss!

We arrived in Dover and the people carrier started sputtering, smoking and doing odd jerks and there we are laden to the hilt - mum and dad in their late 70’s and 80’s. Oh Gawd what a start to the ‘relaxing’ break. Rolling my eyes as I speak. Add to that that night is falling soon, there are no garages in site and there’s an uncertain next 20mins to try to make it to the cottage. Pete drives slowly and we pull up in the drive of the cottage stressed out of our minds but all there! At least Pete’s parents will have tea and warmth but the rest of our break might be confined to meandering around Kingsdown on foot.

Luckily on the Saturday Pete manages to work some miracles. He gets the old car towed to the garage in Surrey to have the gear box sorted. He hires a smaller but still adequate car and it takes a whole day but by 5pm Sat night we are sorted. And thinking it is as well that the car never broke down en route to taking our parents to the airport! What a fiasco that would have been.

As it is we have a lovely time driving around. We visit the Battle of Britain memorial and a museum chronicling the lives of such brave young men… one gets the lump in throat thing. This is for my dad in law who needs still to weep at the losses of war. He was a navigator in world war two - it has never left him that time. It had a way of impacting very deeply on the young people involved. So we go to the memorials to pay respects. We go so that perhaps in his 80’s he can release some of the painful community DNA of that time. We go to show him we deeply honour what he and the others did for all of us in those days. We pat his back and watch as his eyes get misted. We pray our sons will never know such times.

We also visit Canterbury Cathedral and drive through Broadstairs and Margate, sometimes stopping to run Zenni on the shingle beaches. A highlight for me was a visit to Sissinghurst castle gardens - oh but it is too beautiful!
Sissinghurst picture gallery here!

I deeply enjoyed this. From here we wound our way down to the Harbour of Rye & on the way spotted the UK’s first vineyard. Stopped off for some wine tasting and it was very good indeed! I recommend their Rose wine - delicious.
UK wines

A nice little diversion.

On we travelled through winding hedgerow to Rye. Checked it out then off to Hastings which is quite a large town but has a lot of charm. We spend a lot of time in the car sightseeing through the windows. Our folks are really too old to walk around too much. Still it’s lovely except I consume a lot of junk foods such as fairy cakes. My body plays up at night with bloats and pain and I battle a pile episode - it’s there just waiting to make my life a misery. As always I work to nip it in the bud - suppositories win the day thank heavens. But again I am reminded how if we eat the wrong stuff woe can befall one! There is a definate limit - transgress and mama-DS will not make ones life easy. After 2 days of foul eating and the pile brewing like a sting in the butt, I get real and eat properly.

We are tired at night and yet we chat , laugh - it’s a lovely time but when the bed beckons we all fall asleep easily.

Some things stay with me.

The love my parents in law have for each other is tangible and warm. They always hold hands. He remembers things for her and she is ever on guard watching he does not stumble and fall. Tenderness.

How my mumli delights in the beauty around her everyday despite the battles old age brings. How blue her eyes are and how soft her hair is. She is still beautiful inside & out.

Poppa’s dry wry sense of humour.

Spotting my first ever hare in a field - a large lopping type of rabbity creature. God had a bad moment when he created Hares. Maybe it was a hangover or something.

How I realise that prior to my DS surgery I too was in my eighties - unstable on my feet, breathy on the shortest of walks, tired to the core.

And suddenly I realise without much ado my re-birthday has come and gone stealthily in the middle of everything I have forgotten. This is now my 4th year of the DS surgery (but I feel younger with each year in the best way) and what a time it has given me - the best time ever. Here I am - light on my feet, beautifully maintaining my weight, in fine fettle. What more can one ask for from a bariatric surgery?

My mum in law gave me one of the diamond rings she always has worn on her little finger. I am very very touched by this loving generous gesture. The ring fits my little finger perfectly and it won’t be leaving it ever - one day my Katey will wear it too. My mum in law is a darling and I am lucky to have her in my life. But this gift it also chills me - looking at the ring I can’t help feeling in some way she is letting go - planning for a time she won’t be here and I then I will look at the diamonds on my finger and remember her warmth, her blue blue eyes and her singing. It makes me want to cry to be frank my heart starts to do that seeping thing. I know in the years to come I will wish with all my might I could swap this ring back for her presence in our lives. Perhaps when those bleaker days come by this ring will give me comfort and impart all the beautiful memories I have of our mumli, bless her.