London Calling

I am returning to visit the UK (yet again) in September this year. I love these visits. It is very hard to have family and close friends so far away and not to be able to speak face to face or give them a hug whenever the need arises.

My Aunts are both in their 70's and I love them so much. They are not typical old ladies. Aunty Viking has just joined a gym and lives half her time in London with her new boyfriend and the other half getting tanned and terrific in her wonderful villa on the Costa del Sol.

My Aunty CaCa is one of my closest friends. There isn't much I can't (or don't) tell her and I enjoy every single moment in her company. People tell me that I look like her and I can only hope to grow to be like her because she is an amazing person. I can't wait to see her again.

I have lived between England and Australia since I was a little girl, and I guess from these trips came my extreme need for traveling. As I mentioned I am going back in September. It will be my 8th visit and definitely not my last.

I have never worried about the risks of traveling and I don't intend to now. I have had a few people ask me if I am worried about going to London after the terrorist attacks and I can honestly say no. Big M asked me tonight to please just be careful. How? I questioned him. There is no rule to follow, no way I can avoid a terrorist attack.

And I tell you now - if I have to chose between spending time with my Aunts and friends or risking the chance of dieing in a terrorist attack, then I know what I will chose. London is calling.
Hello London.

Joke joyce

Big M's favourite joke:
What's brown and sticky? A Stick
Boom Boom!

Squeezing time

As we were driving on the weekend, I went very quiet and Big M asked me what I was thinking.
I was thinking that I have no idea how I got to be 31.
It's not the ageing thing that gets me so much.
It's the how-do-I-fit-all-that-I-want-to-do-into-the-rest-of-my-life thing.

I recently read an article about how to obtain simplicity in your life and how, as a consumer society, we are now not only collecting objects but also activities. I feel like that. I feel like there is so much I want to do and I have to fit it all in. In my essay I sent to Andrea about the best winter ever, I really overdid it on the activities. When I think of all I wrote I almost gag at the thought of how I'm going to complete them all. Is that how I am supposed to feel about activities that I believe will enrich my life? Am I trying to squeeze too much life into my life? Or am I just trying to be the person I have always wanted to be?

I once knew a woman who was very close to her sister-in-law. Unfortunately, the sister-in-law got terminal cancer and died very young, leaving behind a deeply grieving family. Before she died, the sister-in-law had confided in the woman I knew, that she felt she was chosen to pass on as she had completed all her goals in life and, with nothing left, she was ready and willing to experience whatever was next. I want to live until I'm 102, so I don't ever want to run out of goals. I think I'll just keep squeezing....

Little Diggledy has arrived

On Tuesday night - late, I got a call from my bestest friend to tell me that the newest arrival to our extended 'phamily' had arrived. Welcome to the world little diggledy - may all your dreams come true.......

An unsentimental bloke

This weekend Big M suprised me by hiring a car (our car is still at the mechanics) and driving me out to his parents farm. They were in town for the weekend, so we had the whole weekend to ourselves. It was wonderful.
The farm means so much to me. When Big M and I started seeing each other, we would go to the farm most weekends. In summer we would spend hours trying to cool down at the creek and in winter we would rug ourselves up against the cold and take chairs, food and beer down to the bonfire and take it in turns to tell the tallest tale. We were often joined by one of Big M's cousins, brother or friends he had come join in the fun. Even as a city girl I always felt right at home.
Big M first told me he loved me out on the veranda on a cold, winters night. I was going to Europe for 6 months (I lasted 4 but that's another story) and we had just made the big decision to stay together as a couple while I was away, rather than break up and meet again when I got back. Big M told me that he couldn't bear the thought of me being with anyone else because he loved me and never wanted to let me go. If you know Big M, then you know that he is not a sentimental man and this is why I treasure that night so much in my heart. We have been a couple ever since.
As time went by, it became more and more difficult to get away for the weekend to visit the farm. I began working 6 and then 7 days a week and any precious day off was spent in bed or catching up with friends and family in town. Over the last 3 years we had only been to the farm 3 times. And I missed it so.
This week I mentioned to Big M how much I missed going to the farm, especially in winter with the rain tumbling on the tin roof and the fire roaring in the grate. And my very unsentimental bloke, snuck away early on Saturday morning - before I was even awake, and hired a chariot to take me away.
And the farm ws everything I remembered and more. The smell of the rain on the grass, the sparse winter sun glimpsing through the tall gum trees down near the creek, the almond grove looking as if it ws just about to bloom. Big M lit a beautiful fire and in between endless cups of tea and a game of trivial pursuit, we wandered around the paddocks and down to the creek. The sheep are so used to Big M's Dad that they followed us on our ramblings-their little lambs bouncing around them. I can't remember a weekend I have enjoyed more. And as we lay down on the mattress we had stretched out in front of the fire, and snuggled under our blankets, I thanked God for the night that Big M decided that he loved me and never wanted to let me go. Because I will never let him go - not for all the sentimental blokes in the world......

Wading II

I came to the internet and computers late in life. Compared to some of the young bloggers I read these days I feel quite the freshman. I didn't even discover internet journals until 3 years ago. And I have to say, without wanting to sound corny, that it really has changed my life.

I have always been a complex person - some may call it dramatic, others extroverted but no one would have ever called me shy. But I am. Painfully. It's just that I dealt with my shyness by being the loudest in the room. I almost have two faces to the world. One face is of the class clown, the school captain, the overacheiver, everybody's friend and confidente. The other is a self-loathing, insecure girl who really just wants to climb under the covers and never come out again. Not many people see this side of me. The people that do are often quite taken a back and I feel they are a little disapointed. (Sometimes I wonder is Big M feels this way-like he is stuck with something he didn't expect)

This is me and I can't help it - it's hard to be on an 'up' all the time. For years I used alchohol (and lot's of it) to hide my real feelings and to stay 'up'. I am a happy drunk and people seem to enjoy me more. My mother -in-law once told me off when I was having a dry period -
"You're either very, very up or very ,very down-there's no middle ground with you is there?"
This cut me to the bone - but only because it was true. Although I had heaps of friends, I felt I couldn't relate to anybody.

Then I began reading internet journals and I discovered that I was not the only to feel this way - that there were many people from all over the world that felt the same way as me. I can't even begin to write of the relief I felt. I wasn't going mad-I was me. Even now as I am writing this it sounds like an infomercial but the internet has helped me accept who I am and opened me up to so many ways of being the person I want to be.

In the last 3 years, I have taken more steps to becoming the real ya-ya I want to be, than in any of the 28 years before. One of these steps was staring my own blog. I didn't do it before because I felt I had nothing to offer anyone else. Now, I just do it for me. I don't write this for anybody else but me. And it is so great....

One of my favourite internet journalists, Andrea Scher titled one of her entries 'wading' and I just had to use it for this entry. Because that is how I feel, like I'm wading - through the good, the bad, the happy, the sad. And sometimes I might just climb under the covers. And sometimes I may not be on an 'up'. But don't worry - I will come out refreshed, renewed and rejuvenated. And I'll write about it on my blog. I'll just wade right through.....

A Thought

The World is an amazing place...............................

(I try and think this whenever I am a little down or upset - it puts things into perspective)

Baby, Baby, Baby

My best friend is due to have her first baby any day. This really hits home how old I am. We always promised we would have our first babies together however she was ready to have a child a lot earlier than me.

I have always known I wanted children but never really felt the feeling... you know, the clucky feeling. I have watched other woman fall prey to it all around me and although I love kids and would kill anyone who hurt my neices & nephews, I just didn't feel that urge to have a little yaya/big M.

Until recently. We were told recently that Big M's cousin was expected her second child. It hit me like a brick wall- I wanted it to be me. How did this happen? When? Is it something chemical? biological? All I know is that I felt a deep desire within me that I wanted a child - shame Big M has absolutely no inkling to have kids whatsoever.

I hope lil' higgs (my best friend) is okay. Let's get this party started.

Joggin and Bloggin

Today I went for a jog - this may not seem like a big deal to some but it is a huge deal to me....HUGE

I have wanted to jog for a long time but my only memories of exerted walking were of gym class in High School and they were not pleasant. Let's just say that at recess when all the other kids were doing sports or other physical activities, I was the one seated on the library steps, waiting for the library to open, so I could while away my lunch hour reading books. Hell, for most of Year 10 I actually volunteered to work in the library so that I could spend all my free time there. (In Year 11 I found drink, drugs and boys but that's another story)

For weeks, months, maybe even years I have been promising myself I would start jogging. Just start-not even promising myself a program, just start. Every day I would come home with another excuse and another day would pass. I walk a lot (up to one and a half hours a day) and I figured this would be okay...excuses - my boobs were too big, I was too old, I had no idea what I was doing. But most of all that niggly feeling that this was someting I hated - this was something that hurt and that made me feel sick.

I came home from work, all the while thinking up excuses not to jog. I got into the apartment and I sat on the sofa - still making excuses. All of a sudden I just stood up and said to Big M:
"I'm going for a jog"
and went into the bedroom to change. When I returned he looked at me strangley and smiled Good Luck.

I started runnig as soon as I left the building. Within 30 seconds I remembered why I didn't jog. My legs hurt, I felt like I was going to trip, my heart leapt through my throat and I could feel the burning sensation in my lungs already. I jogged until I couldn't anymore, then walked to get my breath back, then jogged again until I couldn't anymore etc etc. I told Big M that I planned to go for 20 minutes. At the first 5 minute mark I found myself checking my watch and cursing loudly. I thought I was fit - fit enough to walk to work every day. Oh, how wrong I was.

I walked throught the door to our apartment 25 minutes later. My face was red, was legs felt like jelly and I could hardly gasp hello. Big M took one look at me and told me I was not to jog again.

Can't wait until tommorow.

Start spreading the news

I have always had a love affair with New York. To some people that's not so strange - especially to the people who have visited NY or lived there, they understood how I felt. But back in dirtwater quays where I grew up, this particular love affair was kooky, abnormal, an OBSESSION.

I was 30 when I finally visited the city of my dreams. I thought if I could just go there, that my life would be perfect, that I would understand my place in this world, that it would help me find the me I always wanted to be.

People told me not to expect too much, that the New York in my mind was not necessarily the NewYork of the times. I heard it was different from the New York of the 50's, the 80's, before 9/11. People were always saying that New York just wasn't the same.

I took offence to this. How did these people know what New York was to me - little ol' yaya from dirtwater quays, who always aimed high and who strived for more? How did they know the type of New York I dreamt about....the apartment living I craved for in Judy Blume's "It's not the end of the World", the beauty and elegance of "Breakfast at Tiffany's", sitting on the stoop eating p&j sandwiches like in "Sesame Street" (stoops don't happen very often in Australia, so it took a long time to work this one out!), wanting to meet the love of my life at the top of The Empire State Building as in "An Affair to Remember", "Sleepless in Seattle" and "King Kong" (?).

New York meant to me horse and buggy rides through Central Park in the snow, eating hot dogs on a street corner, drinking never ending cups of coffee in a diner and slowly watching the world go by. I wanted to wake up in a city that doesn't sleep, I wanted to dance at the Rainbow Room and sleep in King Size luxury at the Waldorf Astoria. It was all calling to me - museums, art, music, films, t.v - God, once a person told me I looked like Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City and I floated on air for days! New York was New York and the more I read, watched or heard about it, the more I HAD to be there.

And so on the 27th December 2004 at 7pm we arrived. I stepped out into the snow and took a deep, long breath of New York air. And like millions before me I realised, that I had come home.