Gurrumul

I haven’t been buying music for a little while now. I don’t give new artists a chance, and I don’t hunt out new artists in the way I used to. Old favorites on repeat. It reminds me of my own parents. So when I haphazardly found this artist I was not only delighted by his voice, his message and his story, I was delighted that I found someone new to support.

http://www.gurrumul.com/site.html

Frosty morning hike

This doesn't happen often...

I was up at 5:45 am today. It didn't get light until 7:30. As soon as it did....

Mixing tap

When I first moved here, to England that is, I thought it was funny that housing ads would say “wash-basin with HOT-COLD mixing tap” or it would say something about having central heating. I thought it was quaint. That is until I moved into a place with night storage heating where, in the night, electricity heats up bricks in a radiator and then during the day it releases the heat. This is fine, if you have enough for-thought that it is going to be cold the next day. But if you wake up at 7 am being able to see your breath, you are going to have to wait until the following day before you will have heat. That is unless you have a fire place, which we do, and a rayburn, which we do. Those do a great job heating up the downstairs areas. They also are great because they heat the water. Or they were great until I burned my hand in the water coming from the hot tap. It is either ice cold our close to boiling, and to wash your hands it is a tricky choice.

It still is quirky, but I understand it now. These houses were plumbed and wired before most of Canada was settled (non-first nation folk). We were told when we moved in that it was only a few years ago that they put a toilet into our place. I always smell around trying to figure out where the outhouse was. One of these days we are going to be harvesting our carrots and they are going to be the size of my arm. Then I will know.

I have had few great loves amongst my many lovers. Less than a handful. One of them I lived with for years. I left him months before moving to Thailand. We didn’t have a healthy relationship, partly because I was so infatuated with him before we got together. I allowed an imbalance of power. I wasn’t taken care of. I loved him dearly, though, and truly thought that my love would change him. I also thought that it would erase years of abuse, self doubt and corrupt friendships that he had experienced. Instead, it taught me the difference in strains of pot, how to smoke it, where to get it, and how to post bail. There was a lot of love then, but I don’t remember it so well now. We didn’t leave on harsh terms and we remained friends though others we know from the same area. I would sleep with him when I would go “home” from Thailand for visits.

It turns out he is into meth now. I see this only a step away from death. In some ways I feel like I have just been told he is dead.

I think I always hoped he would think of me as the most sane part of his life, the most loving. I didn’t want it to be from a worse position than he was when I left, just a soft regret that he didn’t treat me better back in the day. Now I regret that wish. I don’t care if I meant anything to him… I don’t know what to wish for that can help him.

I have been hurting all day.

“After more than a year's sobriety, these former meth users still showed severe impairment in memory, judgment and motor coordination, similar to symptoms seen in individuals suffering from Parkinson's Disease.”


So that is two men in my life...

So much for that plan. The weather today is the most miserable yet to date on the farm. I snuggle into my work here at home and retreat in the semi-warmth while watching rain pelt the panes of glass that act as a shield. I have waited all day for the farmer to come and look at my stove. I hope it will be sooner rather than later as the night falls and the damp enters the cracks of each room.

floating leaves

The wind is whisking the leaves into the air. As I drive down the winding roads, through the tree tunnels and past sheep pastures, the bright yellow leaves seem to almost pause in the air. I would like to videotape them and make a nature replica of the plastic bag video that kid taped in American Beauty. The chill in the air engulfs our new home. With the stove going out more than staying on, the damp sticks to your bones in a way that only porridge and folk lore can seem to remedy. My role as Little MiZ. Molly Homemaker has been challenged this week when, left to my own devices, I spent more time sulking than I did being productive. Then all out of the blue, the pumpkin needed to be made into muffins and the seeds roasted. The garden needed weeding and the wood chopping. My man came home for a whirlwind day of loading logs into the shed and more chopping and planting lavender and planting bulbs and making chilli and making love. Now he is gone again.

I have pumpkins to carve with the wee ones later on in the week and have a list a mile long of things to write about. My number one priority is to get back to the forest. This time of year is too good to waste lamenting damp wood and cheep coal.

Popcorn

I had my only massage appointment in weeks cancel.

I had my speech for the promo meeting I was supposed to give cancel.

I have checked facebook 100 times today.

Your blogs at least 5, after I post this it will be 6.

I am lonely today.

And I have popcorn stuck in my teeth.

I did, however, see two goldfinches in my garden. One an adult and the other an adolescent.


Somehow, my day is perfect.

Funny you should mention photos....

Orange and brown and bright blue skies

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada. It has been over 12 years since I last celebrated with my family. Now that I am settling into my English countryside home, I notice the ways in which the seasons change with much more clarity than I did when I was living in Brighton. The warm breeze that broke the cold snap of the week allowed me to wear a tank top while raking up leaves. The colours are changing. The birds are changing. I guess I will too…

Here are some things I am thankful for:

You.

Peanut butter and celery
Making flower arrangements with the scraps left around the farm
A recent bout of courage
The love that I have always wanted to feel and now do
Kids riding bicycles around in circles laughing
Lone red apples on trees.

Enjoy a day of thanks…

Jamie Oliver has lost my respect, and my fat consumer pound

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, I used to sit with Louis and Bae (the woman who lived with me and helped me with Louis) and we would watch Jamie Oliver’s TV cooking show “The Naked Chef”. This was the first cooking show I ever saw, and to this day, it is the only one I have ever watched more than one episode of. Cool tips, cool guy, who was awkward, and didn’t seem pretentious as he cooked for his friends.

Over the past few years he has gone a crusade against fat people. He calls parents of fat children “fucking tossers”. He creates shows that are aimed at humiliating fat people into eating better. His commercials portray fat people as being miserable, incompetent people with no self control. Today I read this article:

http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/blog/article/30194/page-2/

I have made a conscious choice to not make this blog completely about Fat Activism and HAES (health at any size) content. I can tell you one thing… I have four of Jamie’s books on my shelf and after today, there will be a space where they once were.

returning

I spent a few days out of town this week. Back to the old haunts. D’s tour was going through and I went for an extended hug and an expensive hotel room. There is nothing like the smell of a neck or armpit to remind you how much you love someone. This week has been one of reflection and honesty. It has been a reconnection with friends and I am now officially exhausted. The stove went out, the house is cold. I go to bed with a hot water bottle and wait for the sun to push me out of bed. It is good to be home.

6:00pm beer post.... be warned that it doesn't go anywhere

I can’t tell if the house has finally warmed up or if it is the beer I am drinking, but the temperature has gone up in the house and I have an unseasonal moisture that has developed on my brow. D brought me home an orchid that he rescued from a garden center. Rescuing plants is one of his hobbies. If a pot is broken, or the plant looks like it is half dead and won’t sell, it is brought back to our place for a discount price and brought back to life by my man. What is interesting about the orchid is it is adding to my “needy” plant population. With two bonsais and now an orchid, the daily regiment of misting, dusting, watering, feeding, and moss sweeping are adding to my stay-at-home lifestyle. I don’t mind, really. With fussy plants come beautiful rewards.

This has been a big week for me. There is the potential that this week was one of those weeks that could change my career for a long time. It could also be the week that might have been the week that could have change my career but didn’t. For now, though, I will sit back in my hot house, looking at my three plants nestled in a jungle of easy to take care of plants, and be thankful. Drunk, but thankful.

Did I mention I had sex three times yesterday?