Jun 25 2012

the first year ~ paper*

‘Ash might be quite horrified to learn that early in our relationship I had our full astrological charts done. At the time I think I was a little blown away by how easy things were with us and I was looking for reassurance, or maybe pre-warning of what would go wrong.

Utter waste of money.

Basically confirmed that our composite ascendant is in Aquarius and that Ash’s ‘Venus planet’ was lighting up my ‘Seventh House’. I could have told you that for free! It was early days remember?

What can I say about you my love? You are the yin to my yang, the paprika to my mashed potato, the powerful toot on my vuvuzela…

Thank you for meeting me at 3C that first night. For organizing our second date where you picked me up from my house in your car, like Cary Grant or something. Thank you for being brave in taking a punt coming here after we’d only known each other for six months. And for never dimming my light. Thank you for opening my world to the joy of snow globes, owls and napoleon dynamite. Thank you for Rex. And for letting me part of your family – the Petherick Clan who like Catholics and lobsters, mate for life. Thank you for being certain about us. For asking me to be your wife and wanting to share the next 100 years with me. Thank you for being my best friend.

I remember the day I gave you the key to my house (not a euphemism), walking up Todman Street after a knackering day and seeing that the light was on. I remembered you would be there, watching the news in front of the fire with a beer. And as I walked in the door you yelled hello, and came to meet me with a kiss. The stress of the day just kind of fell off me. Its still like that.

Meeting you was like coming home.

Truly, madly, deeply – I love you’.

~ my wedding speech, uttered in front of almost everyone we love, one year ago today

*image by me: AWESOME cardboard stag’s head covered in maps of Berkshire & Cornwall where we married and honeymooned: all Mr P’s (aka The Crafty Beekeeper) work.

 

10 bantering wittily
nomenclature
love wins
Jun 20 2012

solstice

Today is summer solstice – and here I am right in the middle of things. I can see myself standing on a hill, dressed in battle robes (holding a big sword), with the light and the dark to either side of me.

I love the pagan symbolism for the solstice: everything feels lit up and intense and pregnant with potential. I know that having left behind the shitawfulness of last year, and the lovely six weeks off to recalibrate has been a gift. Aside from the badness following our impromptu street party to toast Her Maj, I haven’t had a drink all year. I am jammed with energy. I am leaving every day at a reasonable hour, reading at least a book a week. My sleep is deep and sound.  We have spent more time in the countryside this year than ever before – drawn to the big sky, fields and woodland outside the M25. I am inhaling fruit and veges and water and cooking simple healthy food. As a consequence I am shedding the last pounds and it feels easy (YAY!). I am learning to trust my intuition because when I question it or analyse it: when I doubt it: thats when I feel tied up in knots. There is such magic in the air around me at the moment, I feel shiny, electric, ready.

In all senses, I feel that my true self, my best self is emerging. And I feel very protective of myself: I want to stay quiet, cocooned, introspective. I am so sensitive to crowds and noise and crave gentle peace. I am hibernating as there is much ahead.

Before the Winter Solstice I will have:

  • taken up running again and finished a charity 10km in November
  • completed the coaching training I started two years ago because I now feel totally ready for it and I get goosebumps everytime I think about it
  • officially become ex-pats with the transfer of our kiwisaver pensions and the sale of our New Zealand properties
  • welcomed Sus back to London with an awesome book party (you’ve read it, right?)
  • skinny-dipped with the Mungbean on a southern Californian beach

And its taken six months, but I think that my word for this year is ‘clear’.

image taken at noon outside the office

11 bantering wittily
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big exciting scary plans plugging into source
Jun 17 2012

on father’s day

I remember driving back to Gran’s house with him when Little Brother was born, my little legs stuck to the vinyl seat.

I remember sitting in front of him while he showed me how to polish my shoes for school. And he taught me how to iron a shirt.

I remember him taking away my torch so I couldn’t read under the covers way passed bedtime.

I remember helping alphabetise his incredible collection of 70s LPs. And later, sharing my music with him.

I remember driving down to the rubbish tip at the weekends when he would play the Dukes of Hazard on the car horn and being giddy with laughter in the back seat with Little Brother.

I remember him asking me to help him clean up after he had vomited in his bed following a day of drinking with his mate.

I remember him calling me ‘Daddy’s little girl’.

I remember him calling me ‘jailbait’ in front of his football team.

I remember his hopelessness after being made redundant, and how many hours I spent working with his CV and application letters; anything to help.

I remember endless discussions and arguments and debates at the kitchen table.

I remember finding the email on the laptop I had borrowed from him that confirmed rumours of his latest affair.

I remember his pride on my graduation day.

I remember the last Christmas with Mum and Gran and we had a champagne breakfast and a food fight and we laughed so hard all day.

I remember his breaking voice on the phone: ‘She’s gone Sas. Oh god Mac’s gone’.

I remember his fear at being alone.

I remember the awful fight where I finally got to say what I needed to say. And that he hung up.

I remember letting go. And then the last word.

I remember his absence on my wedding day. And all the days since.

‘As an adult I understand how flawed and fallible we all are, and how becoming a parent doesn’t make you invulnerable to making mistakes. I see how the screw-ups of past generations are passed down to each of us and how we do the best we can with the tools we have.

We could all spend a lifetime unravelling the knots of our childhood, but at some point you realise the knots are no longer yours. They belong to your parents, and thier parents before them. The legacy is long and complicated, the damage passed on through generations, until one day somebody finally stops and says: this story does not belong to me.’ 

~  This I Know: Notes on Unravelling the Heart by the very wise and very awesome, Susannah Conway

13 bantering wittily
nomenclature
riding the grief train whanau
Jun 11 2012

araf

 

We have returned from four days chugging along the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal on a narrowboat called ‘Country Lass’ : average speed 2 miles an hour. I have learnt the importance of dry socks. I can work a canal lock like a canal lock queen. Mr P said ‘I’m the fucking Captain’ about 87 times.

We had a weeny gas oven that kept us in hot coffee and bacon and eggs and pancakes. This was augmented by a SUPERB lamb and leek pie at The Coach & Horses; homemade custard slice from the Talybont Cafe & Stores, and on Saturday night, we moored up outside The Royal Oak in Pencilli where the fish ‘n’ chips with mushy peas were fresh and crispy and mushy in all the right places. Supper was followed by a stroll up the hill to find Llanfeugan: a medieval church dedicated to St. Meugan, who was said to have been a poet and the wizard Merlin’s teacher. The huge yew trees in the churchyard are well over 2,000 years old and were probably planted by druids. The whole village looked magical in the twilight.

Wales is like New Zealand in the best way – lush and green, quiet, friendly, jam-packed with noisy bloody birds, and overlayed with Parfum de Toilette à la Cow.

araf means ‘slow’ in Cymraeg (Welsh)

11 bantering wittily
nomenclature
pictures versus words travelly trips
Jun 06 2012

bite it, write it

Eighteen months ago I began the process of trying to understand my body and why it seemed to be a complete bastard to me everytime I wanted to change it. I slowly came to understand that I turn to food whenever I am trying to not feel something. Food has been a comfort blanket protecting me from the world, and I found that removing it was actually the thing I needed to do to free myself of any fear that I had attached to losing it. And then I learned how to feel the feelings instead of eating my way around them. And I lost twenty kilos. For the first time in my life I was healthy without the horrible feeling of deprivation.

I wore a size 14 dress on my wedding day. I felt like wonder woman. I felt beautiful.

And then the Life Wedgie: my little NHS adventure, followed by a stint in The Hole, and then the relief of leaving the shitawfulness; all in less than a year. I stopped noticing what I was eating, and while between contracts I gave myself a free pass. I was happy to be cooking and baking and enjoying the full sensory experience of taste without limits or rules.

Its seems that the only thing harder than losing thirty kilos, is losing the last 10 and then maintaining the whole lot.

I spent the first two weeks of new job avoiding the fabulous on-site cafe from 2-4pm when the ginger and walnut cake would actually sing to me. And then a couple of colleagues mentioned weight watchers, and I just said ‘yes count me in!’ and now its been a month and I have lost 5 kilos.

Its a bit culty: the ritualistic weigh-in and the patronising annoying jargon leaves me a little naseous, but I like the science behind it and the fact that its a lifelong approach: nothing is off limits. And the weirdness is that I am actually enjoying it. There is a cool little app, a squllion on-line recipes and two on-site cheerleaders. I am planning out recipes days in advance, we are eating a very small garden’s worth of vege in a week, I have a fruit bowl on my desk. I have more energy. I feel happier.

So yeah. Back on the horse.

16 bantering wittily
nomenclature
the body stories
Jun 01 2012

the things I know for sure*

  • the opposite of love is fear
  • I am not afraid of death, ergo, I am not afraid of anything#
  • ego corrupts magic
  • objective truth is an oxymoron
  • we have the power to manifest anything we can imagine, if it comes from a place of benevolence
  • the consciousness of humanity is evolving faster than it ever has before
  • the sense of always being an outsider is reassuringly common
  • when I am with my people, I am filled with light and I shine and some people can see it, and others can sense it
  • we are all part of the same big dollop of energy and everything and everyone is connected to everything and everyone
  • there is no such thing as a coincidence
  • I have the sense of being called, but as yet, I am not certain what I am being called for
  • I am getting ready.

* and I am prepared to debate anything you gorgeous fellow skeptics wish to throw my way :)
# except clowns. Obviously.

13 bantering wittily
nomenclature
plugging into source