This saggy old girl needs a facelift (a bit like me). I bought her on Trade Me and actually these chairs are from Ikea and not all that uncommon but they are a nice shape and comfortable to sit in. I thought I might try to get another one and make a matching pair. I am going to redo the wood in a wash and reupholster it with the channels going across rather than down. I reckon it will look completely different and more stylish- we shall see   -a makeover for all the old girls round here might be just the thing.

Talking of which- I am fresh back from a week of health ‘retreating’ in Oz. I know - you may well scratch your heads – it doesn’t sound like me at all but it turns out I can fit right in if I try. I actually liked it despite a week of no caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, dairy, sugar, gluten, wheat, red meat and almost anything else you care to name except quinoa, buckwheat, polenta, fruit, veg and unidentified leafy things on a plate. All that plays havoc with your digestive system and does weird things to your mind. However, I did handle it a little better than some who were going totally troppo. It does help that I am quite fit and have been living a rather more abstemious life than I used to for the last year.

It was up at dawn for exercises as the sun rose, big walks before a breakfast of polenta porridge and no toast. Then more physical jerks until lunchtime where more unnamed grains and Aussie fruits in odd colours presented themselves on large platters.

After lunch, time to collapse round the pool and then begin an rigorous regime of massages and facials and other things that are meant to be good for you but made me exhausted and were rather hard on the pocket. I fell asleep in every massage that I had. After a few pep talks about the dangers of eating chemicals and all the usual stuff about hearing your breathing (yes - you are still alive)!!) and finding your inner child etc , a bit more food and lengthy meditation sessions, it was off to bed by eight ready to get up and do it again the next day.  And believe it or not, we all paid to go there!!

I thought it would be a way for me to get bit of perspective on things - take the long view and see what I saw. Of course, as usual, I saw nothing, I was far too busy falling asleep. I saw my own self and I saw all the things that I don’t want, but couldn’t kind of get to the things I do want. The long view only showed more days without Brian, a future that looks humdrum and long and boring. Think maybe Morris Dancing or something will be next.

However, I am a total cleanskin in every way now – so pure I squeak (and I don’t want any betting schools set up around how long that will last).

Yesterday Reuben and I went to funeral of one of Brian’s old friends from the wild Wellington cowboys gang- there was nothing cleanskin about that lot. They are rather a smaller gang these days and certainly not wild. For Reuben it was a matter of facing down his fear - the last time he was in that lovely Old St Pauls Cathedral, he was carrying his father’s coffin and had spent the past week making it. But, now it’s done, and the funeral was lovely.

I bought this old nursing chair and restored it for our darling friend Hannah who is having her first baby soon. I think it looks great and we hope she likes it. I think I might do some more of these and maybe in some “nursery” fabrics. They are really great for feeding a baby, no arms and low to the ground so you can reach everything.  If you want one, let me know.

Gift from the Grave

I am going to Queensland on Saturday to a health retreat- a kind of circuit breaker and hopefully a recharge. I will also go and see my sister’s grave for the first time since she died. I booked the trip and then started to angst about the money- can’t really afford it, shouldn’t have done etc etc etc.

So last Saturday I was worrying about it some more and decided to manage my worry by moving all the furniture in the bedroom. This is always one of my go-to activities when I need something else to think about plus it was all a bit tragic in there anyway. I had moved the bed closer to the bathroom when Brian could hardly walk and everything was a bit higgledy-piggledy; so nothing for it but a robust furniture moving morning. I ended up taking the pictures off the wall (they’ve never been moved before and the dust was horrendous).

 Unbelievably, out of the back of one of the pictures, dropped an envelope with $1300 in cash in it. Isn’t that amazing? A gift from the grave – Brian’s last kindness perhaps. I am guessing it was a cash job he never told me about or forgot he ever did. Anyway, just at the exact moment when I needed it, there it was falling onto the floor. One could get all karmic and spiritual over it, but I am just super glad to have the money- thanks Brian (for everything).