Tell us about....Festivals.

I'm a big festival goer - not just music ones, but also ones on ideas. I just saw Zadie Smith talk at the Opera House's All about Women festival for International Women's Day. Yesterday I got all my talks booked for the Sydney Writers festival. I got with different friends, them coming and going, while I'm the constant. I find it a great way to get inspired about reading. My friend has just lined up a stack of nights at the comedy festival.

“Festivals are the fireworks of the soul.” — Sanober Khan

My annual trip down for Ultra is booked. As my husband doesn't like to do anything for NYE, my celebrations start on New Years Day with freinds at Field Day, as those that follow me on Insta would know. Harbourlife herlds the start of the party season and in my head, summer, though it is a few months earlier...

VIVID is one of my favourite festivals - now not just dazzling lights but music, food and ideas. It brings the city alive and makes it a joy to be out and about in the winter months. 

The Festival of Dangerous Ideas really pushes my thinking and engages me on a level that the other festivals don't. I find that so invigorating, so it is by far my favourite of the intellectual festivals.

I love Bluesfest because it's a great way to see bands I would never think to see and it's one that my husband also enjoys so we can share it together. It's a great holiday, though rather costly. It's the longest one that we go to, and I love being in that routine of the festival, passing the free time until it's time to head to the grounds.

I've only been once to Wanderer festival and WOMAD but had a brilliant time at both - I would love to go again.

The Festival of Sydney brings the city alive in January, and there's Volume to get you to the Art Gallery and you could even say the Biennale has a mini festival. There are film festival screenings so you can throw yourself into a culture or language from the ease of a cinema seat.

So why do I love festivals? You get into a bubble of exprience, be it lights, music, food. You see things previously unknown, your senses are stimulated. For a brief time - a day or few days, it's all you think about, all you plan. It's a shift in your being, if only momentarily. If you go with other people, you get into a rhythm. If you go by yourself there is a whole crowd of people to share the experience with. One time at FODI, this woman sat at my dinner table, the only spare seat, and we discussed what we had just seen and what was next. It was as if we were long lost friends. When dancing, people will just join in. There's a shared joyousness. There's an energy that all the attendees have, a tangible bubbling on the surface that excudes in smiles, chatter or movement. Festivals are not just a break from reality, they offer a break from yourself. Your normal life, your day to day living, your obligations and routines are all cast aside and your focus is directed into this one moment.  Your thoughts and discussions change, your interactions with friends and strangers change as everyone else there has done the same. It's a voyage from your daily life into the world of the festival.

“A festival is a celebration of community, culture, and connection.” — Amit Ray

I am off to Parookaville this year (flights permitting) and it refers to itself as it's own country, and you get a 'visa' to go. I feel this is exactly what festivals are. Another country not my own (at least not my normal). You travel into another world, but alas the visit is brief. Then it's back to mundane thoughts, words and deeds...

“Festivals are an opportunity to pause and savor the sweetness of life.” — Anonymous

Linking with  #ThruMyLens #Talkaboutit #HappyNow #TellUsAbout #WeekendCoffeeShare #SundayBest

Tell Us About....A Christmas Carol

Christmas is filled with the ghosts of Christmas past - those missing from the table for a myriad of reasons. Also Traditions, the spectre of things you started as a child and for some reason continue, even though the reason for doing so may no longer be ncessary, it's just 'what you do' at Christmas.

People often reach out to people they don't see throughout the year, send cards to people that were once a much bigger part of your life, or were important and you aren't quite ready to let them go unrecognised or appreciated.

So Charles Dickens was on to something universal about Christmas, even if it wasn't exactly his point.

Do you recognise the ghosts of Christmas past in your celebrations and traditions? Do you have some '

Christmas future arriving this year, with newly married kids or babies now to be accomodated?

I guess the most important thing at Christmas is to anchor ourselves in the present, however it might appear. Enjoy time with friends and family, make the most of time on your own, do whatever you need to get through a difficult time if it's not exactly a festive time for you.

Lydia, what the Dickens are you talking about? Too bleak for this theme!

Okay, okay, a little music.

I talked about my favourite Christmas carols here, and this crazy Jul song that makes me laugh and laugh. Be warned - it's pretty irreverant and some people might be offended. Definitely not suitable for work. Some clips from the singalong Christmas show I went to are here.

The Krampus were covered here....so I leave you with a song I've loved and played at Christmas since I was a kid.

Merry Christmas to you all!

For those that want to know why they're called Carols, see here - but the short version is from the old French meaning to dance in a ring, singing to joyful music.

Linking with #MondayMusicMovesMe #TalkaboutitTuesday #Wwwhimsy #ComfyCozyChristmasLinkyUp #TellUsAbout #FineWhatever #TrafficJamReboot

and #XmasLinky goes live on Friday here for another week!

Tell us about...Creativity

I've written about why I write before and what it does for me, so I'll try not to repeat myself. 

Short version - I blog to get my thoughts in order, to stop thinking about things (once written and discussed, it's set free) and to do something with the photos I take on my walks around town. As Virginia Woolf once said "Creative power at once brings the whole universe to order".  Back in 2015 I discussed why I blogged, and little has changed. It's like therapy, but free.

I used to write a lot of stories. I entered competitions regularly, I sent them to be published and I hosted First of the Month Fiction. Then lockdown happened and my creative zeal dried up. I've tried to write a few stories since then but they've been rather unsatisfactory. I've no idea how to get my groove back. Though as Jack London wisely said "You can't wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club" so I know I need to push myself. Sign up to something to make myself start again. 

In the Torschlusspanik list of activities I've tried my hand at glass blowing, drawing, painting and pottery. But none are really for me.

I do like to give the creative things a go, though my busy brain finds it goes too slow usually (a fancy way of saying I lack patience). I also have some motor issues, and lack dexterity, so I have no expectation of being good at it. I see it as an exercise in doing rather than making something to keep.

However, I love to throw myself into other people's creativity - theatre, dancing, music and singing. All something I do regularly and it feeds my soul as I wrote in this post.

I saw a meme that said "When the world is too scary, too loud too much: Stop consuming and start creating"

I think that's what is so refreshing for me, when I write or go out and experience something in the arts. I get lost in it. I shut out the outside noise and turn inwards and for someone who is always distracted by the next shiny (or terrible) thing, it's soothing to have 'quiet' and control. (I am checkling that this includes dancing in a huge crowd at an edm festival, but in all that noise there is 'quiet'. In all that jumping, there is stillness. Life never ceases to amaze me!)

 “The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.” ―James Baldwin

Linking with #TellUsAbout #YourtheStar #SeniorSalonPitstop #TrafficJamReboot

Tell Us about....Kindness

 Last month I had to write a post on the fly, as I didn't know the prompt until after the link up was posted. This month I had a whole month to think about it, yet here I am rushing out a post.

I am in a choir, and we sang Mamma Mia. I've never been an ABBA fan, so while I knew the song, I'd never paid attention to the lyrics. They are terrible. Total red flag relationship with the singer accepting cheating behaviour because she loves him, and they both having fights knowing they will be back together for more of the same. So when I started thinking of Kindness, I thought of this song, which I loved as a kid.

He gets it's bad but he doesn't say 'Enough, I deserve better!'. It's just sort of left open.

In the 70's (probably before no fault divorce or just when that came in) there were a lot of songs about accepting terrible relationships. Yet now we know the grass is always greener where you water it. I'm not going to repeat myself too much, but people often save their best self for work and friends (and even strangers) but have nothing left for their partner. As Nietzsche said "It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages". 

I like the songs now, women demanding better. Lyrically much better! 

  

However, the kindness I want to talk about to day, is the kindness we need to show ourselves. So many times I've had to pull up friends who can't accept a compliment or whose self description doesn't match what I see in them, or when I look at them. But even I, when asked to write a letter to my enemy, knew it had to be to that little voice in my head!

As I have mentioned before, as children we are born with self love and confidence, or at least self satisfaction but very quickly, as early as the age of 4 or 5 (probably when we mix with other kids at school or preschool) it gets whittled away. The 'shoulds' and comparisons take on a weight that for many of us, especially women, crushes us. How it gets to be so loud and so mean is beyond me. And yet it does. Why do we let our inner monologue treat us in a way we would never treat anyone else? It says things constantly to us that we would never let someone say to a friend without jumping in to defend them! There is a saying 'you are not your thoughts' but you are the one that hears them.

The good news is that it can be dulled. It can be ignored. Most importantly, it can be rewired. The brain believes what it hears - that's the thinking behind affirmations, that it rewires neural pathways auditorily. For me, I'm not so into affirmations but my enthusiasm for quotes I think is a similar thing. Most of my posts these days have quotes in them, and I think my subconscious likes seeking them out and grabbing on to them. Clever little phrases that stick in my mind. If you're friends talk themselves down, interrupt it. It's habit forming. The more you stop it, the less they will do it. And the same applies to you. If you interrupt the negative self thinking, it disrupts the habit.

You can also just say 'not today' as Amy Poehler discussed in her book. I am much better at that. When I decide I look stupid or too fat in an outfit, I often just think 'I don't have time for this' and wear it anyway. Usually a stranger compliments me, which shows that the mean voice was distorting my vision.

Years ago, I wrote about my Epiphany (dated badly with all the red flags Kanye now is but ignore that part) and when I read it now, I barely recognise the person. You can't turn a freight train around in a single moment, it takes time. But as the mean voice has had years to chip away at yourself esteem, you may be surprised that after a year of arguing back, you need to do it less and less. Don't give up, thinking it's not working. Your active thinking just needs to be louder.  Most importantly, don't give up on yourself. "There is only one you for all time Fearlessly be yourself" - Anthony Rapp. That post covered shutting down the little voice in detail (and again with more Kanye - so just remember, don't go full Kanye. Or only go old Kanye, not 2025 Kanye).

Ultimately, we are the only people that we spend our whole life with, so be kinder to yourself. You don't have to believe everything you think, and you certainly don't have to listen to someone who is trash talking you, especially when  the call is coming from inside the building!

I leave you with a song about kindness. At the moment, think of how all the LBGT people and migrants must be feeling with all the negative talk in the newspapers and media in the US and UK (shame on you both, and in Australia, the Indian community in particular but all non white migrants to some extent - shame on us). That's not 'debate' or intellectual for them. It's a avalanche of hate that must be crushing so as the song says, be the beacon reaching out in the world that's lost it's mind.  

Linking with #TellUsAbout  #FineWhatever

Was chuffed to be featured blogger over at #WeekendCoffeeShare this week! Just had to share the lovely badge.

Tell us about...the Supernatural

I am an existentialist. I have been since before I knew what it was. As a child of 5 or 6 I'd get night panics about ceasing to exist when I died, about the world continuing on for everyone except me. I was 16 when we read Le Mur in French class and the prisoner basically vocalised all my thoughts. I was so surprised I exclaimed 'That's what I think!' (having kept it to myself at my religious school, thinking I was weird for believing it). The teacher looked at me and said kindly "There's a whole school of thought on this, it's called Existentialism". There was comfort in leaning it wasn't something crazy in me.

So I am aware there is a certain degree of cognitive dissonance in what I'm about to tell you.

I am extremely superstitious, because why push your luck? In New Caledonia a guide asked if I wanted to go into some cave. He phrased it "You can go in, if you want to?" I asked him if he was going in and he said no, it was protected by Black Magic. I declined because why ask for trouble and also a lot of warnings about caves are because bad things happen - flash floods or collapse, or getting lost. The threat of the supernatural is to keep people out for their safety. There's a logic.

With my recent health issues, while in Kyoto, I went to the Yasui Konpira-gu shrine to remove the tumours. You crawled thru the tunnel and returned, making your prayer and sticking it on the rock. I also got the little  health amulet/prayer token at the Sanjusangen Do Temple because it can't hurt. My liver issues have cleared up, and I'll find out soon enough about the tumours. (As an aside, the photos of the gardens at Sanjusangen are here and here with snow and here gleaming after the melt).

Here's were it goes off logic. I have lived in a house with a ghost. 

When we moved into our first share house, it was me and another woman and a guy. In the first few weeks, I kept thinking someone had arrived home and was standing behind me. I'd turn to ask them about their day or tell them the movie I was watching had just started or something, and there would be no one there. It wasn't scary, it was just odd. 

Then I began to get a clear image of him. He was an old man (though really probably late 60s). I could tell when it was him behind me. I didn't see him visually, but I could see him in my mind. 

After about a month, the other woman said to me "I need to tell you something but you can't make fun of me". When I agreed, she said "I think there's a ghost". I jumped in "There is a ghost!" and she got cross saying "Don't make fun of me!" I had to reassure her I wasn't. She said it wasn't there all the time (I agreed) and the cat could see it. The cat would look straight at where she felt it was.

The difference was she thought it was an old woman. I was certain it was a man. It's only just occurred to me writing this 35 years later that maybe it was a couple and a different ghost was showing itself to each of us? She felt it was a little scary whereas I felt no threat at all. I felt it was looking over us to make sure the house was in good hands. 

I'd sometimes talk to it, asking if we were meant to do something for it but of course there was never a reply, Things didn't move around, there were no eerie noises. Then one day I realised it hadn't been there for a month or so. My friend said to me out of the blue "I think the ghost has gone". So we both felt it leave around the same time too.

I know there is no logic to this story, It's just odd we both experienced it for weeks without talking about it. The guy never saw it or felt it. He thought we were making it up to scare him.

Do you believe in ghosts?

Linking with #ThruMyLens #SundayBest for the top photo #TellUsAbout and #TalkaboutitTuesday 

The pictures are more in the #Haunted series. 

Other ghost posts are Ghost party and Ghosts but they are not about the supernatural.

Tell us about....Blooming

 When I googled the meaning, the first thing that popped up was "used to express annoyance or for emphasis" which is funny because the first thing that popped into my head was "blooming marvellous" which I thought was from Pygmalion but I can't seem to find the quote. However there are many, many flower shops with that name....

It also, of course means to flower, and for people to flourish, to come into full beauty or health or for fire, colour or light to become radiant or glowing. 

As my body seems to be endlessly creaking along, I don't feel like I'm blooming at all. Working on moving more in the upper body. Working on engaging my intellect a little more. Gotta use it or lose it, as they say.

The flower photos are the new rose in our garden. It was taken in the morning dog walk and again in the afternoon. A lesson in how quickly things can change if in the right place (& if you notice them). The beauty of blooming is not just the end result, it's the transformation and growth and all the imperceptible changes along the way. So if you are not feeling you're flourishing, don't be disheartened. Keep taking more steps to make it so. You can feel blooming marvellous along the way.

At a guess, when I go out for today's dog walk it will be dying. So there's the lesson. Bleak before my second coffee kicks in, but true. All the more reason to follow Luther Burbank's advice “Don’t wait for someone to bring you flowers. Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul.”

Linking with #TellUsAbout

Tell us about Beauty

I have already written a lot about beauty. Some of my posts around our relationship with beauty fall under these headings:

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder In this very early post I try to explain the beauty I see watching the Dakar trucks fly through the sand dunes in the desert.

Don't be scared of your Blue Horses The story of how the Nazis had a strict view of beauty in art and Eric Carle learning to see the beauty in the forbidden art of Franz Marc. 

Exceedingly Handsome Guy - pondering on superficial beauty A post on beauty standards, and how they vary from country to country. 

“In The Right Light, At The Right Time. Everything Is Extraordinary. ” ― Aaron Rose A reminder that beauty is everywhere if we really look. 

“Let the beauty of sunrise keep your heart warm.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita

The beauty every day in sunrise or sunset is free and almost always guaranteed. 

If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere. –Vincent van Gogh There is an abundance of beauty around us, even on inner city dog walks if you tune into nature.

This time, I want to talk about something different. Summed up best in this quote "The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw". (Havelock Ellis). There are people that are so good-looking, they're almost like a cartoon. A charicature of beauty, if you will. Henry Cavill is one example that springs to mind. A very good looking face but not attractive. 

When watching tv, I'm finding more and more I like the wrinkled, rumpled faces of the European and Asian actors than the botox'ed & lifted Hollywood stars. While youth is always good looking , it's the expereince and difference that makes people attractive. Or maybe it's charisma? (young people take note. You are as good looking as you'll ever be, you just don't see it. I promise you, you'll look back on photos and be surprised!).

I think the biggest mistake we make is thinking beauty is perfection, when really beauty is in unique imperfections, that catch the eye, or engage emotions.

There was a quote on Pedestrian TV talking about the Saltburn actor which I think sums it up perfectly.

"Sabrina looks drop-dead gorgeous, Barry looks hot in a weird way". I think we need to worry less about beauty standards and realise that everyone is beautiful in their own way. And I don't mean in that cheesy platitude, I mean really beautiful, if you really look.

The Rone exhibition is extraordinary in part because it makes ordinary things beautiful. So beautiful. 

In the same way I can walk down the street to the shops and it's just a busy urban, inner city street or I can walk the dog and there are beautiful flowers and delightfully playful shadows dappling through autumn leaves, it's not the street that changes but my view of it. I'm choosing to take the time to really look at it.

I guess that is the secret. We just need to really look.

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” ― Confucious

We need to not over think it, not sit in analytical judgement but just feel something when we see it. It's reward is the smile, joy or inspiration we feel when we see it. Our reaction to it, or as Rumi says "The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you" and that's where you really find beauty. 

And Perth people, one of the most hauntingly beautiful exhibitions is coming your way. I was literally moved to tears by it's beauty. Book tickets to Rone as soon as you can. It will sell out. (My experience here)

Linking with #WeekendReflection for the first pic and the harbour bridge pic, where the reflections on the water make the photo!  &#TellUsAbout 

Tell Us about ...Music.

Now I know you thought this would be easy for me, as I talk about music a lot, but I actually struggled a bit to know what to say...

When my Dad was dying, I started using music as therapy. It really provided emotional balance for me. No matter what load I was carrying, after a few hours of singing and dancing in a crowd, I felt the weight lifted and I was ready to face another day. There are studies on dance and confidence & self esteem, physical well being and the benefits of  social inclusion. I have written so many times how dancing gives me a lift, it's in all my self care posts. I even get endorphin rush at the prospect of going to dance, on my way to the event, before I've heard a note!

Friends invited me to the races because Furnace and the Fundamentals were playing. Now I don't like horse racing but I'm going because I was having a sulk that somehow I had 3 weeks ahead without any music booked...I do actually have Sam Fisher but he's slow and you can't dance to him so he doesn't count...

I've used this Hunter S. Thompson quote before “Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel." and it really does hit home for me. The thought of no music lined up really brought me down, and so the ridiculous effort I'm going to even makes me chuckle. I get energised from it, a sort of high if I can get lost in the rhythm and the dancing. All singing in unison does something too. I guess feeling part of a community. It's probably why churches included chanting and then songs?

This song is all about losing yourself in singing and dancing and his fans got celebrated in the clip. There's so much infectious joy in it. (while not sexual , there is a woman in the shower and a lot of bikinis so maybe NSFW)

As a kid, I was really into music until about 12. I loved all music from the turn of the century up until the weekly top 40. I would follow that religiously, taping soungs off the tv musicals or off the radio. I knew (and still do) all the words of every song.

Then in high school it waned a little, but reading the music magazines and pouring over pictures of bands was added to the mix. I guess it became more about who was cool and who was cute?

Strangely, when I could go and see live bands, in my 20s, I just wasn't that into it. I did at Uni but once I was working, I went to pubs and clubs more, or cover bands to dance.

In my 30's,with kids, it stopped completely. Just too expensive with a sitter.

In my 40s we started having a lot of parties, predominately for me to dance and I started going to gigs again, but a more normal amount. Then my Dad died and that year it got a bit manic. Even I could see that. I decided I would cut back but somehow, since lockdown, it's got more manic, not less. 

My music has evolved from predomintately pop up until my 30s, then rap in my 40s to edm in my 50s. I see rap to edm as a logical progression because it beats and rhythm...though at a glance it probably looks odd.

I was leaving a festival with friends and said "So when is our next one?" and then in a panic asked "We do have a next one?" as I realised nothing stretched out on the horizon...We didn't go to Bluesfest this year because it didn't line up with school holidays and had our anniversary trip to pay for, so we booked a week of Bluesfest side gigs instead, having our own little festival. I have my new ritual of 'practice New Years' with Hot Dub on the Harbour and Harbourlife the next day, and of course Field Day is now bigger than my NYE and a great way to start the year!

“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.”

— Confucius

I guess the bottom line is, I've had all different sorts of musical influences over time, but music influences my life greatly, a soundtrack to wellbeing and happiness is constantly feeding my soul, from when I jump in the shower and throughout the day.

Linking with #TellUsAbout #MondayMusicMovesMe #MondayMusicMovesMe#WeekendCoffeeShare #HappyNow

Tell us about....family history

'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet'

What's in a name, you ask? Well, Shakespeare asked, and like Juliet I don't place too much importance on these things but I do find names interesting. The why behind them. China has had surnames for a long time (and interestingly between 1600-1046 BC they seemed to be matrilineal but after that became patrilineal for some reason) but the first surname recorded in Europe was in County Galway in 916. The Normans introduced surnames to England after 1066 but these names were changed or dropped. Later, Aristocracy started passing down their surnames in a family and by 1400, most people had hereditory surnames.Wives began to take their husbands names and King Henry VII (1491-1547) ordered children take their father's surnames. (More info on surnames here).

However, it is the middle name I am interested in. Or the family middle name. My father's family had a middle name you pass down. This is a patronymic name. Ours is Beresford. This is an old English name, that fell out of favour in the 1950s but really had it's heyday the century before that. I found it so weird as a kid. When my father explained it could be shortened to 'Berry', I would melt in mirth.

There have been a LOT of Lord Beresfords. Common practice, if you had an illegitimate child was to put the father's name as the middle name, as a way of letting the child know who the father is or more likely, letting the father know it was his child. It's called a putative middle name. 

I love the idea that sometime back in history, a Lord Beresford got a scullery maid pregnant and she decided to get what her child rightfully deserved. She'd thurst their child on the coattails of his aristocracy by giving the child his surname, even if it wasn't as a surname. I love even more that everyone that came after wanted a bit of that aristocratic ancestory gold dust until it dissolved into history and no one knew why or cared how the name came to pass.

Dad didn't know. It was just the middle name of his father and his father's father and lots of other boys in the family. 

We have continued the tradition. I don't really know why. Tradition is illogicial. Peer pressure from dead people, as they say. I prefer to think of it as a link to scandal and a feisty, determined mother wanting only the best for her child but who knows? Maybe someone a few centuries back just really liked the name and the other parent said 'No way are we calling our baby Berry! It can be a middle name!'

Do you have a patronymic name in your family? Is it a really weird name?

(Note, very excited I've grown not ONE but TWO roses!)

Linking with #Tellusabout  #FridayFloralFoto

Rediscovering how to play could be the key to creating deep adult friendships. Rhaina Cohen

I have written a lot about friendship - about the ease of longtime friends, about friendship in marriage, about how speanding time with friends can be the panacea to all ills and how spending time with friends can be revitalising.

When the theme for Tell us about...came out, I was wondering what else I had left to say on friends and friendship? Then I thought about when your friends become friends. Through my Wednesday club I have become closer friends with some people I've known for both a long and shorter time, just from doing the activities together and suddenly seeing them more regularly for the fun events. This has then evolved to them saying yes to more non Wednesday club events when I post on FB asking who wants a ticket to a show or gig. I think becuase it centres around an activity, while we do 'catch up' conversations, there's more a 'sharing the now' aspect, and that is actually where the bonding lies. While you paint, blow glass or do pottery, you chat. Axe throwing lead to competitive banter, the adrenaline of running around playing laser tag led to exhilerated laughter at how bad we were. We've played pong on the boldering wall together, played each other in arcade games and worked together at Hijinx and so much more. There is an instant connection over the activity because the 'who' you are doesn't matter, it's simply important you are there. So when I saw the title quote, it really did hit home for me.

Another interesting aspect of this, is through the Wednesday Club, the most dedicated Yes crew have become friends with each other and now do things independantly. One was from work and the other from our children's primary school. They go to the same gym, they like the same music so go to gigs together - weirdly they even have the same birthday! I had said to my husband sometimes I'm surprised at who seems to like doing the Wednesday Club stuff but it's obviously what a lot of women need at this point in life, and I guess new friends that are keen to do something is another thing some of us need as people get stuck in their ways.

On the weekend, we were meant to go on a boat but it got cancelled on the day because of the weather. As it was the Lunar New Year, I asked if people wanted to go to lunch and I was surprised 13 of the 17 said yes. So I booked a restaurant and when I looked around the table at the people from all different parts of my life - work, 2 different kids schools, husband's uni friends, my friend's sister in law, a friend of a friend - I thought how lucky I was to have so many friends happy to move out of their cliques and most of them now know each other and were very comfortable independantly as they'd spent so much time together through the Wednesday Club and other events.

When we were walking to a bar after lunch, having broken off into a smaller group, one friend commented that she loved how inclusive the group is. She too had noted everyone came from a different connection but everyone felt like they were part of the gang. 

Very much like kids in the playground, these people turn up to the Wednesday club and think 'You're here, let's play together" and from that shared fun, bonds have built. Over the years, I've noticed they are being invited to each others birthday parties...they are viewed as friends indepenant of me. It's lovely to see. Good people deserve good people.

And of course, true to form, when the rest of us headed home, the two 'new' friends decided to kick on together for one more drink....

Linking with #WWWhimsy #SeniorSalonPitstop #TellUsAbout #TheRandom #Anythinggoes  #FriendshipFriday #HappyNow #HappyTuesday (because looking around the table at all my friends made me so very happy)

(The photos are from the Garden of Friendship, for those that didn't make the connection)

The Road Less Travelled

Linking with #SkyWatch

I'm not really fit to talk about this topic. I may have taken a little longer to get there, but I did eventually get married and have kids. I worked a run of the mill corporate job for 15 years or so. I became a stay-at-home mum after my second child was born. All my roads have been pretty conservative norms by society's standards. 

However, I have noticed that a number of my friends have switched from high powered,high income jobs to lower paid, not for profit work in their 50s. So perhaps the road travelled by most of us, or the pathways of 'success' are not as fulfilling as we're lead to believe? These people are deciding they need 'more', but it isn't more money that they're chasing.

I struggled to write this post. I don't feel I choose the road less travelled very often. So I put it to friends. They came back with stories of adventures in remote places, like meeting an old lady on the TransSiberian Railway, a smuggler who was fascinated by them, the tourists, because they seemed exotic. One woman reminisced about the time she hitchhiked across the Nullabour with her dog. Another told a tale of getting lost trekking to Base Camp on Everest and spending the night in a shepherd's corral with his goats. the tales where curiosity is rewarded or when getting lost brings a gift of unforgettable experience. There were many tales of adventurous youth, choosing to go off the well trodden path, both in the travels or working on cruise ships for years.

Then came the stories of missed flights, getting on the wrong plane to arrive in an entirely different destination than intended and one friend changed her flight because she didn't want to have to get up and go to JFK so early. Her original trip was on flight 173 on December 28, 1978 which crashed when it ran out of fuel while trying to fix an issue with the landing gear. These decisions that change everything, or throw you into unanticipated experience.

Which got me thinking. Sometimes the road less travelled is accidental. Our lives are a million different choices, often imperceptible, made daily. Any of those decisions, no matter how small, might steer us onto a road less travelled for awhile. You may remember when booking a trip to Norway, I didn't really pay attention to the map and booked us to Svalbard, the northern most settlement on the planet, for a family holiday in the Polar Night. I realised when we were the only tourists on the plane, the only people with children in a sea of FIFO workers and even the airport staff were asking us what we were doing there that perhaps this wasn't the most thought out plan of mine. This lead to our encounter with a polar bear and a wild near death experience, saved by an amazingly quick thinking and brave dog sled guide!

A friend who lived her whole life travelling the planet, since she was 5 and then from 17 working in many countries and in the travel industry, was forced to give up her own travel agency when COVID hit. She got a job at the ATO and to my surprise, she loves it. So which is her road less travelled? The nomadic life she lead in the first 45 years of her life, or the 9-5 government gig she's revelling in now?  Maybe there are many roads and it's only our world view that makes them see more alluring and remote?

Maybe we don't always choose the road less travelled but when we look back, we find out we ended up on it anyway, and that willingness to take a chance or having the curiosity to explore, to throw ourselves in wholeheartedly and back our decisions, as the Robert Frost poem ends "has made all the difference".

Linking with #WaterThursday for the first and last shots