It has been drummed into Carly for as long as she can remember that it is very important to get onto the property ladder. She supposes she could have saved more money by living at home with her parents whilst studying but she values her independence enormously. Anyway, this is another one of her parent’s mantras. Being independent. So, Carly sees this above saving every last penny. Anyway, she has a good job, and she marries someone who has a more lucrative one. Carly doesn’t really mind that he earns more as she wins over him on having many more letters after her name than he has after his. And the fact that she is a doctor who supposedly helps people whilst he is a lawyer who makes money out of other people’s misfortunes. She muses that she is being rather simplistic. But he does works in corporate recovery which is a euphemism for insolvency. So he does work with human misery but related to unsuccessful business ventures rather than failed health issues.

On entry to heaven, she is sure she will score higher on the social accountability agenda entry criteria. Carly is competitive by nature. What a shame she gets divorced. Now it is not so easy check on how he does at these heavenly gates where the cherubic angels float around with their clipboards and check lists. Carly doesn’t just have rows with her ex in her head. She often rows with lots of other people. Always in her head. Often complete strangers. They have no idea. Maybe it is better to call them discussions. It is all about how important she feels she is compared to them. This reached an all-time high when she did a paediatric oncology job. Children with cancer. Really you can’t get more brownie points that that, but it also doesn’t get much more emotionally draining either! More importantly the world cannot only be staffed by people doing these sorts of jobs. There is a need to eat and wear clothes, realises Carly. So, judging others isn’t particularly healthy, she realises. Who really knows what is on that heaven entry gate list? This train of thought really is a long way from property. Back to the title.

Carly likes to decorate her home using lots of colours. In one flat the palate was limited to only lime green and fuchsia pink. When she buys a bottle of navy-blue shampoo, she has to keep it in a cupboard for fear of colour offence. Next time find the right colour – never mind the brand. Or even the product. Oh dear, Carly must really try harder. Luckily most toilet paper is white, so this was less of an issue. Actually no. Wait a moment. Her sister has black toilet paper……but all this attention to toilet paper colour is, as her daughter Boo would say, is a first world problem.

Also, she has to have outside access as part of her property. Not that Carly smokes. She hates that. Rather she needs to feel the wind, look at nature and read novels outside. It could be a balcony, or a garden will do. Especially if you can have a trampoline. Large or small. Bouncing is always good. Especially now Carly cannot knock herself out post breast reduction surgery! When younger, Boo would often bounce in the sleeting rain with the dogs on the large trampoline. Those small exercise ones are fun but they aren’t really for sharing. The older Boo is now much too worried about her makeup to do this reckless exercise.

Carly likes to have some connection with water. Best to look out over the sea, a river or reservoir. However, once she had a hot tub. This worked well as she had three teenagers who would never desist from using their phones which really bothered Carly. They loved to take their friends into this gorgeous, calming water and even they didn’t want to risk drowning their beloved devices.  So, Carly managed to get them off their screens for at least some of the time. The dogs loved the hot tub as much as anyone who went in it. They would always want to play “bring the ball and drop it into the hot tub” and when the ball was lost, they just barked at you until you flicked water at them which they drank mid-air. Snappy, snappy went their jaws. Really this was very tedious, especially for the teenagers who had come into relax and chat. Instead, it felt like active dog sitting or playing. A bit like babysitting when the children won’t go to bed, and you have to play with them and not get on with your own stuff. And worse still, no one paid you for these dog entertainment games. The hot tub was made of wood and had lights which cycled through the rainbow spectrum. A bit like Carly’s water feature in her current rental home which would otherwise have to connection to water. Carly wonders about this recent obsession of cycling lights through the rainbow spectrum. Her old car radio did the same. Bizarre she thought.

The only other connection to water in her current rental house is the automatic atomiser. This house was clearly built by very fire averse architects. The smoke alarms go off before you even put the bread in the toaster. Really far too sensitive and the scream it makes is something else. And in addition, there is this system in the kitchen set to drench everything. Carly knows that more damage is done by water to put out fires. Her son was home cooking roast potatoes but clearly things got too smoky. These atomisers behave a bit like daleks with flashing lights and spray vast amounts of water at head height all over the kitchen. Carly and her son had to fuse the whole house to turn this system off. Part of the problem was that Carly insisted she knew where the boiler was. But she confused it with the hot water tank. They do look similar, Carly muses and forgives herself this temporary aberration of knowledge! Carly is trying to be kinder to herself and only admonish herself for really serious misdemeanours. Luckily this atomiser system is now deactivated until the engineer comes round to reset it. But who is going to let the engineer know? Certainly not Carly. Nor her son. One internal tropical storm is quite enough.

Carly also has to sell her home too. She makes the house really attractive. Everything is put away. It looks homely but without clutter. Marie Kondo who wrote “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying” would be so proud of Carly. She takes photos of how she wants it to be kept looking so that everyone knows the baseline. Also, when an appointment is booked, there is coffee roasting and bread baking. She has a large stash in the freezer of those half-baked rolls. She even gets someone to take the dogs out when Nathan, the estate agent, brings round potential buyers. She didn’t want to put off people who are scared of dogs. They always say they are allergic. But when these people come round and are fine with her cats. Carly knows that they aren’t the allergic type as cats are much more allergenic than dogs. Just scaredy cats! Funny word for dog phobic people.

One afternoon Carly is having a bath. This is special and unusual. Carly makes the bathroom smell nice with candles and incense. She puts rejuvenating salts in the bath and eases herself into the hot and comforting water. She tries so hard to relax. She empties all thoughts out of her head like she has been taught in her mindfulness training. She breathes deeply and slowly. She really does try hard but after five minutes she is bored. So, she gets up, plays some music and does shaking in the bath. She has learnt to do this on a course. She shakes away in time to the music. She is in a trance jigging up and down in the bathtub. Thump thump thump. Yes, she can carry this on for much longer than lying in the bath trying to be mindful. It is good to be using up this energy in a productive way. She starts doing some shouting too. Ahhhhhhh. Oooooooooh. Grrrrrrrrrr. She did that on the same course. But she can’t be too loud as there are the neighbours to consider.

Being Carly, she can’t really keep this shaking up too long as she gets bored of that too. So, she gets out of the bath. During her jigging she thinks maybe she heard her daughter Boo return home. With her towel wrapped round her she dashes up to Boo’s bedroom. Carly knows Boo will be in bed. She has been a mother to teenagers for nearly a decade now. This is the place they go. Unless they are eating or showering or going to the toilet. Everything else is done in bed. Carly enters Boo’s bedroom, but she cannot see her. Boo is under the duvet cover. Carly thinks this is unusual even for a teenager as it is mid-afternoon. Boo is hiding. Then Boo talks from under the duvet. She admonishes Carly for having sex in the bathroom with the estate agent Nathan. “For real?” thinks Carly who cannot decide which is more ridiculous. Having sex in the bath or having sex with an estate agent. Boo then pulled her trump card and said that Nathan wasn’t actually bad looking.

Carly does eventually sell this house; Nathan is worth his weight in salt – she just cannot allow it in gold! She will always be contemptuous of estate agents. Even good-looking ones. Carly considers her next move. She buys a flat which overlooks a reservoir, has a veranda and is part of a large development so she can always meet new people which is very important for an extreme extrovert like Carly. It has a concierge to deal with her online shopping obsession. It also complies with the now very stringent cladding laws. But most importantly it only has one bedroom. Her children are now adults as they repeatedly remind her. They forever moan when they claim she is “helicoptering” them. So now with this new flat she is promoting their independence. They can of course choose to live with their father.

Carly has done an online course about the five stages of grief; anger, denial, bargaining, sadness and acceptance. Carly is very worried about being angry. Carly has been worried about that for years. So instead, she is miserable. Really miserable. Crying all the time. Her face is puffy like a puffer fish.

She tries specially formulated skin creams, but they don’t help. Sharon at work says these anti-aging skin creams have no evidence they work. But she would say this as she does Botox injections to help aging skin look lush again. Carly feels she has cried so much she has run out of sadness. She thinks she can get closure for her grief. She thinks that the five stages of grief are artificial, and she doesn’t need to be angry. She is very worried about what she will be like if she is angry. Maybe she will never stop being angry. It will be overwhelming for everyone. It is more acceptable in society to be sad. It is not good to be bad (angry) or mad (overly sad with voices).

So, Carly starts a course of therapy to help her grieve for her very long marriage that ended. She wants her therapist to help her deal with her sadness. Her therapist tells her she must get angry. Carly is angry with her therapist for telling her to get angry. Instead, they move onto what Carly’s ideal new partner would be like. Carly considers this in her usual high-energy, dedicated and organised fashion. She reads her list of 19 key attributes in alphabetical order. Carly’s therapist suggests that she might never find a partner with such a long list of requirements.

Carly agrees and hones her list to only two. Carly is happy as these are all prime numbers. She explains that nineteen minus seventeen equals two. Her therapist pulls a face, but Carly explains that she loves numbers. So much so, that her daughter thinks that Carly is autistic. But Carly has already just diagnosed herself with ADHD and she cannot add to this burden of additional diagnoses. Eventually, it is time for Carly to stop her course of therapy. As predicted, Carly and her therapist talk about endings. Will Carly be able to manage without her therapist? Carly believes so. She managed before she started therapy, so why shouldn’t she afterwards? Her therapist isn’t so sure. The question is who really needs the therapy to continue?

Carly has been on a course about anger. This was particularly interesting. It was a residential course using cognitive, cathartic, ritualistic and ceremonial elements. It was all-encompassing. Unsurprising, Carly cried a lot. Carly learnt that you need a degree of anger for your energy levels, your lifeforce, your mojo. Anger is a force that can be used for good and to promote change. Now Carly is prepared to get angry so she can feel alive and purposeful. She can get really angry if she applies herself. This has been revelatory for Carly. She can be angry, but it can be contained and not dangerous. Rarrrrrrrggghhhhhhhhh growled Carly. But where can you actually go to do this getting angry business? You just cannot open your mouth and roar anywhere you fancy.

So, Carly chatted to others about how they deal with their anger. It seems that lots of people like to shout and get angry but don’t advertise this about themselves. One man told her that he shouts his head off in his car when he is driving up the motorway. Carly thinks this is a good plan. She once went on a road traffic awareness course. It was probably the only course she went on she can say truly changed her behaviour. Well, a bit, as she has got a couple of speeding tickets since. On that course, she learnt that country road driving was the most dangerous and motorway the least. Therefore, next time she is on a motorway she will also shout her head off and know she and others are pretty safe with her driving in this state. It needs to be a long enough drive for Carly to work herself up. A five mile stretch between two junctions isn’t long enough to get in the right frame of mind.

Her cousin in New York says that she yells as loud as she dares when the subway train comes in the station. She stands at the front of the platform, waits for the train to just pass her so the driver doesn’t get worried and then she hollers as loud as she can. Sometimes she does it with her teenage sons. They all thoroughly enjoy this. Carly is not sure this could work on the London Tube. English people are really much more uptight.

When Carly is by the sea, she can put on one of those full-face breathing masks on and bellow as much as she likes when she swims out. She is sure the fish won’t mind. She is not even sure fish can hear? But Carly does look like something from another planet and the whole thing feels weird and ghoulish. However, Carly is creative. She is a doctor. She knows that when you ask to see a child’s throat, you can tell them to roar like a lion to get a good view of the tonsils. She demonstrates with a moderately loud ahhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and then she and the child take it in turns to really growl getting louder and louder. At least five times each. Only Carly knows why they are doing this. The child thinks it is a game. The parents think it is part of the examination. Only Carly knows it is for her benefit alone. These children have constipation or flat feet. The staff outside sigh. They say – well that Carly – she is something else.

Carly thinks about how to deal with denial and bargaining. Maybe she can enrol on a joint course for these aspects of grief? Carly goes off to investigate. She hopes she will be successful in her quest as this might help stave off her grief. 

Carly does get very sad when her cats die. This picture is here as she has enough in her Carly adores cats story and here is a good place to put this drawing. As her dad always used to say. “Waste not, want not”. Then he would add. “Pick your nose and eat it”. Her mum was very disgruntled about that addition. Carly doesn’t eat bogies anymore, thankfully.

Carly really adores cats. The question is do they adore her? Or admire her. Of course not. Dogs always adore their owners. Cats clearly don’t. Cats come and go as they please. They seem to change owners at the drop of a hat. Actually, very often they have several owners on the go at any one time.

Whilst Carly admires this trait, she finds it irksome. She like to be the centre of their world. Actually, everyone’s world. But if she tries really hard, she can see it from the cats’ point of view. Carly is allowed to come and go as she pleases; to go to work, out for a walk or a cycle and away on holiday. She sometimes wonders if they want to join her as she often finds them in the suitcase when she is packing. They probably like the cool dark space a case affords. Carly considers why should the cats stick around for her for when she decides to return? Cats have their own territories and businesses to attend to. Just like Carly. So, her cats will do as they please. Hmmmmmmmmmmm thinks Carly. She does actually get it.

Carly realises cats are important in her life. They are grounding for her, particularly in this time of uncertainty. She always has had them coming up through the ranks. This means she has several cats on the go at any one time of different ages. So, when they pop off their mortal coil, Carly already has replacements in the wings. She learnt this early on. She was devastated when her first cat Mitzi went missing. She presumed this cat was taken by a restaurant. To go on their menu. She had no evidence for this. However, she decided to report Mitzi as missing to the police. Whilst mildly sympathetic, the officer told Carly that they don’t log missing cats. He said, “this was because cats was of an itinerant nature”. That was the last time Carly went to the police about any of her cats.

Next up was Hamlet. He was a big, fat cat who would lie around her neck like a fur collar. One memorable day, Carly came home from work. She was struggling with Hamlet in the cat basket, a toddler and a very large belly. This contained an eight-month-old unborn baby. When she arrived home the man from the organic box delivery scheme arrived simultaneously. He wanted to be helpful. Once he had put the beetroots, parsnips and turnips in the kitchen, he offered to bring in the cat basket for Carly. “Oh no” she replied somewhat aghast.  “The cat is dead, and the house is hot and he will soon start to smell. But thanks”. Carly was pleased that she was firm and direct whilst being grateful but didn’t see why this man fled at such speed from the house.

Later she dug a hole for Hamlet, but this was hard as the garden was miniscule and very stony. This left Carly with only two cats: Boadicea and Spartacus.

But Sparty left soon after the second baby was born. This was a home water birth and Sparty did walk around the edge of the massive birth pool. But the commotion of a birth and a new-born proved too much for him and he fled never to be seen again.

Then followed a series of black and white cats called Ocean, Shadow and Ice respectively. And some other cats who were the rejected litter from one of Carly’s work colleagues, Jeanette. She bred hairless Sphinx cats and backcrossed them with moggies to strengthen their characteristics. Carly had some of the hairy versions; Jazzmine Juicy Inferno, Gilbert and Sinjan Billy.

By this stage, the family had a lurcher which is a collie/whippet cross. This dog Jake came as a puppy from Battersea. He was great with all of these cats. Every time a new kitten would arrive, Carly would slowly introduce them to Jake. But by the end, when Jake was old, he would raise one eyebrow as if to say, “here we go again” and then go back to sleep.

Carly introduced the family to a cat death ritual. They would be buried in the garden under a flowering bush. The colour of the flower would match the deceased cat’s fur as a reminder to the family. One day Griffid, who was an old ginger cat, died. Carly instructed her nanny to dig the grave which was difficult as the kittens Shir Khan and Shadow kept scurrying in and out of it in a rather disrespectful manner. The nanny had also failed to put Griffid into a curled-up position, so the grave had to be extended as rigor mortis had set in.

Carly picked up the children from school and they went home via a garden centre to buy an apricot rose bush. Their tradition was to bury cats under a matching flowering plant. She returned to find her husband checking if Griffid was indeed dead. He looked the same as he normally did with his ginger fur. Carly lifted him upside down and showed how he could be installed as toilet roll holder.

She knew this from a book called “101 Uses of a Dead Cat”. However, they decided it would be better to bury him instead. The children were encouraged to bury something of their own with Griffid in his grave. The youngest child put in a necklace she didn’t really like; the middle son wrote out a song the family used to sing about Griffid. “Griffid the tiger, Griffid the lion, Griffid the mighty friend of Jake” and the oldest one who was hitting adolescence wrote a note to him and folded it up. Without anyone watching, Carly took a look at it. “Griffid, I have no idea where you have gone but it’s got to be better than here”. She quickly folded it and replaced in the grave with the cat and put the apricot rose bush on top.

As new cats arrived, Carly asked her children to find them suitable names. They called them Stinky Miranda Tallulah (known as Mandy), Jaja-Binx-Et-Mouse-Chicken-Legs.com (called Binx) and Gus short for Asparagus during a vegetarian phase.

Carly adores her cats. Some have long names, some short and some ridiculous. All have nicknames and they keep her grounded.

Carly loves coffee. She adores it. I mean she is obsessed with it. When someone tells her, she must be understanding to smokers as they are addicted, she doesn’t really get it.

They ask her, if she, Carly, could give up coffee? She contemplates this. She is silent for a while. This is very unusual. Carly is rarely silent. She thinks silence is good. But really for others, as what she has to say is novel, fascinating and original. Anyway, once Carly has thought about giving up coffee, she realises that she can’t, as she too is addicted.

Carly has drunk coffee forever. Actually, not as long as knitting. She started knitting aged 11 whilst still living at home. Then she drank hot chocolate and Horlicks. She’s lucky she carries that mutation that means she can enjoy milk after the age of three. She smiles as usually having a genetic defect isn’t great, but this is a good one. Especially for her. Lots of her friends drink non-diary milk substitutes but Carly finds that it leaves a sort of skin on the roof of your mouth. Her daughter goes on and on about how the dairy industry is actually the single worst thing for climate change. And is worse than airplane flights. Carly considers this. She does lots of recycling and turns off all the lights both at home and work, plunging everyone into darkness. Her daughter, who is a teenager, remains unimpressed with Carly’s viewpoint. Carly has had enough of rowing with her daughter who, anyway, continues to secretly eat cheese, yogurt and ice cream.

Carly thinks back to when she first had coffee. It was on an archaeological dig in Cyprus. “Goodness!” She says “that was very boring”.

Getting up at four in the morning and spending eight hours sorting through dust and dirt for coins, glass and shards of pottery. At least she had coffee to enjoy for breakfast halfway through this tedious sifting.

At university, it was always instant coffee. And to be honest, she thinks now, that that was ok then. Of course, now she really is a coffee snob and aficionado. She has coffee textbooks to prove this. She only drinks cappuccinos. And only when she is out. But back then instant had to do and there wasn’t this plethora of coffee places or these fancy machines her son now has. He is equally addicted. When Carly was pregnant with him, Costa opened up in her local high street.

Carly went there all the time. When she was pregnant, on the day of his birth and during all the time she was on maternity leave. So, he really was exposed to the wonders of coffee firstly through his umbilical artery, then through breast milk and finally babycinos. Actually, this last one is frothed milk with chocolate powder but nonetheless he was exposed to this coffee culture from the get-go.

Later on Carly would go regularly to Crick’s Corner. This was a small, fabulous independent institution near her work. But it mostly remained a secret from the 1000s of workers at her hospital. She didn’t advertise it as she was keen to keep it her safe haven. She would, however, arrange to meet all sorts of special people there. She took the provost from her university there once. He was the head honcho of the entire institution. Having coffee always relaxed people and he had lots of issues he highlighted. So many people were being mean to him. Carly was rather surprised as she thought that being at the top of the tree meant everything would all be fine and dandy. He was quite a sweet old man. Carly couldn’t believe how tricky things were for him and the provost couldn’t believe how naïve Carly was.

Carly meets so many people there, that Cricks is her default location when she uploads any meetings into her diary. She has experienced all sorts of emotions there. Carly has laughed, cried and even been hysterical there. The staff don’t mind as they know Carly will cope. She often goes there alone and does her knitting. On a Saturday morning, Carly has a regular coterie of friends to walk through the park with her dogs to have a coffee at Cricks. This pleases Carly as it is killing not just two but three birds with one stone. Having coffee – always the most important, walking the dogs comes second as it is a necessity and then going with friends. They aren’t really third, Carly justifies to herself but the other two are absolute necessities. Carly wonders if her friends ever realised just where they were on her list.

During the Covid 19 lockdown most coffee shops were shut. Carly was morose about this and made it her business to discover any that were open. There were some but they often had very long queues. Carly would pass the time by striking up conversations with the people either side of her. Carly is a determined extrovert and loves to chat to people her daughter would term as “randos”. Carly couldn’t help but scowl when customers chatted to the coffee shop’s staff for too long. She realised that people were lonely, but Carly is both impatient and important. She has a job to do. Carly expends a great deal of mental energy considering how waiting around affects her. She often keeps people waiting and sometimes feels sheepish about this. Woe betide anyone who dares to keep Carly waiting. There seems to be some subtle exchange going on in Carly’s head ranking people. Of course, there are some things you are never late for. And with everyone’s attachment to their phones you can keep updating people of your progress. However, this texting delays things further but more importantly, Carly feels, texting causes her thumbs to ache and then she cannot knit. She has tried to use voice recognition software but what appears on her screen to send is often incomprehensible. Carly is in a bind. Really, she needs to consider all people as equal and just get there on time. None of this “two legs good but some two legs are better”. Or is it “two legs good and four legs better?” Her knowledge of Animal Farm is ropey to say the least.

Carly likes the caffeine fix the coffee gives her. Once a year she has to fast from all sustenance for 25 hours to atone for her sins. She has to take this very seriously as she has collected an enormous number. Carly has been warned that, as she is addicted to the caffeine, she should only drink decaffeinated coffee a week before the fast. Then she can atone for her sins without a thumping headache. But Carly decides that life is too short for her to suffer drinking coffee without the buzz for such a long time. She will just have to manage her atoning with a caffeine withdrawal headache. Life is a balance and 364 proper coffees a year will have to do.

Sometimes Carly has every intention of having her coffee, but things do conspire against her. Recently she bought an electric scooter. She knows these are illegal, but the police are too busy fighting drug crime where she lives to notice her. But Carly is not ok trying to scoot over bumpy pavements and carry a take-away steaming cappuccino in one hand. Splat goes Carly. Coffee all over the pavement. Some men rush over but Carly is fine. A bit mortified. But she is too embarrassed to return for a replacement, so for that year only 363 coffees. And of course, that number is severely open to question. Carly will often have more than one coffee in a day. The absolute minimum is one. Carly feels that is acceptable. But like any addiction, sometimes she has more. Oh no. Carly on speed. Watch out. You’ve been warned. Even more energy than usual.

Carly has a rather tumultuous relationship with plants. Well, maybe, ambiguous is a better way to describe this. In recent years, she has been more taken with the putative positive effects of growing plants. She has a number of friends who have allotments, but this level of commitment seems over the top to Carly.

She is happy to devote a lot of time to knitting as this is her hobby, to work as this pays her wages and to eating as this sustains her. Often, she approaches growing plants with suspicion. Previously she was often given orchids. These were from friends coming over for meals. They always look nice and let’s be honest – they don’t cost a whole lot and seem exotic. But however hard she tries to look after them they all keel over and die. She dusts them and talks to them, and she tries to under water them as she is told most indoor plants die because of over water. She has a friend who goes around every Sunday night at 1930 and gives each of her orchids one cube of ice. Carly rather likes this idea, but she doesn’t have an icemaker. She thinks only filling up the ice cube tray for limited orchid plant watering seems a bit of a waste when really ice cubes are best used in gins and tonics.

But there is another reason it is ok for these orchids to turn up their noses and pop their clogs. Carly has been giving all her half dead or actually mostly dead orchids to Jean for a great number of years. Jean is her ex-step-mother-in-law, and this sustains their relationship keeping it on the straight and narrow. It seems to keep both of them satisfied. Jean can bring this ragbag collection of orchids back to life. Carly can pretend that she is delighting Jean with a present that, really, she is offloading and didn’t pay for anyway. Carly thinks having people over for dinner costs a whole lot more than the price of a measly orchid. And then Carly feels guilty as Jean rarely comes over for meals. Carly makes a note to herself to rectify this. It isn’t Jean’s fault that Carly is divorced.

When she was a child, Carly grew sweet peas, but they were never fragrant. She also grew runner beans as the rabbit liked them. But this rabbit went the way of many pets dying of old age and Carly never liked beans much anyway. However, Carly has picked up quite a bit of knowledge along the way. She has quite successfully grown herbs. She is proud of this and anyway it is super easy to replace them if they don’t prosper, as you can often buy them really cheaply in the local supermarket. And yes, she has remembered to keep those pesky mint plants in their pots, so they don’t take over with their roots. Carly likes to imagine these mint roots having secret plans and clever tricks (thanks Raoul Dahl) to take over the garden. They meet at night and confer on how to invade the rest of the garden with their imperialist tendencies. It is known as the great mint root advancement plot. Really this train of thought is ridiculous. Plants of all things are meant to be grounding. They are not there to promote fanciful thought, with your mind wandering off in ridiculous directions. Carly begins to chastise herself but in this new era of looking after yourself, she decides that she must desist from this too. Really this is getting hopeless.

Carly has had limited success with growing vegetables. Her friends from Dorset gave her Jerusalem artichokes to grow. And they are very easy to grow but they are super muddy and pretty small. All that effort and a huge amount of wind as a result and not a lot else. However, she is very committed to eating plants. Since completing Lifebook, which is a 12-step personal development course, she has had a green smoothie every morning for breakfast. Very healthy. Carly is very pleased with herself. That is because she is pretending she isn’t off for a coffee as soon as she has downed the green smoothie. But she is. Carly is much more obsessed with coffee than plants and she supposes if she lived in hotter climes, she could grow coffee. Now there’s a thought….

Carly has done a number of courses that involve plants. Flowers to be more specific. Once she did an ikebana course to display flowers in a Japanese style. The course said it was to bring out the inner qualities of flowers to express emotion. Carly liked that and carefully arranged the flowers in trios. But it felt too minimalist for Carly.

She also went on a kokedama course. You take a houseplant and cover the roots in compost for the inner layer, moss as the middle layer and string as the outer layer. You can display this in a handmade macramé string holder but Carly, like most people, last did this craft in the 1970’s and she feels this is rather unstylish! So, she puts her kokedama plant on an enormous square glass plate. And it is doing very well thank you very much.

Most recently she went on a course to make flower headdresses. Usually this is for people at hen nights who make them to wear at a wedding. Carly isn’t sure why she booked this course as she has just got divorced and there are no wedding bells on the horizon. It was a very rainy afternoon, and she was the only one on the course. “Great” thought Carly. They won’t have to go at the speed of the slowest participant. Carly is fast. Actually, superfast and really has no patience for slow coaches. On this course, Carly excelled herself and she was so fast, she made two flower headdresses instead of one and gave the spare one to her cousin who had also just got divorced. Carly is a bit jealous of her cousin as she has obviously moved on much faster than Carly and has a boyfriend. Hmmmmmmmmmmm muses Carly. She wishes she was slightly less competitive. She is happy about the being speedy, mind.

Carly does like to hug trees, but she often forgets to do this. Also, in spring, she has tree pollen allergy, and this means she gets very itchy and sneezy. She feels that she might get relief by taking out her eyeballs to give them a good scratch and then replace them. Luckily, she has trained as a doctor and has been to medical school, although it was a while ago. She does remember removing eyeballs leads to permanent blindness. Carly has often wondered if it would be worse to be deaf or blind. Really, she isn’t sure. But maybe an antihistamine would be a better option for her in the spring? Carly is unable to answer that last question she set herself. Instead, Carly hugs people. Even when it isn’t allowed. During lockdown no one was in the office where Carly worked. This meant she could walk around liked she owned the joint! Of course, this was short lived in the end. But it did introduce her to a new plant at work. Tradescantia. It has wonderful dark green and purple leaves with a silver pearlescent shimmer. Carly became obsessed about it. Every day she went and broke off a bit and popped it into water. Roots were quickly established, and Carly took them home to grow. Besides coffee and knitting, Carly is obsessed with prime numbers. So, she has 17 plants in her bedroom, 5 in the hallway in hand knitted plant pots, 23 in the front room and 19 in the basement. She gives them away to people when she goes to them for supper. And she has found that their common name is “Wandering Jew” which feels entirely appropriate. Carly is Jewish and has moved around quite a bit in London. Since she was an adult, she only lives in places beginning with an H. Hackney as a student, Hampstead, and Highgate as a nice Jewish wife and now in Highbury as a still nice divorcee. Shame the letter H is the eighth letter in the alphabet as it doesn’t fit with the prime number theme! Her ex-husband grows spider plants, but Carly clearly prefers her plant as purple is her favourite colour. And spider plants really are rather spindly. Maybe, Carly is just being mean for the sake of it!

Finally, Carly is able to combine plants with her knitting hobby. She has often used time honoured plant-based yarns such as linen and cotton but more recently bamboo. This feels really luxurious, but she does worry about the amount of chemicals needed to turn it from hard sticks into a soft yarn. Similarly, she feels the same with eucalyptus. She has crocheted with this. She wonders what yarns will be discovered next from the plant kingdom. Maybe something from mint roots, she smiles gleefully to herself?

Carly has a list. She knows there are lots of things out there that she does to feel grounded. They go in phases. A bit like her friendships. Firstly, she had friends from her school and her youth movement, then from university and finally from her work, her local community and knitting. These knitting friends rarely talk to Carly about what they have in common. They talk more about their lives in general, their goals and aspirations but more often woes and upsets. Well apart from the work friends. They do groan about work. And that really means they moan about other people. But for sure, Carly doesn’t talk about politics. This is a big no no. Carly hates fierce, deeply held argument. Challenge oh yes. But politics. A big NO.

So what phase is Carly in now to feel grounded? She muses about how many other divorced women with young adult children are in the same phase. Carly hopes none, as she likes to be an individual. This is a bit of an obsession. She even hopes her list of what she does to feel grounded is bespoke. She wants to be decidedly original and individual. She hates the thought of being just like other people.

First up. She likes to burn incense. She takes it everywhere with her so she can burn it to feel grounded even when she is not in her lovely and calming home. At work, she definitely burns it. And gets reprimanded. Really, she thinks, a burning incense stick is not likely to burn down a hospital. Why can’t they ban smokers instead? They are a much more serious threat. Not just to the fire service but to their own health and others who breathe in their despicable smoke. Really Carly has never had any time for smokers. She has never learnt to smoke and remembers many times when she was younger of chopping up other people’s cigarettes and hiding those very thin papers people use who roll their own. She does understand it is an addiction and her actions don’t help but they seemed to mollify her strong feelings about smoking at the time. Now she has a loaded water gun at work to fire on any of her co-workers who smoke under her window. Woe betide anyone whose smoke curls up and wafts in through her window. Also, she acknowledges she is always there to enjoy the incense and if it really got out of hand, she could extinguish any flames with her water gun. Finally, she comments to herself, that lots of people passing her office really enjoy the wonderful smell of the exotic. It feels like a no brainer to continue. Carly decides she must just fight on with this incense battle.

Carly realises to feel grounded she needs to appeal to her five senses. Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, and Touch. After brushing her teeth, she puts on a costly special face serum to keep her wrinkles under control. Carly likes to be in charge, but it seems that she cannot just order her wrinkles away, whatever the expense. Anyway, Carly says that wrinkles make you look kindly and grandmotherly. She strokes her crow’s feet and sighs. She does massage her face, and this feels good. She did once have one of those head massage devices, but she kept poking the wires into her eyeballs. She loves to have an Indian head massage with tonnes of oil. It feels great but then she must deal with her hair sticking to her head. She once had this problem when she was a swimming teacher. Her hair became so dry that she that decided to condition it with cooking oil as this was cheap and plentiful. Unfortunately, she couldn’t leave home for a week because she ended up looking like a soggy chip.

Carly decides to have body massages instead, but they are expensive. In this new phase of keeping a tighter hold of the purse, she only has them occasionally on holiday. Instead, she regularly hugs her sons. Her daughter is in a phase of not allowing Carly to cuddle her. Carly hopes this phase passes soon. It is tedious and upsetting for Carly who doesn’t know why her teenage daughter is like this. Sometimes you cannot understand these things, ponders Carly.

So, this covers smell and touch. Actually, back to smell. Carly likes to wear a perfume she once made on a course. She does love to go on courses and this one was sensational. She has called her perfume Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. It should have a prime number of the letter m as Carly likes prime numbers too. Did you count? It is 13. Anyway, this perfume has lots of base notes and has a very rich scent. She has kept a list of the ingredients as she has filed away attending this course in her work appraisal folder. She knew this didn’t help her on her journey to being a better doctor, but she could suggest that the course made her a more rounded person? She thinks so. One son thinks this perfume is too overpowering and it makes him gag. Carly tries to be thoughtful and when she sprays herself with this perfume, she creeps down the stairs and goes past his room hoping it won’t waft under the door. She holds her breath erroneously thinking this might help the non-passage of the perfume. She knows this is the same as the breathing in she does when she drives her car between bollards.

Carly likes to listen and watch the essential elements of nature – water and fire. She completed a personal development course where this was really encouraged. She lights scented tea lights next to her bed early in the morning and late at night. Always two or three as this plays in to her prime number obsession. She drinks a cup of herbal tea when she wakes up using the travel kettle her mother gave her. It is good to increase her fluid intake. She has been told that this is the best way to get rid of bags under your eyes. She has a pitcher of cool water by her bed and forces herself to regularly drink from it. But really drinking water is so very dull and Carly doesn’t do boring. Luckily Carly does other things that make her feel grounded that aren’t boring! Yoga is not one of them, however. Carly forces herself to do guided yoga daily for 10 minutes. This is more to keep her back supple and free from pain. It seems to do the trick. It doesn’t make Carly very Zen, as her mind wanders all over the place during this short yoga session.

After yoga, Carly does a seven-minute workout which actually takes all of nine minutes as there are regular breaks of a few seconds between the various exercises like star jumps, push-ups and triceps dips. She does this downstairs in the garden whilst her cats watch her bemused. Carly has read some literature that this is the only exercise you need to do in a day. By not paying much attention to detail, Carly has failed to read the small print that you need to repeat this workout several times a day. Instead, Carly convinces herself that she is fit as she rarely uses the car and cycles everywhere. Cycling does her the power of good. She can respond to tricky emails in her head, so that her responses are much more measured when she replies later on. Some days she likes to reel off rhyming words. She recently worked with a doctor called Clea. There is a huge list of words that rhyme with this name. She does it in alphabetical order, so she doesn’t miss possibilities out. Previously she used to practice her Latin declensions when cycling to the station on her way to school. Let’s see if she can remember. Paro, paras, parat, paramus, paratis, parant. Fabulous. She has no idea what that verb means but is happy she remembered how it went! In fact, it might be wrong as Carly’s memory of Latin is wobbly to say the least. Carly is deluding herself about how fit she is getting as she has an electric pedal-assist bike. But for sure it keeps her grounded and she goes out in all weathers and will cover most distances she needs to travel.

Carly recently invested in a water feature. This is quite an embarrassment. It has lights that cycle through the rainbow spectrum. It is also rather small and insignificant. Her cats love to reach up and drink from it. So, it might not be great at helping Carly to feel grounded, but it is preventing her cats from being dehydrated. That is some solace to Carly.

Her cats are around for Carly to stroke. Well certainly at night when they sleep on her bed. Except Carly is then asleep too. They and their predecessors have been a constant in Carly’s adult life. She just adores cats. She recently went on a yoga and writing retreat in Greece and Carly took some postage stamps of cats and distributed them to any feline-loving fellow participants. Her nemesis Caroline was writing a book about how cats who could talk, helped the French resistance in WWII. It was an enthralling story to hear. Carly can only write about her own personal experiences. It might be because she is not very imaginative. But actually, she thinks she is fascinating, and Carly hopes others think similarly.

Playing the card game patience and doing dot-to-dot or spot the difference are also grounding for Carly. She doesn’t like those adult colouring books as she finds too difficult to colour in so slowly. If she colours in fast, she goes over the lines, and this is highly unsatisfactory. Carly does more things to feel grounded, but this is enough for the time being.

Carly goes on a course. Actually, Carly goes on courses all the time. Loads of them. One week in August last year she went on three courses. The first during that week was on cyanotyping. She is very committed to going on courses and this one was in Trowbridge, which is far from home. She knew nothing about cyanotyping but it looked pretty and she likes blue. It predates photography. You mix light sensitive chemicals in the dark and put them on paper or fabric. Then you use the sun to develop the colour and use interesting items as negatives to make the pattern. On the course she completed twice as many items as all the other participants. Carly felt good about this as she is very competitive. She was a bit dismayed at the quality of her efforts but for absolute quantity, she had won. She smiled to herself. She then tried this process, later, at home. But to limited success. This is mostly likely due to Carly’s inability to read the instructions and to be patient for the right weather.

That same day in Trowbridge, she did one on glass fusing. She has done this before but cannot do it at home as she doesn’t have a kiln. Also, her usual teacher Ginny has cancer so isn’t running courses at the moment. Carly is a bit irritated about this situation. Then she feels guilty for being so selfish and uncaring. She makes a mental note to contact Ginny to find how she is. Carly hopes this will absolve her of any guilt she now feels.

The last course of that week in August was a Boro Japanese slow stitching course. In one evening, she mended the tattered armpits of a favourite dress, so she was very pleased. She will do this again with her next item that wears out. But not her leggings as these really are tatty and baggy. For sure, they just need to be cut up and turned into dishcloths but not yet as they are soft and comforting, even if unflattering. These craft courses are easy for Carly. She loves them and is good at them. They don’t last too long, and she doesn’t get bored on them. Boring isn’t something that Carly is very good at. She is working at this, but Carly finds this boring too.

One way to enjoy a course is to have a glass of wine in hand. Carly likes these evening courses as wine earlier in the day defines you as a committed drinker. Carly likes to be in charge of her alcohol consumption. Not the other way round. Let’s be honest. Carly like to be in charge. Period. On these evening courses Carly has learnt to paint in the style of Van Gogh and come away with her version of the “sky at night” and “sunflowers”. Of course, she finishes before any other participant and so wins again. It is a bit embarrassing for her to lug home these wet canvases on the London Tube whilst tipsy. Like some of her other craft projects, which are often rushed, Carly is not too smitten with the quality of her paintings and puts them on a wall at work for students to enjoy. Surely these are better for them than looking at bare walls? She never asks the students as she doesn’t really want to hear their criticism. She is sure they are grateful. Or assumes so.

She has been on other courses too. There are always courses at work. Carly works in a hospital. Many of them really are boring. Carly is not the only one to think this. Why does she need to go on a course to learn how to lift patients? She works with babies. Even big babies weigh less than her shopping. Supermarkets don’t demand certificates for customers to see that they can lift their groceries. To be honest, Carly feels she should keep this thought to herself. If the government got wind of this, they could well bring this in as a mandatory requirement for all shoppers. A strength test at checkout. That would be truly dreadful, Carly muses to herself.

Why does she need to go on a course at work to put out fires? She can read the instructions on the red fire cannister at the time of the fire. It would be much better if she went on a course to explain to patients why they cannot smoke in the hospital. Fire prevention is surely better than fire extinguishing? Carly is angry about these mandatory courses; she has work to do. One much better course was how to manage tricky conversations. This followed a complaint from Sasha (a parent). Carly always enjoys these courses as she learns something new. She then did a role play with Julie, a senior clinician in her hospital, who had met with Sasha. They agreed to do a role play. Carly played herself and Julie played Sasha. Carly was quite pleased with her performance, but Julie had to curtail this practice session as she realised that Sasha was, in reality, impossible in her demands. So even good work courses can be a waste of time in some instances!

On another work course Carly is learning how to be a good leader. She is set lots of theory homework to prepare beforehand. Carly finds this tedious, and we know what Carly thinks of boring. Let’s not go there! For Carly, not being boring is right up there with being competitive. So instead, on the morning of the course, she looks up a TED talk given by the author of the paper. She is right in her assumption that these leadership gurus have always made a TED talk. She daydreams of making a TED talk. She has plenty of ideas but doesn’t feel she has one specific idea. She then makes a list of all her TED talk ideas. She could do a series. A bit like a podcast series. A TED talk series of lots of short topic ideas. Her mind has wandered. She has to start the preparation for her course all over again. She is taught many different leadership styles. She feels that she aligns most closely with disruptive leadership. A while later she is asked to give a talk on this subject to her students. She runs an experiential workshop that all the disruptive innovator participants love and the rest hate. Hey ho, Carly says to herself, some you win and some you lose! But actually, she is irritated. She knows her session was far from boring. However, for some students she didn’t ace this session. Carly is a bit despondent but quickly moves on. There are always plenty more fish in the sea, courses to do and win as the best teacher in the future.

Carly has to decide now which course to go on next. She could probably do well to study a course booklet to make a wise decision. But this isn’t how people like Carly function. She will float around doing courses on an ad-hoc basis as she always has. As long as the course isn’t boring and Carly wins then she is happy.

Carly knows yoga will be helpful for her wellbeing at this moment in time.

Everyone knows yoga is helpful when you are going through a difficult period. Yoga teaches you to relax. Carly knows she needs to relax more. She investigates.

She thinks a simpler, slower version of yoga is best and an early morning yoga class will be best of all, as she will start off the day calmly. Calm Carly. Now, that sounds good.

Carly last did yoga when she was pregnant and that was a very long time ago. Carly thinks yoga will help her develop her inner core – that’s what people say. Carly considers her inner core for a minute.  But Carly gets bored very easily and worries that she will let her mind wander during the yoga. Also, Carly is not very bendy. In fact, the last time she sat crossed-legged was in primary school and now Carly prefers to sit like a duck with her feet sticking out to each side. How will Carly be able to get her knees below the level of her hips? She may need a mountain of rubber yoga blocks under each knee to achieve this. She is worried there won’t be enough blocks left for the other participants. She spends most of the class thinking about these people. Is anyone less bendy than Carly? She thinks probably not. She is correct. No one is less bendy than Carly. She makes a miserable face but she carries on. Carly tries all different yoga animal poses. She has to be a dog, a cow and a cat. She wonders if there are chicken, lizard or rabbit yoga poses? She tries to bring herself back to the present by concentrating on her breath. She listens to the yoga teacher who tells her to be a baby. Carly makes a sulky face as she has remembered she hates babies. That is odd as Carly is a paediatrician.

Once she has completed the animals section of the yoga, Carly does some sun salutation dance positions and repeats the sequence three times. She likes the number three. In fact, she likes all odd numbers as she feels they get a hard time compared to even ones. By nature, Carly likes to support the underdog. Even underdog numbers. Then she does some warrior positions. Carly is surprised there are war-like yoga positions. But she goes with the flow. She does warrior 1, warrior 2 and finally warrior 3. This last one is a side angle warrior which can be extended to expose all your organs to the elements. Carly thinks of a crow pecking away at her left lung and spleen as she stretches up towards the sky. She checks herself and agrees she still has her anatomy knowledge to hand. Spleen on the left, liver on the right. Phew.

Then Carly is instructed that she needs to find a partner. Hmmmmmmmmmmm she thinks. Who is the same size as her? She surveys the heights of the other yoga participants. They are all taller than her. Last night she went for a walk with Wendy after drinking a lot of wine and they farted the entire way home. This was following the consumption of some vegetarian moussaka for dinner made with lentils. She smiles at Wendy who agrees to partner her. When she bends down, she mouths silently to Wendy to desist from farting and they both erupt in giggles. This is not very zen at all.

Carly is relieved as she can finally start the last pose. This involves resting flat on her back with her palms facing upwards in submission. It is called the corpse pose. Phew! Carly can do that well. She closes her eyes and concentrates on her breath and what she would like to eat for breakfast. She keeps her eyes shut to savour this part of the yoga class and bring her attention back to her breathing. The teacher carefully draws symmetrically around her face. Carly is overwhelmed and cries. Yoga has been good for her.

The end of Carly does yoga.

I have just returned from my all time favourite holiday. It was my 8th time and yet again, I worked on and read out some of my stories. I was in Limnisa, Methane, Greece staying with Mariel and Philip. There is always loads of advice and this time I have yielded and listened to Charlotte a fellow participant who suggested I put my stories up on a blog. And of course I have a blog. Which has been dormant for well over three years. But hey. There is no time like the present……

I really can’t quite believe it. I just looked at my Delhi return flight tickets. I left in October and am returning in March. Hah, that should be six months but it was in fact just four. Halloween to St David’s Day. But what a time. And like all good things, it must come to an end.

Cushion Cover

I once went on a course with my friend and colleague Faye Gishen one Sunday morning to make cushion covers. I had done a load of sewing by then but I learnt two new things. Firstly, how to make a cushion cover with a cross over at the back so no need for buttons or a zip or ties. Secondly, how to turn 90-degree corners nicely without snipping off the corner, using a knitting needle to poke it out and have an unintentional hole.

So, for this cushion I used both techniques. It was the very last of my fabric. Meenaxi was going to use it to give me as bags for her leaving present to me of her organic brown rice, milled in the machine she had just bought, installed and done puja on (see blog earlier this week). Also, the fabric was a bit too stiff for rice bags. But perfect for a cushion cover.

I thought also I would apply the two sets of bought pompoms from the Samrat store to one of the corners. For the photographs I had to stuff it with all manner of things for it to be filled out appropriately.

Wearing Barbie Masks and Painted Masks

In Dorabjee’s supermarket in Pune besides getting some interesting cheeses and mosquito coils, I also bought slime and a packet of 10 Barbie eye masks. This was perfect. We could use them all. I invited (ok cajoled) all the staff at Andeshe to put on first a painted and then a Barbie mask. Shama is the owner and her mother Meenaxi spends all day on the farm weeding, planting, cooking, baking and sewing, Pratab her diver, Bishnu who runs the place, milks the cow, makes the food and his wife Ganga who helps out similarly but also does laundry.

Together, they have made my final three weeks here beyond amazing. We have cooked together in the kitchen and over the fire pit last night I cooked my salmon which I had marinated and stained purple with beetroot. Meenaxi does a huge amount of the cooking and has made me try all sorts of things like dry chutneys. In return I have asked her to sample my oat/date/banana/milk and other smoothies for breakfast. And she has joined me with a thimble of white or rose wine in the evening. I have had a small glass – not a thimble!! She is as busy as a bee and we have managed to co-exist extremely well. She has been able to fill up bobbins for me on her ancient foot treadle machine and today she used the machine to make two purple bags with 500 g each of organically grown, hand sorted and de-husked, unpolished brown rice. Such a wonderful leaving present (see the Cushion Cover blog above) with Johnny in the picture.

Large Dyed Yarn (and Balloon) Enclosed Montages

This series started as Meenaxi suggested I mend the yoga mat I was using here which had threads fraying off the sides. It was made from water hyacinth roots which has recently been designated a pest plant as it takes over other wildlife in rivers and lakes. It is often made into similar products to banana fibre but it is much wider so mats and large bags lend themselves to this material. Anyway, I realised that it was much better to remove these spare threads and make good the sides. So, I dyed these cotton threads and imprisoned them on a piece of A3 card. I also was given the mat as a present so that was shipped home for me to continue my yoga in London.

I have done a further four more including some candle wicks I have dyed on separate occasions, my furry fluffy yarn which was lilac and is now purple and spiky and not at all soft and furry! Finally, I have incarcerated some balloons from my pool project which all burst pretty early on in the process. One morning when on a run with Johnny I found a bit of balloon on the roadside at the end of my run. I could tell you it had blown for miles but I do short runs – in fact just like I do short yoga sessions of either 10 or 15 minutes. But they are regular. Short and sweet. Like me!!!

The bottom edge lace is from Samrat Craft Megastore which is a treasure trove of all sorts of wonderful haberdashery and other items. And with the usual huge number of staff members. Hilarious to go in there and be served by about 20 young men. So delightful.

A Way of Using up Flowers, Copper Wire and Yarn Mobile

Well this is true but it isn’t a very engaging name. It reminds me when artists name their pieces “installation 1” or “drawing x”. It feels a bit lazy but also not very imaginative. So I can rename this. Spiral Fun with Fur and Flowers Spiral Mobile. At least that tells you what it is. Nomenclature is hugely important. So is how you name your files. When I am sent CVs to mark up (mostly from doctors in training or medical students) it is really unhelpful when it is labelled CV.doc! It brings me back to using abbreviations and how you lose everyone really quickly but using pretty much any abbreviations. Gosh all this nonsense to return to!

But back to this quickie project. I had all the bits and it is rather like going shopping when the money in your pocket is burning a hole! And there is a sale on….

I had a length of copper wire. The last bit. I was going to make this into a flower headdress. But really, I would never wear it. It reminds me of when Nicola, under Meenaxi’s tutelage, dressed me in a saree. I told them I planned to cut up the material and make several other garments. Then they firmly put me in my place! They suggested I could wear it when I had the exhibition of all that I have made here. I plan this later in the year. And everyone who comes can choose to keep a piece. Really, there is way too much stuff that I have made here over this four-month period and this way everyone gets a bit of purple. And so, I will keep the material to wear it as a saree. But I still won’t wear a headdress. Purple or otherwise!

Hence, I made that into another spiral mobile. I have so many now I think about it! Gosh, Carly. Using the word “hence” feels very pretentious. But I am bored of using “so“……

Charitable Project – Free Johnny

I took an overnight bus from Hampi to Pune and got down at Chandani Chowk. From there a lovely family booked me an uber that I paid for and off we went via very dusty and poorly maintained roads to Andeshe. An hour later we arrived and the big gates opened and Johnny, an adolescent male, who looks like a cross of my friend Rebecca AD’s dogs Doris and Ruby, sat there chained up. He seemed friendly enough and over the course of the next 18 days of my stay, I planned my free Johnny campaign. Firstly, this is not my dog and secondly, this is not my country to be critical about how they train their dogs. Bishnu (who was wonderful but had limited English) told me he had already killed one of their cats (but actually that was the other dog Jack) and that in two months’ time they would take him off this chain lead. So, I did what I could. I ran with him every morning. I took him upstairs on the veranda where he could run around safely off his chain. I bought a lead and some tennis balls for him. Then I listened to this podcast https://www.npr.org/2020/02/03/802422904/when-things-click-the-power-of-judgment-free-learning. It was about training animals and humans with clickers and mentioned Pavlov.

So I had some left overs of a rather heavy cheesy meal I had made for myself that the staff at Andeshe wouldn’t eat (and I had maxed out on it already) and used this as the food reward for Johnny. I banged the tin with a metal spoon loudly three times and gave him a mouthful of the food. Delicious. I did this repeatedly over the course of a few days.

And empowered by Nicola Pawan, Meenaxi’s daughter-in-law, who was visiting for the day, I just let Johnny off the lead. He didn’t roam far but he was totally fine off the lead and came rushing up to me at the sound of the three metal spoon bangs. So job well done. Phew!

Purplised Papers Sewn on Purple Paper and then onto A3 White Card

When I am dyeing bits of yarn or what I believe to be cotton pre spun rovings but are actually candle wicks for religious ceremonies I will collect the paint that drips off on paper so as not to dye the ground of where I am staying. Some of the patterns, which by their very nature are random, are rather lovely. Often much lovelier than the yarn I have set out to dye! I cut them up initially and made it look like a three-page book you can open.

Then I thought I would carry on the prime theme and made further “book” pages of two, five, seven and 11. But herein lies the problem. We had decided to oil the machine. And I had already sewn onto spare fabric to ensure that no oil was dripping through. But oil on paper is much more obvious and especially the smudges from my slightly oily hands! But as always you can cover things up which is why the images with five and 11 “pages” have extra bits rescued from the bin to cover up these smudges!

But this makes them all the more fun. I had to wait for a further trip to Pune to Venus Stationary Traders for more white paper. But I was in a hurry and of course only glanced at the labels for the paper. This is not for watercolour but for oils and has a rather irritating finish which means everything slides around – well probably apart from oil paint which I am not using any more. That got sent home ages ago when I had the epiphany that I am just not an artist! Hey ho. Yet again you live and learn.

Luggage Tags

Yes, these are very useful. And as I like going to Paperchase and there are only so many passport covers you can justify buying, therefore, I am a bit of a luggage tag magpie!

Also, I have made them in the past at my holidays at Craft Retreats – on the last one with Anne Kelly. These were purely decorative and the one I made in Limoges lives on my bicycle bag. They are useful in identifying your luggage – like ribbons on the handle at the airport.

I went to Samrat in Pune and they have lovely wooden oval disks and Bishnu drilled some holes into them. I painted each side with a different colour of my six purple shades of acrylic paint. Then I applied some left over scraps of brocade and decorated them with glitter puff paint. Each of the tags had an additional tassel or pompom. They aren’t really useful as they are too delicate to go in the hold and don’t have any useful information on them! But they are pretty….

Rangoli

Rangoli is an art form, originating in the Indian subcontinent, in which patterns are created on the floor or the ground using materials such as coloured rice, dry flour, coloured sand or flower petals

I have always loved rangoli and I first saw some when I went with Ramees to the Ranakpur Jain Temple. On my travels I only saw it commonly displayed in Anegundi, Hampi. I did practice there but I scrapped the whole project until the stencil idea came about. I just wasn’t dexterous enough!

I kept vacillating between doing rangoli or not! I even paid for this lovely image to inspire me.

Ragu gave me some ground up stone that you use for rangoli and I bought some purple powder to mix with it but try as I might I just didn’t have the ability and, of course, not much patience to learn. I even went online but it just felt that I couldn’t get to grips with holding enough of the powder and releasing it slowly enough.

Then when I was on a market street in Pune, I saw some rangoli stencils. Silly me. Just because I cannot dribble this material slowly out of my hand to make intricate and pretty patterns, I can still use stencils. And then it came to me in a flash. Those mosquito coils. Again, two projects for the price of one. Brass rubbings (ok mosquito coil wax crayons rubbings – see previous blog) and rangoli stencils. All for measly cost of a packet of mosquito coils I could buy for 34 rupees. I would get 10 coils and could make a load of both stencils and brass rubbings. Whoohoo.

Day in the Life of a Baby Purple Shisha Pipe

I am staying in this really cool part of Delhi. It is one of the nicest AirBnB’s I have ever stayed out. It is old and filled with wonderful furnishings and lovely windows and doors. Loads of attention to small details I just love. Last night I saw a shop full of bright coloured glass objects and was drawn in. It was entirely dedicated to shisha pipe smoking. I have never even smoked a normal cigarette! But I found a lovely small glass purple one for 290 rupees and bought one. Today I decided to take it around with me so you can see what I do on a day to day basis here!

As a final round up of some of the things I have made lists of…..

Podcasts.

I have would recommend these…..

The clearing

The life scientific

Hidden brain

The last days of August

Dirty John

Dating while grey

Science Vs

Fake Heiress

Serial by This American Life

The Reith Lectures

Stephen Fry – 7 deadly sins and Great Leap Years

Incarnations: India in 50 Lives.

Story cast – What happened to Annie? The hunt for the Brink’s-Mat gold.

Modern Love

The world in 100 objects

Anthropocene Reviewed

TJ Frog A podcast for people who love knitting, Dorset Buttons, creativity & Scotland, especially the Highlands & Islands.

Dessert island discs

In our time (Melvyn Bragg)

Tunnel 29

The ratline

Murder in the Lucky Holiday Hotel

The missing crypto queen

Solitaire worked out 7/121

20^th Nov, 23^rd Dec, 29^th Jan, 9^th, 23^rd, 25^th and 28^th Feb (seven – how bizarre – my special number besides 19 here). And played 121 times! February must be my lucky month…..

Books read

The butterfly room, Lucinda Riley

A princess remembers, Gayatri Devi

The French gardener, Santa Montefiore

A gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles (only to page 60 – that is the rule I have with Betsy before you can stop reading any book)

The man in the crooked hat, Harry Dolan

Transcription, Kate Atkinson

Ramayana, The Epic

Gandhi, my life is my message, a graphic novel as a cartoon

Windfall, Diksha Basu

City of the beasts, Isabel Allende

Bombay brides, Esther David

The road home, Rose Tremain

Secret of the lighthouse, Santa Montefiore

On Green Dolphin Street, Sebastian Faulks

Turtles all the way down, John Green

PS, I love you, Celia Ahern

Hullabaloo in the guava orchard, Kiran Desai

I did three overnight bus trips and three internal flights in the four months. And I went in cars, in tuk tuks, in kayaks, on scooters, on bicycles but not on camels or horses. I also swam, ran and walked. I didn’t do any silent retreats. Actually I was only silent when asleep. I laughed and cried in equal measure and to excess.

Hotels stayed at (19!)

Rajasthan

47 Jobner Bagh, Jaipur

The Mosaic Guesthouse (Amber Fort, Jaipur)

Dia Homestay, Pushkar

Ranakpur Camel Lodge, Rajpura, Sadri

Gujarat

House of MG, Ahmadabad

Viventa Vadodara, Baroda

Bhuj House, Bhuj, Kutch

Devpur Darbargadh Homestay, Devpur, Kutch

Mangaldas ni Haveli II, Ahmadabad

Goa

BeechStreet Eco Resort, Mandrem

Casa Susegad, Lotalim

Vivenda dos Palhaços, Majorda

Dudhsagar Plantation, Karmane

Olaulim Backyards, Olaulim

Karnataka

Uramma Cottages, Anegundi, Hampi

Maharashtra

Andeshe, Mulshi

Hotel Sagar Plaza, Pune

Shantai Hotel, Pune

Delhi

Sarai Khas 1 @ Hauz Khas Village (AirBnB)

and of the 133 ideas for projects I have managed to do 89 (another prime number). Whoohoo

Each of these folders was part of a blog post.

The End

Nah, not quite the end. I was sent this wonderful poem by my friend Jacqui. I just love it!

The Invitation; a poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.
 
It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
 
It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.
 
I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
 
I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.
 
It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
 
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
 
I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”
 
It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.
 
It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.
 
It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
 
I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

TTFN – as you know I detest abbreviations but here I am breaking my own “sacrosanct” rule!