©®Ⓨ ⒷⒶⒷⓎ

I know what a sensitive,warm hearted, grizzling bunch you are...so don't click on the above picture to examine it closely if you are of a nervous disposition. 

This is how to stop oneself from skipping gaily along gushing about how amazing it all is.
Reality check.

 ḜɤɛɾƳƉǡŷ ƪŠ ɱaɼkℇ₮Ɖǡŷ 

At the entrance to the city market are all the fruit sellers, people just bring a basket of fruit and sit and sell them. This treasure chest of pomegranate jewels was rich and oozing with juice. The fruits here are so organic and pure and all grown by sunlight and with love. They make our mass produce in the UK look full of false promise like a dodgy good looking bloke. All looks and no substance. This fresh produce sings with energy and flavour and if it's true that we are what we eat, then this week I may turn into a pineapple. A happy juicy flavour full pineapple. A bit crooked around the edges but full of charm and personality ;-)

It seems that my 'spiritual' practise is not penetrating as deeply as I hoped, as everything goes by the by on arrival at the market. Full of poise and determination and material denial on my yoga mat...I turn into the worst kind of shopper. Faced with the Spoon Stall I am full of agony about the fact that I want every single version. Just look at them. What would you choose? Spoons for baking, serving and even spooning. My favourites are made from rosewood, I'm not sure if that's wrong or right. But do I even care? I know it's going to seem crazy when I unpack but if you ever come round for dinner or group baking sessions we are going to be well served.

This stall, and there are a few like it, worries me. Selling hair. Why? For whom? Whose hair was it? I don't like it a bit, but I do love the stallholder... can you see him? Bald as a coot. Got short of stock mate? I feel all itchy now and it makes me want short hair. Why do we covet the dead stuff that grows out of our heads? 

Just so you can appreciate the indecision and drooling that the market provokes, this is the inimitable and wonderful RoobieRoo modelling the bag selection on one stall. What is a girl to do? They are all beautiful, all cheap and made with recycled materials by local women. Good strong bags in great designs and colour combos galore. The banter and the good humour is delightful among the stallholders & customers, not like the miserable misers we have to deal with at home. They shrug and laugh and somehow with all the language barriers we seem to get by. Numbers are the same everywhere right? And one clever little fellow said I looked like Carla Bruni the other day so I adore them.

ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT. 

I am so excited to come home and see all my loved loved ones

but so sad that this, like all good things, has to come to an end.

It's time to roll my sleeves up and get back to some serious slog.

Someone has to pay my spoon bill.

Åℓ℮Ⅹ∀ℏⅮℯℜ ⒨©ℚÛȩȩñ

ƈƦƐāt¡ŋƓ Ș₱Ⓐ❨ξ

I've been in India for a few weeks now...I've got my daily routine, I'm institutionalised under Pushpa's care and have a lot of time to think. After all, swirling a few clothes around in a bucket is as much domesticity that I have to undertake. I climb the hot stairs to the roof to hang out my dripping items which take about an hour to dry in the fierce heat up there. I take the dried clothes to the ironing boy and he uses the cast iron 'heated with hot coals' ironing method which leaves my clothes ironed paper flat and smelling faintly of coal fires. Which I, of course, love.

Apart from a few design commitments that I can cover whilst I am here, I am reading a lot which is luxurious...although my dreams of reading to my heart's content is not that viable in the heat and my eyes (even with glasses) get tired easily. I've doodled a bit in my diary/sketchbook but I'm not feeling it. Truth is, the visual stimulation I get here is totally overwhelming. Sights and sounds galloping by. I can't precis my thoughts or visions as there are so many and I am aware that I need to get 'it' down, record what 'is' here before I'm faced with two days left and an impending feeling of desperate creative panic.

And I keep thinking, my blog, my blog, I should at least be giving something away when I am receiving so much and could channel some of it your way, dear reader...

But I'm not bothered, not bovvered at all. I'm sitting and thinking and brewing and dozing and drifting and dreaming and it's wonderful. I keep getting gripped by 'it's lazy, I'm lazy' but I watch the phrase float on by like the heavy bee that lives in the bamboo blind by my balcony. The Truth is, everybody could do with this, this luxury of time and space and drifting, many much more than me and there it flares up again, the guilt...but I don't hold onto it, I just let it goooooooooo

And this goes on a lot...stopping only for meals and freshly prepared pineapple that arrives with a strangled cry by the pineapple cart man. 

Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnaaplllllle, pina pina pina piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnaaaaapppllle.

Full on, full-time yoga, does funny things to a girl, opening spaces that was once a mind firmly made up, stretching a brain with possibilities of space and awareness to realise it's actually okay to just 'be'. Yes, it's indulgent and luxurious and most importantly, my choice. That's what I have to remind myself as I crank into another day beginning with the most strenuous physical & mental journey I ever thought I could tackle. (Giving birth was a breeze in comparison)

And as my feet span my mat I learn each day there is a new way to be, an additional millimetre to open my heart, an extra inch to scale in my search for happiness/contentment/existence/bliss and I see it's already there. 

It was there all along.