Author Archives: charlotte49

Life Laundry and Armchair Travel No. 2

Continuing on from my last post in which I returned to Japan courtesy of clearing out my cupboards and sticking in photos from a 2009 trip, I’m now up to my second day in Kyoto.

Before travelling to Japan, I had booked a day with a Goodwill Guide through the Japanese National Tourism Organization (JNTO). It was (sadly there is no longer any mention of it on the JNTO website) an excellent scheme that offered a much more personal insight into Japan than you would get from an official tourist guide. Like many of the Goodwill Guides, Kazuko, married with two grown-up sons, was to keen to share her city and surrounds as well as to practise her English. All I had to do was cover her travel costs, museum entry fees and any meals and refreshments we had together. And best of all I didn’t have to work anything out – no maps, guidebooks, directions, ticket machines, Japanese lettering or indecipherable menus. Bliss!

My Goodwill Guide Kazuko

My Goodwill Guide Kazuko

We started by taking the train to the nearby town of Uji, home of green tea and of the oldest tea shop in Japan. After whirling round the Byodoin Temple, a UNESCO site famous for its Phoenix Hall, so-called because the building resembles a phoenix with outstretched wings, we went to a tea ceremony at the Municipal Tea House. Kazuko explained that the tea ceremony (sado) combines the ideals of Zen Buddhism with the uniquely Japanese concept of wabi (simple beauty). It’s certainly a highly ritualised and choreographed performance, one that makes sticking a tea bag in a cup, boiling the kettle and wolfing down a biscuit seem very basic.

Byodo-in Temple

Byodo-in Temple

I watched how the hostess performed each task with great precision: the boiling of the water; the folding of the napkin; the whisking of the Matcha (a very strong powdered green tea); the clockwise rotating of the bowl; and the bowing before serving the tea. Performed with grace and elegance in a simply furnished room – the flower arrangement and painted scroll change according to the season – we drank cherry blossom drop tea out of cups painted with a blossom motif and ate a sweetmeat called cherry blossom cloud.

Blossom-themed decor in the Tea House

Blossom-themed decor in the Tea House

From Uji, it was a short train ride to Kyoto’s Fushimi district, where we switched our attention from tea to something a little more fortifying at the Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum. Highlights included western-influenced poster adverts from around 1900, the miniature ceremonial vessels produced for the Coronation of Emperor Hirohito in November 1928, and my first experience of a Japanese toilet with a heated seat. Still feeling the effects of jet-lag (readers of my last post will remember that Mrs Uemura at the guesthouse hauled me out of a deep, time zone-challenged sleep for breakfast at 8am on the dot), I took the opportunity to indulge in a micro moment of mindfulness atop the heated loo seat. It was pleasantly soothing to sit down and rest in the warmth.

Lunch – excellent terikyaki chicken – afforded another rest and, suitably refreshed, we then walked through the Fushimi Passage, a bustling arcade selling everything from bicycles, tea, pickled vegetables and second-hand clothes to Yuinou, symbolic gifts exchanged between the families of betrothed couples.

Our last stop was the Fushimi-Inari shrine. Dedicated to the gods of rice in the eighth century, a mass of orange-red Torii, pillared gateways, each bearing the inscription of a donor, snake up the mountain and through the woods. Considered as messengers of inari, the god of rice and cereal crops, stone foxes with red votive bibs carrying the key to the granary are dotted throughout the shrine grounds. Even the votive tablets are fox-shaped.

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On my last day in Kyoto, I ran around seeing more temples and shrines: Kiyomizu-Dera (lots of tourist buses and giggling school girls buying lucky charms and trinkets; Chion-In (home to the largest bell in Japan – it needs 17 monks to ring it at New Year); and Nanzen-ji with its magnificent sliding door paintings in gold leaf.

By lunchtime it was a relief to sit down in a cafe. I ordered the speciality of boiled tofu, which arrived in a bain-marie style dish. The waiter was highly amused that I didn’t understand about waiting for it to come to the boil and, instead, tried to eat it cold.

Better when cooked...

Better when cooked…

Never mind, I got the hang of it in the end and concluded my visit with another heated loo seat sojourn. This loo was even more sophisticated with options including washing, deodorising and noise muffling – the latter excellent for anyone who has ever suffered shy bladder syndrome. Could I import one back to Australia I wondered?

An all-singing, all-dancing Japanese loo

An all-singing, all-dancing Japanese loo

Then it was time to get a taxi back to the ryokan, grab my luggage and squeeze on to a rush-hour bus to the train station. I just managed to get my big case on board before the doors hissed shut. Never have I been so squashed (and I travelled regularly on the London Underground for nine years) or so very unpopular. Where otherwise I had found the Japanese unfailing polite, here the passengers frowned, stuck their elbows out, tsked and tut-tutted their annoyance. People work crazily long hours in Japan – so much so there’s even a word, karoshi, for working yourself to death. So I can imagine how infuriating it must have been when a foreign traveller with lots of luggage clogged up the aisle of the bus…

On arrival at the station, I practically fell out of the crowded bus but, this time at least, avoided ending up in an electronics store. Armed with snacks for the journey (the boiled tofu really didn’t quite hit the spot, I collapsed on the Shinkansen, destination Tokyo, just after 5pm.

Life Laundry and Armchair Travel No. 1

I’ve been doing a bit of life laundry on and off all year. It started with clearing out my study and cupboards full of bumph: newspaper articles; clippings; old diaries; travel memorabilia; birthday and other greetings cards; notes on this, that and the other – lots of scrawl in lots of notebooks – and I’ve now got to the photos.

Being an old-fashioned kind of girl, I still get my photos printed off and stick them in an album. I’m not sure who is ever going to look at them but I’ve enjoyed doing a bit of retrospective armchair travel. In April 2009, I detoured via Japan on my way back to Australia from the UK.

After an emotional goodbye to my family in England and a glorious drive to Manchester Airport over the Pennines complete with daffodils, green fields, rugged moorland and country pubs, I flew to Helsinki, where I rushed around on a brief 22-hour stopover before flying onto Osaka. On arrival in Osaka, I took the train to Kyoto where I arrived around eleven in the morning in a jet-lagged haze. Confused by the maze of escalators and exits, I found myself with all my luggage (why do I ALWAYS take so much?) in a beeping and flashing electronics store.

Zen garden at Ginjaku-Ji

Zen garden at Ginjaku-Ji

After a few more wrong turns, I finally managed to exit the station, find the right bus, haul my luggage on board and get off at the right stop for the ryokan (guest house). Ahh, a shower and lie down at last, I thought, relieved. But no. The woman smiled sweetly, got me a cup of green tea and a biscuit and told me that check-in was 3pm onwards. She smiled sweetly again – perhaps a bit too sweetly – indicating where I could leave my luggage. There was obviously no point arguing with her so I threw myself into sightseeing. I wandered along the Philosopher’s walk, a gorgeous blossom-lined meander along the canal with temples at both ends and shrines off to the sides. From Zen gardens of raked sand to mossy tree roots, confetti-like blossoms skirting across the water and, in one shrine, a single camellia flower floating on the surface of a water butt, it was the perfect antidote to jetlag.

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But by the time I collapsed in a local eaterie at 7pm with a glass of plum wine and a bowl of steaming ramen noodles, I was seriously tired and still wearing my flight clothes. But I was not too tired to chat to the owner. Well, actually, I had little option as I was the only person in there. He was a bit of a wit and on hearing I was a writer, produced a lighter. A nice bit of linguistic self piss-taking I thought. Then, teasingly, he urged me to show more enthusiasm for my meal telling me that in Japan it’s a sign of respect to slurp your soup. Hugely self-conscious (he might as well have asked me to undress), I struggled to make enough noise – it’s just so UN-English and not polite after all those years of being told to sit up straight and hold my knife and fork just so. But I did my best to schluuurp my appreciation.

Back at the ryokan, I slept quite well on my tatami mat and futon on the floor, but was so over-tired and time zone-challenged that I took a while to drop off and was fast asleep at 8am when Mrs Uemura rapped smartly on my door telling me, with thinly disguised irritation, that breakfast was served. I’d clearly transgressed a house rule. Another one. She’d already told me off the day before for wearing my outdoor shoes indoors and for wearing my indoor slippers to the loo instead of the specially provided toilet slippers. Thank Goodness she didn’t spot me mistakenly walking back to my room still wearing the toilet slippers. Too many footwear faux pas for words.

I am happy to say that the breakfast was absolutely delicious and worth dragging myself out of bed for. It started with miso soup with clams followed by rice, fish, pickled veg (delicious soft sweet aubergine) all washed down with Gen Mai Cha (toasted rice green tea). There was one other couple staying and they needed no back-up chorus from in slurping and sniffing.

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After breakfast, I snuck back up to my room thinking I might just lie down for half an hour but my bed had already been rolled up and cleared away. No peace for the wicked. I was about to whinge – like Shirley Valentine – to the walls when I heard monks in the street chanting prayer requests. There are insufficient words to describe the clarity and purity of their toning. I let the sound wash over me and set off for another day of sightseeing. Stay tuned for Life Laundry No. 2.

On Bruxism and Botox

Sometimes I fall into the trap of being too nice. It’s an old pattern driven by family and social conditioning and expectations: keep everything nice, be polite and don’t make a fuss. It’s a habit that says it’s better to keep the peace than to express emotions such as anger and frustration, for example. But it comes at a price; people who smile and bite back anger tend to be of the teeth-clenching variety. And I would know. I’ve chomped my way through a fair few dental splints in my time. Excessive grinding of the teeth goes by the fancy name of bruxism and affects up to 30% of the population. It is also sometimes referred to as TMJ disorder as in temporomandibular joint dysfunction.

TMJ - Tense Munching Jaw in my language

TMJ – Tense Munching Jaw in my language

Perhaps one way to avoid grinding your teeth into oblivion is to maintain good boundaries in your personal relationships. I reckon I’ve got better at recognising boundary breakers – you know, the type that take more than they give, that pour out all their problems, talk AT you rather than to you and see you as their new best friend on first acquaintance.

A recent situation put my boundary skills to the test. I was walking my dog Bertie in a small local park. A young boy was playing with his football and Bertie joined in – or rather took over and stole the ball. He’s no fool, my boy. Keen not to miss a classic Kodak moment, I got my camera out. “You should video it,” said a loud-voiced, larger-than-life woman rounding the corner with her two fluffy white dogs. I confessed I had no storage space left on my phone and was therefore using my camera. She professed to know the type of camera and assured me it had a video function. She grabbed it and started fiddling around with the settings. Seeing some numbers come up on the screen and some kind of symbol, I started filming. But a few minutes later, when I went to admire my handiwork there was nothing there. So she grabbed the camera again and this time – God knows how – as the camera beeps if you are about to erase all the pictures – managed to delete every picture on the memory card. OUCH! Three weeks of precious, irreplaceable puppy pictures gone in a flash.

The woman – the closest thing to a bull in a china shop – said I’d be able to retrieve them from the camera’s delete bin. Well, hello, cameras don’t function like computers. There is no second chance. Gutted, cross, disappointed and jaw seriously in clench mode by now, I put Bertie on the leash and we stormed off, me muttering: “Sorry, I’ve had it. I’ve got to go.” “I said sorry,” said the woman. “I know,” I replied, “and I am expressing my deep disappointment at losing some treasured photos. I’ll probably get over it tomorrow but right now…”

I didn’t bump into her again for a few weeks. Phew! And when I did, I decided to let bygones be bygones and uttered a cheery hello. Weirdly, she seemed to have no recollection of me or my dog, let alone the camera fiasco. But she did announce in her strange, over-familiar way that she’d bought a new belt at the market that day and couldn’t undo it. Could I help? Now, I should tell you that she is about three times my size and I didn’t fancy tussling with her fleshy waist. And just to complicate matters, Bertie decided to hump her dog at this point. So here I was confronted with my angel turned into a hip-thrusting Romeo while the woman, clearly a few-sandwiches-short-of-a-picnic, remained imprisoned in her jeans. What choice did I really have but to offer to liberate her? Summoning my inner Good Samaritan, I pulled and pulled… and pulled – her belt truly was stuck; this was no ploy to entice me to touch her – until, ping, the pin finally released. She was now free but I could feel myself gritting my teeth with the effort of it all, not to mention the weirdness.

I’ve since read an article about beating bruxism by having Botox injections into the masseter (chewing) muscles around the jaw. You’d think it might do the opposite and freeze the jaw into a permanent grimace, but apparently not as it relaxes and softens the muscles. I haven’t investigated it yet but I’m tempted. At least if I bump into the woman and her pooches, I can smile with a nice, loose jaw and then get the hell out…

Life’s too short…

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In 1975 Shirley Conran famously said, “Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.” The quote was of course about the expectations on women to be superwomen and ‘have it all’. Today, in a purely culinary context, I decided to coin a new phrase: Life is too short to make an egg white omelette. Have you ever made or eaten one? Perhaps, like tofu, egg white omelettes are simply a vehicle for carrying other flavours. But why bother dressing up a pale imitation, when you can have the real thing? It’s a bit like vegetarian sausages or soy cheese; a contradiction in terms. You really can’t have it both ways.

The only reason I cooked up an anaemic, tasteless, fluffy white concoction was because I had four egg whites left over from making a super rich pistachio ice cream at the weekend that called for egg yolks, cream, sugar, pistachios and rose water. It was rather good, if a little too sweet, and combined the floral flavours of Turkish delight with a subtle nuttiness. Never mind that my nephew thought it was brown bread ice cream!

But back to mushrooms and stuffing them. I disagree with Shirley. I used to do a stuffed mushroom dish with diced bacon, tomato, parsley, wine, breadcrumbs and cheese. It was easy an easy dish to throw together and tasted delicious. The only problem is that I lost the recipe years ago. Anyone got anything similar in their repertoire?

On Writer’s Block

So much has been written about writer’s block – that gridlocked state of affairs when hand, pen (or keyboard) and the creative brain fail to connect.

It seems to me that the way out of the jam is to create time and space to release the block – it’s literally like unblocking a dam, and the less you’re in your thinking head, the more the imagination flows. Recently, I’d been nose-to-screen and madly writing to deadlines and word counts for too many days in a row. I was so clogged up with ‘work’ writing that when I began to write my blog about Boris Johnson at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, it was like wading in thick treacle. So I surrendered, lay down and listened to a 20-minute Yoga Nidra (a deep relaxation practice) tape and Bob – or should I say Boris – was my uncle. Just twenty minutes away from the screen and out of my busybody head did the trick.

Other blocks to writing can manifest as a lack of self-belief, a fear of failure of getting it wrong or of being judged. About ten years ago I read the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It’s a 12-week course that helps struggling artists to overcome the barriers standing in the way of their creativity. Some may find it a bit self-helpy but I thoroughly recommend it.

Going back to pen and paper...

Going back to pen and paper…

But perhaps it’s the keyboard and the computer and all the stiffness and eye strain that go with screen work that are the real culprits behind writer’s block. Welsh-based Jay Griffiths, author of Wild, spoke eloquently at the Writers’ Festival about writing longhand in pencil and working the words like clay, moulding them, reshaping them, smudging them across the page. The very simplicity of pencil and paper really appeals to me; it’s a much more fluid and visceral approach to writing and you don’t need to plug anything in.

I also keep a quote above my desk by Henry David Thoreau: “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” It’s a reminder that you can’t expect to just sit at the computer and conjure up a best-selling novel. You need to get out there and grasp life with both hands. And always take a pencil and notebook with you!

Boris’s Blockbuster

Many of my blog posts seem to end up being about my puppy dog Bertie – not by design, more by default. It’s amazing how a curly-eared, doe-eyed, mischief-making, feather-legged, smooth-as-silk-coated, chocolate brown cocker spaniel cross can take up so much of my time, not to mention affection.

But today I’m writing about something different. Last week (yes, I’ve been inundated with work and a bit slow to post) I went to hear Mayor of London Boris Johnson present the Keynote Speech at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. Actually, thinking about it, Boris, whose full name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (the Pfeffel bit sounds like a German cookie to me) is rather spaniel-like with his floppy hair and cuddly appearance. Oh dear, I can’t go more than a few sentences without mentioning dogs…

Anyway, back to BJ. Spending an hour listening to him talk was one of the best things I’ve done all year. Boris is a dazzling speaker – witty, engaging, erudite, encyclopaedic in his knowledge and self-deprecating in the way only the English can be; he referred, for example, to a small sporting event that took place in London last year and seemed to go quite well!

Our man in London, Boris

Our man in London, Boris

He was given the theme ‘the power of the written word’ but he also spoke in praise of urbanisation reminding us that 89 per cent of the Australian population live in urban areas, a density which rivals that of Monaco. He wove in all sorts of literary and cultural references from Virgil to Chaucer, Star Wars and Harry Potter never missing a beat or an opportunity to refer to his beloved London, Routemaster buses and the Oyster card (with a little side swipe at our Myki system). And, of course, he mentioned his book Johnson’s Life of London here and there. This was a writers’ festival after all.

He’s clearly fond of Australia and Melbourne – like Prince Charles, he spent some time at Timber Tops – and talked about London as Melbourne’s Antipodean mirror. With so many Aussies in London (are they still all in Earl’s Court?), he declared himself Mayor of Australia’s 12th largest city! It was heartening to hear a politician – and a Conservative at that – talk so passionately about cultural and linguistic diversity. London wouldn’t be London without its rich blend of migrants from different countries and cultures with over 300 different languages spoken. What a pleasant contrast to the inhumane refugee and asylum-seeker policies cooked up by our ‘turn back the boats’ politicians on both sides of the divide.

He wrapped up his talk by coming back to words and writing. Asked what he will do when he retires, Boris owned up to a secret desire to write a rip-roaring blockbuster, the kind of book that you’d find at an airport bookshop complete with pink embossed writing on the cover. He’d write under a pseudonym, something like Rosie M Banks. If his thriller is anything like his speeches, it will be utterly compelling.

A Canine Cocktail Party

You could argue that I need to get out more but I’m really going to miss puppy pre-school at my local vet’s. As good as therapy, it’s hugely reassuring being able to share the highs and lows of puppy pranks, playtime and puddle-making with other parents and to seek tips from veterinary specialists. But more than that, it’s been highly amusing observing how the pups interact socially. In an upstairs room at the practice, the pre-school sessions resemble a canine cocktail party complete with canapés – no spring rolls, salmon blinis or arancini balls here, just plenty of chicken, tasty biscuits and dried kangaroo strips. OK, so the dogs sniff each other out rather than talk about what they do for a living but they do have characteristics in common with us humans.

Canapes, anyone?

Canapes, anyone?

There’s Goodie-Two Shoes Toffee,for example, a petite, caramel-coloured Cavoodle who, at just ten weeks, had mastered an impressive number of commands – sit, stay, drop etc – and was flirting with the boys. In the human world, I reckon she would be a ladder-climbing PR strategist, work out a lot, wear expensive fashion labels and have her teeth whitened. Feisty, determined and able to ‘work the room,’ she might turn out to be a Devil wears Prada Primadonna. Then there’s Bella, a bouncy, full-of-beans Groodle. Blessed with curly black hair and a big heart, she’d be a fabulous hostess; plump, big-boobed, a bon viveur, great cook and the life and soul of any party. She’d probably ‘over-egg’ the pudding and drink one too many glasses of red wine here and there, but everyone would love her.

Rambo (to my English ear, I first thought his name was Rainbow), is a cute black-coated miniature schnauzer and a bit wary of other dogs. He protects himself by barking to keep them away. In real life he might be an IT type dressed in black jeans and a black polo top with a computer bag slung across his body. A bit afraid of intimacy he hides behind his beard and keeps himself to himself. Actually, it’s his beard that’s the problem and is keeping the opposite sex at bay. It’s unkempt and straggly and he gets food and drink caught in it, making it a total passion-killer. A lovable loner, you have to persevere if you want to get to know him.

Like any working dog worth his salt, Bertie, my spaniel, has a highly developed sense of smell and cases the joint for every scrap. He’s a born hunter and opportunist and his human equivalent would always be on the lookout for new opportunities and markets. A charming entrepreneur with a twinkle in his eye, Bertie is the sort that can get away with anything. But, whoops, perhaps not! What’s that on the floor? Amid all my anthropomorphising, Bertie’s canine alter ego drops a brown deposit on the floor. As if to remind me that he’s a dog, fair and square. All right, Bertie. Point taken. But the question still remains. What WILL I do on a Tuesday night now you’ve graduated from puppy pre-school?

This mortar board is all very well but where's my next treat?

This mortar board is all very well but where’s my next treat?

P.S. on the Global Cardboard Challenge

Further to my last post – Keeping Creativity Alive – it seems that my puppy, Bertie, has decided to join in the Global Cardboard Challenge. His contribution is a cardboard box bed, which he has deftly chewed into shape!

Hmm - this is a snug place to snooze in!

Hmm – this is a snug place to snooze in!

Keeping Creativity Alive

Earlier this week I was forced to watch daytime TV. What else can you do when you’re lying captive in the dentist’s chair with nothing but the overhead screen to distract you from the all the grinding and drilling going on in your mouth? I only go to the dentist about every six months but the morning shows on the commercial channels never seem to change much, whether it’s the airbrushed, super enthusiastic, white-teethed, blow-waved presenters, the endless offers for age-defying creams or the features on new-fangled miracle diets and time-saving household gadgets. But, on this occasion an interesting story caught my attention.

It all started with a 9-year-old boy called Caine Monroy who built an elaborate games arcade out of cardboard boxes in front of his father’s spare auto parts store in Boyle Heights in Los Angeles. It so  happened that a film-maker stopped by to purchase a door handle for his car and was inspired to make a film, which was posted online and received over  one million views on the first day. What’s more, it spawned what has now become the Global Cardboard Challenge, an annual competition that invites children around the world to let their imagination run riot and create with cardboard.  To give you an idea, here’s a clip featuring Australia’s 2012 contribution.

I just love this! In our busy, achievement-driven lives creativity often gets squeezed out and neglected. Although technology can be a fabulous learning tool and create community connections worldwide, I feel lucky to have grown up in a pre-digital world where imagination and make-believe, rather than screens and keyboards, were constant companions. I used to make perfume with rose petals, cook up inedible and fantastic concoctions in the kitchen, dress up and put on plays, scribble in notebooks, splash paint on the page and generally muck about in the garden.

It’s the simplicity and accessibility of Caine’s Arcade project that is so appealing: it’s three-dimensional and operates in the real world, it’s open to anyone who can rustle up some old cardboard (yes, it ticks the sustainability and recycling boxes too), is endlessly variable and taps into right brain thinking and inventiveness. Thousands of people have since travelled to Caine’s Arcade, schools have embraced an educational version of the project, and kids around the globe are crafting cardboard constructions of all shapes and sizes. Inspired by this response and with a grant from the Goldhirsh Foundation, the Imagination Foundation was set up to encourage and fund creativity in children.

I’ve often thought what I’d do if I won the lottery – wouldn’t that be a nice problem to have? – and one of my dreams has always been to set up a foundation that would offer financial support to struggling creative types – writers, actors, thinkers, musicians, film-makers etc – who get stifled and bogged in routine, bill-paying 9-5 jobs that crush their creative spark.

Creativity is our birthright and, like any other part of us, needs a regular work-out and room to breathe.  It requires a sense of openness and a willingness to receive ideas and let them simmer until they are ready to be birthed.   When we’re in doing mode and under pressure to meet deadlines or get a job done, it can block the flow of ideas and inspiration. I don’t know about you but my most creative moments come when I get out of my head and into my body. I might be in the shower, walking by the beach, doing my stretches, sitting in a cafe, driving along in the car, picking up a snatch of song or chat on the radio or dropping off to sleep. Inspiration creeps up on me when I least expect it.  Ideas – like good stories on daytime TV – pop out of the ether when you’re not looking for them.

The Simple Life

Every now and then – THANK GOD – I manage to step out of chop, chop, busy, busy, work, work, bang, bang mode (see my post of 18th July) and tap into a slower, more mindful rhythm. It may still be characterised by doing, but it’s less compulsive and comes from a more nurturing and softer space.

Once recent rainy Sunday, I devoted myself to domesticity without trying to do emails, admin and work all at the same time.   And I loved every minute of it even though I’m not a Yummy Mummy making her own cleaning materials from baking soda, lemon juice and vinegar, icing cup cakes and sporting a floral vintage apron. Not that I am having a dig at YMs; I could have gone that way but life took me in a different direction.

I wore my own version of a vintage apron, an oilcloth gem from the ‘80s, a freebie from my father’s employer, the then brewing company Whitbread. In black, red and gold and shaped like a trophy glass, it has lasted all this time and crossed the seas with me from the UK. Suitably attired for the kitchen, I tuned into a radio play on the BBC’s Women’s Hour (incidentally the BBC has some wonderful radio plays and dramatisations) via my tablet, made veggie soup (courgette, spinach and coconut) and date and coconut balls.

Vintage apron and date balls

Then after de-fluffing the floor under my bed and changing my sheets, I had a long, slow cup of tea and savoured one of the aforementioned date balls. They are very simple to make and use only three ingredients – pitted dates, ghee and desiccated coconut – all superfoods according to  Ayurveda, the ancient medicine of India and sister science to yoga.  (See recipe at the end of this post).

Towards the late afternoon the rain stopped and I ventured out with puppy dog for a quick trot around the block. And oh, what joy!  Making a last minute appearance, the sun burst through the clouds and brushed roof and tree tops in dazzling reddish light shot through with gold.

Later on, sitting down in front of the fire and watching my favourite Sunday night drama (did anyone else love Channel 7’s A Place to Call Home?) over dinner of sausages, roast pumpkin, tomatoes and fennel,   it felt like life couldn’t get much better – or sweeter.

Date and Coconut Balls (this recipe comes from the Mudita Institute in Queensland – ( http://www.muditainstitute.com/Home.html)

1 Cup of fresh dates (medjool), seeds removed, or 1 cup of dried dates blanched in just enough water to cover for 20 seconds then drained to give the same consistency as fresh dates.

1 cup of desiccated coconut (organic if possible)

1 level tbsp of melted organic ghee

Pan toasted desiccated coconut to cover the balls once made

Finely dice the dates and mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and work into a ball. Roll a ball to test consistency and adjust with a bit more ghee or coconut as required. They should be firm enough to hold their shape. Shape into walnut-size balls and then roll in toasted coconut to cover. Refrigerate in an air-tight container but best eaten at room temperature.