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.

Fancy a Pigeon’s chances

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I was listening to the BBC World Service on Saturday afternoon and heard the tale of Paul the pigeon. Now Paul, identified by his ID ring as from the North East of England, had flown way off course on his cross-Channel race to France and was 483km out into the Atlantic. Presumably exhausted, he had the good fortune to land on the deck of British frigate HMS Somerset. That in itself was a stroke of luck but it gets better. On board was Leading Seaman William Hughes, an ex-pigeon fancier, who caught the peripatetic pigeon, constructed a temporary coop and fed him energy-giving breakfast cereal.  When Hughes checked ‘Paul’ over he found out that he was in fact a she. But why let a gender mix-up ruin a heart-warming tale?

On a deeper level this story is a reminder that sometimes when we lose our way, help is at hand and things are happening for good reason; we just can’t see it at the time. One of the quotes on a post-it note above my desk reads: “Don’t be in the know, be in the mystery.” Whether we’ve taken a leap of faith or somehow become de-railed, things often work out for the best – if we don’t interfere and, instead, let our lives unravel and reveal their own logic.

In January when I returned to Australia from a Christmas visit to family in Britain, I came down with flu almost the minute I stepped off the plane. With the sorest of sore throats, racking cough, sweating, vomiting and aching all over, it all felt too much to bear on top of the homesickness I always feel after visiting my native country. Lonely, weak, weary and unable to distract myself with television, reading or radio – everything hurt – I descended into a poor-me black hole. Big OUCH and Big Tears.

But being grounded and forced to STOP proved to be the biggest gift. Once I started to feel stronger, the survivor in me kicked in and I turned myself around into a more positive frame of mind. I sat in bed with a notebook and wrote out how I would like my life to look. To cut a long story short, I decided to leave an unfulfilling job and return to freelancing, to carry out some renovations to my house so I could more easily rent out a room, to get a dog and to put less effort into making things happen and experiment more with letting life come to me.

Thanks to the flu, I’m now free of a job that left me drained and despondent, I’ve reconnected with my writing, reached final design stage with my renovation plans and, best of all, Bertie dog is sitting under my desk as I write this. According to the article, Paul/Pauline has retired from racing. Sometimes, illness, accidents or other perceived dramas are just what we need to take us to the next stage of our journey.

 

Reaching fever pitch about sales pitches

I recently signed up to a free online dog training course. More fool me. There was nothing free about it. It started harmlessly enough with a couple of emails with some treat-size tips on how to stop a dog jumping up, but as the days progressed the tips and tutoring, supposedly dangled as carrots under my nose, were lost among paragraphs of waffle, sales pitch hype and endless calls to action: Exclusive offer! Sign up as a member today and receive a 60% discount! But hurry, offer limited! And, if I signed on the dotted line, I would receive three books normally valued at $100, a 30-day money back guarantee and MUCH MORE! Plus, they claimed to have some sort of copyright on the secrets to dog training; I wouldn’t find them anywhere else, not on this planet, in Outer Mongolia or in Outer Space. But I did need to sign up first. Well, forgive the pun, but I didn’t jump at it.

Affiliate marketing schemes use the same technique and lure you into reading screen after screen of repetitious copy full of impossible promises, testimonials and videos.  I once watched a clip of two dudes in expensive shades sitting by a swimming pool explaining how they had gone from rags to riches.  For ten minutes they kept telling us that they would soon tell us how they did it. There was even a stopwatch on the screen counting down to their Big Bang revelation which, of course, never came. Because you had to sign up first.  It’s like waiting for the next episode of a television drama – you know the ones that end with a tantalising scene such as a dead body or a lovers’ tiff – so you have to tune in the following week.

I’m an even grumpier old woman when it comes to telemarketing calls.  I don’t mind if they’re honest but it’s the “I’m not trying to sell you anything” that gets me. YES they are.  When one of the charities I support called me a few weeks ago, I patiently explained I was not in a position to increase my monthly contribution (I work in the sector and know they were calling to ‘upgrade’ me). They insisted it was nothing to do with money, thanked me profusely for my ongoing support and then told me about a new programme desperately in need of funds. If I could just increase my contribution by $5 a month…

However, I was nice – very nice – to the young Indian guy who came round with the (free) government-issued Smart Power Boards – the ones that turn your TV off automatically rather than leave it on stand-by. It’s a tough job knocking on doors and making sales so I was pleasant, chatty and even offered him a cup of tea. I asked him to plug my DVD into the normal socket so it would not switch off while in record mode.  Later that week, when I sat down to watch an episode of Downton Abbey (and I LOVE DOWNTON ABBEY) the screen was blank as the guy had plugged the DVD into the wrong socket. Arghhhhhhh!!  Once again, I was left hanging in suspense.

 

Chop, Chop, Busy, Busy, Work, Work, Bang, Bang…

Whenever I get into a spin with too many things to juggle, a catch phrase from a 1970s UK ad for Penguin biscuits (dead ringers for Aussie Tim Tams) springs to mind: “Chop, chop, busy, busy, work, work, bang, bang.” The ad featured penguins dashing around in offices and factories until they ran out of steam – the bang, bang bit – and sat down to boost their energy with an eponymous biscuit. An ad using live penguins and the same refrain was also used by British Telecom in the ‘80s.

Life in our fast-paced, globally connected world has a lot of busy, busy, work, work in it. And with social media zinging across the airwaves 24/7, it can be hard to switch off or to draw a clear boundary between work and home life. So it makes me smile that some high-flying business bods are paying vast amounts of money to stay in retreat centres around the world where they can unplug from all forms of technology and treat themselves to a Digital Detox.

What happened to self-control, simply not checking in and chilling out instead? Sometimes I do manage to switch off from the various forms of social media for a weekend, but I have to admit it’s not easy. Thanks to my lovely niece, Anna, I now have a Google Nexus – an excellent piece of equipment – but it does make a pinging sound when emails come in or other platforms and Apps update. So even if I’m exhausted and need to sit and do nothing, I respond in true Pavlovian style and jump to attention when I hear the ping.

Yeah So

Now talking of Pavlov brings me back to dogs! Regular readers will know that I have a 13-week-old puppy, Bertie. Well, let me share a house training story with you. Since going to puppy pre-school at the vet’s earlier this week, I’ve learnt some new tips. Forget lining the floor with newspaper; that just encourages him to see the place as his personal potty. And I’ve stopped mopping the floor with scented or ammonia-based detergents that smell yummy to Berts and encourage him to re-mark the spot. But the biggest change is that I’m now taking him out in the small hours to avoid a flooded floor in the morning. As it happens I tend to wake in the night anyway, so nocturnal trips to the garden are not as disruptive as they sound.

However, last night at 3 a.m. as Bertie mucked about – is this playtime Mum? – in the flower bed, I found myself saying – “Come on Bertie! Chop, chop, busy, busy…”

Waxing Lyrical about Mindfulness

I’m a big fan of mindfulness and so was interested to read a review of Sane New World by Ruby Wax. Wax took a master’s in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy at Oxford and looks at what happens when neuroscience meets mindfulness. And how we can re-wire our brains and be masters of our minds with more flexible ways of thinking. And she would know.  Wax is a depressive and in between filming a show about people with mental illness (ironic in itself), was recovering in London’s clinic The Priory.

I agree with Wax that human beings are not equipped to deal with the mad, multi-tasking (studies show it can actually shrink parts of the brain), instantly responding demands of 21st century living with its skewed update on Descartes:” I’m busy therefore I am.” That says it all. I reckon we’re suffering an epidemic of busyness.  And it’s doubly disastrous for those of us who are busy types by nature with to-do lists running in our veins.  I’m the kind of person that can feel fraught EVEN on holiday, what with all the things to see, visit, do, eat and photograph – I call it guidebookitis.

Most days, one part of me rushes around striving to get everything done so I can relax afterwards (needless to say I never get there as there’s always something pending in life’s inbox…), while the other part of me LONGS to slow down, focus on one thing at a time and live more mindfully.

Having a new puppy has sent me into my manic, scattered pattern (think burnt rice, half-drunk cups of tea, half-written emails, scrappy lists, lost keys, glasses, phone etc.,) not that it’s dear Bertie’s fault. He’s very good at living in the moment especially when it’s dinner time or when I’m stroking his tummy.

Two weeks ago, feeling a bit frazzled by the constant poo, pee and chewed shoe patrol, I booked myself in for a therapeutic massage. Time to unravel, breathe and stop worrying.  Well in theory anyway. But as I lay on the massage table and felt the knots begin to ease up, my mind was still motoring. So much so that as I walked to my car afterwards, I was already mentally trawling the supermarket shelves and back home feeding Bertie his lunch.  In rushing to get ahead, I got stuck in my head, my body got left behind and I fell with a bang on the pavement injuring my knee and right arm.  Rushing around and living head first never works.  Time to get back to some mindfulness practice, re-set my focus to calm mode and remember to BREATHE!

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To Growl or not to Growl

I am a new mother! After many years of deliberating, I finally took the plunge and got a canine child, a beautiful and hugely lovable chocolate brown cocker spaniel  field spaniel cross. Bertie arrived just over a month ago and in the best possible way has turned my house, life and wardrobe upside down.

Because Bertie is spirited, cheeky and headstrong. And, like all dogs, he needs to know who is boss. But how you go about establishing boundaries and asserting yourself is open to debate.  One of the first challenges was to stop him from hurling himself at the sofa every evening, nipping me with his piranha-like milk teeth and ripping the fabric with his sharp little claws. When he knows what’s what, I’ll invite him up to sit beside me on his blanket, but for now, he needs to know that NO means NO.

One doggie expert told me to read What’s Your Dog Telling You? by Martin McKenna. McKenna recommends that you fold your arms, raise your chin, glare down at your pup from the side of your eyes and give a deep, impressive growl. And to be as scary as possible! The thinking behind this is that the mother dog wouldn’t pack her dog into the car and take him to obedience classes; she would give instant feedback. I duly tried this but my growl was deeply unimpressive and totally unconvincing. What’s more my niece videoed me looking totally goofy (I was in my fluffy dressing gown) and we both ended up laughing hysterically.  Other puppy owners told me to squeal (again this requires channelling your inner canine) if he bit me – even in play – and that that would deter him. It didn’t. He just came back for more.

Then I contacted a dog trainer and she suggested pushing him down firmly and matching the intensity of my pushes to the intensity of his jumps. Bertie thought this was a tremendous game and it got rougher and rougher until I was wearing thick woollen gloves to protect my hands against his nips. What’s more I didn’t enjoy pushing him down so roughly.

Next, we went to visit the vet to get Bertie vaccinated. She told me to encourage the behaviour I wanted to see with lots of edible treats (she must have given him about 10 in as many minutes) and to simply ignore the bad behaviour. Easier said than done – I couldn’t ignore those teeth and insistent barks when I tried to turn away. So what did I do? Well, finally I relied on my intuition and summoned up my  firmest and lowest-voiced (shame I’m more of a soprano) NO and then gently – ever so gently – placed him down in a sit position and either gave him an edible reward or a bit of tlc (which is really what they want). I’m happy to say that I can now watch the television or read a book without having to growl, push, squeal or reach for the band aid. It’s really confusing being a new Mum, but we’re getting there, Mr Berts and I.

Me? Naughty? No!

Me? Naughty? No!