Naked Piano Course

Just love doing different things.  I have many hobbies that I pursue, much to the sorrow, I'm sure, of my long suffering and patient husband.  Most of my hobbies are gadget intensive which is really appealing to an engineer (my husband) but can get up there in the price range.  Some of the things I do are:  scuba diving (he enjoys this with me), stained glass and fusing glass and occasionally glass blowing, (lots of glass and he enjoys this as well), mosaics (we are both just starting in this hobby so still have to get lots of tools and such - yea), jewellery making, reading, and travel.  All my life I have wanted to learn the piano as well.  AND we have a piano in storage back in the states so it's not like I have to go get one.  Thus, several years ago, my family gave me a keyboard to pursue this.   While it is a long-time dream, it is still quite difficult to fit it into my schedule and practice and learn because I am an absolute beginner.   I tried taking lessons from a piano teacher and she loved me because I would actually go home and practice  - not like many of her young school students.  BUT because of travelling and school holidays (when she would not work), I wasn't getting too far too fast.

So I am doing the self taught courses of which I have numerous books and two on line courses I am following.  Still very hard to find the time.  BUT I have found that after I do my exercises in the morning, (some pilates mat, walking on the treadmill, and my knee strengthening exercises), I seem to be in the very mood necessary to sit down and practice my keyboard.  My piano teacher told me once that if I wasn't in the mood, don't even waste the time.   The odd bit is the desire to practice hits me the minute I come out of the shower and walk into my bedroom, naked as can be, and right there is the keyboard.  If I stop to get dressed - which includes doing all the creams and lotions and such as I'm older now and the body needs the special treatment, the mood is gone.  So, it's sit down to the keyboard, naked as a new baby, and practice!  Luckily, usually, everyone is gone to work or at the gym or elsewhere engaged so I don't have to worry about anyone catching me except the cats and they don't care.  Wonder if I could start a trend?

Missing Spring

          This could be taken two ways:  I miss Spring, the season, in that it really isn't here yet, or, I probably won't be around my home this year when Spring comes and thus will miss the start of the season.  I am meaning the second part here.  In the three plus years we have lived in this house, I have been diligently planting spring flowers.  The first year, in my misunderstanding of the British countryside and wildlife, I planted around 100 tulips, all of which made the local deer quite happy and me quite miserable because I ended up with 3 stalks and 2 tulip flowers at the end of it all.  While I was exclaiming proudly to my new neighbor, who had great experience in this matter, she informed me that the tulips would not see the light of day as the deer would eat them all.  Yep.  At least I had also planted daffodils and some lilies and those all grew and were lovely.

          So each year, I planted more and more daffodils and added crocus, more lilies, and anything else that looked like it might be unappetizing to deer (getting the lowdown from my neighbor).  I say, "I planted" as if I did the actual work but the house came with a gardener and I would get the bulbs and he would plant them where i said, "they would look good there, don't you think?".  Of course, he always agreed with me.  And more and more bulbs went into the ground.  

          As the house garden came already planted with some lovely rhododendrons, various grasses, some of which flower, some camellias, some fuchsia, some azaleas and a couple of lone rose bushes, my garden was looking more and more lovely each spring.  Plus there are plenty of different varieties of green bushes around and some red bushes, black bushes and other stuff that my gardener knows but I still have no clue.   Now I have to ask my gardener "Is there room" and I have not purchased any new bulbs for this year other than some tulips (yes 20 tulips - all in netted pots so no deer can eat them).

          So Spring comes, starts early, green shoots start coming through the ground, all over the garden, sometimes a bit early and then get covered with snow again, but they keep coming.  As we walked around the garden this weekend, I realized that almost all my daffodils have pushed through the ground.  The crocus are about to burst into bloom.  The rhododendrons  and camillas  and several other bushes have plenty of buds, and the roses are retaliating as well.   My garden is so dang beautiful when all these flowers bloom.  

          And then it hit me.  We are going on holiday soon - a slightly longer than usual holiday - actually leaving my daughter at home for once, instead of the other way around when she jaunts off to work in Africa and leaves us behind.  AND there is a very good chance that I will miss the blooming of the garden in a big way!   I am sure that everything will not bloom and die during the time we are gone but I am also fairly sure that most of the daffodils and crocuses will be up and well on their way to being gone by the time we return.   How sad for me!!!  

          Spring is such a joyous time here because it comes after such nasty winters, whether there was a lot of snow and rain or just cold weather.  Everyone here loves Spring.  You can hardly get into one of the local DYI stores or gardening stores because everyone is there getting ready for Spring.  When we lived in Houston, wasn't such a big deal.  There were flowers blooming all year-long so nobody was overly excited for Spring.  But HERE, it's a lovely occasion to celebrate the season, watch the glorious colors and plants come to life in your garden, shake off the winter doldrums, and start being outside a lot more.   I have fallen into this category of being delighted when spring arrives but this year I will be in the tropics, in a rainforest, and not staring at my garden, just delirious with joy at all my daffodils and crocuses and tulips and rhododendruns and such.  Not the best of planning on my part.   Well, luckily, we will probably be here for next year's spring as well.  I think I'd better go get some more bulbs.

Eulogy to my friend - CS

                     Most of my friends are ex-pats.  Several reasons:  (1) shared experiences (and all ex-pats know this feeling that when you start to explain anything to a non-ex-pat, their eyes glaze over because they can't comprehend the lifestyle) (2) I don't make friends easily because I'm fairly shy but being an ex-pat in a small community situation (like when we lived in row houses in Okpo, Korea) means you have to get to know the people in the same community and (3) I find it much easier to keep in touch with people via email, facebook, letters, holiday cards, etc.    I consider some of my ex-pat friends to be my best friends because of the experiences we have shared and the hardships/fun/trials and tribulations on moving, living in a country that doesn't speak English, trying to find "proper" food, etc.   And often I don't see these friends for years at a time because our husbands move onto different projects and our paths don't cross.  But I miss them and keep in touch, sometimes sporadically, but if our husbands come back together on a project, we pick up our friendships exactly where we left it.  CS was such a person, a wonderful friend but we haven't seen each other in years as our husbands have been on different projects.

                     Last week I saw on facebook that my friend was having a birthday so I sent a birthday greeting.  I got a message back from her husband that she was in the hospital and dying of breast cancer.  OMG.  I had no clue.  She is someone I consider one of my best ex-pat friends.  This was sad news indeed.  Then yesterday I got on the computer to see another message from "her".  Her husband wrote that she had died the previous night and the funeral was Friday.  I had to cry and I am still tearing up that my friend had kept her illness pretty much a secret from a lot of us ex-pat friends and that I never had a chance to say goodbye and tell her how much I valued her friendship and enjoyed her company.

                    My friend was delightful.  She had a wickedly droll sense of humor.  Often on a comment of hers I would pause and think "she did NOT just say that" before dissolving into laughter over the comedy of it and the situation of it.  We shared an unusual life in Korea in a small town for awhile and then her husband moved on to a rotational existence and she settled down in the Pacific Northwest.  Part of our time together was in Houston also.  They had a weird dog and let me walk it on occasion which was difficult because everyone wanted to come see what kind of dog it was but the dog was adamant about getting into fights with any other male dog.  So I'd cross the street continually to avoid other dogs.  What I didn't realize even then was my friend was probably struggling with cancer and it was probably a relief to have someone take care of the dog.  But that's conjecture on my part.  It was nice for me because I didn't want a full time dog responsibility but walking their dog was good.

                   She had wonderful stories as well.  Her heritage was Japanese and some of her stories of her grandmother trying to survive the war were bitter sweet comedies of errors and bad luck at the beginning and good luck at the end.  Her other stories were equally cool as she could deliver a story dead serious only to have you falling down in laughter later.   She was very patient as an ex-pat wife has to be when her husband is only home every other month to fix things around the house and yet she was also good at getting it done herself when needed.  

                    I should have realized that her Facebook comments were getting scattered and few and far between but time passes rather quickly for me and I just hadn't a clue.  Her husband told me that she had been diagnosed 18 years ago with breast cancer so the entire time I knew her, she never said a word.  I wish she had let me help her, in any way I could have.  But she was always fun to be with and upbeat and the only time I heard her complain was when she was tired of having a part time husband, which we all complain about when our husbands are on rotation.  She never complained about her health although I think that briefly she might have mentioned it in passing when she was better.  So briefly that I'm not sure if she did or not.   So I salute my friend and her steadfastness and determination to beat this thing and am very, very sorry that she has finally lost the battle.  Since I cannot make the funeral, I will honor her in my own way by posting this for our mutual friends to see, they will know who CS is.  And I will make a donation to some good breast cancer fund in her name.  And I will even wear pink ribbons when the time is right for breast cancer campaigns.  Good luck and keep well to her husband and daughter and her family members left behind.  Goodbye CS.  Bless you and keep you.  I love you and miss you.

$1000 Weekends

$1000 Weekends

            We love being ex-pats.  We have tried to take advantage of the culture and the location and the vicinity of surrounding countries/opportunities whenever possible in all the places we have lived overseas.  When we started living overseas many years ago, there wasn’t a lot of money or time in the budget to do much but we still managed to visit some incredible places and see some fantastic sights in each place we have lived, albeit on a minimal budget most of the time which meant cheap hotels, long uncomfortable bus rides, you know the drill.

            Nothing is different about that philosophy now except the location has changed, there is a more money in the budget, and we have a bit more time too as my husband has off work every other Friday.  That gives me two 3 day weekends each month to try and come up with something exciting, either here in England or “on the continent”.  So far we have managed to go south towards the coast for a weekend, to Cardiff, Wales for a weekend, and will soon have a nice weekend in Cornwall.  We have also hit Belgium for a weekend and I have just managed to set up a weekend in Sardinia.  Also on tap are a lot of the “English Must Do’s” such as Ascot, Windsor, Diamond Jubilee celebrations, and Royal Chelsea Flower Show.  And I’m just getting started!

            Needless to say, these weekends are no longer budget cheap, especially if it is a weekend where we have to fly somewhere and rent a car, stay in a hotel, pay for food, yada, yada, for two people do cost more than one even when I am getting every discount I can find, every Groupon coupon, every mileage usage and points usage due me.  So it’s about a $1000 for a good weekend away.  That probably includes all of the above plus gas and entertainment, entrance fees, diving fees (sometimes we dive), transportation, whatever.  The end point you ask?  It’s a hell of a lot of fun, we are enjoying the heck out of ourselves, we are seeing a ton of wonderful things, and we aren’t broke yet 

The Move and the Beginning

We have been ex-pats off and on for the last 17, almost 18 years.  I love the life but I hate the intervals in between when we are stuck, usually in Houston, for some unknown period of time.  While many people love Houston, I am not one of them and if necessary to spend a long period of time there (longer than about 2 weeks), I tend to get cranky, irritated, depressed, and generally all around nasty.  Such was the case last year.  We had this wonderful assignment to go and live in England but the project was delayed and we were stuck in Houston, again.  I had changed all kinds of cool plans to make the move to England when we got stuck in Houston, again.  I was deeply nasty, deeply depressed, and probably a real pain in the a** to all around me.  For that, I apologize.

We finally made the move to England in September.  yea!  As I had pretty much stopped all my writing activities in the interim period of time (i.e. time spent in Houston), it has taken me awhile to get back into gear and start writing again.  To any readers who were with me way back when and might still find me, I am so sorry that I haven't written.  To new readers, hope you will find me informative at times, amusing at times, provocative (probably never), or just fun to read.  I will write about our experiences in England, living here, traveling around from here, people we meet, things we do, etc. etc. and also will add to some of my other blogs, namely Tales from the Litter Box, and Bits and Pieces.  Yes, our cats did make the move to England with us.  They love it here, especially if they can curl up on the floor next to the radiator.  So, we are off again.  sorry, again, that it has taken me so long.