Mel's Blog: Season II

Bhutan exhibit at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival

2008-06-27T15:21:00.001Z

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

This is a Bhutanese Monk creating a mandala with an incredibly steady hand (and mind) at the Folklife festival going on right now on the Mall in DC. If you're nearby, I highly recommend it!

"$28.99 - All you can eat crab and corn, 2 hr time limit, while supplies last"

2008-06-13T23:07:00.001Z

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Just living the dream.. what can I say? ;)

Toast @ MayFair 2008

2008-06-10T18:18:00.001Z

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Here's a still taken from a DVD of our performance on 15th May. Am currently taking refuge from the sweltering Falls Church heat (34C and rising..). I'll never complain about the mild English weather again.. well, maybe just a little.. every now and then! ;)

Friday Night Late at the V&A museum

2008-06-02T10:29:00.001Z

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Making hay (or taking pictures) while the sun shines!

2008-05-28T13:31:00.001Z

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Well if you blinked you missed it! Sunshine was a scarce and precious commodity this weekend, whether you were in the South of France as I was, or the South of England. It might as well have been Scotland as far as I concerned! The wind was certainly as fierce and the rain just as innovative.. i.e. you never knew from which angle it would attack you next! So I made the best of Saturday afternoon (before the drenching began!) to take some pictures of Michael's lovely garden in Ceret. As you can see, the lavender at least is thriving thanks to the weather..

Now I'm back in the UK, starting to put together plans for my upcoming trip to the US. Exams are over so I also have time at last to start planning for the next hurdle, which will be to pass my Biochemistry resit at the end of the summer. Let the struggle begin! M xx

Another Wiltshire scene..

2008-05-20T12:38:00.001Z

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Well, after another lovely weekend visiting Granny (where Mum rushed around cooking and looking after us all while I hunched over my textbooks trying to absorb zillions of details about symptoms and their significance!), exam week has finally started. I had the written exam for Clinical Diagnosis yesterday and I have the practical component on Thurs with the written Pathology exam on Friday. I then dash straight to Stansted airport for another weekend jaunt in Ceret - hurray!

PS The gig was amazing, though we will probably find out when we get our DVD that we were less perfect than we felt, but hey! No one could have taken the smiles off our faces that night - we rocked - end of story! :)

Life is just a bowl of cherries

2008-05-11T14:26:00.001Z

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

It's cherry season down in Ceret and I got through more than my fair share last weekend as I was blitzing through my Pathology assignment :) Now that's all behind me, I am looking at a week of intense revision before my exams kick off on 19th.. Oh and my merry band of bankers actually has its first gig next Thursday, a charity benefit concert at Cafe de Paris, London. Should be fun! I am singing 'One'. Enjoy the sunshine! M xx

Le Canigou and I

2008-04-29T14:05:00.001Z

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

I'm back from another sun-soaked weekend in SW France and feeling much better for it! I had my second cold since Easter last week and I did not appreciate feeling all shivery and miserable :( Bring on the summer here in the UK! M xx

PS Exams coming up the week of 19th May, but before then I get to enjoy some musical relief in the form of two very different charity gigs:

The first, this Saturday, is Mozart Requiem at St. Paul's church, Covent Garden.

The second is a gig with my merry band of bankers on 15th May at Cafe de Paris, London W1

Should be fun! :)

Hiking in the Pyrenees!

2008-04-16T20:15:00.001Z

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Just back from a wonderful stressbusting week's holiday at a friend's converted 17thC Mill in a small village in Ariege. I cannot recommend this part of France enough! M

PS If you click on the photo it should take you to more holiday pics, mostly of mountains and dramatic light in the valleys.

January passes by in a blur..

2008-01-24T23:38:00.001Z

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Originally uploaded by shawchan

Despite my best intentions, I never quite seem to get my act together for the month of January. It always seems to just get 'tacked' on as an afterthought after the madness of Christmas! And the fact that my exams fell in the second week of the month this time just compounded this seasonal trend. Well they are done and dusted now and I am delighted to say that I am about to head off on holiday in Ceret, South of France for some much needed R&R before the next semester kicks off on 4th Feb :) More when I get back! All the best, M xx

Happy New Year!!

2008-01-01T14:09:00.000Z

I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve and wrapped up 2007 without any last minute travel or alcohol-related mishaps! I spent a wonderfully chilled and civilised evening with friends in Marylebone drinking bubbly and generally putting the world to rights! On my way back to Waterloo this morning I decided to walk along Oxford Street, knowing it would probably be the only time in the year when it was quiet enough to do so! The hordes of stressed-out shoppers that usually crowd the pavements here, even out of the Christmas season, are enough to drive anyone over the edge.. and I certainly avoid it at all costs!

Of course there was SOME commerce going on. Starbucks, true to form, was open from 9am, and although I was grateful to be able to pick up a soya chai tea latte to break my fast, I felt desperately sorry for the puffy-eyed baristas who just about managed a weak smile as they served me. No doubt they were more in need of a coffee than their customers! The commerce-free theme continued even as I descended into the tube at Oxford Circus, only to find that the Bakerloo line platform was completely bare of advertising posters, something I'm not sure I have ever seen before! Of course, by now the city of London will be humming again, but it was nice to catch a brief glimpse of her, just once, all sleepy and blurry-eyed before she had a chance to wake up :)

Happy New Year!! M xx

Oxford Circus tube on New Year's Day: No advertising posters..??

Two dogs waiting for their owners outside Wellies Restaurant, Chichester last Sunday

Hoping Santa has been good to you!

2007-12-27T11:22:00.000Z

Hello!

Well as you can tell by the pictures below, I finally found my camera again, and just in time to take it to Germany with me on 12th for my visit to my Great Aunt in Bruehl (near Cologne)! It's been a very full few weeks since I last wrote, mainly taken up with studies (first essay writing, and now revision for exams on 7th-9th Jan), but also with lots of caroling, which will surprise no-one! Mum and I also managed to pull off a very successful neighbourhood mulled wine and mince pie party on 16th, helped enormously by Sylvia and Julian whose services we engaged for the afternoon to help us keep the kitchen from imploding and generally look after the huge number of people who somehow squeezed into our humble home for the occasion! I think it was the first time in our long history of these Christmas 'block parties' that Mum actually managed just to sit back and chat with people - wonderful! :)

In other news, faced by the overwhelming amount of catch-up I need to achieve in order to pass even the first level of Biochemistry required for this degree, I made an executive decision not to turn in the assignment for this module, but to focus on my other subjects, as well as revision for the Biochemistry exam. The upshot of this is that I will not be able to pass the Biochemistry 1 module until August/September at the earliest, and since this module is a prerequisite for many other modules in the degree, I have no choice but to go part-time with my studies from February 2008. I very much intend to make use of this 'twist of fate' as an opportunity to teach more yoga. Look out world! ;)

Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, without too much stress and I wish you all a Happy & Healthy 2008! M xx

Christmas tree at 36YR (and yes the candles ARE real! :)

A tiny tot enjoying some impromptu caroling at the Bruehler Weihnachtsmarkt

We arrived at Wellhead on Christmas Day to be greeted by this fabulous sunset..

in fact, for the whole journey West we had been under the most extraordinary 'highway' of cloud, which ended only very close to the horizon, so that as the sun began to set, the rays of light formed a sort of halo around the curvature of the earth. It was quite stunning!

Then, on Boxing Day morning, as I got up to get an hour of revision in before breakfast...

Sunrise at Wellhead, Boxing Day morning

Essays, concerts and the run up to Christmas..

2007-11-28T09:08:00.000Z

This pretty much sums up my life at the moment. When last I wrote I was contorting my little grey cells over my anatomy essay. Since then, I have endured another week of seminars at the Stratford campus (starting on a Monday morning with advanced biochemistry - cruel world!!), performed in two concerts, Vivaldi Gloria and Verdi Requiem, singing a small solo part in the former, and made the bulk of the arrangements for our mulled wine and mince pie Open House here at 36YR on 16th Dec. Now I am facing the prospect of having to turn in 4 assignments by 11th December.. oh joy!

The concerts went really well, which was wonderful, especially the Verdi Requiem at Southwark cathedral, which was a veritable triumph, both from the point of view of the charity we were supporting (the Lin Berwick Trust), for whom we raised over £11,600, as well as from a musical point of view. One change you will notice in my blog is the lack of photos, as almost immediately after I took the photo below, my camera decided to go into hibernation somewhere in the house... Perhaps it will turn up in the frantic clear-up prior to the festivities in a few weeks time? Fingers crossed! M xx

Night ride through Knightsbridge 16th Nov'07

Using a brain to describe a brain..

2007-11-15T09:32:00.000Z

is what my Anatomy assignment requires me to do, and as the deadline is 4pm tomorrow, I'm now under a self-enforced house-arrest until I get the thing done! :) In fact, I'm not quite sure why, but I feel as though my body needs a great deal of extra sleep or recuperation this week, though from what I don't know! A busy life I guess :) I often find myself waking at 7:15 and thinking, "no thanks" and then waking up over an hour later, obviously having needed the extra time! Though life without employment obviously has its own very real anxieties, I am so grateful I no longer have to be at a desk by 7:30am! Now that I am learning more about the body and how it functions, I am convinced that 'burn out' is not just an empty phrase; but means exactly what it says at a cellular level, if you don't allow yourself enough recuperation from the stresses and strains of life. Did you know for example that the brain generates much more protein when you are asleep than when you are awake?

Anyway, that's quite enough nerdy stuff from me! :) I'll end with a few photos from the birthday celebrations and wish you all a very good weekend (and plenty of sleep)!

M xx

Birthday Rose and all my cards :)

Scones and Cake at the Orangerie, Kensington Palace

Half the group that came to the birthday tea (I was tardy with the photo taking!)

Again.. only half the group that came to the birthday dinner at Tas

The Guitarist at Tas who played Happy Birthday for me as the restaurant staff brought in a cake with a candle on top!

Birthday week

2007-11-09T07:50:00.000Z

Or should I say.. birthday month?! November is always a very busy birthday month in this family and we kicked off on Wednesday night with my ever-youthful Uncle's 57th, for which I was tasked to find a decent restaurant.. in Woking (Sorry Woking, but you have the habit of running most of the decent places out of town. I walked past several "closed down" signs before I found something decent AND still in business)! As it happens, Woking does excel in Indian cuisine, and that's what we went for in the end; a place called Thali Thali - very delicious. Anyway, quite apart from the cuisine, we were honoured by my Dad's presence, which was fab as he normally resides across the pond in Virginia. This meant that I could start my own birthday celebrations (coming up on Sat) a few days early, by opening the gifts from Dad and my Uncle. Today I am going to spend the whole day over in Stratford at the campus library, for some hard work before the partying begins tomorrow. Have a great weekend! M xx

Mum & I at 36YR

OK! OK!...

2007-11-05T09:22:00.000Z

Autumn colours, York Rd, Woking

In my defence I can only cite the fact that we are having a record long Autumn here in the UK (and apparently in Germany too, according to my relatives there). I just can't help myself! I.. must... take.. pictures...of...multicoloured foliage... aaaaaaargghhhh ;) Have a good week and enjoy the last of these leaves :) M xx

Autumn colours, Woking Park (again)

Autumn colours, Woking Park (yet again)

I just can't stop taking Autumn scenes!

2007-10-29T20:26:00.001Z

Sorry.. but I just couldn't resist :) For more beautiful Autumn light and turning leaves in Wiltshire, just click on the photo. Have a great week. Oh and, those of you who have the dreaded flu already, get well!! Those of you who haven't caught it yet, stay away from those who have.. if you can. Take care. M xx

Going back to.. play school??

2007-10-28T08:33:00.001Z

So at the end of a 6 day marathon of lectures and seminars on clinical practice and biochemistry etc., I ended up playing with play-dough yesterday! No it wasn't an Ann Summers party, it was our Anatomy seminar and to show that we understood the material we had been taught in the morning, we were asked to recreate the embryo at various stages of early development with brightly coloured (and may I say rather dangerously tasty smelling - like marzipan!) play-dough. Bizarre perhaps, but strangely fun and certainly effective. I won't forget any of this come exam time in January!

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!"

2007-10-19T07:52:00.000Z

After a Summer that never really was, last week brought us an unashamedly characteristic Autumn, with brisk, chilly mornings, conkers crushed underfoot and bounteous berries and other signs of harvest time. So here's one of my favourite poems in celebration of a proper season at last!

To Autumn by John Keats

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease, 10
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Granny's veg patch

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Sunset, Wellhead

A successful fetch! Prospect Park, Reading

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Sunset, Prospect Park, Reading

My new haircut

2007-10-11T23:06:00.000Z

.. now significantly less 'fancy' minus the salon-fresh mousse effect! ;)

Haircut by Sun from Korea at Vidal Sassoon's advanced academy, London

just because..

2007-10-09T20:36:00.000Z

possibly the last garden roses this season - enjoy!

The value of a greasy spoon..

2007-10-07T18:08:00.000Z

Conkers :)

As usual, it feels as though time is beginning to gallop away from me! I'm now into the third week of the semester and our assignments have been released. This means I have only 6 weeks to go until my first deadline and 9 weeks untill all the other essays have to be in (four in total). In the meantime, I have barely begun to get stuck into the required course reading and I have a whole week of seminars coming up in two weeks time. My only consolation at this point is that I am at least firmly on track to complete the 100 clinical training hours required for my clinical practice model, having completed 39hrs so far. By the end of this week, I will have completed more than 50, which will hopefully leave me with more time later in the semester to blitz these essays and get all the reading done..

Grasses, Woking Park

Anyway, attending clinic has been a bit like being back at work again. We are expected to dress professionally, which for me means wearing something similar to what I wore in the City, including high heels (how DID I do this every day for so long??!), donning white coats only for the portion of the day in which we see patients (generally between 10:00 and 14:00). It also means a return to the dreaded commute! Having tried aiming for a 09:30 arrival in Stratford, which resulted in cattle-truck like conditions all the way from leafy Surrey to the East End, I decided - never again! So now I get up at 06:00 on Thursdays and Fridays and arrive at campus at 08:00. Having been introduced to the local "greasy spoon" by our clinic supervisor, I now find myself every morning before clinic on what could easily be the set of "Eastenders", feeling very much the 'posh chick' as I order my mug of builders' tea and egg on toast :) A filling breakfast by the way, is absolutely necessary before clinic, as we students often don't get released for lunch until the last patient's medicine has been dispensed and they have been sent happily on their way. This is sometimes not achieved until nigh on 14:30!

On a musical note, I had pleasure of performing the Messiah with my choir (and friends) at St. John on Bethnal Green this last Saturday. The soloists were absolutely superb, as usual, and I think we're making a great sound as a choir at the moment too, which makes it all the more fun. which reminds me.. Please do put Friday 23rd November in your diaries for our Verdi Requiem at Southwark Cathedral. It's going to be fantastic :)

Autumn scene

The thrill of a High C

2007-10-01T23:24:00.000Z

and I'm not talking about one of those little packets of coloured crystals in health food shops which claim to provide all the vitamins you need in one day.. I'm talking about the heady heights you reach when you produce a sound - seemingly from out of nowhere, but, somewhat improbably, from two folds of flesh vibrating in your throat - that matches the note you get when you hit the key on your piano representing C.. above C.. above middle C. For anyone unfamiliar with the piano keyboard, that's very, very, very high..

Now I'm not one to gloat about being a soprano. I wouldn't say I play it down exactly.. but anyone who has been in a choir will be familiar with the jibes about sopranos having the easiest time, only having to 'sing the tune' after all. No doubt other, less generous (and perhaps unprintable) things have been said about our kind, and on the whole I have tended to keep my head down, play humble and generally avoid being sucked into any heated, inter-voice warfare, but tonight I was proud, AM proud to be a 'sop'! Fearlessly we opened our Verdi Reqiuem scores at the final movement, knowing there could be no turning back, and that we must prevail, or risk bringing shame on all our sisters. As the movement rose in intensity, we approached the final ascent, and with a fresh gulp of air in our lungs for our only support, prevail we did, on high C, for two and a half, LONG bars. It was an incredible feeling! In fact I can't remember singing a high C (or even attempting one) since I last sang the Verdi Requiem with the Bryanston Choral Society when I was about 15. I was elated still to be able to reach it. Far from flinging rotten tomatoes, the rest of the choir actually applauded. Perhaps we sopranos will be able to hold our heads high a while.. at least until the Christmas carol season is upon us, when we will be carrying the inevitable 'tune' once more :)

My university campus last week, in the Autumn light

Organic beetroot, cucumber, carrot, apple and daikon salad

2007-09-25T14:39:00.000Z

..which I duly consumed with another Autumnally orange food.. a baked sweet potato - yum :)

On (yet another) music high!

2007-09-23T23:36:00.000Z

Well I've just come back from the most amazing seven hour concert at the shiny new Royal Festival Hall, and despite the lateness (or earliness even..) of the hour, I feel as fresh as when the concert began! The concert was called "From Raj to the Republic" and featured several famous artists (including Ravi Shankar and his daughter, Anoushka Shankar) playing classical Indian music in celebration of the 60th anniversary of India's independence. Just fabulous :)

New sculpture outside the Royal Festival Hall

Sculpture with seasonal sniffles!

To go with tonight's Indian theme, here's the outfit I wore to A&G's wedding in Delhi a few years ago.

Memory Lane

2007-09-23T11:57:00.001Z

I had an unexpected trip down memory lane this weekend, when during a visit to the Sivananda Yoga centre in Putney (where I hope to get teach yoga before long), I had the opportunity to go for a lovely walk along the Thames. Not only did it bring back memories of happy years spent living not far away on the other side of the river in 52QM, but also of the three years I spent rowing at high school. From a fitness point of view, they were surely the best years of my life so far (though if I keep the yoga practice up, I hope to reach those heady heights once more! :). They also afforded plenty of time out in the fresh air (OK yes, and the driving rain and the cold too.. not to mention at the mercy of the dreaded, blood-sucking flies known to us as "Blanny Bombers"!) connecting with nature, and although all our practice time was spent on the River Stour in Dorset, most of our races took place right here on the Thames. For some of them, I was actually the cox, rather than a rower, so I recall the care I would have to take navigating my charges under the many bridges of the Thames, including this one, Putney bridge.

When looking upon this scene though, I noticed one crucial difference between the rowing clubs dotted along this part of the Thames (I think I counted at least four) and our little boat house and dock in Dorset, and that is the sheer distance you have to cover to get the boat from the boat house into the water here in London. The photo shows barely a quarter of the slope these girls are about to have to trek up with a great, hulking boat slicing into their already exhausted shoulder muscles.. and we had no need for wearing wellies either, where I learned to row. We just lowered the boat gently into the water from the safety of a horizontal - and dry - dock! So, dear Reader, call me a wimp if you please, but in case you should ask yourself why I never took up rowing again back in London, this photo says it all! I was just too pampered back on our small but in many ways perfect River Stour :)

Young rowers on the Thames at Putney

Mel cooks (honestly - she does! Occasionally..)

2007-09-19T15:18:00.000Z

Inspired by the delicious food pics on a friend's blog (you know who you are - I'm v. impressed!), I am going to start posting photos of my own culinary successes - as and when they arise! Constructive tips, recipes etc., most welcome.. but keep the rotten tomatoes to yourselves :) M xx

Baked butternut squash with stir-fried courgettes (zucchini) and asparagus tips

'Tis the season for wearing hats and scarves

2007-09-18T11:38:00.000Z

It has turned decidedly Autumnal over here, with the mornings proving particularly chilly. I have already had (I use the past tense slightly prematurely perhaps, but with a view to being positive!) my first snuffles of the season and have been wearing my winter coat from day 1. Yesterday I started wearing a scarf and today my woolly hat will get its first outing of the year. That's not to say we are not enjoying gorgeous sunshine, but the sky is a crisp blue and there is "Winter on the breeze", as an old song by Melanie Safka goes. I got my first organic box in a long time yesterday and much to my delight, it contained a Butternut Squash! You can't get more Autumnal than that :) I plan to to cut it in half and bake it in the oven tonight. Anyone know any clever ways to season it, or stuff it even?

I realised after my last posting that I was still in 'catch up' mode after my prolonged period of Internet isolation in the Summer and that I had in fact not mentioned anything about what is going on here and now. Well, other than the snuffles (which by the way did not prevent me from trekking across to East London for choir practice last night - Vive le Verdi Requiem - oh joy! :), I had my first day of clinical training at the UEL Herbal Medicine clinic last Thursday. In fact, I was supposed to attend on Friday as well, but slept through my alarm clock (oops!) so didn't.. ho hum. Anyway, the 100 clinical training hours I have to put in over the next semester will form an essential part of my Clinical Practice 1 module and involve observing patient consultations, learning diagnostic methods (by practice palpation, percussion etc. on fellow students), finding my way around the dispensary etc. So on Thursday, luck would have it that the first patient I was able to observe was practically a textbook case for a rookie herbalist! A child with a skin condition who has been told by the orthodox medics that there is as yet no cure for the condition, comes to the Herbal clinic earlier this year. Having bravely taken the prescribed herbal medicine all summer (herbal tinctures don't tend to taste that great!), a distinct improvement can be seen - Not exactly magic, mystery or miracle, but a clear example of what will make my studies worthwhile going forward. Here's hoping for many more cases like this one :)

The week ahead looks fairly quiet so far, apart from a long awaited jam session on Friday :) Happy Autumn days M xx

Jam session at M's flat, 15th June '07

Back in leafy Surrey, and some photos to show at last

2007-09-16T13:03:00.000Z

View at dusk from the Winter Garden, World Financial Centre, NYC

Auberge de Paris, which I mentioned earlier - my accommodation in Montreal prior to the yoga course

My abode for 4 weeks at the Sivananda Ashram,Val Morin, Quebec - amazingly, the flower garden was even more spectacular than last year, thanks to Ambika Chaitanya's efforts!

The view from my single room (ne'er was money so well spent as when I upgraded from the dorm to a single. I got precious little sleep as it was!)

Me in front of Samadhi Estates, where Swami Vishnu Devananda lived for many years.

Back in Montreal, I climbed Mont Royal to get this view of the city and the St. Lawrence river

I returned to one of my favourite sculptures in Montreal. Funny.. I hadn't spotted this chap last time!

Back in NYC for a few days, I took advantage of the free drop-in yoga classes at the Sivananda Centre on W24th St. A veritable haven of calm :)

L thoughtfully suggests we have dinner at an Indian restaurant where I can indulge in vegetarian food (in this case a scrumptious dosa with celantro chutney - yum!) as I am still not in the mood for meat or alcohol at this point

I'm back!!!

2007-09-08T20:16:00.000Z

What? Who?! You may well ask... I've been incommunicado so long by today's instant messaging standards that you could be forgiven for asking if I still exist? In fact the whole question of existence and what is in fact 'real' is one I found myself addressing on a regular basis throughout the month of August, courtesy of the in-depth yoga course I took in a very leafy, idyllic - but a) out of cell phone range and b) too small a place to support anything approaching an internet cafe! - part of Quebec, Canada. For those of you who don't know, I took a Yoga teacher training course at the very same place in July of last year and (last year's schedule clearly not having been punishing enough!) I decided to come back for more and do the advanced teacher training course for 4 weeks this August.

This is how my daily schedule went:

4:30 am Wake-up
5 am Pranayama - Excercises to control the breath/vital energy. On the whole, I am pretty hopeless at this! The excercises involve controlling your breathing so that you can not only hold your breath for a considerable length of time, but also lengthen out the exhalation.. and then do this over and over again without getting distracted or panicking that you are not getting enough air. Needless to say I could not keep up with the group and decided to take things at my own pace and actually succeeded in making a little progress that way!

6 am Satsang - 20-30mins meditation, followed by chanting, followed by an address (something akin to a sermon). I was much more comfortable with Satsang this time around, having had the 4 week course last year to get used to a) sitting still in a cross-legged position for the meditation part and b) chanting stuff I don't understand in Sanskrit. Now I just see it a bit like going to church twice a day for a month - an unusual, but not unpleasant occurrence!

8 am Asana Practice - tying yourself in knots and standing on your head etc. while generally trying to maintain decorum and not look too silly :) I think for most of us, this was our favourite part of the course. It gave our poor philosophy-drenched brains a break!

9 am Anatomy and Physiology - nice bit of revision for my Herbal medicine course!

10 am Brunch - broccoli, broccoli and more broccoli? Oh joy..

11 am Karma Yoga - an unkind interpretation of this would be "unpaid work around the Ashram" ;) Seen in a positive light it is a way of making yourself a better person by learning to serve others selflessly. And then there's the whole grey area between.. As for me, this time around I was assigned the job of cleaning the bathrooms in my block and was amazingly zen about it, even when I arrived in the men's bathroom for the nth time to find it looking like a war zone.. I don't think this yogic calm will translate back into the real world, but we'll see!

12 noon Raja Yoga (we studied the Yoga Sutras as compiled by Patanjali Maharishi)/Sanskrit (we learned to write and read the Sanskrit characters - I loved this part of the course! The characters are actually very pleasing to draw and it was amazing to be able to look at the yoga sutras in the original and decipher some of them)

2 pm Vedanta (Essential philosophy behind yoga - VERY deep but very rewarding.. if and when you actually get it!)

4 pm Asanas and Pranayama
6 pm Dinner
8 pm Satsang

It's hard to describe the impact these four weeks have had but one of the stranger effects has been to dampen my appetite for meat/fish and alcohol. I wouldn't say I have developed an aversion to either of these (in fact I have by now had a little of both!), but it simply is not something I hanker after at the moment. Perhaps a few months back in London will retoxify me to the point where I start to crave them again, but in the mean time, I guess any of you looking for a friendly yoga teacher and/or designated driver may have a new resource at your disposal - watch this space :)

I have lots of photos from my time in Canada and in New York and Montreal (where I broke my journey on the way there and back), but at this point technology is not playing ball and I can only post a couple. When I am back at home I will post more pictures and fill in a few more details about my Summer.

In the mean time, I will wish you all well as I enjoy my last couple of days here at Dad's before I fly back to London and the start of my clinical training (starting Thursday and Friday). M xx

View at dusk from Battery Park, NYC

Sivananda Yoga Advanced Teacher Training Course, Val Morin (class of 2007). The teachers are mainly in the middle row (and top right) and I was struggling to keep my eyes open in the glare of the morning sun!

Quick hello

2007-08-03T00:32:00.000Z

before I head up to Val Morin tomorrow for the yoga. It's been an absolutely sweltering day here in Montreal, not as hot as Sicily (which topped 45 C at one point!), but at a humid 40 C, you can hardly call it mild! I managed to pass the day quite pleasantly nevertheless, by picking up a few extra yoga supplies, including a "hot mat" (how appropriate!) and loads of light cotton exercise clothing as even in the mountains it is sure to be very warm, and taking a friend out to lunch on the ueber-trendy Rue St. Denis (pronounced 'denniiiiiiiee" in Quebecois French). Now I am waiting at the not-so-aptly named Hotel de Paris (I struggle to believe the Parisians would pass off a room so grim for 75 Canadian and be shameless enough to put the name of their beloved City to it) for my good friend and yogini extraordinaire, Ms. Takei, to arrive off her gruelling multi-stop flight from Japan so that we can go out to dinner. Off to Val Morin at 9 tomorrow. Probably won't be able to post until next Friday. Have a great week! M xx

Off up North

2007-07-31T11:11:00.000Z

and finally the rain came down in Falls Church, Virginia, as Londoners experienced their first sunny afternoon in what seemed like years..

but not until Dad, M and I had made it safely to the Mall (not shopping (!), but the huge, long strip of grass with the Washington monument at one end that is lined with an impressive number of world-class art galleries and museums that are completely free to the public) and back, and also out to Roslyn to see the "Bodies" exhibition. I was initially a bit skeptical about this exhibition, believing it to be the work of Gunther von Hagens, who had some bad press with his Body Worlds exhibition some years back. However, this exhibition is apparently quite unrelated (other than perhaps with regard to the technique used to prepare the specimens?) and was quite fantastic. The whole exhibition is laid out in such a way that you are effectively walking through a sort of "Beginners Guide to Anatomy" in 3D. The body specimens are sensitively portrayed so that (I think) even the squeamish (which includes me!) could not object and it's very educational. I would recommend anyone with even the vaguest interest in Medicine to go and see it. Unless you are planning to train as a doctor and therefore dissect bodies at Med school, this is probably the only chance you will ever get to see the inside of the body as it really is.

By the way, I have included a new link on the blog to flickr, where I am beginning to house all my photographs. I am afraid I have not got around to labeling each and every one, but I include a brief summary at the beginning of each 'set' of pictures. So please feel free to browse and email me if you want to know what a particular photo is about. Also, some of you may have noticed that I have included a link to Facebook, the latest time-devouring addiction to sweep the globe! I found this article in the Washington Post the other day that describes the phenomenon quite amusingly. (In case you need to register for this, I include the article at the end of this posting)

Off to NY today, then Montreal tomorrow, then up to the Ashram on Friday to begin my four weeks of... hard work.. well some detoxification and lots of yoga anyway! :) Click here to see my gruelling schedule..

"Great Britons" at Washington's National Portrait Gallery

Independence Avenue, Washington DC

Names of victims, Holocaust Museum, Washington DC

Dad's Buddleia finally attracts the "right sort" of customer
-------------------
Not Clicking With the Facebook Crowd

Monday, July 30, 2007; A15

I'm a no-good, lowlife, antisocial, shunned, pathetic excuse for an 18-year-old.

Or so says my Facebook friend count, 161 -- 90 within my Washington network -- which recently began to plateau dishearteningly. Apparently, all my acquaintances, my classmates and the people I've "heard of" have already publicly befriended me, leaving me, a social-networking neophyte, foundering in the low three digits.

I've been through my friends' friends, my friends' cousins, random people I met once at parties, students from my old school, students from the college I won't attend until September -- but that D.C. total hasn't quite inched up to 100. It's drowning in a sea of friend totals triple its size.

Am I that unlikable? Why won't a few more people click that all-powerful button and friend me? (At the least, a few more of my 20-million-plus fellow Facebook users could write on my wall; with no new messages for three days, it's beginning to look a little bare.)

Facebook has brought to the forefront of my social life a necessity I seldom considered before selling my soul and signing up two months ago: friend quantity. Sure, we knew that the cool girls reigned in high school, but never before has such an unquestionably accurate popularity meter indicated down to the last individual your worth as a human being (or, at least, the precise number of people who thought you were worth the two seconds it takes to "friend" someone).

The quality of those people is, of course, far less important.

Emily Yoffe wrote about this phenomenon in Slate earlier this year, recounting what it was like to try to make friends online at 50-something. A Post reporter, Howard Kurtz, conducted a similar experiment last month. Yet I never thought that as an 18-year-old, a charter member of the Internet generation, I'd be having a comparable online experience, stressing about ways to enumerate my friends so other people will think I'm popular.

There are other stringent quantitative standards to meet, too. You should be "tagged" in at least a few hundred photos loaded onto other users' pages, a number that is displayed prominently below your profile picture. If not, you surely haven't attended enough parties or other social events to have moments worth photographing. Shame on you.

I occasionally scold myself for buying into the superficiality of online social networking. But to delete my profile would be to admit defeat, and what would my friends -- real and otherwise -- think if I gave in? Still, nothing can belie the masochism of logging in daily. A few mouse clicks reveal photos of parties to which I was not invited and wall-to-wall conversations regarding outings that no one bothered to tell me about.

Somehow, though, addicted and dead set on avoiding crippling uncoolness, I struggle on with Gatsby-like tenacity. A thousand "friends" is the new American Dream.

I may still harbor the hope that Facebook will shut down, allowing my social life to return to the solace of private text-messages and cellphone conversations. But in the meantime, I'm considering inviting a few (in-the-flesh) friends to a movie via e-mail. Hmmm. Given my stagnant social clout, maybe instead I'll write on their walls so all the world can see how great my plans are. Then all 161 of my friends (friends' cousins, one-time acquaintances, people I've never met) will know what I'm doing this weekend. I can't be unpopular if everyone knows I have such spectacular plans, right?

Maybe I'll take my camera and snap some great I'm-socially-content-and-having-a-grand-time photos while we're out.

Jennifer DeBerardinis is a freelance writer and student.

Fred and Ginger dancing on the ceiling...

2007-07-23T16:01:00.000Z

Or is it just the constantly changing, tip-tapping rhythm of my ceiling fan that makes me think I am waking up every morning on the set of an old black and white movie?? Well folks, this is it. I can't deny that I am enjoying the slower pace of life out here in the "Burbs" of the Nation's Capital, not to mention the weather, which has been uncharacteristically balmy.. in fact exactly as an English Summer should be...

Will this be the new conspiracy theory?? Have the Americans - not content with inventing 50,457, 23 flavours of ice-cream, 'fat-free' butter and refusing to believe us when we tell them that electric kettles are really SO much better (honest !) - decided to swipe our idyllic Summers and in stead send us all the appalling humidity of their East Coast which, unable to handle the culture shock, immediately turns to monsoon rains and hail stones the moment it reaches our shores!!?? If true, this would indeed be dastardliness at its very worst! Being quite a practical type however, I have decided to make the best of the status quo, however sinister, and spend as much time out on the deck as possible, enjoying the breeze, gazing up at the blue skies and clouds above, and generally chillin', before the REAL East Coast Summer returns!

Zoe, Dad's new Buddleia and the 7th and final Harry Potter book

Rainbow cloud and plane trail

Her eyebrows express it all, don't you think? ;)

PS Saw a bumper sticker the other day that made me chuckle.. "Republicans for Voldemort"

Where would we be without music?

2007-07-17T14:23:00.000Z

I often used to wonder as a child, which I would rather not do without (nay could not do without even!), music.. or the beauty of a stunning sunset or other scene of natural beauty. Of course, given that Nature is endlessly recreating herself and that even a simple cornfield looks completely different from one day, hour, or even minute to another, depending on the light and how the wind weaves its way through it, not to mention what the insects, birds and other players in the pastoral scene are up to, I don't think this question will ever really have a conclusive answer for me.

However last night's amazing performances by Diana Krall and Chris Botti (not to mention the hugely talented members of their respective jazz bands) reminded me how indescribably inspiring music can be, especially in the hands (and vocal cords) of such gifted people! Dad, M and I were at Wolftrap, a beautiful outdoor concert venue in Virginia, run most efficiently by the US National Park Service. We managed to secure ourselves a perfect spot on the lawn right in front of some enormous speakers and with a good view of the stage. From the word go, Chris Botti held us in thrall, producing sounds with his trumpet that sounded more like the human voice than a brass instrument. Then when Diana Krall came on in the second half, bemoaning the temporary misplacement of her 'old body' after the recent birth of her twin boys (heck - I don't know what she 's complaining about.. she still looks amazing!), she upped the tempo with a string of jazz numbers inspired by Nat King Cole, proving that she is just as talented a pianist as she is a vocalist (if not more so). The crowning moment though, was her flawless rendition of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You", stripped down to bare piano and vocals. You could literally hear the proverbial pin drop. Yes, when it comes to you, Music (especially as performed by the likes of Ms. Krall!), I really think I could "drink a case of you, and still be on my feet."

Oh, and I'm off to Deutschland

2007-07-09T14:46:00.000Z

tomorrow morning for a couple of days to visit another Aunty (this time Aunty A) who seems to have made a miraculous recovery after a rather tricky foot op - fingers crossed! Then I have a couple of days to turn around and pack for the big North American Bonanza, which will consist of several weeks in DC visiting family and friends, a repeat of last year's gruelling (but rewarding) 4-week-intensive yoga teacher training course up in the Laurentian mountains of Quebec (only it's the advanced course this time - yikes!), and a week (almost) hanging out in NYC. Will try to keep the blog updated as best I can, though during the yoga I'll only get a chance to escape to the web cafe in the village once a week at best. Have a great summer and keep the faith! M xx

Equably improbable

2007-07-09T08:45:00.001Z

but certainly most welcome (!).. Wimbledon finals weekend with gorgeous English summer weather :)

Taking life at a snail's pace in sunny Wiltshire

Woodland walk

More Summer scenes..

At least someone is hard at work!

Infinite Improbability Drive..

2007-07-04T09:36:00.000Z

OK, so I'm exaggerating a bit.. none of the events of the past 24 hours beats a sperm whale whooshing past the window of a stolen space ship that has just rescued you against all odds from death by asphyxiation in the hold of a Vogon vessel, courtesy of a strange invention called the Infinite Improbability Drive in Douglas Adam's fabulous novel, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"! However, driving up Munster Rd in SW London last night, I was fairly agog to see the awnings of a very chic Japanese hair salon totally shredded, apparently by massive hail stones!! I was already somewhat stunned and dazed by the monsoon-like conditions I experienced when changing trains at Clapham Junction, but huge chunks of ice?? in England?? in July?? Similarly unlikely, but a cause for jubilation not commiseration, was the news this morning that the BBC's Gaza correspondent, Alan Johnston, had finally been released after 114 days in captivity. 'Tis a strange world we live in.. I guess we have to learn to take the rough with the smooth!

Stormy light
Tuesday evening: platform 5, Clapham Junction

Earlier in the day (OK now it's suddenly got so dark - at 11:30 am - I'm going to have to turn the light on to keep typing.. More rain/hail clouds on the way no doubt!), I took the train down to Chichester to visit Aunty M and she took me for a drive to a lovely little village called Bosham, where, incidentally, there was also water everywhere courtesy of a high tide. I should have known it was a sign of things to come!

Old Bosham at high tide

Perfect weather for a family outing :)

Anglo-Saxon tower at Old Bosham

Complete Sicily pics and good news!

2007-06-30T08:53:00.000Z

Having some trouble with the flickr photo website at present, so only a handful of the Sicily pics are available. Aiming to fix this asap. Watch this space

I passed all 3 of my modules for the semester, so there was no need for the resit premium on my travel insurance after all :) Thanks to some relatively decent marks on my coursework assignments, my overall grades even scraped their way into 2:1 territory, though none of my first year grades will actually count towards my final degree mark.. phew!

I got back from Sicily yesterday and what with a four hour dash across Sicily to get to Palermo on Thursday and the supreme drag of queuing for an hour in crowded, hot corridors at Stansted airport on Friday just to get from the plane to the immigration desks (what is wrong with that airport??!), I am still a little shattered. Also, while I am very sad for the poor, drenched people of Sheffield, and other drowned cities and towns in the North of England that have face severe flooding in the last days, I cannot pretend I am unhappy to see the rain outside my window here in York Rd after a week of 40+ C temperatures and a near miss when our farm might have burnt down when a nearby neighbour's stubble-burning went out of control and we had the helicopters flying over with water for about 24hrs trying to control the blaze. Without air conditioning in the apartment and the additional 'roasting' of the nearby fire, it was possibly one of the most uncomfortable nights of my life! I can only be grateful the wind did not blow the smoke in our direction, forcing us to close our doors and windows!

Other than the intense, brain-melting heat and the pesky mosquitoes (it was an organic farm we were staying on after all!), Sicily was fantastic. Even if you don't count majestic Mount Etna, the scenery as a whole is quite breathtaking, with rocky mountains with cities perched on top rearing up out of the earth everywhere you look, and the sea almost as stunning a blue as you get on the Cote d'Azur. The food was just as delicious as I had expected. Our hostess at the farm brought us lots of home-made biscotti and other baked delights such as pastries and ricotta and chocolate bread. I'm not a coffee drinker myself, but coffee my friend made herself every morning smelt so good I almost converted! The Gelato, of course, was divine and something to which we treated ourselves as often as we could, and my first taste of swordfish steak was superb.

Another aspect of Sicily that totally lived up to my expectations was the driving!!! I already touched on it in my last posting (though mainly with regard to getting used to the funny auto/manual hybrid car we had) and though I warrant that some of my impressions may have stemmed from my being a foreigner ignorant of local traffic regulations, I swear to you, which ever way I tried to work out the rules for their roundabouts and other junctions, there seemed to be no consistent system. Only one rule seemed to work across the whole island.. "Who dares wins!" After a week of driving there, I swear I'll never be nervous driving in central London again! Nor on the German Autobahn either (The Sicilian autostrada are also two-lane, like the German ones).

Anyway, I must go an get ready for my choir concert this evening, so I will leave you with the photos and wish you a great weekend! Ciao :)

Sicily photos

A quick hello from Taormina!

2007-06-24T15:09:00.000Z

It was a long drive across the island from Palermo airport on Friday, but we finally made it (and before sundown at that!) to the apartment on a small organic citrus fruit farm in the foothills of Mt Etna along the Catania coast. This was no small achievement, given Sicilian driving etiquette and the challenge of working out how to use one of these modern automatic cars that randomly seem to switch to manual when you least need them to (i.e. when you need to accelerate away from danger.. a common occurence on this island!). Both the manual in the glove compartment and the messages that appear on the dashboard along with a piercing alarm bell whenever the car gets all uppity about some perceived driver error, are in Italian!! Not one of my languages... and certainly not helpful when said driver is used to a car that does what it is told, not the other way around.. :( Two days in.. I think (hope?!) I have worked out all the crafty tricks the car likes to play on unsuspecting foreigners - phew!

Upsides are: Sicily is stunning. The weather is hot hot hot! The food is unbelievably good and the farmer's wife bakes us divine Italian cakes and breads for breakfast every morning.. bliss :)

Mel at the Greek Theatre in Taormina

Sea life at Acque Grande, 20 mins scramble/hike from the apartment

Acque Grande (we are going to buy jelly shoes so we can paddle without being stung by the above creatures!)

Quick hello and some pics from Switzerland before I dash off to Sicily

2007-06-21T15:21:00.001Z

Vaudois village of Saint Saphorin

Mel and Mum - grinning even BEFORE we went in for some wine tasting :)

Picturesque placemat.. the real view really IS that stunning!

How did I ever 'survive' these marathon student holidays??

2007-06-18T10:28:00.000Z

Even though it seems an obvious fact of life that, as a student, I would be able to enjoy long summer holidays again, I'm finding myself almost overwhelmed at the endlessness of this one.. and it's only just started! Of course I'm NOT complaining, and it certainly won't be endless. Semester A will inevitably creep up on me before long! This time though, I'm determined to be better prepared and, like a good swot, I've already got a bunch of the textbooks out of the library have even started reading them. My current literary poison of choice at present is "An Introduction to Chemistry for Biology Students", which will hopefully help dull the pain in the back of my head when I tackle molecular biology and biochemistry next term!

The full list of modules for next semester is as follows:

Clinical Practice 1 and The Therapeutic Relationship (in which Mel gets to don a white coat and start concocting evil-tasting brews for unsuspecting patients at the University Clinic)
Phytochemistry & Applied Biochemistry
Systemic Anatomy, Physiology and Clinical Embryology

It's going to be challenging to say the least, but I am particularly looking forward to the clinical training component, as it will help take some of the more torturous science out of the dry context of the textbook into real life.. and make the brain-ache worth-while! :)

It's not going to be all work and no play though.. I have LOTS of travel planned. Starting tomorrow (aherm) with a totally frivolous (but thanks to budget airlines not overly expensive!) 'haute couture' trip to Mum's tailor in Switzerland to pick up a divine dress and jacket she has been creating for me from some lovely material I brought back from a trip to Delhi several years ago and never did anything with.

Then hot on the heels of that little flourish of extravagance, I am off to the East coast of Sicily with a girlfriend of mine on Friday for a week of R&R on an organic farm to recover from all the fashion excitement ;) I'll be flying back in time to perform in our summer concert (details to follow) on 30th June at All Saints Church (nr. All Saints DLR, London), ready to launch myself into another month of student hedonism.. More on the big summer trip to North America soon. I think I've probably sickened you all enough for one posting!

I'll leave you with the result of a fit of creativity that came over me earlier this week. A pressed flower and washi (Japanese paper) collage.. Have a good week. M xx

Desperately seeking..

2007-06-11T09:28:00.001Z

an able bodied man! This was the gist of an email I found myself typing early last week to a guy I'd never met. No.. I haven't started internet dating (yet..), but was responding to a light-hearted decree sent down from a dear friend of mine who threw the classiest ceilidh I've ever attended in Belgravia last Saturday evening. She and her fellow hostess-with-the-mostest had suddenly discovered that their guest list was predominantly female (of the unattached kind) and that more men were needed to make up the numbers in the dancing. So in addition to the condition of wearing some tartan, all women were now required to show up with a bloke on their arm to get in!!

This was a challenge indeed.. London is full of guys, not as many guys as girls, so the statistics show, but still. There is - or should be - no shortage! However - perhaps it's indicative of the 'age' of life I am in - most of my male friends (at least those that would be gumptious enough for some Scottish reeling!) are already married or attached. So if ever there was a time for some initiative, this was it! I started putting out some feelers amongst my female friends to see if they could source me a ceilidh-friendly, unattached bloke. I got two leads and, trying not to sound too much like Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction", wrote them both emails asking if they would consider attending with me... but as the days went by and I got no response from either of them, I began to get paranoid and kept checking in the mirror to see if I had suddenly morphed into said 'bunny-boiler' with oversized shoulder pads and a criminal 80's perm! Thankfully I hadn't, but it was hard to rid myself of a certain sense of unease..

Then finally last Wednesday I got an email from one of them, with a plausible explanation for his radio-silence. He had just got back from his holiday in Morocco and though he had a prior engagement on the Saturday afternoon, he felt sure he could make it to Belgravia for the evening. Hurrah! It pays to go out on a limb once in a while :)

Oh.. and before you ask, there is NO gossip to report! :) Only an amusing incident when I went up and greeted the guy I thought was my blind date for the evening (the only photo I had was less than helpful due to a pair of big sunglasses!).. only who turned out to be someone else's! Oops :) Thankfully his girlfriend was not the kind to take me outside and beat me to a pulp for the offence, and my own dance partner showed up shortly afterwards. We all had a fabulous time at the ceilidh and I am glad to say that the blisters on my little toes are healing nicely :)

Have a great week M xx

I can see clearly now..

2007-06-05T07:36:00.000Z

the rain has gone :)

So on Saturday afternoon, the rain cloud finally shifted aside to let some blue sky in!

Mel with Mum on the shore of Lake Geneva

A splash of colour - selection of teas from a speciality shop in Vevey

I think there are some mountains out there

2007-06-02T13:03:00.000Z

beyond the rain clouds..?? I am currently wearing the same clothes I wore in NZ winter last year.. What's wrong with this picture??

Lake Geneva (minus the usual Alpine backdrop!)

Swiss democracy - yet another referendum.

In this case, the 'Non' camp want to save the local castle from being sold for a song into the destructive clutches of developers, who will presumably knock most of it down and replace it with some modern horror (who knows?). The 'Non' option will cost the council a huge amount in restoration costs. I took a photograph of the 'Oui' camp poster, ironically because it was the better design!

Thanks to a timely open day, we had a unique opportunity to look around inside the unfortunate castle today, which currently houses various artists and other assorted people with exquisite taste in interior design. I suspect which ever way the ruling goes, these poor guys will find themselves looking for a new home before long!

View of Vevey Quay from inside Chateau de L'Aile

Phew.. it's all over

2007-05-25T06:18:00.001Z

For now at least! I won't know the verdict on whether I have passed my 3 modules until after the (mercifully pretty early) assessment board on 15th June. Worst case scenario: I'll have to resit at the end of August, smack in the middle of the last week of the advanced yoga teacher training course I'm planning to take in Quebec (and I don't think University of East London has an exam centre out in Montreal!) so fingers crossed I've squeezed through on that Anatomy exam (by some miracle)..

In other news, I tried out the super cheap student rate for a haircut at Vidal Sassoon's School of Hairdressing near Bond St station last week, for a mere STG 4.50! OK... so I had to sit almost completely still for nearly three hours (thank goodness for trashy novels :), but they did a great job. When I say they, I mean my student from Iceland and the teacher who was supervising him. Neither of them spoke English as their first language and their (slower but pretty successful) communication with each other reminded me of my friendship with a Yakutian neighbour of mine in Japan. She spoke Russian, French and Japanese, but no English, and I spoke no Russian (and insufficient French!), so we had to communicate in Japanese! I really wonder now what everyone around us thought when they heard us!

Off to Switzerland to visit Mum in a couple of hours! Back soon. M xx

So assignment no. 4 is done

2007-05-19T13:31:00.000Z

bar the title page ("Melanie Shaw's Herbarium") that is.. but I'm so sick of cutting and pasting and snipping and sticking down right now that that can wait! I will write out the title by hand if necessary. Phew..

pages 6 & 7 of Mel's herbarium (Germander Speedwell and Ribwort respectively)

It's not all been a horrible drag though. It's been a new and wonderful experience beginning to pay some more attention to detail when out walking in Nature, collecting specimens to press. I can see myself becoming a bit of a Botany nerd in time (lots of time!).

For now though, I've got to pack my bag for next week and tackle those bones, muscles and cells for the big scary anatomy/physiology exam. Hope you are enjoying the weekend. M xx

3 assignments down..

2007-05-14T21:04:00.000Z

one more (plus three exams) to go! phew... nearly there. By this time next week, I'll be shacked up in a Halls of Residence in Docklands, ploughing my way through three days of exams. Then my first semester will be over - hurrah! Right now, I'm compiling a list of 20 medicinal herbs, their chemical constituents and their actions for my final piece of coursework. I also have to collect specimens of each part of these plants (roots included) and press them. So far I have 6 of the little blighters captured and squished.... only 14 more to go. I hope to collect most of the rest of them while walking out in the countryside in Wiltshire over the next few days - wish me luck :) Once that's done, I can get down to the business of revising 100s of muscles and bones and goodness-knows what else for the exams next week. I find myself wishing I could insert one of those chips from the "Matrix" in my head..

more soon (and hopefully unrelated to study!) M xx

Caterwauling..

2007-05-02T21:32:00.000Z

I had my first singing lesson today since leaving high school, and it was certainly very different from what I'd experienced all those years ago! This afternoon, in a vain attempt to get me to 'raise up my larynx', my teacher had me singing scales in the manner of a bored preacher (an American accent was called for, for some technical reason?), a Smurf (when I explained I had been brought up on the German version of smurfs, i.e. Die Schlümpfe, she said I should try singing as though I had just inhaled helium in stead!) a bored robot (again the American accent was paramount) and finally a Siamese cat, much to the bemusement of her ageing tabby.. who must either be deaf or has just been worn down by the continuous torture of having to listen to her mistress' students tampering with their vocal cords all day long, as she didn't flinch at all, but just gazed up at me from the edge of the piano stool with a puzzled look!

Amazingly though, all this laryngeal gymnastics seems to work, as when we finally attempted an old jazz favourite of mine, "Misty", at the end of the lesson, there were moments (only a few mind you, and brief at that) when I managed to sound less like a choir boy and more like an approximation of a jazz diva. Of course there was the small problem of the piece being hopelessly out of my range (it stretches down to E below middle C), but my teacher reassures me it's just a matter of time before age takes its toll and I'll be able to reach that note effortlessly.. So I guess there's some comfort in getting old.. ;)

The heat is on..

2007-04-27T10:49:00.000Z

I've just finished another week of seminars for my Herbal Medicine course and I can no longer blithely ignore the massive workload looming large between now and exam week (21st May)! I have been self-medicating on the finest fairtrade 70% cocoa chocolate, but even that no longer calms me down. So if I go a little quiet over the next few weeks.. you'll know why! I may throw in a few posts every time I complete another coursework assignment, or part thereof (there are four in total between now and the bitter end, and two exams). In the mean time, here is a picture of me with my fellow Botany & Phytomedicine students and tutors at last Sunday's field trip to Kew Gardens. Needless to say it was a great day out and we got in free because it was an educational trip :)

A quick plug for my next concert - for charity!

2007-04-21T11:59:00.000Z

The choral work in which I'll be singing is in the second half of the concert. It's a wonderful mass written by our conductor - truly beautiful, and it's all in a good cause so it would be great to see you all there!

Music against Poverty
- a concert in aid of the Mathieson Music Trust

Handel Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
Pachelbel Canon
Haydn Cello Concerto in C
Campling In Paradisum

Saturday 5 May, 2007, 7.30pm
St.Paul's Church, Bedford St, Covent Garden, London WC2
Underground: Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Charing Cross

All proceeds to the Mathieson Music Trust: Reg. charity no. 1040751

The trust supports a music school near Calcutta for children from deprived backgrounds, giving them a rounded education and a future through music.
www.mathiesonmusictrust.org

Tickets: £15, concessions £10
Info: 020 7537 0618 or a.campling@btopenworld.com
Tickets also on the door subject to availability

Tickets may be purchased in advance from:
Concerts for Charity, 71 Friars Mead, Manchester Rd, London E14 3JY.
Please enclose a stamped addressed envelope and make cheques payable to Concerts for Charity.

By the Thames on a sunny morning...

2007-04-21T11:50:00.000Z

While the good people of London were training for tomorrow's marathon..

Yours truly and her sparkly heels were clip-clopping their way home at a necessarily leisurely pace. Having tarried too long at a simply fabulous birthday party in SW6, I missed my train by 1 minute (what ever happened to the good old days when cab drivers knew how to put their foot down?! This one seemed positively to relish clocking up as many red traffic signals as one can squeeze into the journey from Fulham to Waterloo..) and had to return to the party and crash on the sofa for the night. Aah the joys of being young ;)

Wisteria riots ahead of the Blackburn Rovers fans' arrival at Craven Cottage

Clematis starts to blossom at 36 YR :)

Some holiday snaps

2007-04-17T09:30:00.000Z

German Easter decorations

A sort of futuristic Hobbiton..

The metal circle of 'Pi' at the National Botanical Garden of Wales

Going rustic along the Gower coast

Stopping every few moments to take pictures of flowers (this one is a wood anemone)

A quick Hello from sunny Wales!

2007-04-12T18:57:00.000Z

OK... so I'm cheating slightly by using a photo I took on a visit here a few years ago, but it's just as a stop-gap until I can upload the new pics onto my laptop at home. I felt you needed to know just how stunning the countryside and coastline is over here :) And.. it's been so warm and sunny these last couple of days I might almost come back with a tan!

Three Cliffs Bay, Gower, S. Wales

Also visited the amazing National Botanical Garden of Wales yesterday. I can highly recommend it. Amazing design and architecture. Photos to follow later. In the mean time, I can smell delicious roast vegetables sizzling away in the Aga next door.. time for food!

not-so-green fingered still

2007-04-04T10:55:00.000Z

Well I managed to maim one of my poor little green charges in an attempt to rehouse the thing in a more spacious pot.. but it still seems to be hobbling along somehow. I will have to leave them all in the care of the neighbours over the Easter holiday. Chances are they will thrive in the absence of my clumsy not-so-green fingers - let's hope so!

Speaking of the new neighbours, they threw a fine party (though without any music.. which puzzled me somewhat), with a blind wine tasting and all (much to the distress of yours truly who tried in vain to drown the bitter taste of envy in her mouth with some carton orange juice (I gave up alcohol for Lent)). It was a very interesting group of people, in fact it felt more like a university reunion than a housewarming, and they'd all been in amateur dramatics together, so I made the right choice when I decided to go for a hint of 'glam' in my attire for the evening! One of the people I chatted to was doing a PhD on the role of scent in Victorian Art - almost convinced me that I should try this doctorate thing one day, if only I could come up with a topic quite that imaginative!! :)

Anyway, I'm off to Deutschland tomorrow for Easter, and then from next Tuesday I'll be spending a few relaxing days in South Wales. Not sure if I'll have web access, but it should afford me plenty of opportunities for some photography :)

A little bit about one of my new links, Bellaray

2007-04-03T08:21:00.000Z

Bellaray is a new designer jewellery brand created by a dear friend of mine. My personal favourite collections are Riviera (those necklaces are to die for! I'm just waiting for the right excuse to splash out ;), Fleuris and Duchesse. All very classy and elegant - Enjoy :)

Soo… ddjjyamissme???

2007-03-31T18:18:00.000Z

I know, I know… my crown as blog-mistress is not just tarnished. It’s trashed and bent out of all recognition, lying lonely in a field somewhere, intriguing some curious magpies - sigh... Just like Terry Wogan and his “other listener”, I shall be searching high and low for my “other reader” (I’m assuming at least one of my parents will have kept the faith..). I thought I’d better do another posting before tomorrow, in case it got mistaken for an April Fool (the April fool number I pulled on the 30,000 inhabitants of Murayama City in Japan has doubtless left me with bad karma on that front for all eternity.. but more on that another time!).

So what have I been up to?.. No photos since the field trip to Wisley I’m afraid, but I have been taking some baby steps towards tackling a key skill deficit with respect to my future career in herbal medicine, my distinct lack of ‘green fingers’!

Firstly I went out and bought myself the latest equipment for the lazy botanist, a flower press… that takes just 5 mins to press and dry plants! The secret is that you stick the whole contraption in the microwave, so you can kiss goodbye to stacks of yellow pages and weeks of thumb-twiddling while the specimens dry to (usual dubious) perfection. I tried it out on some flat-leafed parsley first, and bar a slight hitch with a piece of root that got a bit charred, it came out fine (and without setting off the smoke alarm ;)

Secondly I’ve started growing about 8 different varieties of herb from seed, courtesy of the “sow n’ grow” system for dummies! I just poured warm water over a tray full of what looked like a load of small brown circular discs. These then promptly swelled up into little “oil drums” of soil, about 6cm high and 3.5cm in diameter. They seem to be held together with some sort of gauze.. Anyway, all I then had to do was press a few seeds down into the centre of these little drums with my fingers. The miracle is… some of the seedlings have actually started coming up! If I can manage to keep them alive to adulthood I can use the little puppies for my botany assignment – hey hey ☺ (yes I’m afraid the poor things will live and die purely for science, but I promise to treat them humanely and maybe some of them will eventually be allowed to progress kitchen herb status ;).

Besides developing green fingers, I’ve been pretty busy on the music front, with another fabulous jam session with the ‘old bankers’ on 16th (of which the highlight was certainly our gender-bending rendition of “Sunshine of Your Love” by the Cream courtesy of our fab base and guitar players and yours truly on vocals.. at the very bottom of her range!) and at the other end of the musical spectrum, a (mercifully) successful performance of Mozart’s mass in C minor on 24th with my choir, London Docklands Singers. We actually got a smile out of our tireless (and surely saintly!) conductor, AC, at the end of most of the movements, even if we were flying by the seat of our pants somewhat in the “Osanna”.. Never a dull moment I can tell you ;) Thankfully we arrived safely at the end of this great work without anyone losing their shirts, let alone their trousers (I am assuming this “flying by the seat of your pants” thing is a North American term?)! You guys (OK assuming I have one more reader..) should really try to make it to our next big one in November. We’ll be doing the Verdi Requiem in Southward cathedral with two of Andrew’s other choirs. It should be a blast – literally! ☺

However, the thing that’s been keeping me away from the blog the most though, is the small matter of an essay on Herbal medicine I had hanging over me for waaaay too long! I finally turned it in last Sunday and felt like I had finished a prison sentence! I hope I’ll get used to this writing lark soon, or the next three years could be quite testing!

Anyway, I have just got back from 24hrs in the lovely Wiltshire countryside and feel thoroughly windswept and full of the joys of Spring. However, as it’s Saturday night, I’m off to remove the more obvious clues to my recent bucolic jaunt (I’ll have to stop chewing this piece of straw for starters ;) and prepare a more urbanite look for the next-door-neighbours’ housewarming tonight. Yes, I am finally as old as our neighbours at no. 34, who for as long as I can remember have been a succession of 30-something couples playing house in the burbs for the first time – yikes.. how did that happen? ;)

No more cold turkey!

2007-03-12T12:39:00.000Z

and I don't mean frozen leftovers from Christmas day..

after nearly 20 days of enforced deprivation, I can once again feed my internet "habit" anytime, anywhere thanks to a brand new wireless router and internet provider that answers phone calls in under a minute (hallelujah - where have these people been all my life!?). In effect, the internet "drip" has been reinstalled in the vein, and all is sunshine and smiles again at 36YR :)

Of course the main usage will be for my studies and research on coursework and the restoration of service has been very timely, as I have several deadlines coming up before the end of the month!

You may be pleased to know, by the way, that the quality and effectiveness of time spent on campus improved dramatically towards the end of the week (I struggle to imagine how it could have deteriorated!), culminating in a lovely day out at RHS Wisley Gardens on Saturday to look at medicinal herbs "in the flesh" so to speak, before they are processed into teas, decoctions, tinctures etc. 6 weeks in to the course, I am finding the subject matter (i.e. Botany, Anatomy, Physiology, Histology etc.) more interesting than ever and am inspired to do the mountain of reading that will be necessary for me to pass the first semester. Wish me luck and watch this space..

View from the Herb Garden at RHS Wisley Gardens

Our tutor talks as through some of the main medicinal herbs

Hamamelis virginiana (Witch-hazel)

University of .. Chaos?

2007-03-06T09:37:00.000Z

Well, it's day 2 of the seminar week for the distance learning "underclass" that is year 1, BSc Herbal Medicine.. Yesterday we spent 2 of our 6 hours of study moving through a succession of deficient or double-booked classrooms (I kid you not!). Our tutor's comment was that the last seminar he'd done was held over a weekend so it was fine as he and his students had had no competition for the rooms... huh???! Like.. what are we - chopped liver??

This morning I am sitting in a computer room in which all the computers seem to work apart from the one our lecturer needs to show her slides.. I suppose I should look on the bright side - more time to check email - very academically stimulating.. ;)

Popping up for air..

2007-03-02T14:20:00.000Z

Well.. it seems there's no chance of web access at home for another week or so, so it's just as well I'll be spending the whole of next week in London :) It's my first week of seminars for the Herbal Medicine course. i.e. I get to feel like a real student for a whole week! It's not quite 9 to 5 but close, and to top it all off, I get to stay with N&R and their beautiful new baby daughter all week :) Then on Saturday (10th March), I've got my first field trip to Wisley gardens in Surrey and I'll be sure to take my camera.

On a separate note, my Yoga lessons are still going.. but numbers are dwindling. As Terry Wogan so often says, "Is it me?"... ;)

Quick sign of life

2007-02-25T19:08:00.000Z

Hi there! I am on a borrowed internet connection right now, so I'll keep it short, but all will hopefully be well again Monday week when we get broadband again in Woking. It's a long, sad story so I will spare you it. Our old provider were NTL (now virgin media) and I have not one good word to say about them. How does that old adage go? If you've got nothing good to say.. talk about the weather?

On trawling through my old (windows) laptop..

2007-02-20T21:11:00.000Z

searching for a copy of my CV (aherm... last updated in 2004..), I came across another word file I had entitled, "The Decade". It was an unfinished attempt at a round robin missive I was going to send to my nearest and dearest before I moved into my thirties to thank them for all the fun and fulfillment of my 20s! I won't bore you with all of it (too long, even in its unfinished state!), but here's the bit I wrote about how my world at 20 compared with how I saw things on the eve of the big "three O"..

3rd October 2004: Speaking of literally putting pen to actual paper, this quaint, old-fashioned practice is one of the many things that has virtually disappeared from my daily existence over the last decade. Add to that, drinking tap water (or for that matter doing anything with it other than washing the dishes, watering the garden or channelling it through the shower, basin or bath), going further than the end of the garden without a mobile phone, 56k modems, thinking that the getting a fifth TV channel is a big deal, or that interactive TV is the stuff of some sort of Star Trek future (this will only mean something to the Brits among you; the rest of the world got excess channel fatigue decades ago..), the sense of moral outrage that would allow us to see that reality TV is in fact not at all amusing or entertaining, but rather tacky, tasteless, demeaning mind-dulling, dragging us back to the dark ages in Western Europe, when people thought watching public executions and people being mauled by lions was all part of a fun day out, the concept that water is vital to humanity’s existence and therefore, the rights to it, if owned by anyone, should be owned by all, and not carved up and sold off to goodness knows whom for a quick buck, the illusion that our public pensions will keep us off the streets when we are old and that our company pensions plans are inviolable, using public payphones, other than to admire the aesthetic qualities of the interior décor (commonly wall-papered with business cards and leaflets heralding the particular mind-boggling USPs of one sex-industry worker or another..), worrying unduly about the cost of international phone calls, let alone the cost of flying (hallelujah!), the Deutschmark, the Franc and the Lira, having only one energy and communication service provider to choose from, government-funded first degrees, the association of the acronym, “PC” with nothing more harmless than a police constable, or for the techno-minded, the personal computer, rather than the attempt by a shallow, lazy world to replace the need to build relationships based on respect, consideration and genuine willingness to understand with a tick-box, catch-all social code of conduct, that creates a “safe harbour” allowing discrimination to continue unabated under the surface without the unwelcome consequence of legal or other redress, the hope of ever meeting my bank manager (I have banked with an Internet bank for the past 4 years), voting LibDem was considered at best a quirky eccentricity that was humoured in friends… and the list of changes, good and bad, goes on and on.

The world is not however completely unrecognisable, as I see it. The Queen is still the Queen and Prince Charles is still patiently (?) waiting in the wings. British Rail is still getting there and the fares are still inversely proportionate to the level of service, but now you need a forensic expert to figure out to whom you should make a complaint! British cuisine is still an oxymoron and our football fans don’t know how to behave abroad. On the broader front, Madonna is still the unrivalled Queen of pop (sorry Britney, but you just don’t cut it, and Kylie, we love the new you, but Madge is still no. 1!), and the talent of the likes of U2 and Sting continue to enthral millions across the globe. Many of the big multinational brands have stayed with us, Coca Cola, Pepsi, MacDonalds, Mars, Nestle, the Malborough Man (more’s the pity) as have the big NGOs like the Red Cross/Crescent, Oxfam, Greenpeace and Amnesty International. Despite all the doomsayers of the past few years, the UN and all its related institutions are also still standing, shaky though they may be...

Forget commercialised schmalz and debates over the relative eco-friendliness of roses from the hothouses of Holland vs. the fields of Kenya..

2007-02-15T14:29:00.000Z

Let's celebrate Fat Thursday!!! :) I've recently got into to the habit of checking the "On this day" section of wikipedia, where you can find out what national holidays and festivals are going around the world. Well, I was delighted to discover that courtesy of the Germans and the Poles, today we get "a day of gluttony and belly-worship, when people meet in their homes or cafés with their friends and relatives and eat large quantities of sweets, cakes and other meals forbidden during Lent" - or Fat Thursday! Surely this is closer to most people's hearts than the gratuitous rose-culling and empty commercialism of yesterday ? Let's hear it for "belly worship"! Bon appetit :)

For the article on the relative eco-friendliness of Roses from Africa vs. the Netherlands, click here

My first organic veg box

2007-02-12T14:27:00.000Z

Farmer's choice vegetable box

So my powers of concentration with regard to study are still pretty sketchy, but I'm hoping the new drive to eat my 5 a day will help the grey cells get up from their comfy couch and get to work! To this end, I've signed up with one of these organic vegetable and fruit box suppliers, who will deliver a selection of fruit and veg of your choice, plus any extra items you order, in this case lentils and a tin of chopped tomatoes, as often as once a week. This week, I've decided to go for the Farmer's choice vegetable box, which purports to include only products grown regionally. So far I've sampled the onions and carrots (there were also some mushrooms in there, but they'd already reached the fridge by the time the photo was taken) and they were delicious!

Now I've ticked all the boxes at last..

2007-02-08T21:58:00.000Z

and successfully logged into the online interactive teaching platform (UELPlus), I can finally begin my studies, and the first shock of the day was to discover that I have a deadline in two weeks time already.. aargh :( I rejoined my local library, and sat down for an hour and a half with my study guides for all three of the modules I am taking this semester, General anatomy, Physiology and Histology, Botany and Phytomedicine and Skills for Herbalists and found concentrating for that long a real struggle. It'll be a painful process getting the old grey cells working again.. :(

On the plus side though, I taught my first (and hopefully not last ;) yoga class yesterday evening, which was very exciting. I had one beginner and another four people whose ability ranged between beginner/intermediate and intermediate. It was quite challenging pitching the class in such a way that the beginner didn't get freaked out and the more advanced people didn't get bored.. but hopefully I succeeded! I'll find out when I go back next week and see if they've come back for more :)

In the meantime I'm trying, not so successfully, to get into a routine of getting up early enough in the morning to fit in a session of meditation and some yoga before I start the rest of the day. the problem is that every time I go into London, for choir etc., I end up getting to bed late, so the whole timetable is thrown off. I wish I knew how to survive on less sleep, like the infamous Iron Lady.. Any ideas?

It's a tough neighbourhood..

2007-02-07T09:21:00.000Z

squirrel behind bars in West Ham Park

So I finally got my student ID yesterday! This little smart card, with an out-of-focus mugshot of me on it, is essentially my life for the next three years, and will hopefully help dull the financial pain of operating in and around London and dealing with UK pound sterling prices. My first task was to apply for yet another mugshot card, which will get me discounted public transport in London. My next step will be to get a few museum memberships, so that I can start my apprenticeship as a culture vulture (there has to be some advantage to being in a big city!) again.

A cold and frosty morning..

2007-02-04T16:42:00.000Z

In Wiltshire. It's been a glorious day here from the word go, with views like this across my grandmother's garden and beyond.

birdbath in the morning light

As far as the studies go, I now have only 4 ticks outstanding on that induction checklist (albeit, some pretty important ones like getting my student ID!), and I hope to be a fully paid up student by the end of Tuesday. I now have all my study guides for this semester and they also kindly sent me some chamomile flowers and some Dandelion Root (roasted).. hmm not intended for a cup of tea I suspect!

A propos of nothing, I've been making very full use of skype this week (talking to people via the world wide web), chatting to people in Australia, New York, Fulham, Japan and Mexico, all for free (if you discount the monthly cost to each party of broadband internet) and sometimes with two way video chat. The crowning moment had to be the three-way conference call (sadly no video) with RPC in Fulham and L&RRK in NY. Forget about how we all coped before the invention of the mobile phone! What about life before VOIP and IM? Our grandchildren will stare wide-eyed, when we describe this "old" world to them. "What? Do you mean you weren't able to see the other person when you spoke to them on the phone? How weird?!" Sigh.. I feel old already ;)

pony trek in the lane

Walking off a big Sunday lunch

The sound of Babel

2007-02-01T11:12:00.000Z

Went to see Babel last night, and the soundtrack is quite brilliant. Very haunting and moving. The Argentine musician Gustavo Santaolalla is the main artist behind it, but Ryuichi Sakamoto's pieces are also wonderful.

A warning though, as the film's title implies, it's not exactly a heart-warming story.. It does what is says on the tin, so don't go along to see it if you want to feel better about the state of mankind!

Induction checklist

2007-01-31T22:51:00.000Z

Tick when complete

1. Have you registered on the programme on UEL Direct?
2. Have you paid your fees?
3. Have you registered on your modules?
4. Do you know how to use UEL Direct and UELPlus?
5. Are you able to use your UEL email account?
6. Have you got your student ID card?
7. Do you know how to access library facilities?
8. Do you know how to register for UK Libraries Plus and ATHENS?
9. Do you know who your Personal Tutor is?
10. Do you have your first semester's module study guides?
11. Do you know where to find the University's Regulations?
12. Do you know how to get in touch with module leaders and tutors?

No. of ticks.... uuurm only 4 so far, but hey at least I know how to contact my tutors and access the library (open 24/7 I'll have you know!). We can iron out the little details like paying tuition fees and accessing the online course guide later - ho hum..

In case you're wondering what I'm on about, today was my induction day for the herbal medicine course I'm about to embark upon at University of East London. My first coursework deadline is 30th March and the amount of knowledge I need to acquire between now is faintly terrifying.. but then what did I expect? Certainly not a walk in the park.. more like a swift kick up the behind for my lazy brain! It'll be a bit like attending a gym for the first time in 6 months. The pain will be real, quite debilitating and linger a long time, but the results will eventually come through ;)

The Alma Mater to be (UEL's Stratford campus)

My old haunt.. Canary Wharf

The Carsten Höller piece at the Tate Modern, a friend's inspired choice of venue for her birthday party last Saturday. I didn't dare try the slide from the 5th floor..

The friendly taxman..

2007-01-30T16:49:00.000Z

The modern version of this age-old figure of hate is now so well-mannered that he (or she in this case) even takes the trouble to give you a phone call to remind you not to miss the deadline and incur a STG100.00 fine. I can't help wondering if she bothered to call people who were due a refund? Cynical - moi? ;)

PS By the way if you ARE under the UK tax regime, this is my friendly reminder (no strings attached here!) that the deadline is tomorrow! The Self Assessment helpline people are genuinely helpful when you call them, and the number is 0845 900 0444, or +44 161 931 9070 (from Overseas).

So long and thanks for all the fish..

2007-01-30T10:15:00.000Z

Looks like it really is curtains for tuna (at least the good stuff - i.e. the sashimi) for the foreseeable future :( And the prospect of leftover (post scientific research) whalemeat doesn't quite fill the gap for me..

Tuna conservation
Fins with the blues

Jan 25th 2007 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition
Japan finds itself on the other side of a conservation debate

FEW Japanese would go out of their way to eat whale meat. Most would defend their country's right to harpoon cetaceans to the edge of extinction. But that is more out of resentment at the cultural imperialism of the anti-whaling countries than any memory of the role whale meat played in feeding a starving nation after the war. But when it comes to tuna, most Japanese would go a long way for a morsel of o-toro. Now that tuna risk going the way of the whales, the Japanese are among the first to start clamouring for conservation.

At a 60-nation gathering in Kobe this week, Japan urged the world's tuna conservation organisations to join forces in curbing “purse-seine” fishing, which uses large, circular nets that catch everything in their path. Japan, along with Australia and America, also proposed a global monitoring system—in a bid to protect the world's tuna stocks.

Widespread illegal and unregulated fishing has pushed tuna stocks near to utter destruction. According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation, the global tuna haul increased steadily from 200,000 tonnes in the early 1950s to peak at 4.3m tonnes in 2003. Catches are now falling and prices rising—thanks largely to an insatiable demand for tuna, canned and raw, from health-conscious Americans and Europeans, and now from affluent Chinese as well. Meanwhile, as tuna prices soar, more fishing vessels put to sea.

In the western Atlantic, the number of mature blue-fin tuna—the most prized member of the species reserved for the best sashimi and sushi—that are capable of spawning has fallen by 90% since 1970. In the Mediterranean, stocks of blue-fin tuna have crashed by 80% over the past three years alone. The southern blue-fin has been so heavily over-fished, especially by Japanese fleets, that quotas have had to be lowered by a further 20% all round. In return, Japan has agreed to cut its own blue-fin take by 50% annually for the next five years.

As the biggest consumers of the blue-fin delicacy, the Japanese could find themselves priced out of the tuna market and forced to eat something else. On hand, thanks to the number of minke whales caught annually for “scientific research”, is a whale-meat mountain that at present is going to waste.

Blog address

2007-01-29T16:59:00.000Z

For those of you getting this sent directly to your emails, you can see the original blogsite at http://melgoesbacktoschool.blogspot.com/

A New Look!

2007-01-29T16:51:00.000Z

So the haircut I got last Tuesday may have been a disaster (the girl cut my hair like she was shearing a sheep - baaaaahh :( but at least the new blog is looking shiny and refreshed thanks to RPC's usual wizardry on the graphic design front :) The photo he skillfully cropped for the blog header was taken in Cape Town on the beach as I was dipping my toes in the chilly waters of the Atlantic - sigh... wish I was there again!

Snow, jamming and imminent risk of serious brain usage..

2007-01-28T22:55:00.000Z

Hello and apologies first of all for my long silence! I got back to the UK on 17th December after 6 and a half months of travel and I must confess, though happy to be back, it took some readjusting! The complete lack of responsibility and pressure of any sort of deadlines while I was travelling combined to give me an enormous sense of freedom. So returning to an environment where all my peers not only had plenty of responsibilities, but were also busy laying out sensible plans for the future (investing in property, sorting out pensions etc., and having more beautiful children :)), left me reeling somewhat. It was hard, when looking at my own unplanned and "unsorted" life situation, to resist the urge to PANIC! However, I had little time to contemplate my navel (and thus spiral further into anxiety and despair!), thanks to a big family Christmas in Wiltshire and a trip to Germany over New Year to visit the other side of the family. Then on 9th Jan I went off to deepest, darkest (well, actually very beautiful) Herefordshire to immerse myself in a 10-day meditation course I signed up for a while back and returned to my Mum's place in Woking only a week ago. While you might think a meditation course might have left me far too much time to contemplate, it actually seemed to help keep in check my knee-jerk reaction to panic, which was a bonus!

So, with my new-found, almost-zen calm, I started calling the Universities to which I wanted to apply to study Herbal Medicine (BSc (Hons) in Herbal Medicine, Combined BSc (Hons) in Herbal Studies) from September this year. Naturally I called my first choice, University of East London, first and got through to the administrator for the course. She was friendly but confessed that she and the teaching staff would be able to be more helpful to me the following week, when the pressure to prepare for the "February starters" had eased off. "February starters????", said I. "Yes, February starters. You could still get in an application if you send it back to me today.", said she, half-jokingly. "The Induction day for new students is next Wednesday." "Alright then. Email me the form and I'll take a look.", said I, and so began a frantically busy day of hunting down and begging referees not only to support my application, but support it NOW, and cutting and pasting bits and pieces from old CVs and writing what I hoped would be a vaguely coherent page explaining why I wanted to join the course and why they should let me (especially as I had proven my scattiness by completely missing the fact that you could start in Feb.. doh!). It was slightly surreal, but somehow I managed to find two willing referees and send off the application by 16:15. That was Wednesday, and later that evening I went off to the gorgeous flat in Holland Park of a former client to "jam" with a bunch of people from my old industry, the leveraged loans market (which by the way, is hotter than ever). It was a fabulous evening and probably just the tonic (or rather, red wine :)I needed to come back down to earth after the frenzy of the day!

On Thursday morning I started receiving emails about the course timetable and details about the induction. Then shortly afterwards, I received, by email, an offer letter inviting me to join the BSc course the following week. Of course there is still some paperwork to get through with admissions (not least fees to pay!), but assuming all that is surmountable, I'm in! :) This means any plans to travel between now and September need to go on hold until I work out exactly what my commitments are (the course is mostly correspondence, but some attendance at the Stratford campus is required), but at least my hungry brain will be occupied, a whole 7 months early :)

So that's my news for now. As you will have seen, there is a shiny new blog (though I've stuck with the old green template for now because I like it), which you can take a look at any time you want to find out what I'm up to. The website is http://melgoesbacktoschool.blogspot.com

Bye for now M xx

Snow where it normally isn't: Woking, Surrey, early morning 24th Jan '07

Little snow where there is normally lots (as in 1-2metres' worth): Yamagata, Northern Japan, Jan '07

hmmmm...