Resolution

I love words that have more than one meaning - resolution for example. It means on the one hand to resolve an issue and on the other to resolve to do something. So I resolve this coming year to reach a resolution to my continuing depression.

The road to hell, they say, is paved with broken resolutions. If the ubiquitous they don't say that then they should. Over the years I have resolved to give up smoking, men, fast food, resolutions and grief. Never succeeded with any of them. I think we put so much pressure on ourselves to be better in the new year, to make it different, that we set our expectations too high and then get angry with ourselves when we cannot meet that high target.

So this year I resolve to know my limits, to try and stop smoking, to like myself a little more and to punish myself a little less. My one unalterable, unshakable resolution is to continue to love my friends and family and to tell them often that I do love them. I will try to be a better person but if I fail then this is the year that I accept failure graciously and not hate myself for failing,

Happy New Year to all of you - I hope the resolutions are made and kept, but if not, then be kind to yourself and resolve to do it all again next year.
xxx

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High Maintenance

After the miseries of a couple of days ago and a strong telling off from Gail I decided that way to go was high maintenance - for those you not quite up with the programme, pamper myself.

Out came the l'Occitaine lavender bath stuff, the La Source soap and body scrub and the grapefruit body butter from Body Shop. The candles were lit, Simon and Garfunkel in the CD player and the towel put on fluff in the dryer. I soaked, soaped and exfoliated and washed my hair with a ten minute hot oil treatment.

It was all rather like a movie set except - the bath is only four foot long so to get my top half under water I have to stick my legs straight up. The body scrub caused multiple abrasions that were NOT intended and one of the candles fell off the window sill and into the bath!

No matter I thought, the concept was working. I felt more like a goddess than ever before. The towel was a little hot - fluffing requires care and reading the instructions! I manged however and headed for the hairdryer and straightners. I wanted shiny, glossy, swooshy hair like in the adverts. What I got was firstly over dried frizz followed by burnt ends to straight lank bits. No matter I thought - tomorrow is another day and I can wash it again and dry it au natural...(The next day was -3)

Surely, I thought as I headed to bed smelling delightfully youngly of grapefruit, surely my beloved Decleor won't let me down. I cleansed and toned and then mixed up my usual HydraFloral with some super duper Essential Balm and massaged it well into the skin and neck. I finished off with l'Occitaine foot and hand cream and slid between the sheets to sleep, happily dreaming of the goddess to come.

When I woke up I had some difficulty in seeing - my eyes were finding it hard to open. I lurched to the mirror to see my 'goddess' face resembled nothing so much as an angry moon; round and covered in red blotches- I was allergic to the balm! I still smelt of grapefruit and believe that novelty wore off quickly and was covered in a rash from the body scrub. My hair - oh my poor hair looked Phyllis Diller gone mad. All I can say thank God I didn't do the whole make up thing as well.

Back to being an aging hippy for me and somebody please remind me of this the next time I mutter, high maintenance!!!!!!!!!!!

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Shanti

I am going to share with you a letter that my French brother (adopted by Mum in his twenties) wrote - I have nothing to give but love and this blog to help him. This is not so much a request for money as it is for help - maybe you know of doctors or treatments. I met her husband last summer when he came to Alain's gallery to do workshops in his craft - he is enchanting and funny and a lover of life so if you have something to spare please help him remain a lover of life and a lover of his Shanti. Thank you.

Dear Friends

  

I am writing to let you know that whilst I was in Nepal a few weeks ago Shanti, the lovely wife

of our Nepalese Silversmith friend Krishna Sunar who produces most of the beautiful jewellery for our Galleries, has been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.

Whilst still a dreadful life-threatening Cancer we were told that with the right type and amount of Chemotherap and Bone Marrow Transplant she would have an excellent chance of survival.

This was great news to hear after several days of anguish waiting for the tests results to come back from Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute, India’s front line Cancer Research Hospital.

The horrible and cruel reality, as I expected it to be, is that unlike in the West when all we have

to worry about is the Doctors ability and the efficacy of the treatment (which to be frank is already difficult enough to bare) this survival is completely dependent on financing the treatment 100% and, to be quite frank, the minimum cost of £9000.00 sounded to the family like a death sentence.

Of course some of us are aware of how fortunate we are to have a National Health system and/or Medical Insurance to take charge of the “practical” side of saving Lives.

In countries like Nepal, however beautiful a place it is, there is nothing…you stand alone

with the information the doctors have given you about the real cost of someone’s Life.

You are left hopeless because for most people in Nepal, including our friend Krishna, the sum involved is astronomical and would completely bankrupt the family.

You might remember a similar situation I was fortunate to be in, the financing of the emergency Heart operation on Sanish, the 7 year’s old little boy of a dear friend in 2006 (I say fortunate because I am glad I was able to be there for them at the time. I am still working off the cost to date).

Today Sanish is happy and studying better that most children. I go and teach at the boarding he now goes to when I work in Nepal.

OK, I have to accept that I cannot save the world but I cannot turn my back on a friend

so I wired some money and we admitted Shanti to Rajiv Gandhi’s… but this time, I am unable

to do this alone. I am looking at ways to raise funds quickly to pay for the rest of her treatment.

I am not a registered Charity yet, although I think I will have to be. Part of the work I have been doing in Nepal since 1979 with people less fortunate than us is not going to stop.

We had already planned Fund Raising Events at the galleries for 2011, but this time funds are urgently needed if we want to see Krishna’s wife on her way to recovery.

This big World of ours sometimes has a way of showing itself as a small place.

Maybe you know of an organisation which could be of financial support, maybe you would

like to make a donation towards the treatment.

For this we will be eternally grateful.

                               

                             

                                 

                                             All my very best wishes

 Alain

Alain Rouveure Galleries

Todenham, Near Moreton in Marsh, GL56 9NU

www.AlainRouveure.com -Tel 01608 650 418 – alain@alainrouveure.com

Donations by cheque made payable to Alain Rouveure Nepal Relief Fund

For bank transfers or standing orders

Alain Rouveure Relief Fund - Lloyds Tsb 30 95 75 - account 22238668

IBAN GB43 LOYD 3095 7522 238 668 – BIC/SWIFT LOYDGB 21385

The Wheel Goes Round

I think I just same down to earth with a bump from the high delight of Canada. I've been good - went for a walk yesterday and today - failed to find any sort of endorphin rush - far from it - I simply ache in every joint. Having been bidden to my sisters for the family meal I endured and pulled crackers. There was the treat of the beloved Katy Joy who gurgled and giggled at me, and then I was told I could go home - so back I came.

I got a lovely coat from my sister and a packet of Guatemalan worry people from my niece  - to put under my pillow - have noticed that they already seem smaller and greyer. I think they are going to have find their only worry people with my problems being handed over every night!

In the end I came home and calmed down with a few scratches- first in a while, but I needed the release and the self loathing needed an avenue of expression. I wish - oh how I wish that all this would stop for my personal grey cloud had managed to engulf me despite the pills. I hate the pretence - the hiding of my arms for fear of upsetting others. This depression is a bugger and when it lands in is all encompassing and the only thing that shuts it off for a time is to double up the sleeping pills and knock myself out!

So I am sorry this is not more chirpy - but hey at least I am writing. More in the New Year if I make it that far. Let me leave you wtih a song - maybe dreary be eloquently says how I fee;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY9uCg5W-dQ

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Up On the Roof

Rooftops in India were all important - they allowed us fresh air high above the city, they gave us view of sunsets that was incomparable and they allowed us to watch the night sky and the moon and stars. One glorious year Gail and I slept on the rooftop verandah in Puri and went to bed every night under the stars as they burned their way across the night sky.

Full moons varied in size - from the small to the huge but they were always greeted by oohs and ahs and occasionally by a howl of the werewolf variety. The roof allowed vistas of the city made beautiful by the flickering lights of Diwali, early morning sunrises and moments of contemplation of the beauty of place with the Hooghly stretching away on one side and the pollution creating a haze like a  gauzy veil over the rest.  Even pollution played its part in the magic.

Roofs played a huge role in parties; bedecked in candles and fairy lights they provided a magical setting for any number of special occasions from birthdays to Christmas. My parents once held a joint party that was the last word in abundance and decadence - nothing but imported Scotch and smoked salmon. I got very drunk on Screwdrivers (a new and exciting cocktail at the time) and much of the joy passed me by but it was certainly a time I never forgot.

Watching the sunset was a magical rooftop treat. We would sit and look towards the river and watch the huge ball of fire slowly turn the sky all shades of pink and red and yellow before it disappeared into the water for another day. We would climb up to watch the full moon as well: sometimes so big that it seemed it would fall out of the sky. It was strange to look and think of men walking there for the first time when it seemed so close that we could touch it.

The Puri and Kalimpong skies were untouched by pollution so that not only the moon but also the stars seemed close and huge. There was no astronomical touch to our viewing: we simply looked and wondered at their beauty finding constellations that probably weren't really there but that we knew the names of.

Nighttime was when the heat of the day cooled and there was nowhere better to appreciate this than the roof. The joyous thing about that was that everyone else would come out onto their roofs too and so the whole city seemed to be living on the roof reaching up into the night sky for beauty and coolness. Thus a city of many became a neighbourhood of friends sharing a common experience - up on the roof.

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The Ghost of Christmas Past

When I can't sleep I tell myself stories - sometimes made up and sometimes memories. Last night I revisited Christmas in India and thought this morning that I would share some of the memories with you.

Calcutta was hardly designed for Yuletide cheer - even with the holiday falling in December it was still hot outside of our air conditioned cocoon. But with Diwali and Id out of the way Calcutta celebrated the holiday with vengeance. Park Street was lit up and the centre of the New Market became a Chinese Christmas Grotto with paper lanterns and tinsel galore.

The first sign of the coming festivities was the arrival of dollies(sic) - large baskets filled with fruit and alcohol that were sent out like hampers. As a doctor Dad always got loads and the delight of chocolate and figs and dates was extreme. My mother and sister took to flying to Hong Kong to do their shopping - these were the years when such things were not only possible but also desirable. And me? I just loved it all.

When I was about four or five I was taken to see Father Christmas. He bore a striking resemblance to Dad's friend Dr De Senha and his pink powdered face showed tramlines of a rather darker complexion where the sweat caused by the heavy velvet suit had run down his cheeks. I was terrified - and screamed loudly. I swear it was almost a relief to me to find out the Santa Claus was not real. Poor Terence - he loved children and he and his wife Alma were childless. I am not sure that I  helped fill the void!

Christmas Eve was the midnight carol service at the cathedral - yes Calcutta has a very handsome cathedral - possibly the only time of the year that many of us entered its doors. After singing carols loudly and badly it was time to head home and try to sleep before the joy of the morning. Whatever school I was at always had a Nativity play and I was always the plump angel with the halo that dug into my head. Miss Bath's always had a pantomime, of the very highest order, and to go and see it was one of the Christmas treats. One year the Amateurs put on Peter Pan and I clapped for Tinkerbell to live with all my heart and soul. I still believe in fairies so please don't try to put them in the same category as Father Christmas.

Christmas Day was always sunny and once the presents had been opened it was a dreary trudge round a series of sherry parties that my parents had to attend. I got shockingly drunk one year and have never touched sherry since. After a snack lunch it was off to the polo where the treat of  the year was to see the naughty polo players pretend to fall off their horses so that my father had to mount his bicycle and pedal over to the far side of the field. This always produced a standing ovation as it was always in doubt that he would make it.

In the evening my mother had one mantra - no one should be alone for Christmas. George and Dorothy were rounded up - any stray jockeys or polo players were bidden to join us and of course, there was always Desmond and the assorted Doigery.

There was a widely held belief that the turkeys purchased in the New Market were in fact vultures so much thought went in to finding a turkey. When I got older I did a term paper for an American friend for an American turkey from the commissary. By hook or by crook a bird was found and at eight Christmas night we sat down, rarely less than ten and more often than not far more. By now my father was tired and emotional - a day that had started with sherry ended with whisky and had cycle rides in between would leave him reeling and longing for bed. There was always a row but once out of the way the meal progressed happily and the festivities continued well into Boxing Day.

Boxing Day was racing - always and immovable. I would be left to play with my new toys, taken to see the Sound of Music (again!) and generally recover from all the excitement.

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Bored now

Dear God I am so tired of being positive. I know many of you were tired of me being negative but this finding a PMA is knackering and dispiriting. It is grey outside, it is cold and foggy. I'm broke (again) and facing the 'family' Christmas so anxiety levels are soaring. There really isn't that much to be positive about or to write about.

So back to my alter ego as Victoria Meldrew. Bah humbug! Hate the weather! Still depressed! Still so many things. Wonder if I am ever going to feel better. Bollocks!

That's better. I feel like I have lanced a festering boil. The PMA thing, I think, only works if  there is real positivity to be found. Pretending only makes things worse, and I always said that in this blog I would be, if nothing else, honest.

Today is the shortest day and the good news is that from tomorrow days will get longer by one minute a day until June so the dark afternoons will slowly fade. I suspect that lack of sunlight doesn't help the depression as indeed does not  being particularly warm. I know that those of you that live in countries where the snow and ice are constant from November to March will say that we here in Britain are wimps for the way we cave at a little ice and snow  but our mentality is geared up to a long wet winter, with wind and floods. That we deal with with humour and the spirit of the Blitz. We are not an ice and snow society although it looks increasingly as if we might have to.

But this ice and snow means that buses don't run - people have had to cancel their Christmas plans, the airports are a living hell. (reason to be cheerful - missed the airport chaos) the trains are slowing to crawl and not running at all on the busy East Coast line and the roads are mass of ice and uncleared snow. Add all this to the enforced jollity of Christmas and you have cause for a national meltdown. It is an amazing tribute to people in this country that their tolerance extends to the mess of the last few days and they succeed somehow in remaining chirpy despite all. The real spirit of Christmas exists in people like my hairdresser who offered to ferry me to my sister's on Christmas Eve and the chatter at the bustop as we wait for half an hour for the bus.

So - if I don't get the urge to write again before Christmas - Happy Holidays to all of you and may your Christmases be merry and bright. Not going to wish for white. And may 2011 be the year that all our dreams come true. xxxx

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Foodie Thoughts

I actually wanted to write about loss and misery but decided we have all had enough of that! Much more fun to write about food and recipes. Food is our comfort, our bete noir, our love and our hate. We eat to live, to feel better, to share and because we can. Our relationship with food starts with our mother's milk and we search endlessly for the rest of our lives for that same nourishment and comfort.

I have a love/hate relationship with food - I am seriously overweight and so pretend not to care or cook but quietly stock up on sugar highs with biscuits and coke. When I do cook I prefer it to be for other people - it seems pointless to me to go to a lot of trouble for just myself. Perhaps that is the nub of all the problems right there.

I happily cooked for eight in Canada and enjoyed so much the sharing of cooking and eating that was such a big part of the holiday. Meals were about families and sharing and the fact that they were all delicious was almost incidental. But they were - delicious.

My friend Roshni sent me this link - I couldn't write it better or evoke the same kind loving memory of a childhood pleasure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVNcs_lEC74

For the first time last year I actually knew what it was to  be hungry and to have no food. I was lucky, it only lasted a few days but it gave me new found relationship and respect - we must eat to live. If we are honest sometimes we live to eat!

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Winter

Just got back from shopping with the blind neighbour - he proposed and I had to explain that if I married  him I would want the lot - BIG DRESS, church, marquee and many, many guests. He went strangely quiet and then said, "So that's a No then?" I suspect he was relieved when I agreed it was emphatically a no.

It made think though - my proposals have not been numerous or indeed serious. One in the coffee shop at the Park Hotel in Calcutta left me giggling in disbelief, another was a Greek sailor on board a flight to Delhi who thought his mother would like me. And that, until today, was that. I have to wonder if I have missed out or if I have been lucky. Gail, from Canada, has been with Jesse for over thirty five years - they complete each other, are extensions of each other and I would be lying if I did not admit a degree of envy. Other friends are just 'married' - it doesn't seem so important and I don;t envy them.

So in my new, reflective and optimistic self I have to examine why. Negative Joanna would say it was because of being unattractive and undesirable. Positive Joanna has to accept that she has given very negative vibes to anyone who showed any sign of being in it for the long haul. I am alone because I chose that as my path. I really have no reason to be unhappy with my choice. But ... I do wonder.

I don't know - I think this is all brought into focus by the finding of another old flame who seems genuinely fond of me. God knows why. Still it was lovely to talk to him and to connect with somebody else across the years. But marriage to the blind neighbour - that would be a no!

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Rekindling?

It is hard at think of what to say - the new meds seem to taken away the angst that drove much of the blogging. Not that I'm complaining - it is lovely to feel levelheaded for once, but that anguish and loneliness gave me an edge when I wrote. I know that for some of you that made uncomfortable reading and I bless you for sticking with it.

Found an old boyfriend yesterday, Phil, and wrote to Gail to tell her - I said I wasn't sure I should have contacted him and she said figure out why - well, I suppose he was always a grown up fully reciprocating relationship and I tend to head for the hills when those come along. And I did with Phil - went home to India but you see he didn't try to make me stay.

We've met up a few times since then - the last time I saw him I wasn't very nice to him and I felt awful afterwards and then two days ago on one of my sporadic bear hunts I found him. He phoned last night and we talked for an hour! Oddly it felt very comfortable even if he does support Man U.

Don't worry this not going to be crazed Internet stalker story or even a love story - just another good friend refound and this time treated with a little more care.

Talking of bunny boiling  - recipes for the baba blog please - so far I have creme caramel and blueberry pancakes - there must be more. I know Sonny Puri had fabulous scrambled eggs with chili and onion and tomato and I remember toast and jam after the horses had worked at Tolly in the early morning sun, with Bob Wright doing the Amrita crossword (that came from the Daily Telegraph). I have him to thank for my enduring enjoyment of crosswords. Breakfast in Kalimpong was porridge - lumpy and not very nice but made better with Auntie Annie's brandy honey: she used to keep a honeycomb in an old brandy bottle with a few drops left in the bottom - the best honey you could imagine even if you did slur your words a bit and felt a little woozy.

So you see there are stories there - please share. xxx

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Doggerel

There once was a girl called Joanna

Who had an unfortunate manner

She smiled at people a lot

But sadly with teeth she had not got

So they made 

 some from the keys of the old pianner.

As you can see my poetry does not improve with age. About two years ago I had a mouth cancer scare and had to have all my teeth removed. Life has not been easy since - there is the difficulty in speaking, you quite literally have to retrain your tongue, the pain, they new ones are sharp plastic and cut into the gums and then, worst of all, the eating. Just as you think you have it under control your mouth is suddenly adrift with teeth floating at will from side to side.

I manage perfectly well without them but it is the vanity and pride that keep me wearing them. I am thinking very seriously of super glue but Any ideas would be most welcome.

It is this growing older thing I hate - not the lines or the droops as someone said these are the maps of life- but the feeling of being earthbound by gravity. To jump into the air now occasions a swift descent and normally quite a loud, "Ouch". Why, you may ask is a 55 year old jumping in the air? The answer is simple: I was dancing to Bowie's  'Changes' and felt the need for a kung fu kick followed by a leap into the air but bloody gravity pulled me back. My gruntlement was certainly dissed.

I remember writing a poem once calling for Lochinvar; these days I'd be lucky to yell out for Steptoe. It really isn't fair you know, all this stuff still bubbling to come out . to dance, to sing and to have one last, big, beautiful love affair complete with roses and sonnets. Let's hope the teeth stay in eh?

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Shoes and ships and sealing wax...

So back in blighty - incidentally did you know that the word comes from Hindi for England: Bilayat? That's me, a mine of useless information - like one in every million oysters being left handed?

I have finally unravelled my sleep pattern and now feel wide awake in the morning and nicely snoozy until I put the light out then - wide awake! Insomnia is not nice but like depression I think you have to learn to live with it.

My black cloud (Gregg asks for it not to be a dog as they are nice, and I agree) has hovered Pooh like over my head but has not descended thank God so I have begun, tentatively, to plan a return to work in January, some decorating and the turning of this into a book. I shall be too busy to be depressed!!!

Meanwhile Dubby, of whom I have spoken with awe and love suggested "Breakfast with the Baba log" - a combination of yours and my favourite childhood recipes and the memories they unleash. Anyone up for it? Could be an exrtraordinary Proustian experience. Let me know via email or even COMMENT!

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