I am a slightly less driven unpacker. Probably because I am bit more unpacked! I still have a way to go but we are getting there and are both a bit amazed by how quickly we’ve felt at home here. I guess when you’ve lived in a place for 20 years there’s a degree of familiarity that another 20 years doesn’t erase. One of the women working at the post office was working there when I left town all those years ago. One of the librarians is the same too. But the Library has changed a lot! Anyway, I am finally unpacking my studio. Essentially it’s a step up from a shed down the back. It’s not ideal i ..read more

It’s Winter. And we’ve moved!! We’re barely a week in our new place but are successfully transplanting our boring bird people behaviour! We miss our gang gangs and magpies and felt a bit sad for days that there seemed so little native bird life but some sightings of the Yellow Rosella ( a very local sub species of the Crimson Rosella) has bought joy. This morning I watched a pair feeding in a tree in our back garden. This yellow rosella photo is not mine but was taken by J J Harrison who is part of the EBird group where we discovered that there are apparently SOME gang gangs nearby! And I have ..read more

And tomorrow we leave. This afternoon I gave myself the gift of standing on our back balcony, watching the magic of the evening light on the gum trees of Mt Ainslie, intently studying the feathers of the calm, beautiful bird feeding from my hand. A female gang-gang, pausing only to communicate with her less confident partner up in the tree, sorted through the sunflower seeds. Occasionally she cocked one steady brown eye to look at me. No doubt wondering why I was banging on about telling her family in Albury that we’d be there if they needed a feed. I confess that quiet, grateful tears rolled ..read more

Last year, Mal and I started chatting about where we were living. This was about four years overdue given our recent track record. Since leaving Albury in 2007, we’ve moved every 4 years, so this conversation could have happened four years ago! After returning from Nepal, my response to a move has been to complain about where we’re moving to, fall in love with the place and then complain about leaving. Now I know the pattern. I initially resist change, then adapt enthusiastically!   The chat happened in September and now it’s April and we’re moving in 4 weeks. My family says we are ..read more

One of the weird things about being catapaulted from Kathmandu to Canberra in less than 24 hours is just how weird it isn’t any more! I used to come back and be overwhelmed by the choice of shampoo in shops, the orderliness of the roads and the car parks, the quietness. Now, it is just part of the two worlds I live in. I can arrive in either place and feel a bit like I have never left.  On this most recent trip, Ron Lehocky (well known to many in the polymer community and a man who took possibly several thousand photos in ten days) asked when I stopped taking so many photos. Not sure! I k ..read more

I spent Tuesday in Birtamod working on the new Samunnat wholesale websites. It was Holi and we had a holiday. I had a head cold which I was relieved was just a head cold and a quiet day was a good idea. It was punctuated by turmeric tea, hot honey and lemon and spicy snacks…including an amazing thing where orange slices were served in a syrup of oil, fenugreek seeds, chili and panch poran. OMG…amazing! But I digress. Doing this website stuff is SO out of my comfort zone but needs must so here I am. It’s the flip (and much less fun) side of spending my day with the women as we create!!! He ..read more

Two young women smile at me from over 15 years ago. Kopila and I are both a bit vague about dates but we do clearly remember the occasion when we met in Dharan in eastern Nepal.. I was on the verandah of a friend’s house where we were staying while we sussed out the details of our eventual move to Nepal. I was making small sari clad figures and she came to visit our friend. She saw me and wondered what I was doing.  I shared wth her and we made earrings together and that’s how it all began! Not Samunnat Nepal which had already begun, but my role in the group. I have lost track of the numb ..read more

My friend, Genevieve suggested that the word margin might be more appropriate than the word laziness which I talked about here. Having margins is about building rest or spaciousness in to your every day life. Not just heaving a sigh of relief if something is cancelled! It’s about NOT giving 110% (how I hate that phrase!)  Allowing margin is having some wriggle room. She also mentioned that her daughter (clearly gentle wisdom runs in this family) talked about the rhythm of a day needing to be like inhaling and exhaling. She wrote Inhaling being working, producing, cooking, learni ..read more

Recently I heard Helen Garner talk about her life and writing. She reflected that writers probably have an overdeveloped sense of noticing. Not just writers! I reckon most artists do. When I’m in Nepal or on my walks in the bush, I feel like my noticing skills are more finely tuned. It may be because the situation is novel, and I am so grateful to be there. But I also suspect in these contexts, I’m more curious and open. I’m actively looking with an intention to notice, rather than just blindly moving through my environment. The author Verlyn Klinkenberg is big on noticing! He writes ..read more

It’s the height of Summer here (albeit a cooler, wetter one) and I am contemplating the process of Wintering! Since the cochlear implant, I have become an enthusiastic podcast listener. And Krista’s Tippet’s On Being is a favourite. recently I listened to this one. It was about Wintering and Krista spoke with Katherine May who defines Wintering as: the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our ..read more