Hello Again
I see I haven't been here since 2021! I'm undone. November 2021, was the last one! I'll snap out of this rhyming now and cast my mind back. Covid19 was in full scream. Boris was in office (sort of managing - me, not Boris) presiding over all sorts of nonsense which led this country down a sorry road. Hamas was designated a terrorist organisation; now they are heroes to some; three men are arrested after a bomb explodes outside Liverpool Women's Hospital; the UK government ratchets up the terrorism threat level to 'severe.' The Queen, who sprained her back; was alive. This was the UK setting my last blogpost arose from. Oooh, and I published my third book Unless a Seed Falls to the Ground and took part in an international arts collective, the fruits of our artwork appeared in a film highlighting disabled artists. As a home educating family we navigated the Covid years with ease given our family has been arranged and adapted to suit homeschooling - we are flexible freelancers. We were grateful and cosy.
What do I recall of 2022? The nation came out of the frustration of Covid, though it still hasn't recovered. Boris, Liz and Rishi were passed the political baton and the country was beaten with it. Russia invaded Ukraine. Our beloved queen died. I won an art award and prepared visual artwork that toured Wales. My eldest son and I went to Cardiff for the opening, on a rare evening away together. The work that I made was the closest to the bone I have ever made, detailing as it did the mental, physical and emotional suffering of 2018/2019, when I went through ovarian cancer and chemotherapy, and worse. The messages I received from strangers in response to the work were joyous. My children thrived, my daughter who already had an online clothing and jewellery business developed as a singer songwriter and budding artist. But mid year, my husband and I were exhausted from working and our ongoing building project. We made the decision to blow the building fund for the sake of sanity and feeling free. We jetted off to Perth where a close friend lives and basing ourselves there, out backed in a four wheel drive straight up north and back again, tracking the unequaled coastline and squealing with delight at every beach we stopped and snorkelled at along the way. Racing along empty roads through a landscape that sometimes resembled Mars, with peculiar red ant mounds sculpted metres high, blew our minds clean. We stopped at odd cabin parks and resorts with lollipop coloured pool slides along the way. We stopped by for a peculiar, hot Christmas and then took off along the south back road to Exmouth and beyond. if we thought the beaches couldn't get better, we were wrong. We drove back through fires that turned the moon to blood. It was a wild and primal experience and it made our blood thrum for the colour of the soil of Western Australia and beat to the sound of a different drum: we would not allow our building project to keep us captive.
In 2023, Hamas fighters carried out horrific acts of terrorism in Israel and the war is still raging. People took sides and hatred seemd to reign. Mass protests began to take place in defence of Palestine and Israel's response. Antisemitism reached record highs. On the London Underground, I watched an Orthodox Jewish Man stand by the doors, bristling, ready to bolt if need be. I could feel his fear. Jewish schools were attacked. On London streets veiled women tore down posters of Israeli children. Like noxious gas, hatred and fear made city streets toxic. In March, I landed in Manchester with a headache that did not leave for a week and saw me land up in a corridor of a hospital in North Wales where I remained for three days beneath an alarm bell the size of a dustbin lid. During this time I received a number of botched lumber punctures, anti bacterial and anti viral drips and more headaches in both senses. It was to be three months - the length of my time in Australia before I recovered. As we say in Zimbabwe, it was a hellava time but not in the good sense. I haven't had a summer since Australia as the one of 2023 was a 'you're not going to see me,' event, sun wise. I'm still hankering for the sun. Also in Australia, I began training to be a coach and took clients in Australia and the UK. I love coaching and currently do both transformational coaching as well as coach writers. I particularly love seeing people's mindsets shift as they change their thinking. I am writing and preparing visual art for two Welsh galleries, my children thrive in all their ways, which include coding, art, debating, lots of science and maths, essay and creative writing and politics; and it's good to be alive. Mealtimes are a riot of stimulating conversation, laughter, and being together. We try to keep good and God at the heart of things. I do need more sun though. If it won't come to me. I'm going to it. This blog has been a log for around twelve years. Good to b/logging again.
