Well who’d have thought…
If you’d asked me how long it has been since I did a blog post, I would NOT have said 6 months. In my head I am regularly composing blog messages to you, my dear readers…chatting away; keeping you up to date with the vicissitudes of my life…but clearly that rarely gets beyond my head. So….here’s proof of life!
Since the last blog, as well as the usual activities of daily living, I have been delighting in my family (and dog), teaching workshops and spent several months in Nepal with the Samunnat women. I walked in the divine Tsum Valley for 13 days, camped…sometimes in snow and rain, celebrated my dad’s 90th and lots of other stuff. Mundane stuff and less mundane stuff.
As some of you will have heard (possibly to the point of prompting madness) this year marks 50 years since my first trek in Nepal and I used that as an excuse to justify going on another trek. I could say yet another trek because I have been on quite a few but NOT FOR TEN YEARS and…grab your hankies…there were times due to the aforementioned vicissitudes of life when I wondered if I’d trek again! Anyway, thanks to the magnificent Bishnu Rai, my bhai, and his team at Himalayan Sunrise Treks, trek I did.
Didi-bahini trekking in the Tsum Valley. And always wearing great earrings.
I trekked with 6 magnificent women (including my younger sister, see photo) and each of us had fleeting moments of being embarrassed that we were supported by 12 men and 12 mules but we mainly loved ourselves sick. Without ever actually getting sick thanks to the wondrous men who cooked for us. And carried our tents. And set those tents up. And gave us hot cordial when our legs were tired. And hot water bottles to pop in our sleeping bags on the snowy nights.
I could burble on for pages about this amazing trek and, truly, if you encourage me I will. Suffice it to say that the Tsum Valley, Gorka is stunning and that limited internet connectivity can be a delightful thing.
But now I am back here in Australia for gosh…several months…so I am getting organised to do some workshops* here in the Jones St Studio. Classy name I know. I’m feeling very excited and as usual, my head is abuzz with ideas.
You will see several new workshops in the website shop. There is a mix of full day and a few that go for four evenings. As well as the usual things like having fun, making gorgeous stuff and doing good things for your mental health, there will be another incentive to join me! I am…drum roll…culling. Yes again. No… we are not planning to move anywhere but there’s a bit of stuff in this studio that I will never use so if you get to a workshop early enough you’ll get FIRST DIBS at walking away with stuff for nothing! Can you believe that? My old Canberra darlings will be thinking that if I seriously culled three years ago what else can there be? You’d be amazed. I’ve even colour coded some culled things so you can take a box of magenta cullings or blue-green cullings or ultramarine-magenta cullings….tempted?
The photo is totally unrelated but so inspiring. Therefore very possibly relevant!
That’s enough for now. Hoping I get to see some of you IRL and looking forward to being in one place for a little while! *I have gone totally NUTS adding workshops to the shop so check them out. There are evening workshop series (4 sessions) and full day workshops. Most have dates but for a couple I have asked you to get in touch if you’re interested to see if I get critical mass!