Saturday 16th May – Byron Bay.

I awoke this morning after a nourishing nights sleep. One of the many perks of sharing a bed with another human bean is the shared body heat, meaning you can manage to snooze away, toastily oblivious to the arctic conditions whipping thru the room. My beloved boy and I seem to have developed this slightly odd habit of intertwining our limbs throughout the night, so that we wake up completely bound together in some sleepy time pretzel formation, face to face, but comfy and warm as monkeys, leaving you with the age old conundrum of who’s going to make the first move and burst the bedtime bubble.
My plan for this AM, was to hot foot it down the road to blast thru a quick ashtanga class with Laura, Sams replacement while he floats around India, on a cloud of incense, pranayama and the remnants of Delhi belly I suspect. My new found love of my previous torture, has to do somewhat with the fact that I have finally mastered the jump back. Oh yes dear ones, I can now, finally, fling myself, somewhat gracefully from Uttanasana to Kumbakasana with a style and panache all of my own, thus bestowing upon me a new found sense of confidence as I ceremonially remove my yogic stabilisers.
Alas, twas not to be. The reasons being:
1.) During all jump backs in class yesterday, I must have finally stimulated my enthusiasm gland or something, as I spent the rest of the day showing anyone who would stand still long enough my new party trick. This meant that upon attempting to leap energetically from my pit, I was hit slap bang in the abdominals with the karmic sledgehammer, followed by “ah, ah, ah, ah, ah” as I instantly realised and regretted my foolishness, and tried to return supine with out tensing a single shredded muscle.
2.) Upon opening the fridge, discovering a distinct lack of Soya milk and yoghurt for my fruit salad, and drawing the ever increasingly short straw, I made my way out of the house to ‘go fetch’. Yawning widely and attempting to scrape my greasy mop back into some sort of ‘doo’, as I picked my way thru the undergrowth of our front yard to collect my trusty 10 speed, only to find….what the f*%$! “OLLIE!!! MY BIKES GONE!”
Yes ladies and jellyspoons, it is true. For the second time in a month some cretin has taken it upon themselves to rid me of my adopted cycle in the middle of the night. I held back the tears, stifling them with a small yelp as I spotted the smashed combination lock next to my parking tree, (of course I instantly collected up the pieces to be turned into some decorative neckpiece later, but I digress…)
“I just don’t get it, why do they always take mine and not yours. Mines a shit bike!” I whined into my beloved boys shoulder as he did the thing he does best during these times of distress, he gave me a huge cuddle and offered me his bike, mainly because he was hungry and wanted me to get to the shop quick time.
After a lengthy autopsy of the nights events over breakfast and Charlie, the temporary landlord, lending me a cobweb covered mountain bike that had been adapted at some point, to fit a dwarf with a handbag, as the seat was 6 inches too low and it had a crappy basket wired to the front that threw the steering wildly off, adding an element of “steer or die” to the situation, we made our way down the road to, our local, Tallows beach to drown our sorrows, literally.
Just as I was yanking the hopelessly rusted handlebars to the left to avoid my untimely demise for the third time, I heard Ollie yell “Sal, hold up, I found something for you.”
I swerved to a stop beside my lover who had spotted, amongst a pile of rubbish left on the pavement….a bicycle! It was a rather funky little BMX that had obviously been left in a garage and forgotten about. We heaved it out to get a better look.
“hmm… bit tatty, needs a new tire but otherwise its in pretty good nick” confirmed my hero. “It would be perfect for you baby, you’d look so cool cruising round on that!”
Just as I was giving it a test run and checking out how much of my underwear was on show as my knees ended up somewhere around my ears as I pedalled, a lady came out of the house, presumably the owner, tho she didn’t look like a BMX trickster to me.
“Go ahead, take it.” she said.
I couldn’t believe my luck, karmas a funny old thing aint it?.
I wheeled it home to await its new shoe and decided that it definatly needs to painted electric blue with large flowers, to make it truly mine, and hopefully deter any future stealing.
I spent the rest of the morning with Oliver teaching me to boogie board. A highly terrifying if slightly enjoyable experience that left me with a nasty stinging rash on my tummy, what, im told, the kids these refer to as ‘hose nose’, and a huge sandy grin on my face.
x

Friday 15th may – Byron Bay.

“I’ll be there in 10 darling…oh and order me the schnitzel!” she shrieked down the line before promptly hanging up on me. I hung up the phone and placed the order mentally so as not to forget.
That was the voice of Honu, the 64yr old Buddhist nun who I have befriended and been ‘hanging out’ with for the past 2 weeks.
She is infamous on the Byron social scene and refers to herself as an ‘action nun’ who prefers to make her mark on the community rather than simply prey for it, choosing to spend her early mornings at the local farmers market chatting up the young farmers rather than preying to the divine. There for, attempting to have a simple brunch with her is how I would imagine tea with mother Teresa. A constant stream of individuals “not wanting to interrupt” but doing so anyway, crouching by her side to whisper a word of thanks, or wanting to hold her hand, all while I sit across from her trying not to slurp my banana smoothie too loudly.
Over our lunch we discussed the project at hand.
Together we are attempting to start and run the first charity in Byron bay to feed the homeless and anyone who has a rumbly in their tumbly and no money to feed it, from the left over foods from supermarkets and donations from people that would other wise go in the bin and therefore, to waste.
An incredibly worth while cause in my book, and seeing as I have a distinct lack of work at the moment I am ploughing most of my time into helping out and have become ‘Honus second in command’ not the catchiest title I admit but one I am somehow proud to lavish upon the ears of anyone who will listen as it seems to have some sort of kudos within the realms of the community centre. Somewhat similar to being Madonna’s PA I like to think.
Along with such topics as ‘do backpackers deserve free goods?’ and ‘what to do if a violent hobo attacks you’, we also stumbled upon the topics of Ayer Vedic and macrobiotic eating. I know the basics of both of these rather lengthy subjects but have never really put them into practice other than what little food I consumed at yoga camp, which I am informed, was strictly Ayer Vedic. Honu regaled me with tales of how she came back from India ‘fat as a pig’ and thus underwent 2 years of strict Ayer Vedic eating, before announcing that she was officially ‘over it’ and threw herself in macro biotic eating before finally deciding she had had enough of it all and has since returned to her one true culinary love. Chicken schnitzel and chips followed by the odd sneaky muffin and a cappuccino to wash it down.
I love this woman.
As well as hanging out with religious royalty and feeding the local bums, I have been putting my yoga teaching in practice finally and running my own classes. They are private/miniature classes that I am running from my very own studio. My beloved boy convinced me to hold out for a little while longer in ‘the house that crack built’ until our lizard of a landlord had buggered off to Thailand to become a sex tourist. As soon as he had slithered away we skipped yogically into the enormous room and after completing a few celebratory laps we set about dividng it in half with bed sheets to create our long awaited love nest/yoga studio complete with altar, candles, incense and my precious teaching certificates pride of place for all to see.
In my very first week of opening mine studio aptly named ‘Honey House Yoga’ by Adam and Ollie in honour of the amount of the sickly sweet substance I manage to consume weekly, I have taught virtually every day. My classes are admittedly very small as my room can only accommodate 2 students (3 at a push) at a time, plus myself, tho I feel this is a good thing as they get a lot more personal instruction and we get to have a bit of a giggle too, plus they get to hang around for a cup of chai après class, on my rather voluptuous veranda whilst playing spot the possum in the enormous tree in our front garden that encroaches on our dear dwelling a little more each day.
x

Sunday 10th May – Byron Bay.

Spoke to my parentals this morning, tho I did manage to get the time completely wrong which meant a very sleepy daddy on the other end of the line reminding me sweetly that it was infact midnight in springy time England. I offered to call them back in the morning but my dearest daddy insisted that it was fine for me to be calling when the rest of the united kingdom were tucked up in sleepy time, and urged me to tell him all the latest news, which I am sad to report, was a little depressing.
After at least half and hour of filling papa in on my latest unemployment ventures, and giggling at my most unfortunate situation as only my daddy and I can, he passed the phone over to mother.
I must admit that upon hearing my mummys voice asking me sleepily how everything was going, I immediately found myself choking back a huge lump of homesickness and tears, rendering me unable to answer for a minute or two.
Somehow with just a magical word or two she manages to draw every last morsel of tangled truth out of me, even tho I try my hardest to keep it locked down inside, I find myself verbally vomiting my true feelings about any situation without a second thought. A handy, if not slightly annoying, talent that she has around me and one that I hope to bug the fruits of my loins with one day too.
So I told her all about my frustrations of the joblessness of Byron bay, and my sudden and shocking lack of inspiration and motivation that was, only a week or two ago, a fountain of energy and enthusiasm, that had me oozing a certain euphoria that I felt I could easily live on for ever, laughing at those who choose to drink and take drugs. Yet now I find my self sitting here eyeing up my beloved boys pouch of tobacco, reaching for yet another cup of caffeine filled chai, and wandering if I might someday have to change the name of my unsightly tome to ‘The Demise of Salpant’.
A change that has rendered me feeling lost, hopeless and I hate to use the word depressed as I feel it is ‘oh so overused’, yet my mental thesaurus that is usually lying back with gay abandon, its pages flopped open like some spaghetti western strumpet, ready to be thumbed thru at any given moment to stumble upon an underused and utterly brilliant word, to describe, explain and analyse my marvellous monkey mind, has decided to pack up its pages and remain firmly shut until the madness has stopped and normality has resumed.
Adam assures me that my cure is definatly surya namaskars at 9.30am with Sam, the ashtanga teacher who seems to be made of Play Doh, for another week. In my desperation to regain my yoga toned body that seems to have taken a fair old battering this week as I have given in to the full force of ‘womens time of the month’ and have had a whole 7 days of no exercise, and my sudden and unexpected cravings for chocolate have been granted for the one and only time in my life, I have agreed to return to the ashtanga ‘chamber’ for another week.
So dear devoted readers lets have fingers crossed that the next time I write, I will have untangled the ball of wool that resides in my head and calls itself my ‘mind’, have dropped at least 60 kilos, and taught a few pigs how to fly.
x

Monday 27th April - Byron Bay.

I awoke this morn to the most brilliantly blue sky I have ever seen. The sun was definitely out and proud and, even at 9.15am, I could feel the potently pleasant rays beginning to gently microwave my back as I unlocked my bike from its tree.
It was a restless night for my beloved boy who could not stop his hamster wheel of a brain from churning over possible painting ideas, future bound to earn him his millions. He tossed and turned all night waking me from my ever increasingly deep slumber, now and then with a swift kick to the shin, or by getting up once again to open/close the window, fetch water from the kitchen, scrabble around trying to find more blankets, while I, having inherited my fathers sleeping patterns, simply rolled over, instantly found that sweet spot, and returned to dreaming. This one however, was not the best of dreams I admit. In it, I was teaching an incredibly amazing yoga class, swooshing around amongst my students, adjusting them subtly to the moans and groans of delight as they found new levels of flexibility and release, within their tension filled torsos. All was going well, until I launched into a demo of Padottanasana. Bending over, double and gazing thru my own legs, to notice I had no clothes on. Now, im not sure if I had always had no clothes on, or if they had inexplicably vamoosed at the sign of a highly embarrassing forward bend, but I distinctly remember desperately trying to explain my self to my perplexed, and slightly terrified beginners as I covered my modesty with a bolster.
I am not usually a great dreamer, but I think it may have had something to do with the copious amounts of bread and jam, me and my boy consumed whilst watching ‘2001: a space odyssey’ before bed. Never a good combination.
So this morning it was up at 8.30 for a quick shower, and a bite of an apple, before heading out the door to meet Adam at the bottom of the drive, ready to take me to the 5 days intensive ashtanga course he had signed me up for, on the aptly named Blackbutts road.
Do not be confused here dear reader, as just because I have recently completed my teacher training, spending each day for 7 weeks, waking up at 5am to physically abuse my body does not, in any way, prepare one for the perils of early morn ashtanga 5 days in a row. For there are no straps, blocks, bolsters or blankets to gently encourage the body to life, fooling it into a posture by making it slightly comfier. Here, it as all about getting your nose to your toes, full stop.
Sam, guides us thru the first series calmly and serenely, as he delicately flops himself into each of the posture with effortless grace and timing. Adam quickly follows suit, breathing like a true warrior as he kicks back into Kumbakasana, lowers down to Chaturanga Dandasana, flips over the toes to Urdvha Mukha Svanasana and pushes back into Adho Mukha Svanasana, still maintaining his perfectly audible Ujjayi breathing. In a bid to catch up I somehow forget all about my breathing, and suddenly, as I am about to collapse, realise I am holding my breath, a sin for any yogini. I continue to stumble thru my variation filled vinyasa, like frustrated 10 year old who is too old to play with the babies, but still too young to join the adults, trying my best to ignore my ego and stick with what I know. I return to my Ujjayi, wipe the stinging sweat out of my eye, and ‘try to be confident with the level I am at’ (a typical yoga teacher way of saying, “who you kidding mate!”) I turn as instructed, to gaze under my armpit, only to see Adam in his perfectly positioned Parvakonasana. Bugger.
After another hour of struggle, I actually start to enjoy myself and notice that I too am mimicking that intensely deep ujjayi breath, and it is working! I actually manage one or two, not quite so embarrassing, jump backs, and, with sams help, my nose ends up scarily close to the tops of my feet towards the end of the class.
At the end of 2 hours of serious stretching and a much needed savasana, we floated out of the door, a scene of serenity, collected our bikes and as we peddled up the road I smiled smugly to myself and a wave of virtuousness filled me as I giggled and peddled a little faster.
So now, here I sit, perched on the edge of my bed munching on a few too many multi grain ryvitas and a little too much fresh honey, ready to teach once again in an hour and a half. Note to self: must remember underwear.
x

A poem, of sorts.

This girl puts on her bright shiny new façade for all to see.
It is polished to within an inch of its life, has been lightly buffed and lacquered to a fine finish, and all who gaze upon its ultimate perfect ness coo and craw at how beautiful it is.
She looks in the mirror and takes a moment to congratulate herself heartily on how marvellously fine it all worked out. All that fuss and bother from such a long time ago really came out well in the wash and look at what I am left with.
My bright shiny new façade.
Each morning she carefully brings it out. Delicately she washes, dries, and buffs it back to its former glory to bring out the shine and that special sparkle that everyone so loves to see.
It must be handled gingerly and with the up most care, only ever entrusted to one person.
For only she knows how keep it safe, her bright shiny new façade.
At the merest hint of bad weather, mad mood, or bad timing she whisks it away from public view so as not let it crack with the humidity or tension in the air.
Must protect it.
My bright shiny new façade.
She breaths a sigh of relief and marvels at how close she came to letting it slip, probably because of the weathered elastic that freys around the edges.
She makes a note with in her head ‘must buy new elastic, strong enough to keep it secure’
“Silly old thread” she giggles to herself as she strokes it tenderly.
Her bright shiny new façade.

Random Ramblings - dont take too much notice of the second one, i was feeling particularly down and had eaten way too much muesli, can send one a little loopy.

23/4/09 – Byron Bay

Bits of string to small for anything.

I was born and then it came.
An overwhelming urge to collect as if I was half human, half magpie.
Old keys, toy soldiers mangled from too many wars, feathers, shells too stinky to ever be kept inside, beads of all shapes, sizes, colours and flavours, coins from faraway lands, old watches that had frozen at a certain time never to tick again. Freyed pieces of fabric collected merely for their soft strokeable pelt, or their rough unforgiving weave, ribbons that shone like shiny lollyies in their cellophane wrappers.
A small habit it begins my friends, but then ‘oh how it takes over.
Every second spent out of doors, eyes peeled for the telltale glint of sunlight upon the corner of something too good to leave behind.
The sun bleached, mud covered, bobble from a childs winter woolly that has been imbedded into the sandy, soily road surface, a treat to behold.
The strap from a fellow yoginis dress, that she had cast aside ready for the bin, swept up by moi and quickly turned around, into a fine foot decoration paraded around for the admiration of others.
Reincarnation of the Rank and Rebuffed.
A small but honest title that fits my flurries of fruitfulness, sprouted from the predicament of poverty, that has also lead to a whimsical and witty writing obsession that haunts my brain daily.
As I sit and contemplate the things I find and create from them, and the words I choose to explain myself in my day to day life, I wander what I shall be like in 20 years time. Will I be festooned with feathers, and wrapped in ribbons, spouting rivers of words that only just make sense, strung together like lyrical liquorice, keeping those who can stand to listen firmly on their toes, ears pricked for the next instalment. Or will I fade away into the background, another writer who could have been, another creator of pretty things who never got her moment to shine. Another drawer full of ‘bits of strings too small for anything’.
x

24/4/09 – Byron Bay.

Today is the day you realise the worst.
The big idea, the big plan that you tried your hardest to keep under wraps, just encase it didn’t materialise, but somehow found yourself spilling the intimate details to those who barely know you, has failed.
Not that this hasn’t happened to you before. Oh no dear reader do not feel sorry for me, for I am the ‘King of the Could Have Beens’, the ‘Queen of the Not Quite Theres’, the ‘Patriarch of It Just Didn’t Feel Right’.
Once again, I perch precariously on the edge of the weather beaten, moss covered fence of options, as I try to rack my brain and think of the next step. My endless chase of, what? I fall over my feet to be the first one to reach it, I set off a day before every one else to get, where? I cast others to the roadside for being to slow, or not commited enough to, what?
Fat, thin, blonde, brunette, single, attached, model, nanny, city, country, alcoholic, t- total. Each one of these weighty over coats has been draped around my shoulders at one time or another, to keep me warm and protect me from the consequences that fall around my ears like fat drops of rain, but still non of them seem to fit quite right. These always an annoying label inside the collar, or the sleeves are a little too long or it just smells like wet dog when ever it gets wet.
And so the search goes on, but my dear reader do not feel pitty for me, as I have learned from each one of these ‘Trenchcoats of Truth’ and so as I trudge forward on my journey, I have chosen to remove my overcoat and simply get wet.
x

Sunday 19th April 09 – Byron Bay.

My pile of dirty washing now equals the size of Mount Warning a reasonably large land mass close to our house. It is said to be one of the major points where all the earths’ energy channels meet, creating one giant earth chakra. Not too dissimilar to my pile of undulating undergarments as im sure there are a few energy channels running thru them by now, there’s definatly something running thru them as I have heard it scuttling about at night in the same vicinity.
Every morning for the past 4 days we have announced that today is the day we bundle up our, always surprisingly numerable amount of soiled vests, pants, socks and second hand towels that smell as if they have been kept in a damp loft for a week or two, into our one enormous bed sheet and cycle down to the YHA hostel to sneak in and use their laundry facilities, like some Bonnie and Clyde/ Dick Whittington on bicycles type affair.
We discovered this technique from Jess, a lovely if somewhat slightly odd girl form Adelaide, who was one of our fellow housemates until Mark, our equally odd landlord decided one day that he had had enough of her, and, as the cruel but kind mother bird lovingly but ruthlessly boots her young chick out of the nest, he not quite so lovingly booted her our of the house. For good. Im not too sure of the formalities but what I do know is Ollie and I helped her bundle all her belongings into her battered white transit in a flurry of tears, sweat and rain. This was during the week the sky fell in by the way. I had always thought she was fairly same until she started spilling horrific stories about our fearsome landlord and scared the leopard print yoga pants off of me. I think Ollie always had his doubts and they were firmly confirmed when he spied numerous jars of half nibbled anchovies shoved in the door of her vile van. A sure sign of insanity of ever I saw one.
So when every “when ever we can be bothered” comes around, we drag our ‘sack-o- socks’ down to said hostel, creep past the receptionist doing our best ‘ scruffy backpackers impression’ not too hard I admit, and make our way past the most depressing pool I have ever clapped eyes on. The sign on the gate optimistically states ‘No glass in the pool area at any time’ but it seems people would obviously prefer a stroll to the local bottle bank, by the looks of the greeny grey goop that seemed to be collecting and forming a thin carpet, over the once jazzy blue mermaid mosaic at the murky depths of the pool.
The laundry room is behind the glamorous Miami style pool area and to the right just next to the showers.
As soon as you walk in an overpowering cloud of dry heat hits you making you choke and break out into a sweat at the same time. Once you have acclimatised and your eyeballs have got the hang of blinking double time so as not to let your somewhat valuble eybulbs shrivel up amidst the flying towel fibres and washing powder flakes that fill the air, you must ‘sort your load’, according to the laminate plastered to the wall. So we crack open the bundle and sort.
Now heres and interesting fact that I only just found out, for an item of clothing to be considered ‘a white’ it only has to contain the slightest hint of white about its person, anywhere. Even if it’s the stitching. Every day is definatly a school day I tell you.
So, washing sorted we cram it into the impressively industrial machine that laughs at what we thought was a sizeable load. My beloved boy admitted that he has a certain fondness for any industrial machine that was obviously made to withstand earthquakes, hurricanes and the 6month old un washed under crackers of an unusually sweaty backpacker, and I must admit I agree with him. Washing in, we retrieve the small wrap of blue washing powder that the receptionist handed us, falling hook line and sinker for our uncanny resemblance to the paying residents, from ollies red back pack. The powder has been measured out by some poor sod into little polythene baggies so that every one gets the same stingy amount, like in prison. The result however is a slightly odd, slightly illegal looking bag of powder that one has to carry around in ones pocket and that automatically, makes you feel guilty when it happens to plop into the ground in the middle of Woolworths.
Powder in, and slam the door closed with a satisfying clunk, insert criminally small amount of coins, turn the dial and WHOOSH! We’re away.
For the next 35 mins we retire to the internet café where once again we fool the waitress into thinking we are paying customers but pulling out an apple I had hidden about my person for the very occasion, and munching away heartily as we tippy tap on our Toppols safe in the knowledge we have once again beaten the system.
Sufficed to say when we return after having popped back after 35 mins to remove squeaky clean items and dump them in the even heartier tumble dryer, we are greeted with a pile of washing so dry and warm and ferociously loaded with static electricity, you automatically want to a) climb inside b) fold each item more precisely than ever so a snot to waste all the hard work and c) rub each piece on your head and giggle as it sends each hair into a frenzy of static excitement.
So washing folded and bundled back into our swag bag, be retrieve our rusty cycles and pedal home with haste to ensure we make it back before the sky falls in again.
x