We’ve been home exactly one week.
I was telling Matthew that I haven’t found my groove yet. I’m currently grooveless.
Last post was from London. I don’t think I’ve ever walked so much in my life. Even using the tube and so on, there’s always a walk and those steps add up. This was a good thing because it helped with the weight gain. Lot’s of nice but expensive food to be had in London.
We also discovered the river bus (ferry), expensive but so much better than being crammed into a tube train. And there was coffee.
Biggest takeaway was how to ordinary people live-it’s so expensive. And why are there so many obviously wealthy people.
After two weeks in London we went to Malta for about five days. Why Malta? It was on a list of the possibles (Spain, Ireland, Italy) but what it had in it’s favour was one flight direct, warmer and dryer than the UK, cheapish flight and lots of accommodation to choose from. We loved Malta. We stayed in Sliema, with views of the beach (St Julian’s Bay I think) and we did tours as you do. Not quite warm enough for a swim for me. We even took a day trip to Sicily, which was awesome. It’s only 52 Nautical miles from Malta. Next time, more Sicily and Malta. Also, did my fan girl, Montalbano, visit to his police station. I didn’t pay to go in, just took photos.
Next stop was one night in London and the Hilton Heathrow Terminal 4 and then Singapore. We stayed with my son and his wife and my grandson in their apartment. We ate crab! Thanks Taamo! and did the Night Safari and the Amazon experience. Again more walking. We also did the Gardens by the Bay, which was lovely but Singapore is humid and hot. We caught up with some writing friends, Dev and Joyce and ate lots of yummy food and swam in the condo pool, well I walked in the pool, which was lovely and huge.
Sadly, all good things come to an end. We came home. For a few weeks we had started thinking about home, what we wanted to do, changes in our habits we wanted to make and thinking about our lovely granddaughter who started school while we were away. Nothing hurts more than those heart strings and she sent us messages that made us almost weep.
I started work on Monday (Day job) and today was meant to be a writing day. Alas, dr appointment, tradie, pool walking, Genius appointment because my phone is chucking a wobbly, and then meeting friends tonight, I can’t see where I’m going to slot even a solid hour in.
I am doing a novel crit group thing so I have at least finished this month’s novel and just need to write up my feedback. I guess that’s what I’ll be doing today because that’s not hard.
Jetlag I’ve been okay. I think the stop over in Singapore helped me adjust to Australia again, although I do zone out and get fatigued.
Weight I’ve lost 2.5 kilos since I’ve been back. Most of that would be fluid retention from the flight. But I found this neat and free calorie food diary thing and that’s helping me keep track.
I’ve also am trying a new self mantra. Instead of looking in the mirror and criticising myself, I’m going to say “Hey gorgeous. You look fantastic. You’re awesome.” I’ve read about two celebrities that I really admire and both have talked about how they have hated their bodies (Winslet and Thompson) and how every woman is unhappy with her body. I think this is mostly the body norms that are thrust at us constantly. For years I’ve had body dismorphia and I’ve hated how I looked. Now I’m going to accept it. That doesn’t mean I’m letting myself go. I get sick if I put on too much weight so I’ll keep my goals but I’m going to stop the negative self talk. Try to at least. Not easy.
Next post I’ll put up some photos. I’m currently backing up the phone so can’t right now.
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 