Union Jack scooter in Dali: better than a horse these days!
So here we are on our long-anticipated jaunt to Yunnan in SW China. We will be following the ancient Tea Horse Road from the pu-er tea growing areas in the south-east of the state right up to Shangri-La on the Tibetan border; Yunnan’s other neighbours are Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. Continue reading
I have been having a very health conscious couple of weeks – more acupuncture (agony this time) for the shoulder which six months on is still not better. I am also aware that my 18 month check is due, and my bad leg has also been twinging – whether I banged it diving or, as Mrs Ang (Prof’s wife) says as she gaily sticks more needles into it to kick start the system (the old ‘No pain, no gain’ mantra ringing in my ears), my circulation is not good enough, I don’t know. Whatever…
So I decided to look at the healing properties of coconut, which I published first on my http://www.healthylivingwithcancer.co site. My findings have excited me so much that I am sharing them with you all.
I can see you all rolling your eyes and thinking this is just another crackpot health claim. I thought so too until I read the book, Coconut Cures by Brice Fife, that a kind dinner guest gave me recently. Now I have substituted coconut oil for all others in my cooking (and changed all the recipes on this site accordingly!), am adding 2 tsp to my daily granola and fruit, and dressing my lunchtime salad with it (plus balsamic and lime). Soon I daresay I shall be rubbing it in to my scalp where I have pre-cancerous sun damage which freezing has failed to cure and using it as sun tan oil instead of Nivea or Ambre Solaire.
Yes, dear reader, I am a convert!
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Thorny sea-horse
Another attention-grabbing headline! Continue reading
‘I won’t ski if the conditions are bad,’ I promise my well-meaning friends who, anxious about my continuing whiplash, are disapproving of my Easter holiday plans. This is easy in the first three days as the mist clings to the valley and the rain seems never-ending. The boys (husband, son and friend) are all gung-ho and of course sally forth daily, although a lot of time is spent in mountain restaurants. Continue reading
Tiger by Cindy
A few days ago I outstared a tiger and gazed into the blue eyes of a leopard. For the past seven years my friend Cindy and I have been trying to find the mythical blue-eyed leopard of Mana Pools, Zimbabwe, only to find he has moved to India. Seriously, the blue-eyed leopard is extremely rare and seems to be found only in India, which is where we came across Nilu (blue in Hindu) and his yellow-eyed twin, Pilu. Continue reading
So here we are, four years on, and I need a new challenge.
Writing the book about my mother and her war (Love and War in the WRNS, to be published in June) – one of the best periods of her life of which she was justly extremely proud – provided solace and therapy after all the bereavements and stress we have suffered over the past few years: the deaths of my mother, father and Louise, plus both Ross and I being diagnosed with cancer. Continue reading
Preparing for hula-hooping at Lovebox, summer 2010
This is now the fourth time that we have had to experience the worst day of our lives: the day that Louise, our beloved daughter, died.
It’s just a perfect day…Mt Yotei in the background
‘It’s the worst season for 12 years: no decent powder since December.’ Not what European snow refugees want to hear of Niseko, Japan, the powder Mecca of the world!
It’s Chinese New Year next week – these jolly mandarins are everywhere; a taxi driver gave me the big one!
Have spent the past few days making the long-awaited photo book for Louise. I felt compelled after reading my friend Sarah Helm’s harrowing account of the Ravensbrück women’s death camp, If This Is a Woman. It’s one of the real horror stories of the Second World War and was buried behind the Iron Curtain, with the Communists only commemorating their own, and not the thousands – maybe as many as 60,000 (not only Jews, but French, Czechs, Germans -asocials – Poles, English and American SOE agents) – who were murdered there. There was a strong link between the two camps to Auschwitz where all my Czech family, apart from my father, his mother, two uncles and two cousins (who were kindertransport) perished. I will never buy a Siemens product again. You’ll have to read the book to find out why. Continue reading
