Learning and Returning

19-P1000956 — The inspirational art of Picasso at the recently restored Hotel Sale.

The blog needs tidying and I’ve registered for a year long course on WordPress . Things can only get better. I haven’t started as an expert, but I hope I end up there.

I’d like to say hello again to my followers and I have been reading lots of your blogs.

An important thing I have done is to return to Paris and checked out the steps of my Heroine, Natalie. Phew, I got it right. Natalie was interested in Picasso and I visited his refurbished gallery. Go if you can, it’s interesting. I went to Le Louvre and walked in Natalie’s footsteps. I stopped and stared at the Mona Lisa and followed through to the Venus de Milo. I stared at the Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame Cathedral, and visited my favorite place in Paris, Montmatre. All the things that Natalie did alone, but did with my husband and know why Paris was a great place for my heroine to visit and begin to find herself.

When Marriage A Journey and A Dog, reaches bookshops and the Internet I will let people know. If you can’t go to the places Natalie and her Dog went, you can read about them in the book.

Thank you for your patience and staying with me. And thank you for writing interesting blogs.

Hello America

It’s exciting to have readers in America and to read their blogs and books written in America. We have had many long holidays in California driving from there across Arizona, visiting Las Vegas and being amazed by the Grand Canyon. We were delighted to drive the PCH ending up in San Francisco on July 4th. We stayed on the Little Venice Canals and rode bikes on Venice Beach. As I write the list, I think about how thrilling it was to stay there. Life isn’t long enough to go to all the wonderful places. I would love to see more of the US and the rest of the world, but I have been lucky and I guess you can’t see eveywhere. Sri Lanka takes up our travelling time, with my husbands research programme and my teaching there. These are the children at school last Christmas. The children at school are 80% Buddhist, and the rest are Hindu, Muslim and Christian. They all celebrate each others religious holidays.

Well behaed children in school — Well behaved children in school

Who knows if we will have the opportunity to return to US. We hope so. The book Marriage journey and A Dog is undergoing its own journey into print and I will let everyone know when that happens. I hope my updated book will reach readers in America. It is due to come out in April – all professionally published this time.

About being 40

Natalie, is 40 and her life changes completely. This is the essence of the story.

I remember thinking that life wasn’t what I wanted it to be at 40, but that it would stay the same, but my life did change completely. How do you know when you make changes that they are for the better? You hope, but plan thoroughly, keep your thoughts sober and chat things over with trusted friends.

Natalie is forced to take steps into the bigger world and she starts from Portsmouth, near her home in the South of England.

This is the view of the Spinnaker tower, an icon of Portsmouth West Quay shopping area and docks.

France and Spain take Natalie on a personal journey that opens up her future and closes her past. She returns home for her 40th birthday party and her whole life turns upside down.

The book has been updated and will be professionally published in April, both as an ebook and paperback. More news on that as the weeks go by.

Thank you to everyone who downloaded the original version and for all the encouragement.

Bull Fighting

I like to research before writing anything in a book, even if it is a small part of the story. When Natalie, in Marriage A Journey and A Dog, visits Barcelona, she stays at the home of Linda and José. The father of José was a bullfighter and was killed, so there was reading to be done.

I can understand the excitement of the crowds, and the headiness of the arena, but not the cruelty to the animal. I knew a man who was involved in the finances of bull fighting and he gave a lecture. He spoke about how the bull didn’t feel anything after the first spear accurately entered the neck. Nothing will convince me it isn’t cruel and unnecessary.

I came across this Torero Alvaro Muner’s story on Facebook. He was a matador and this was the moment he was filled with remorse at the suffering of the bull. It changed him into an anti bullfighting campaigner. I found his story on the site of this man.

Dzigar-Kongtrul-Rinchopche

Researching, even the smallest details can lead onto a trail of interesting discovery. I often have to remind myself that the job in hand is writing.

The Travel Bug

This blog is intended to be about the travels and life of Natalie aged 40 in, Marriage A Journey and a Dog. The people who are following are from self-help backgrounds and fellow travelers.

So this is a blog about the travel side of my life.

My husband is a retired clinical neurophysiologist. He is now Honorary Professor of Physiology in the Medical Faculty of the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Sorry, that’s a bit of a mouthful. He is researching the effects of snake bites and organophosphate poisoning.

I have been teaching in a school in Kandy. We have 2000 girl pupils. It has been a great experience. We have the privilege of sharing in the lives of people in a poor village. We have been coming here for 5 years, staying several months each time. There is so much about the communities spread out across the country to learn. The old and the new, rich and poor live side by side, so do the religions for now.

With the vegetation and climate comes birds, butterflies monkeys, pigs, elephants, porcupine, squirrels etc. Every time a house is built, and forestation removed, the numbers go down and the human numbers go up.

Mike Sedgwick (husband) is writing a blog on the Chandler’s Ford Today site, if you would like to know more, look it up. I’ve added some pictures, but there are lots more on Chandler’s Ford Today. You will find Mike’s picture of him in a glider.