I'm Back.

Photo

Hi guy's........
 what happened you may ask five months and nothing, where did she go?

Well your not going to believe this but I go a bit fed up with Social media, yeah thats the truth

 I think some of you will actually agree with me.

 Social Media can take up a huge chunk of your day I found myself spending too much time on facebook everyday. I would read people's posts and then post "stuff" myself (which doesn't sound like much) but I found myself sometimes spending two hours a day just on reading peoples posts and waiting for their videos to download.

 Then there was Instagram which my daughter thought I should be on "Why" I asked myself but gave it a go and then soon got tired of looking for quirky interesting things to photo and one liners to write :( does that sound terrible and am I becoming an old fart???

Gorgeous Keona the dancer.

Well actually I think that I might have got caught up in something that a friend of mine told me about FOMO "fear of missing out" or maybe more for me "a need to know" like when I woke up one morning a couple of months ago the first thing I reached for was my I Pad to see what the new Princess's name was.....and why????????? WTF? I have a full rich juicy life why the need to focus on other peoples I asked myself?
Because with the Royal Family it's part of the fairytale the little girl in me just loves that escape.

Remember this gorgeous lady?

There are lots more wonderful things I want to do than but sit with my I Pad and read mundane stuff, but a couple of months ago I was hooked almost addicted so I gave up FB and Instagram cold turkey it was'nt hard I just did it.
 But hey these outlets are a wonderful connection to the outside world and our love ones and I do use my internet daily (when it's connected).

You see the internet is so SLOW over here, no jokes sometimes you even go days without a connection (would drive the younger generation crazy) and last year the whole of Ubud had to go without the Internet for a week as there was a Royal cremation and all of the phone lines had to be cut down so that the towering procession could walk thru town, can you believe that? Hell yes!!

Anything can happen here it takes a lot for me to raise an eyebrow these days.
So if I find all this "stuff" so time consuming why am I back? Well simple I woke up the other night thinking that I need to write a blog and thats it plain and simple. I live my life by what messages are sent to me, it might sound a little weird but after the things I've experienced in this life if something powerful talks to me in my head I listen.

So what have we been doing??? OHMG where do I begin well we have had so many visitors from Oz and Vietnam it's been fab, not only catching up with wonderful people and hearing their stories but also sharing this beautiful place.

My new friend Ehme from Taiwan.

We have a new gardener Komang who has set us up with our Organic Vegie patch, Komang Is Wayan (our Yoga teacher's brother) a gorgeous man who is a wood carver by trade and muscian, a Flautist, guitarist, drummer and singer he spends most of his time at an Ashram in JungJungan.

He is also the great improviser do you like his protective gear whilst wippersnipping the weeds?


Sib popped up the other week whirlwind that she is we spent 5 days together and we spent two consecutive days rescuing puppies that had been dumped on the edge of a busy road on the side of a hill.
 First Maud the blondie who was being eaten alive by ticks and fleas which took 3 of us 2 hours to get them all out. Ken holding her in the bath me holding a spotlight and Sibaunne with the tweezers.
The next day were driving down the same hill when I heard terrible animal screams, Sibaunne scrambled down the hill with the traffic flying past to find little Billie trying to drag himself up the edge with a fractured pelvis.

So thats it our family is completed 4 cats 3 birds 25 Koi fish and two dogs......ahh not quite but I will share that news with you next time.

Until then love to each and everyone of you gorgeous people life is wonderful enjoy it, have a look at this message I saw the other day.

WELCOME TO THE KARMA CAFE.
THERE ARE NO MENUS. YOU WILL GET SERVED WHAT YOU DESERVE.

J

I love Kuching but........

Can you believe that it's March 2015!!

I don't know if it's been since I hit the big 50, but time for me has sped up and my days are full and gone before I know it there's so much I want to do, shit it's almost like times running out.
I really have to pull myself together and relax. I'm not dying but I want to do so much living that it can do my head in!

Do you ever feel like this? Most of the time I have to take a deep breath and bring myself back to what I'm doing right now and just let the other stuff go....... I'm working on it. 

Oscar's first bath.

Yes I love our Kuching (cats) but "boy oh boy" they drive us crazy sometimes. 

As you know we went to Villa Kitty the rescue centre for cats here in Ubud to get a kitten and found two little beauties who were dumped in a bag on the side of the road in Uluwatu.

 Pamela and George were doing quite nicely as our only children.......(indulged I would say) until the new kids arrived, whilst visiting a neighbour (who broke her hip in a fall then got up and walked to her bed, not to rise again for 6 months as it was too painful and who now walks with a lopsided gait) I found myself sitting on her verandah when the naughty Linoo and Ario dropped two pox ridden barely breathing 5 week old kittens Oscar and Ted in my lap.

 Of course I had to bring them home and give them their first meal and of course Ken fell in love with them, cleaned up their mange and before we knew it they were shacked up with Pamela and George and we now had a family of four cats 5 birds and a heap of Koi fish. 

All four of them after what Pamela has under the bag!

Yes Yannik it's another snake!

Well Pamela is the only girl and her passion is snakes and as you know she regularly brings young Pythons into the house an average of around one a week and Ken has to patch it up and take it back out to the rice field.

Baby Ted with the mange.

Ted is the adreniln junkie and has fallen off tall buildings ....twice and survived!!! 

Oscar is the whinger and big fat Georgie boy suffers from PTSD and sucks your T shirt whenever he gets the chance.

Well the other day Ken and I were sitting watching the TV when Ted flew down the stairs and ran under the coffee table, thank god Ken noticed he had something yellow in his mouth.....our canary.
Well I jumped up and started carrying on (I don't do dead things very well) and Ken took Ted out of the room, Yannik the Bird Lady flew down the stairs and the next thing I knew she was up in the spare room with doors and curtains drawn sitting on the floor and we were out of bounds.
 What transpired from all of this was that Yannik had been feeding the birds and she put the canary's cage on the floor and reached for the bird seed when in a flash Ted had opened the door to the cage reached in grabbed the bird and taken off!!!!!!!

Ken told me to prepare for the worst as he was pretty sure that the canary's lung would be punctured.

We stayed away from the room until the next morning when I said to Ken " you go and look to see if he's still here" next thing Ken is hanging up the cage once again with the canary very much alive and well.

Yannik told us that it would probably take a month for him to sing again and Ken thought that he might never sing again. When there we were 10 minutes later sitting down to breakfast when we here this glorious sound Koming the canary was singing his little heart out, can you believe it???? I don't know what that Yannik did but she's a miracle worker.What is it with these birds here?

Oh yeah and remember Uncle Wayan's green bird well he's run away from home and Yannik saw him in her back yard of course she tried to catch him but didn't quite make it.....watch this space!

Ted got into the neighbours kitchen last week where he scored himself some Ikan (fish), it came at a cost though he was covered in stinky old cooking oil!

Just quickly, on the weekend it was Cahaya's 6 month old ceremony, she is now allowed to go into the temple with her family. What a chubby happy baby she is, except for when she's with Ken and I, she still gets a shock when she sees us like most babies in the village they can't believe what they're seeing 2 white people with white hair! They either scream or burst into tears it's so reassuring hahahaha.

As you can see she has me by the neck and is not too happy, remember when she was tiny?

Sorry it's been a while since you've heard from me, and thank you everybody for your positive feedback hence this lengthy Blog :)

 Looking forward to catching up again soon
love J.


Here's something random......

Just chillin' with the locals and tourists on Seminyak beach where you don't want for anything, bintang, lunch, dinner, sunglasses, massage, shopping, dog walking for the ex pats everything! 

Black Magic.

Not long after Ken and I arrived in Pejeng I remember having a chat in the kitchen with Ketut and Wayan about eachothers scars, you know how you do... "wow you think thats big look at this" yaddah yaddah.

Well I remember being so shocked at the traumas these guys have been through and that they were lucky to survive, with very basic medical help.

 When Ketut was 7 years old a large branch from a tree tree fell on his head and knocked him unconscious he was in a coma for 7 days and when he woke up he had amnesia for one month and a left leg that would'nt move it took him one and a half years to recover and then his mother died. Another story that I will get back to later..

The happy couple Yannik and Ketut.

After Ketut had finished his story he turned to Wayan and said show Mum your back, Wayan would only reveal a tiny glimpse of his back to me and I was shocked at the scarring that I saw I tried not to gasp and he didn't want to talk about it.

 I couldn't believe it when Ketut later told me that when Wayan was one and a half years old he pulled a pan of boiling hot oil from the stove on to his back. He was in hospital for two months and lucky to be alive, the first month was touch and go.
He never takes his shirt off or goes in the pool, only once ever has he had a swim, when we had a party for his daughter Putu's 4th birthday. I was so shocked when Wayan turned up in a wet suit!!!! Now I know why.

Mr Cool....The Big W.

Now if you think those stories are tough get a load of this....
Tartik the village English teacher, was eight months old and crawling when she stuck her thumb in an electric socket and blew her top digit right off!!! Her parents never took her to the Drs and and she told me that people would complain about the horrible smell whenever they were around her!
WT-!!!! Can you believe it?

Thats not all, I could go on and on about this amazing woman I'll just share another quickie, whilst working with her I found her pronunciation of some English words just terrible, and one day she turned around and said to me "very difficult Mum tongue problem" well shit she poked her tongue out and I could'nt believe it, what should of been a nice pink tongue looking at me was nothing but a little beige stump! When her teeth came thru as a young child she would chew on her tongue and as she got older it became a habit and in the end she just chewed off half of her tongue!!!!

Tartik
Not a good photo of her thumb but I just love the way Kadek is looking at her crazy mother.

Ever since I've been coming to Bali (and thats thirty years now), I have heard the locals talk about Black Magic, and it's quite common for people to have Black Magic put on someone they're not happy with, it's as natural and as common as attending ceremony but just a bit more discreet.
Anything that goes wrong here is either due to the Gods being not happy or Black Magic.

Now getting back to Ketut, when he was young his family had a falling out with another family over their rice fields and Ketut's mother became sick and eventually died when he was ten years old.
 Everybody in the village said that Black Magic had been put on Ketuts family.

Twenty years later a very successful Ketut took ill and every day became weaker and weaker, he developed black marks up and down his arms legs and went from Dr to Dr only to be told that they couldn't find anything wrong with him. Yannik was so stressed, she felt strongly that Ketut was dying as he had lost so much weight so she took him to a "paranormal Balian" (psychic witch doctor).
As soon as they walked into his room the paranormal began to feel sick, he said that the black magic around Ketut was so bad that he couldn't help him and they had to go to Nusa Dua to 'paranormal specialist" so off they went.

The specialist gave Ketut a healing and some herbal medicine and after the first two visits Ketut started to feel better, on the third visit the paranormal said that someone had planted a voodoo glass vial in Ketuts home and it had to be found and destroyed or he would never recover and someone else will become ill or die.

 Now here's the tricky part. This paranormal had never met Ketut before, he lived miles away, yet he told them exactly where the glass bottle was, he said it was approx 3ft in from the front door on the left hand side and buried very deep nearly one meter down and Ketut could not touch it or go anywhere near it. So that afternoon our Wayan was called upon to do some digging. Now Black Magic is not taken lightly here and Wayan was very scared but he knew he had to help his Uncle (Yeah everyone's related here its a bit like Tasmania) so many offerings were made.

Smoko whilst making offerings.

 Before he started to dig Wayan had to break up all of the concrete slab that Ketut had laid for an entry to his house, and sure enough after digging down very carefully Wayan found this tiny glass vial completely sealed about 3 inched long with no top and no bottom and inside was a 6 inch nail bent compeletly in half touching tip to tip!!!!!!!!! Frickin amazing how the hell did that happen??
With in a month Ketut was well again, all of their life savings gone ($700), paranormals don't come cheap.
The story doesn't end there, years later the Black Magic persecutor's son became sick and the Drs didn't know what was wrong with him and he too went to a paranormal but he could not be helped and he died at the age of 33....Karma?

Now the weird thing is Yannik only told me this story last week and she said "Mum know man do black magic?" I say "What?" She said "Mum take photo of man when she come to Bali I show you" and there in my photos is a picture of a happy smiling toothless Balinese man and when I looked closer I was surprised to see a large black shadow above his head I had'nt noticed this before, you know like an orb but black not white...go figure.
Yannik said to me "be careful Mum some Balinese smile on here pointing to her face but not in here pointing to her heart".

Can you believe I took this photo of a stranger, and Yannik knew all of the time and didn't say a word until last week and why last week?  I guess we are becoming closer and Yannik trusts me as I'm hearing more and more stories which I'm keeping for you...later. I'm sure you'll understand why I can't post the photo in this blog, but his photo is in blog post ...12.

So many stories to tell you but I would like some feedback, sometimes I hold back on stuff because I think maybe my blog is too long. If you think this story is too long please leave a comment I would really appreciate it as I want to encourage readers not discourage them and I need your honesty.

Much love to each and every one of you.
J

Cooking lesson Sunday was guacamole and chocolate cakes.

Happy New Year !

Happy New Year 2015!!!

Can you believe it is 2015?
 I can remember being in High School and being so scared of the future because our science teacher told us that in the future we were going to run out of food and land, and somewhere in the back of my mind I was waiting for someone to press that big button!

Well it's 2015 and I'm still here, yes millions of people have run out of food and yes China is a bit squeazy but hey no one has pushed that button yet and from my side of the fence humanity is much more kinder and more generous, people are bravely helping to feed the starving and educate the ignorant. We are a much more open and loving world now. When I was 15, people kept to themselves  and were appallingly judgmental.

I like who we have become as a human race and I choose not to live in fear anymore either about the big button or as it is nowadays "the muslim".

My wish for 2015 is forgiveness and understanding, knowledge is true power, so we need to think about things first, and get our facts before making big statements...a little something that I'm working on.

I wonder what these two girls think about?

Ok enough of the deep and meaningful, New Years Eve was crazy up here the Balinese are like cowboys with the fireworks. They started setting them off 5 days before NYE and last night 4 days later we still are hearing the occasional bang pop pop whirl bang!

 I wish I had a good camera so I could have taken photos for you (did you know that all photos for this blog are taken on my iphone and ipad, not bad eh?), midnight NYE was amazing we stood out on our balcony and the banging and popping was deafening there was a 180 degree panoramic view of colourful lights and explosions that just went on and on and by 2am we were over it and by 6am I had the ear plugs in and was oblivious. I couldn't believe it, the Sydney fireworks go for about 15 mins but here in poor third world Bali they go on for days and days.

 I  have decided that there are two things that the Balinese find important enough to spend money on 1: gifts for the Gods at ceremony (below) and 2: Frickin fireworks for NYE. Go figure.

Today's English lesson is about the weather I'm all set up with an umbrella, watering can and the old song "It's raining it's pouring the old man is snoring...." remember?? The kids love singing they are such a happy mob and I'm still amazed at the joy teaching brings me sometimes I even break out in goosebumps. Speaking of weather, the Monsoon season is here and it's out of this world, so passionate and powerful, thunder and lightening goes on for hours and when it rains it's torrential. I've never seen anything like it, we have flooded twice already in the last couple of months and have been up to our knees in water at the top of the driveway. Our Villa is situated at the bottom of a raised road so all the run off comes down the street and into our property some of our backyard has just slid away. I don't know why but I love this weather I think it must be the excitement. The only downfall is the humidity when the sun comes out you are drenched in sweat as the humidity is over 90 per cent.

going,going...

gone.

Aren't these cherubs just gorgeous livin' in the moment!

God I love my life!! Take care everybody looking forward to more fab stories to tell in 2015, much love as ever
J.

PS: Ken and I topped off 2014 by getting married on the 20th of October!