Self portraits by Amy

While studying for GCSE and A'level Art Amy started to produce a lot of self-portrait paintings, these are a few of my favourites.

Eat Pray Love Holidays - a retrospective

With my future holiday plans still being very uncertain I decided to look back at my past Eat Pray Love holidays of the 2010s.

Eat-Llandudno 2016

The trip to North Wales was the first of our difficult holidays, it was also memorable for the lovely pizza restaurants in the town. The pizzas were so nice we ended up having pizza every evening. Cromer was also memorable for the amount of pizza we ate.

Pray - Whitby 2014

Our stay in Whitby was in the shadow of Whitby Abbey and the legend of Dracula. We attended an outdoor Dracula themed drama event in the ruins of Whitby Abbey and also have fond memories of folk week and the children's fairground our holiday apartment was situated by.

Love - Edinburgh 2012

Edinburgh 2012 was the last holiday I had with my dad, who I loved very much and who I lost in 2013. My dad was born in Edinburgh in the late 1920s and it was lovely to revisit the places that were so special to him.

Revised 6B460 Review

Revised 6B460 Review (written in August 2020)

 

My first 6B460 review was meant to include a review of a visit to Belfast, but because of the Covid19 Lockdown all my travel plans got altered. I still plan to visit Belfast, but my thinking has led me to plump for a prefered alternative travel goal instead.

1. Enjoy 25 holidays with mum and Amy

I organised our first holiday to Goring in 2006 following a family wedding. After that I organised one or usually two holidays a year for us. In 2020, for our 25th holiday together, we visited Cromer in Norfolk at the end of the Covid19 Lockdown. I look back with fondness at all our times away despite all the ups and downs.



2. Work in libraries for at least thirty years

I celebrated thirty years as a librarian in February 2020, just before the Covid19 Lockdown, by visiting the British Library’s Buddhism exhibition. I was pleased I celebrated my three decades of library work with some style. At the end of March I started working from home. I hope I will keep working well into this decade.

3. Keep a blog going for ten years

I started my blog in 2013, the year my dad died. My blog is now seven years old and I have scheduled posts until 2023. So hopefully, even if I don’t write so much in the future, my blog can keep going for a full decade.

4. Play classical piano pieces in public for ten years

I started playing classical piano pieces in public in 2010 shortly after starting as a semi-professional piano teacher, teaching my daughter’s friends. After facing a crisis of venues in 2018, I managed to keep playing until January 2020. I don’t know how much public (or private) piano playing I will do in the future.

5. Practice Buddhism everyday

Living through the Covid19 Lockdown has made mindfulness feel even more important to me. I am getting better at mindfulness, meditation and ‘il dolce far niente’. I go for a walk everyday and enjoy slow tea and food, listening to music, watching films, drawing, gardening, reading books and poetry. I find I am much calmer and try to be kind and patient.

6. Live a good enough life

Luckily we managed to celebrate my mother’s and my daughter’s birthdays in February 2020, before everything shut. It was a time when appreciating a slower, simpler life was becoming more of a priority. I feel that I have done what I could with what I have and hope that will continue.

Enjoying 25 holidays with mum and Amy

I organised our first holiday to Goring in 2006 following a family wedding. After that I organised one or usually two holidays a year for us. In 2020, for our 25th holiday together, we visited Cromer in Norfolk at the end of the Covid19 Lockdown. I look back with fondness at all our times away despite all the ups and downs.

Cromer 2020 - an eat, pray, love holiday

 

It was difficult getting away in 2020 because of the Covid19 Lockdown, so this made our week away to Cromer feel very precious. It was also special as it was the 25th time me, my mother and my daughter had been on holiday together.

   

Finnigan's Travels

From 2006 to 2020, I traveled around Britain and a little bit of Europe and North America with Mum and Amy. We were occupied with other things at the time, like work and school, and also had my dad with us from 2006 to 2012. I have begun to think that ideas from our fifteen years on holiday could be a springboard towards other creative projects. Below is the basic itinerary for our fifteen years away.

The holidays specifically inspired my mum to paint these two pictures. The first is based on a photo of Amy looking out of a hotel window on the Isle of Wight. The second is based on me looking through our patio doors in a holiday apartment in Torquay.

Reverse Bucket List

After completing my mini bucket list (5B450) in 2017 I have had a little more to do with bucket lists. My new bucket list is called 5450+ which is more of a being list than a doing list. After a brief exploration of the blogosphere I discovered that reverse bucket lists could be a good exercise in reflection and gratitude. The sixteen items on my reverse bucket list are a reflection of my life over the past fifty odd years. I think the 1990s was a big ‘to do’ list for me: getting a job, getting a career, getting a house, writing songs, poetry, short stories, getting a husband, getting a baby. Since that time I have become more reflective. The last item on my list, ‘2 years of mindful discoveries’, offers the hope that the 2020s will be more a time for ‘being’ and less about ‘doing’.

Lorna’s Reverse Bucket List - A Meaningful Life?

1.      Thirty Years a Librarian (February 1990 –February 2020 plus)-after gaining my library degree-BA(hons)-in 1989

2.      Five decades of travelling (1970s-2020s)– (50 places in England and 33 other countries)

3.      A year of London – visiting 52+ interesting London places

4.      Found and lost love

5.      Learnt to drive

6.      Bought a house (with Richard)

7.      Twenty years since SubVerse (2020) – (active period was 2000-2005)

8.      Raised Amy to the age of 20+ (got her through school and helped her with qualifications) (2020)

9.      Twelve years a Piano Teacher (2008-2019)– helping pupils get fifteen certificates in ten years

10.  Ten years at church (2008-2018)- including ten months of Sunday School teaching from 2010 to 2011

11.  Ten years of Arts and Crafts (2010-2020)– redecorating the house, appreciating art and culture, developing craftwork

12.  Ten years in concert (2010-2020) – Playing classical piano pieces in various public places

13.  Two diplomas in the 2010s – Level 3 in Business Administration and dipABRSM in Piano Teaching

14.  Ran a craft stall in the Twenty-Teens (2013-2019)

15.  Ten years a blogger (2013-2023) – Highlighting my creative and therapeutic endeavours

16. Two years of Mindful Discoveries (2018-2020)

The photos are from the 'Bucket List Coffee' shop in Eastcote.

 

Amy's game of life

We have been playing Amy's game of life on holiday since she created it in 2014. It was a most memorable time playing it on holiday in our rented apartment in Whitby, on the Yorkshire coast.

The game begins with birth and ends in death. At the start players wait in limbo until they draw the birth card and then their game begins. On life's journey you earn money, buy property, have children, get into debt, get into trouble, get sick. The game ends when someone draws the death card. At that point the amount of love and money earnt in a lifetime are calculated and a winner is nnounced.

Amy's pictures on the cards are fantastic and playing the game is quite absorbing, however Amy does usually end up being the winner.

A Mindful Day in London Town

As you may know me and my family have been going through a tough time lately. Things I have been keen on encouraging, in the face of mental health issues, over-reliance on technology, pressures of the consumer and materialitstic world have been; philosophy (thank you School of Life), mindfulness (via 3rd wave CBT and Bhuddism), connections to church and charity, music and the creative arts. In order to further exploration of these areas, I was happy to take part in the mindfulness open day at the West London Bhuddist Centre.

The two big sessions of the day were one hour of yoga followed by one hour of meditation. There was a lot of therapy involved, with just a hint of Bhuddism, I felt. Afterwards we enjoyed an afternoon in Hyde Park followed by a Chinese meal.

     

          

On Sunday we visited our local church for a farewell service followed by a leaving meal. The activities at the Bhuddist and the Christian centres both had a very good vibe to them, making me feel that it was fine pursuing the ideas of both religions at the same time.

ALF & Audrey @ Kew

   

 

My family has had a lot of connection to Kew Gardens over the years. My dad used to work here and now his ashes are scattered here, I used to work next door and visit the place in my lunch breaks, the whole family pay a visit to Kew, getting on for once a year. Now our connection feels even stronger, as my mum has had one of her pictures chosen for an exhibition celebrating the reopening of the newly restored temperate house. All in all, it was a proud and pleasing day, not to mention a gloriously sunny one.