The Sunday Spinster Sermon: Part 19: I Know You

Dear friends

 

I must start with an apology for my rather obscene tardiness. My last post was on the 8th September, which by my basic calculations would appear to be a 27 week break. Or around 6 months.
 

I have made attempts and written notes on several occasions but the words have seemed to get stuck in a jumble of dead ends and nihilistic ramblings. I apologise. Mainly to myself, as writing makes me happy, but to you too. What can I say? I'm an emotional animal and when I'm sad doing much more than the bare minimum is a little tricky.
 

So where have I been and what have I seen during my the last six months of AWOLity?
 

I faffed heavily on okcupid. Seeking love and all that. Suitably comic and disastrous. Have now deleted account but the men I met...
 

There was Murray, the Essex boy, turtle lover and knower of cocaine binges and TOWIE cast. 'Let's turn this cab around' and 'I know you'll be thinking of me when you wank tonight', as I politely declined his offer of turning the cab round and going back to his, i had no desire to become better acquainted with his turtles named Laurent, Perrier, Rose, Veuve and Cliquot....
 

There was also a banker in Singapore, who would Skype and tell me he wanted to rescue me, a vegan pilot who discussed LSD (latte with soy milk made out of dandelions), an Irish recruitment consultant who was always ready to meet up but then off on European tours and a Viking who seemed to want to join a book club with me but not actually meet in person either. These were the ones I corresponded with. Others sent money shots, often with hard abs but no faces, giving me hotel room numbers, email addresses and phone numbers.

 

A little more success was had out on the town, as my mood lifted, I could be found trotting home as the sun came up but the usual mêlée of financiers and bankers were just not terribly alluring for more than an hour or two.

Meanwhile, I tried to turn my miniscule flat in Sai Ying Pun into a house. I put plants on the windowsill. This was all very well, but the fact a hotel was being constructed on the other side of the window and I lived on one of the busiest streets of Hong Kong by several bus stops and a traffic lit junction... one lives and learns.

 

 

I poured over emails and FB chats from lost love. Trying to find a pattern or way to slay the dragon and rescue the princess and live happily ever after. Speaking of flights of fancy. The song we opened with is from the modern take on Sleeping Beauty. It looks exquisite. Lana del Ray never sounded better. I hum this song often, now I can pretend to be edgy and hip as it's no longer just a 1950s Disney cartoon...

 

One of my favourite design stories is of the evil stepmothers or queens in Disney and where they forged their signature styles. It all stems back to 1935, when the incredible story of an immortal queen in Africa named 'She' was first turned into a film. This was before the stunning Ursula Andress did her 1960s version. 

 

Behold!

 

 

Which led to a certain 1950 Evil Queen

 

 

Which led to Malificent as we know here today.

 

 

Stunning.

Meanwhile, back in Hong Kong.
 

My nephew came to stay. He was the angel I was yet to meet. He brought my brother and his wife with him who I hadn't seen in seven years. That was some magic. Storytelling and holding hands and cuddles. Wonderfully distracting.

 

Then the angel got sick, and epilepsy began. He's up to twenty seizures a day now, so that's been a significant distraction from my selfish maladies. 

I went to Macau with my HK family and stayed over. A beautiful slice of decadence in a sad sky.

 

Friends came to stay from America and the UK. I had fun when I went out. Cried when I stayed in. Which was exhausting.

I juggled debts. People were paid off. Loans were taken out. Tax bills were received. Plans to move into new houses were forged.

I began working as a friend on my Monday's off as a sales and marketing consultant, that kept me out of trouble and subdued the angry debt monkeys.

I did yoga once or twice.

I had my one year anniversary of HKness. From 2002 to 2014, i have collated a rather fascinating entourage. The newer ones may have been sick once or twice. The stalwarts took it in their strides. My Monday freelance gig was excruciating.

 

I bought a new computer as my old one died. The flying debt monkeys howled.

I wrote a list of the dream house in my head. A little manifestation check box. Space for a kitchen table. I had sat on my couch crossed legged writing or eating for the last year. A view of the sea or the mountains. A space for a desk would be amazing. A bath would blow my mind. Space for an oven. Just a way to make a home.

I went to LOHAS. And had to stop my mouth from hitting the ground when I walked in. There were sea and mountain views. The kitchen table extended to house 8 people. The bath was huge. The kitchen was fitted. The bed was king sized. All furniture was fitted. There were indoor and outdoor pools, a gym, and fountains and gold leaf sprinkled liberally about. It was also peaceful, so very, very quiet. I negotiated on price, and signed that evening. This is my writing view now.

 

Then it was Christmas. I flew to England. I Shrewsburied, Manchestered, Londoned and Brightoned. It was fantastic. The flying monkeys of debt almost carried me home shrieking. They do get terribly cross. I went uber blonde. Which felt most glamorous again and led to vintage parties and winning Louboutins for best dressed on my return to HK.

 

 

Then in the New Year, I was approached to edit some erotica. Which was a new direction for my writing. It's rather good. You can buy it here for less than $5. Daffodils: A BDSM Initiation (Ella Erotica) If it says you can't buy from the USA site, just go to your local amazon site and search for 'Daffodils, BDSM.'

This led to another side project in creating the cover for the trilogy. A have luscious and talented friends.

 

 

Last Thursday, I went to see some gorgeous Tribal African art and happened to mention it on my FB page. I was then contacted to write for a Style Blog that covers Asian architecture, fashion, design and art. If you want to read more family friendly content you will be able to find my weekly submissions here... Style By Asia

I think we're all up to speed now. The next exciting adventure is in five weeks when I fly to New Zealand to spend time with my family and get my Hobbit on. It will be my first solo adventure in a while so I'm looking forward to seeing which dwarves and elves and hobbits and men I become better acquainted with. And the space of course. The space to breathe. Countryside. Mountains. Lakes. Waterfalls. I feel some poetry coming on.

Speaking of poetry. I just came across the most exquisite writer, Warsan Shire. She's in her mid 20s. Ridiculous. And sublime.

For Women Who Are Difficult To Love
by Warsan Shire

you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highway
to a burning house
says you are blinding him...
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you

you dizzy him, you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name
you fill his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours
but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial

he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?

you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.

I leave you with some Hobbity drama by the angelic tones of Ed Sheeran. He sees fire.

Wishing you all a beautiful Sunday, filled with gentle adventures and sparkling conversation. I must be away. I have a Sunday Spinster Picnic to attend.

Peace be with you.

xx

The Sunday Spinster Sermons – Things Fall Apart

Dearly beloved,

We are gathered here today to say goodbye to a dear friend. It was such a sparkling bright thing. But it wasn’t meant to last. I haven’t wanted to hold this ceremony or write these words, as it would mean it was real. And I really don’t want to say goodbye. In fact, I can’t actually see the screen as I type this. My eyes seem to be leaking. Sadly, things fall apart. There’s a saying that it does the heart good to be broken, as it lets more light in. Others say the feelings of sorrow are akin to those of love, as they are heart opening. I know which I would prefer.

I have found it so hard to write since stripped of my spinster shackles, as I would always write from the heart, and once that became joined with another, it felt unfair to speak of it. I suppose that is an upside. My heart belongs to me again.

As I look around my flat, I wonder what to do with a lot of its contents. As I fell in love the week I moved into my house, nearly everything in it holds memories. The couch and bed were brought together in a local furniture shop in Causeway Bay, before we’d even kissed. Dragonflies on the wall were Valentine gifts. Silk robes for birthdays. Paintings from trips to Miami.  Jade rabbits from Taiwan. Moon rabbits from Japan. Fridge magnets and mugs from Arkansas. Cowboy boots from Memphis. I guess if I were a more level headed girl I would see myself as having done rather well from this whole adventure. Unfortunately, I am an overly sentimental type and always see the histories of objects when I look at them.

In many ways, my apartment is a mistress flat. A tiny pied a terre. Not a real home. You see, I thought we’d be building a home together, so this place became a homage to what was going to be. Now it’s not so I sometimes wonder what to do when sitting in it.

The mistress flat title is a clue to where the cracks originate. When the title became achingly true. I was a mistress. The man I loved was still married. The divorce process only began when we met. Of course, they had been separated for a long time, but the ties that bind were still very evident. I was ready to leap headlong into a brand new life but unfortunately that was not possible.

The fact the love remains is a double edged sword. The fact I was never ‘done wrong’ makes it harder. If I try feeling angry and mad it quickly moves to sadness, Endings are hard. Never-ending endings harder.

Friends and family tell me that I must move on and I’ll find someone new straight away. I’m beautiful and smart and funny. But I don’t want to. It is a time for falling apart. I’m not eating properly. I’m drinking and smoking too much. And I live in a shrine to ‘us’.

We still talk every day. When we split up in Japan in July, the day the future monarch of Britain was born, when I was binding your fractured ribs, I said we would have to cease all contact, but after crying a river on the plane home, I said we can stay in touch. We are in love. Why shouldn’t we talk. It’s only natural. It’s what the heart wants.

But the heart also wants hope, and a message that says, I’m sorry, I was wrong, I can’t live without you. Let’s run off and live happily ever after. Like in Neighbours, when Scott runs after Charlene to the bus station somewhere in Australia and the next thing you know they’re walking down the aisle to Angry Anderson. Suddenly. Haha. It’s good to laugh at the mind’s ridiculous stories. Particularly ones created when you were 11.

There have been various attempts to feel better. I did a detox so I could glow. I looked alright but vomited olive oil. I fostered a cat. She was a psycho, I was allergic, the flat got even smaller. She found a new home and it’s me and the flat once more.

It is of course a more elegant ending than my last break up. We were in Thailand. He told me I was not good looking. I had my passport stolen. He said he’d stay. He left on a plane the next morning. I was left broken in Thailand for 2 weeks until I could travel again. I then had to see him every day as we lived on the same island and shared the same ferry to and from work.

Things could be worse J

At least I’m not falling in love with inglorious bastards any longer.  I’m falling in love with people who love me back. Somewhat healthier.

I must dust myself down. Brush myself off. Start all over again.

At least I’m not going to bump into this one but then if we had proximity we probably wouldn’t have broken up in the first place.

I do so miss being wildly happy though. I miss having someone to rely on. Someone to lean on. Someone to make plans with. I don’t want to be alone. I want to be with him. Will I miss the fancy trips? Not so much. They have been lovely but it’s the little things that make the heart swell. The hand on the small of the back. The good mornings and good nights. The coffees. The curled up TV watching. The shared songs. Someone to call darling. The unique shorthand that forms between two people in a relationship.

I wrote a poem when things began to unravel back in June when the divorce proceedings were being pushed through:

It Was Only Really A Month

A film would remind him of her.

That scent would bring back the day,

She walked through the gardens and sighed.

Singulars were lost.

Plurals found.

Flights of fancy to faraway lands.

Promised lands.

Urgency.

Devotion.

Magic.

But it was only really a month.

The next year was a shuffle,

Wondering where the sparkle went.

Occasionally sought, 

In little gifts

And terms of endearment.

But there were more hot angry tears

Than sweet melty kisses.

They didn't know where to look.

They wondered where the month had gone.

I look over to the card mum sent me when she heard, it’s a cliché, but it works.

‘Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.’

Love Lost. RIP. 7^th December 2012 – 2nd July 2013. Brief but beautiful.

Wishing you all love. In whatever shape you find it.

Peace be with you.

xxx

The Sunday Spinster Sermon: 13 Hours Head of Arkansas

Happy Sunday everyone. It’s been a while. I’ve missed doing this but somehow, haven’t been able to find the words. Which for me, is peculiar.

 

I keep writing this. Then deleting. Then writing this. Then deleting. Then thinking about writing and mapping out text in my head with images and links then I don’t write it. I seize up. I don’t know what to say. With the official spinster voice gone, I am at a bit of a loss. Because the thing is, I’ve been in Hong Kong for 6 months now and nothing is quite as it was before. 

I met a wonderful man and had a fairytale courtship but of course reality intervenes, as is wont to do, and jobs and apartments and living on opposite sides of an ocean have to be taken into account. I am accustomed to spinster lonely, but long distance lonely is a new one for me. When I’m feeling sad, I miss the man as I want him to cheer me up, when I’m feeling happy, I miss the man as I want to share the happy with him. 

The hardest thing though, has been making plans. As I enter my sixth month in Hong Kong, I begin my third job this Tuesday. All is change. I live in a great apartment but it is tiny and city bound. It was rented with the best of intentions under the considerations of job number one. As life has moved on this may not be the place for me any longer. When in Hong Kong before, I had a triple bedroomed apartment with a pomegranate tree under the kitchen window and a rooftop with seaviews. 

Here was my home in 2010: 

Daytime

Nightime

Playtime

Traveltime 

Here it is now:

Daytime

Nightime

Playtime

Traveltime

It seems as if I'm in reverse Wizard of Oz. Gone from glorious technicolour to black and white.

I’ve always had a fear of enclosed spaces. I used to have nightmares as a child that I was incarcerated for some horrific crime and locked away for years. It was a dream that kept me on the relatively straight and narrow as the fear of being caught was too terrible. 

I once read that Maasai Warriors die when incarcerated. They have no concept of time, so the now is always. The idea of living in such contained space is enough to make their hearts give up on them. They expire. 

Sometimes, in my little Hong Kong Island apartment, whilst snug and cosy, I have a similar terror melt over me. That claustrophobic air. That I’ll be trapped watching Starworld TV for all eternity, waiting for someone to rescue me.  Perhaps this is a Rapunzel complex, but it was infinitely more bearable when looking out over the mountains and seas of Lamma Island. 

But today, I went on a walk. And I got into the nature. And I remembered how beautiful Hong Kong can be. It is green and verdant. It is nature filled. And as much as I love Blade Runner as a film experience, it is not the homelife I wish to entertain. 

My next home shall have seaviews, or mountain views and if it doesn’t have a full time cat, will have frequent visitors. 

Arwen & Aslan in 2010

My new job will be teaching. I’ll be playing with kids with reduced hours. I won’t be feeling sick at 6am when whatsapp messages come in from my designer jewelry firm expressing calamities. I won’t be trapped in my little flat skyping New York until 1am.  I’ll have space to breathe and dream and build futures. Sure, in an ideal world I’d be tucked up with my man right now, and just be happy where I am... but for now I’m dreaming of a balcony by starlight… 13 hours ahead of Arkansas.

Peace be with you.

May you be at home wherever you are.

xxx

The Sunday Spinster Sermon: Part 16: Redemption

Hello dear readers.

It has now been six months since I began this little project and it takes my breath away how much has changed. I'm still enchanted by poetry and sculpture and myth and song but the essential part of me that has lasted for my 36 years has finally been shaken off. The yearning. 

At the end of the world, or Lamma Island off Hong Kong to be precise, at 7.11pm on Friday 21st December, I took part in a mighty powerful ceremony. Casting off old stories. Moving into new ones. We were all encouraged to write mini lifestories and burn them... Mine reads like a love story. As this whole post does really. So if you're feeling cynical, I'd look away... now! :)

Here is mine:

I was born into a world with beautiful things just out of reach. I began to yearn at an early age. I’d cocoon myself in black and white movies where life is sumptuous and glamorous and all endings are happy. Reality was not my friend.

Yearning was my chief activity. Yearning for a lover. Yearning for another life. Yearning for something more. Yearning for the movies I’d glue myself to. Yearning for the adventure I read about in books.

I’d smile and be happy but yearn for things others found so easy to attain. Boyfriends. Husbands. Families. Children. I’d join in with friends but wonder why I was not allowed to have this life myself.

And then on Friday 7^th December, something changed.

I suppose it had changed when I left Hong Kong to live in England and find a husband. When I was working in a hotel and wearing out shoes. When I bought the ticket to Burning Man. When I arrived in Vegas on 25^th August 2011. When I booked the flight on the 13^th April 2011. When I bought the red dress. When we became friends. And I fell in and out of lust and lived through a hard winter on the Welsh borders.

Or maybe it was after Clockenflap, on the 1^st of December, when we were stranded outside the temple on Hollywood road with no keys, in a drunken heap, the day I signed on my flat. When you loaned me your cash card to pay my deposit. When you met me the next week with champagne and sausage rolls. When you didn't comment on my liaisons with a Lithuanian finance professor. When you helped me find furniture even though I was freaking out. When we had dinner. When you let me pay but chose cheap wine and beer so I wouldn't spend too much…

And then on the 7^th, when you introduced me to your friends, and took the wooden wine box back to my house and we sat in the windowseat and drank wine. And then you walked me back to the boys and I asked if you were going to kiss me or what?

And we kissed.

And now you send me poems. And we’re meeting at an airport in Melbourne on Christmas Eve. And I’m not yearning anymore. I don’t want something else. I want this.

Oh, and I have a beautiful flat, amazing friends and a great job. But it’s always about the romance.

Le sigh.

Le shift.

Thank you

And there endeth the sermon... :)

Or I suppose there's a bit more. So we met at the airport in Melbourne on Christmas Eve and spent the next 10 days together without a moment apart? Which is ridiculous. And bizarre. And lovely.

I think we out romanced romance novels. There was hand holding on beaches. Trips to Narnia exhibitions. Romeo & Juliet in the park. Swooping bats. Long boozy lunches in botanical gardens. Holding hands at every meal, down every street. Ginormous phallic flowers. Boxing Day Cricket. Laughter. Never ending conversation. Skyping families. Lingerie shopping. French bistros. Road trips. Kangaroos. Point Break movie sets. Chocolate champagne spa mornings. Butterflies. Champagne VIP Hobbit watching. Dragonflies. New Year's Eve fireworks. Rock pools. Full moons.

Just a shame there's no sexual chemistry... :)

Although a couple at the New Year's Eve party did try and pick us both up with the peculiar comment, 'I can tell you guys have the most amazing sex together!' Well, I thought that was peculiar, but the young man approached my man later and asked him what his stance was on strap-ons...

The eloquent response was, 'Definitely not on a first date.'

Strange folks out there.

So, I have a boyfriend. He's ace. 

The Spinster Sermons will need a new title.

Thank FUCK!

Peace be with you all.

Wishing you love and happiness and a distinct lack of yearn.

Happy New Year!

xxx

The Sunday Spinster Sermon: Part 15: Dancing

Hello there. How are you? I hope you're going to have, are having, have had a great day. But you know what, even if it's heinous to the mind, body and spirit, the live performance I welcome you with is enough to turn even the most tragic into beautiful.

Today, I've been thinking a lot about one of my old adages... sometimes you're dancing and sometimes you're holding the umbrella. This makes no sense whatsoever of course, unless you used to send the card with that picture on. I've now learned it's named The Singing Butler and by an artist called Jack Vettriano. See, I don't only wang on about old masters and pre-raphaelites.

my world view

This painting sums it all up for me. Sometimes I'm that maid battling with the inclement weather and looking after someone else. Othertimes, I'm the lady in red. waltzing through it all, completely oblivious to what's going on around me. Life offers you different roles and you get to see the picture differently depending upon which role you are given.

Today. I am the lady in red.

I type this from here.

I just Pretty Woman bubble bathed in here.

I'm going here.

I saw this.

I visited this.

And I knew that my heart would go on...

At no time during proceedings did anyone ask me to hold an umbrella.

I then saw some Russians doing ridiculously athletic things in the snow.

This has all been in the name of business. The only money I have parted hands with is for minibar beer and L'Occitane Verbena bubble bath.

Yet when I think of this time last year... Well... it was quite constrasty... the snow was much colder... and the suite was somewhat more treacherous. I was definitely holding the umbrella.

Today's business trip has been rather smashing. The highlight was not the moving Titanic exhibition where I got overly misty hearing tales of romantic daring do, nor the lights show outside the Venetian where the facade was transformed through the seasons, but through the athletic bladey rendering of Swan Lake. I'm familiar with the tale not through the ballet but through the Natalie Portman movie. Watching the white swan and the black swan dance together on the stage made me think of the virgin/whore dichotomy. In classical literature or any art form there is the virginal white swan and the whoreish black swan. In reality we all fall somewhere inbetween.

My return to Hong Kong has been a bamboozlement. A wondrous one. But bamboozley nevertheless. I began a new job last Monday. The team are great. We've had work drinks already and seem to work in surprisingly harmonious conditions. Home life continues to be great. We have large family dinners and invite guests over. My social life is decadent. Last Friday began in Boujis and had a Drop session somewhere inbetween. It looked a bit like this...

Similarly to last Friday, I met another gentleman from the land down under. This scenario did not result in stolen possessions but high hopes for what may follow. I had received his number and promised to call. Alas, after checking his name and company online, his profile revealed how he MOST enjoyed spending his time was with his wife. Quite the disappointment. I wonder what he shall say when I bump into him next in this very tiny town? Thank you were his main comments over the weekend. I doubt he'll be so grateful next time. The twists and turns of fate! :)

OK. I must to bed. The clock has just struck midnight and we all know what happens to pumpkins then.

Peace be with you whether you're in charge of the umbrella, or simply dancing.

xxx

The Sunday Spinster Sermons: Part 14: Fantasy adventure

Hello, good morning, good afternoon and good evening to all of you lovely ladies and gentlemen. Part 14 sees me two weeks into the wonderful world of Hong Kong living and it's living alright. As the fabulous Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote in the swinging twenties, 'My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends, it gives a lovely light!'

I'm typing this in my best friend's flat, sitting on the couch I currently call home absentmindly watching So You Think You Can Dance on the TV. My boys are strangely grown up now and rather than party non-stop seem to work then gym then watch TV. There are lots of vegetables in the fridge. Last night was the first night I didn't go out and they did. I woke up to Andrius staggering around at 8am not having been to bed yet. I asked if Janis was at work and having been assured he was heard another young man shuffling about in the bedroom. I decided I wasn't ready to commence a morning party so feigned sleep. Then the new houseguest began making coffee and smoothies... which I thought was awfully forward. I peeked out from under my couch duvet to see it was non other than Janis. The boys really have become a regular married couple.

Andrius sleeps now while Janis works. Today marks one of the first days without a hangover. This does follow a disgraceful incident on Friday night which saw me curled up on the mat outside the boys' door from 3am til 6am as they wouldn't wake up and my bag had been removed from my possession in the delightul Lan Kwai Fong bar district. My eyes had been on another prize alas. That of a ridiculously handsome Australian hunk with the look of Chris Hemsworth in Thor and the voice of Russell Crowe in Gladiator. I was already undone. Then he began plying me with champagne? What was a girl to do but lose her head... and her daybag containing wallet, HK ID, bank cards, HSBC security devices, camera, make up, jewellery and housekeys. The lovely lady who lives nextdoor began to open her door at 6am to walk the lovely dog I've taken out a couple of times. I hurtled onto the stairwell and pretended to have forgotten my keys so she wasn't exposed to a homeless person napping outside.

I spent a joyful 3 hours asleep on the couch and then proceeded to the wonderful Ocean Park to celebrate my friend's son's birthday. This was something I had been long eager to do... but with a code red hangover, no sunglasses or possessions it was somewhat of a dizzying struggle. I have sunburn.

I was asleep by 9pm last night. Police reports have been made. Cards have been cancelled. HKID replacement schemes are afoot. At least admin is quite easy in HK...

Friday had been a bit of an accidental celebration following four job offers on the same day... for any of you who have read previous blog entries you would know this is somewhat contrasting to my experience in the UK. I was a little overcome. Oh and four offers for housing too. Two in the city, one on an island and another by the beach in the New Territories of North East Hong Kong.

There is a lot going on.

So since I last wrote there was Halloween. Which was a suitable return to Hong Kong. I leather corseted up and made quite the entrance. The issue with dressing like a dom however... is that whenever you are approached by handsome young things you have to tell them to leave you alone.. it doesn't cross your mind for one second to say thank you. You just sneer a bit. Having looked at photos I see there were some rather handsome admirers, most of them gay.. but still.

Trick or treat

There are more men in Hong Kong than the Shire. 

I had actually planned to meet a gentleman in Hong Kong on arrival. We'd been talking for a month. Making plans. Sharing photos. Gmailing. Whatsapping. Texting. Sexting. You know. All that modern aged romance stuff. I'd seen pictures of his son, his house, his view, his friends and other more personal artefacts. As soon as I arrived in Hong Kong it all went quiet. Quite peculiar after all the plans made. You'd think he'd have at least wanted to get laid?

The life of the spinster is often baffling.

But never dull :)

After the wildness of Halloween an altogether different celebration took place last Saturday. A wonderful man named Greg Derham passed away just before I landed. He was synonymous with Hong Kong. He held court over all of the best events here and Hong Kong is strangely vacant without him. I was lucky enough to call him a friend and help with one of his Aids Concern Events. His memorial ceremony was held at the Peak in a garden with a giant screen showcasing his wonderful photos and playing torch songs. The great and the good of Hong Kong were present. It was so beautiful, the reality of the situation only hit me when I returned home.

His friend quoted Romeo and Juliet to say this,

“When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

We released 44 red balloons to represent each year he shone here.

Bye bye Madame Madame

And as we walked down from the Peak it truly felt like an enchanted evening...

In his remembrance booklet another friend said these magical words,

'You coaxed, coerced, chastised and encouraged each and every one of us, whose lives you touched, to reach beyond the boundaries of our humdrum worlds, to believe in the impossible, to discover the child in ourselves once more, and to know that fantasy is not just the stuff of dreams... and as a result, each of our lives is a more sparkling example, a richer and more exciting version than it ever could have been without you... and although we can never hope to fill the void you have left behind, if nothing else we have learnt that life is what you make of it, and that the seed of wonder is ours to grow. Thanks from us all.'

Cheers darling.

Life is certainly larger in Hong Kong. More heart filling. More create your own adventure. They were always my favourite stories. Ones where you'd go to page 12 to fight the dragon, or page 52 to stay at home and wash your hair. I'd always have my fingers in all the various pages and didn't want only one option. HK suits me. Amongst the madness there have been wonderful relaxing moments. Sitting by the beach with an old friend drinking a beer as the sun goes down. Visiting old friends and hugging babies and playing with toddlers. And of course the sunshine. The warmth. The soaring kites. 

The beauty.

I'd forgotten how beautiful Hong Kong is. Green, lush, verdant, birdsong filled. My favourite white crested bulbuls, the scent of HK$10 ginger lilies, the sea, the sea, the sea. And the dragonflies. Everywhere. Hovering around. Dancing. Reminding you it's all an illusion after all so smile and be happy.

What home looks like

Peace be with you everyone.

May you find your Shangri-La and chose your own adventure.

Big love

xxx