Happy Easter

Hooray! Holidays are here and I am ever so grateful for them. I lament the burden of extra work on weekends and in the evenings but I guess this is the payoff.
I hope to do a lot of things around the house and in the garden these holidays. I haven't been doing much exercise  lately so I really want to get back to that. 

Meanwhile...
Around home, it looks like Mr S has caught the festive decorating bug. This is his handiwork:

Weatherwise, we had a short springlike spell of weather. The mornings are cool now that autumn is here so any warmth and sunshine are precious. It was quite a surprise to uncover yet one more bunch of grapes hidden amongst the vine. The grapes were small but full of flavour and incredibly sweet. 

Another welcome surprise was the rejuvenation of a fuschia I bought a while ago. Mr S also had a hand in this. I give up when a plant seems dead but he tends to it and in its own time it comes back to life.

I had a lovely afternoon tea at Overnewton Castle farewelling two colleagues who are retiring. Another very close friend of mine is preparing to retire next year.  It's got me thinking about what retirement might look like for me. 
Sorry, on a negative note, but I thought the price of the afternoon tea was exorbitant. The food was good and there was plenty of it. The setting was lovely, too: the building was over 150 years old which is rather unique in this part of the world. But still not worth the price. 

Hope you have a happy Easter if you are celebrating. Enjoy the break. 

(Here in Australia it's a four-day break.)

Missed opportunities

       

The other day I had a delightful conversation with a young colleague. She told me that she studied Vietnamese at university and has spent a lot of time over in Vietnam, working on her language skills. She speaks very well and has a good command of the tones which are very challenging for most western tongues.
I sat there admiring her and a little envious. In that moment I wished I had had the same opportunity in my life. Perhaps if I had learnt Vietnamese when I was younger I might have mastered those tones and remembered more than what I did learning it in my later years.
Some people get amazing opportunities, I thought. Imagine if such an opportunity had come my way!

I'm not fluent in any language though I've dabbled in a few. It has to be said that one of my greatest dreams would be to speak fluently in another language.
Shortly after that conversation with my colleague, my mind started ticking over. You see, I spent over four years, off and on, learning Vietnamese and tackling those tones. Some days it was hard enough remembering the words, let alone their tones as well. I stumbled my way through that experience and now I am left with a smattering of useful expressions such as "Go away", "Can you tell me how much it is to ....?" and, of course, "Oh, my goodness!"

And then it hit me. 

I did have my opportunity. 

I had four wonderful, exciting and difficult months in Italy when I was younger. I was a nanny. I stayed with a family who expected me to work hard but who were also very good, hardworking people. When I arrived there my conversational skills were rather slow and stilted. I could barely converse. By the time I left, I had learnt to speak conversational Italian with ease.
However, at that time, I had social anxiety and didn't know about it. I would cry each day as I handwashed the baby's clothes. I felt both elated at what I was experiencing and claustrophobic at the same time. I would dream about being back home waiting for my dad to walk up the drive, as he got home from work. There I was on the holiday of a lifetime. Days off were spent alone. I was missing time on my own, away from the ever present grandmother, so I could refuel. I didn't know how to negotiate. I didn't know how to draw on my inner resources. I didn't know how to make the most of each moment, each day, each precious opportunity as I desperately tried to live out my dream of being in Italy and immersed in the language.
So I kept crying each day as I washed the baby's clothes. And finally decided to leave the position. Prematurely. My dream job.
I tell this story to help people understand what happens with social anxiety. On the surface, a little shyness seems trivial. Nothing to worry about. And yet,  it affects people. It gets in the way of them reaching their true potential. It stops people fulfilling their dreams. It constantly leaves people with a sense of failure and inadequacy that hangs on much longer than necessary (OK....because we let it...).
And so that delightful conversation with my ccolleague  reminded me of the fragility social anxiety brings to people's lives. One of the hardest things I found living with SA was not being able to rely on myself. When confident and assured I could do great things. When anxious I would fumble and flounder and flee.
One of the reasons I  do this blog is to make people aware of social anxiety. I've been fortunate in my life that I can learn from my mistakes and I've been fortunate to have had counselling which has helped me cope better with daily life. It is my hope that by sharing some of my stories some readers might recognise social anxiety in someone they know. Knowing means you can do something about it (ultimately it's the person with social anxiety who has to make the change).

The pot-holed road is not as bumpy as it once was but, looking back,  it sure would have been easier to have had the option of travelling a smoother road and reaching a sunny destination, rather than having to cut the trip short each time!

Central Vietnam

How the love of simple living was borne in me.

The Old Mill,  Hahndorf

It struck me suddenly the other day that my interest in simple simple living (after all, I do a modified version, a simple version, if you like, of what I see others doing) while inspired by bloggers and all, may not be borne out of the world I thought it was. Yes, I learn about simple living from others around me who choose to take the road less travelled. Yes, I am drawn to doing things differently. Yes, my introversion probably finds the simple life more attractive than the hullabaloo of modern living. But the other day, I recalled my time travelling to De Smet in South Dakota, many years ago now, and realised it was probably borne out of my love of the olden days. You see, Laura Ingalls of Little House on the Prairie fame lived in De Smet!

I love Amish stories (modern tales but reminiscent of the olden days), old family sagas, Janet Oke's "Love Comes Softly" series and many other books of that draw you into a life long past. I don't have a bucket list but, if I did,  I  might put on it: dress up in a dress form the 1800s and wear it around all day, bonnet and all!

I think I loved the old way of being. Remember The Waltons and the way they gathered together of an evening and went off on walks to the pond. People walked along tracks in the woods, breathing in fresh air,  rather than waiting in a sea of traffic surrounded by metal and fumes. Jon English died this week which took me back to Against The Wind when life was very simple and even harsh. It  was the time of one roomed huts and horse and cart and not much more, but still there was plenty of love and camaraderie to be found.

I love seeing the old and the beautiful when I am out and about. Whenever I've travelled I love seeing old buildings.the simple ones, the ones where people made their homes and gathered together day after day. Mr S and I got tickets to see the Lost Trades Fair in Kyneton over the Labour Day weekend. We are really looking forward to it. I picture myself walking up and down the dirt paths, admiring the skill of true craftsmen and women and getting a little lost in the beauty of it all. I fancy it will be a little bit like stepping back in time....

Of course, simple living does hark back to the olden days. The two are definitely related. Yet, long before the words "simple living" were spoken, I do recall my interest in the alternative way of living evoked in stories about the past. I watched Little House on the Prairie and wished there was an actual house just like the one in the show, where you could go and stay for a week.

So there you have it. What I thought was an interest borne out of my awareness as an adult is more than likely something which was inspired by stepping back in time, a love of the old way of doing things, romanticised perhaps in all the stories I have read!

Lost Trades Fair 2016