People in my life

I have been here in Vilnius at a really good conference - I haven't seen the old town yet - but today I am having a day on my own - so I will walk and walk - which will be good - as for the last three days I have been sitting at the conference - though I did dance last night at an amazing event in a medieval castle on an island. Our Lithuanian hosts have been absolutely fantastic and it has been a wonderful conference in terms of hospitality - also in terms of content - and also having the F7 bid meant I was having different conversations with people - and they were also very productive and exciting!

Wow, wow, wow I am just so blessed!!!

This is an international conference and we had come from 62 countries – but I have heard things and met people – with whom I have connected to in an extra-ordinary way. I think this is because I am increasingly open to people and am also concentrating and focusing on what people are saying – and behind what they are saying. I am beginning to also ‘push’ the connections – when I meet someone I connect with – I just jump straight in!!!

I suppose this is what I have been doing all my life – but propelled by a real sense of urgency and an increased sense of consciousness – I am living my life quite differently. One of the major things is a lack of expectation – when I connect with people it is not for anything – it just is!

As Jackie Coleman said to me last year in Houston – everyone is in your life ‘for a reason and a season.’ The important thing of this is that the others are in MY life. I am obviously in a lot of other people’s lives – dear blogg readers including yours - but that’s not my priority.

I am becoming clearer that I have to ensure that I maximise the ‘reason and the season’ that every single person is in my life i.e. for me to really appreciate and treasure the time that I have with all the many people in my life. I don’t think I can see the reasons why they are in my life – but I do feel I have a really duty to cherish the fact that they are in my life – I am just so so blessed and to recognise this, and to appreciate this, is very very important.

So a day off in Vilnius – the sun is shining and it looks a perfect day - then tomorrow meetings in the morning then off to Brussels and lots and lots of work - wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Moved!!!

It was a wonderful ceremony and a great party - and I have MOVED!!!!

I feel like a little girl playing 'house' in my new flat - it is just so lovely!! I feel so grateful for all my wonderful friends and family who have helped me so much over the last few weeks - crazy, crazy weeks.

Looking back - how did I manage to do all that sorting and moving, all that work stuff and have a date with a nice Italian man, in such short period of time!!!

One more night in this house......

Woke up this morning reflecting on the years I have slept in this bed - in this room, in this house. Thought about sleeping with my beautiful Chris for all those years and about three little baby boys cuddling in with us. Writing this has made me fill up with emotion.

Wonderful years, happy years, full of love, babies, little boys, dogs, so many friends, so much laughter, joy and happiness...... my lucky life in this lovely house.

I am so pleased that Kirsty is going to ceremonially enable me to say a proper farewell and thanks to this house. I want to thank it for being the place where I and my family have lived for these decades. It has been a wonderful home and we have loved it and it has been filled with warmth and our laughter, ooh and the odd tear and tantrum!! For years Chris and I used to have an argument every Saturday morning!! So the house has been full of life - breathing, beautiful life - and for the last three years it has felt our deep sadness and been my shelter whilst I have been getting ready to leave this stage of my life.

So here I am - ready to leave - and feeling ready - a busy day at work - I am beginning to understand the amount of work involved in coordinating this massive project - so excited about that too.

Ceremony at 8 - party at 9 - dancing till dawn then move!!!

Something profound is happening here...

This morning I meditated and went somewhere new...... and it was extraordinarily beautiful.

I try to meditate most morning, giving myself the time and space to go inside myself and to find peace and joy. But this morning, with Rene on the bed behind me, I went to somewhere new, deeper and even more glorious.

I felt that I wanted to record this so am putting it on my blogg.

Rene and Margaret have gone to the conference and I will shortly join my Austrian family to continue working on the F7 proposal – yesterday they gave me a fridge magnet which says:

Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead.
Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.
Albert Camus

Which as the Coordinator of the whole project I think is good advice!

So am in Stockholm walking with my friends....... wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Being in Stockholm

Is just lovely - arrived last night with Margaret after a long week at work - finally got the letter of confirmation re the F7 bid at Friday lunchtime - that's such an amazing thing - it just changes so much - I think I put on my blogg a few months ago - if funded - my life changes - and if not my life changes - but I'm now the other side of the euphoria of the news and looking at what this will actually mean - and it means a lot of change!!!

To start with it changes my relationship with a lot of people and I am really starting to think through what this means. But and it is an amazing but - most of the partners in the bid are already part of my life and this just enables these relationship to extend and deepen.

As I write Rene sleeps - she arrived this morning from Washington and we had a wonderful lunch and tonight Harri arrives and tomorrow the Croatians and the Austrians, dear, dear friends as well as wonderful colleagues. And then a lot of other people from Monday... wow I am just so amazingly blessed. There are so many amazing people in my life – but all people are amazing – I think the thing is being open – being open to the amazingness of people and them being open to themselves!!!

So my life has changed again – another doorway has opened and I’m standing at the threshold and feel ready to go through. I recognise that going through will change me and I cannot see past the threshold, but that’s fine, my future is unknown – and in the unknown anything is possible!

And yesterday I went back to a complete stranger, very nice Italian man I had been chatting too, and gave him my email address and asked him for his!!! Wow – never done anything like that before – but who knows what any small action will lead to!!

So I will focus and appreciate the small things and look for happiness in all I do and surrounded by love, walk through the into my unknown future – wow wow wow – way to live!!!!!!!!!!!!!

camping!!

It did seem to be quite a strange thing to be doing so close to moving - but it was just amazingly perfect to go camping for the weekend!! And it was a perfect weekend.... I kept hearing the Lou Reed song 'Perfect Day' going through my head - and I can't believe it was actually a weekend because it felt so much longer!!!

It was just so good to be outdoors, uncomplicated and fun - never been there before - but I loved Shell Island - and I just loved the whole outdoors bit - lovely company including a dog Minnie - and oh yes the uncomplicated and fun bits were also excellent!!

Coming home to a pretty nearly 'sorted' house was also good - still got several evenings of 'sorting' to go but I have just done so much - to think that at Easter I hadn't even thought about moving at all - and all going to plan - I will have moved in two weeks time - that's pretty cool!! I will also be going to Stockholm this week - getting home for one night - then leaving party then move!!!!

Wow wow wow - just love this change - recognising that it's pretty accelerated but just enjoying the ride..............

My life in photos

Some of you will recognise the photos taken from the montages around the house - especially the kitchen! - and some of you will recognise yourselves as being part of my lucky life. Now gone from my life - I'm glad I got AB to record them for me.

Having a wonderful time......

I am just so happy.... life is such a joy. Woke up early and have had a quick sort - two kitchen cupboards!! I am a sortaholic at the moment - just sorting sorting sorting!!! Hector says that there isn't a Spanish word for 'sorting' - in the way that we use it - but I couldn't think of any other English word which describes what I'm doing with my house at the moment apart from just SORTING!!!

People have asked is it painful, emotional, upsetting to sort through all these things, my things, Chris's things, the boys things, Chris's Mother's and Aunt's things ... loads and loads of things... but it's not upsetting or painful, it's such a pleasure when I give them away or they are recycled and become 'wanted' by someone else - because they are not 'wanted' by me or my boys and wonderfully liberating - if they just get binned!! Have felt responsible when things are over 100 years old - but feel so happy with the thousands of choices I have made over the last few weeks.

That's the thing about 'sorting' it requires a choice to be made. It is physically quite draining but I intersperse sorting with meditating, not sitting in a corner, ommming type of meditating - more the kind of internal finding peace in myself type of meditating, which just leaves me smiling!!! Sometimes I listen to loud music but mainly I have done it in silence. I have not had the radio or television on all year and I really think this has helped me to focus on 'sorting' - allowing me to really appreciating all these things, looking at each one and recognising them as a part of this house, before I send them off and out of my life!!

Have decided to go camping this weekend - enough sorting - time to sleep under the stars!!! - then back for a couple of days, a week in Stockholm - then back for one night - then party farewell to the house and then move - wow - isn't life just amazing!!!!