At long last....

After hurdle after hurdle I have now opened my Ayurvedic clinic. I have had so many struggles in obtaining the herbs, due to the non understanding of Ayurveda by the local authorities. I also had a six month delay in the building where I am located, being told it will be ready in September, then December, and I finally received the room suitable for purpose in February.

The clinic is called The Ayurvedic Natural Health Centre and in situated in a large Medical Centre alongside doctors, dentists, physiotherapists, there is even a plastic surgeon and skin clinic on the premises, and me.

My consultation room is quite small but I love it. Here is a photo.


I just love the herbs.


I do have some clients/patients who are making some very nice progress in their health and I am getting referrals from those. However I do have to work on marketing myself, which is not a strong point. I have some nice leaflets to advertise the clinic which are being distributed to health shops and I have a flyer to put up in the local gyms and sports centres.

How does it feel? Well I am delighted to have my centre open.

So here I am, wish me luck.

I guess you are asking - What is Ayurveda? Next post.

Meet Rosie... Age - nearly 11 weeks

Meet my puppy Rosie, who is 10 weeks old and enormous. I anticipated getting an Andrex puppy that I could hold in two hands, well I can just about carry her with two arms...

But she is just adorable. she flumps, lollops and bounds...

Unfortunatly she has an upset tummy and has not been as happy or puppylike as I expected. We are off to visit the vet tomorrow for a once over. Heres hoping that it is just the travelling to get her here, she came all the way from Bournemouth on an plane.

More photos will follow and maybe even a video.

Moody afternoon......

The day wasn't particularly good yesterday weather wise, but as I was on my way home the sun came out from between the clouds and shone onto sea. The view was stunning.




Again it's the dark and light that catch me. I joined two photos together for the above, here they are independently.




Enjoy.

This is how I prefer to see snow....

The Pyrenees at New Year.

Brave hearts...

Wednesday 14th March!

We have been enjoying the most beautiful sunny days. Yesterday whilst walking in Gorey we watched the children step warily into the water.



Braver than me, she says wrapped up in her woolies.

Photos aren't so good, the were taken using the zoom on my camera phone.

Dusk skies

I just love sunsets, have a look at these photos taken over three different evenings in the past two weeks. Just gorgeous.

It feels like the start of summer, never mind the start of spring. :)





I think its the light and dark that get me and the incredible colours.

Parked...

Out walking last week I passed a lady out walking her toddler twins, they must have been about 2 years old - both girls. This was the scene along the pathway on my return.

Abandoned!

Two toddlers AND two buggies obviously proved too much.

Bloody Builders...

We are going to have a conservatory built, along with a few other bits done inside the house.

I don't want to be involved too much with any of the works. I have put in my request (told BH what I want) and am expecting/hoping that he will advise the builder who will then come and take over all the planning etc.

Well, the estimator from one of the conservatory companies phoned out of the blue, could he pop by with the builder he was recommending so they could have a look where it was going. 'OK, no problem' said I. They came, so polite me asked let me know if you need anything. WRONG!

Questions questions questions. Which way do the upstairs floorboards lay!? No I don't know which way the upstairs loo pipes run under the floorboards! No I don't know what the drain cover looks like! What floor am I having - do I have to decide that now?

An hour and half later there were 4 of them talking of things I no nothing about, nor do I want to know - I just want a conservatory. This was the scene....


















Can you guess who's is who's - there was the plumber, electrical, builder and conservatory salesman?

Aaaaarrrrggghhhhh..

I was saved when BH came home unexpectedly and took over.

Nature - it just amazes me

Look at the colours, so vivid. They don't look real do they?

I really love these flowers, well most flowers. But the colours of anenomes always amaze me.

I quite like leaves too.

It feels like they are all trying to get their heads up.

Washed up and hung out to dry

St Ouens after a stormy night.

Jersey Cows

We have some wonderful sculpture here in Jersey. Here are some of our Jersey Cows. They are placed in Wests Centre, St Helier and give alot of pleasure to people of all ages.





And at all times of the day and night.


The Blue Fish restaurant looks out at these cows and in the evening much pleasure can be gained from observing the youth (and those not so young) attempt to sit on top of the bull.


Lovely aren't they?

Meet Ruby...

Ruby is my neice who is just gorgeous...










What do you think of my wings?











and cheeky






What can I get away with next?











And can be that age... two









I want to run around all those people even though they are having lunch....








And funny










Oh Uncle Allan do that again!














And mischevious....












What should I do next?









And brave...










Make way I am coming in - splash!













And thoughtful....











Is it really my birthday... where is the cake?













And as I said, just gorgeous. Ruby was two and half when these were taken last May. She lives in Spain with my youngest sister and her hubby. She is cute, funny, quite clever, mischeivious and has a great sense of humour - she really laughs.

Lovely eh!

Where I have visited...

These are the countries I have visited in my young 47 years. I have been very fortunate.

My youngest sister lived in Hong Kong for many years and when we visited her we would then go off on holiday to the Philippines or Thailand. That is what started the travel bug.

I spent 15 months backpacking in 1999/2000 with my hubby Allan, mainly in Asia. I will have to write a travel blog of this time.

I have been to so many countries but never been to Scotland or Ireland. Isn't that terrible, I do feel guilty about that. Every year I say I must visit these places but put it off for another trip elsewhere.

In my recent 'student' years holidays have been restricted to family trips. Now that I am working again we can now consider which country to visit next... Maybe it will be within the British Isles but I somehow doubt it.

We haven't been diving for many years so I think that will be our next proper holiday. To revisit the beautiful underwater world of the fish, it does feel like you are visiting another world when you dive. We dived once to see hammerhead sharks; wow it was scary, and thrilling. We sat deep down in the blue ocean waiting for the sharks to pass, and they did.

create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide

Aubin and his better half...

I have been away for too long… I haven’t found time to blog, been busy or too tired- no excuse I know!

I have been at my job for just over one week now and think it is going to be good. I have been thrown in the deep end and am just getting on with it. As it is a new restaurant the office systems have been set up in a rush, some of them are fine but others need to be tweaked here and there. There will be 3 of us in the office, 2 part timers and one full timer. I never realised that you would need this many staff in a restaurant. In actual fact it is two restaurants in the same building. Downstairs is a gastro pub and upstairs is a very posh restaurant.

The office is in a separate building to the restaurant though just across the road. My desk backs onto the window and here are the views……

And this...

If I had thought a bit quicker I could have joined the two photographs and given you a panoramic view - just too slow!

I must say that I found myself gazing past the harbour out to the sea to the yachts and jetskiers more than once; they were having a race last week. I will have to enjoy the view whilst I can though as we are moving office in a month or so and I won’t be having a view, although we will still be in the harbour area.

Aubin The Goose

On my way to work one morning I stopped to have a chat with Aubin the goose and his lady friend. I interrupted their breakfast as they were tucking into the geraniums.

Aubin and his better half live in the harbour itself along with many ducks. Not long ago they (the authorities!) moved Aubin to another location in Jersey (I am not sure if he had a BH at the time) and the public went quackers (sorry i couldn't resist that), they were outraged. Such a fuss was made that Aubin was quickly returned to his former home. Quite rightly so, says I.

Other Updates

Dad - Dear Dad is now out of hospital. They have stabilised his fluids and sent him home with a catheter. Currently. there are no plans to give him dialasis thankfully, I don't know how he would have managed with that. Although he has a cathater in now, I can't image he will keep it in for long - bless him. His mind is a bit befuddled at the moment. He was saying that his sisters birthday is next week - she has been passed away for about 8 years. Last week he asked if our maternal grandparents were still alive...

Brother - He has had his blood tests and we are awaiting the results.

Herbal Medicines - I got excited too soon. The Chief pharmasist still says that the law states that I can only import and use single drugs. Therefore, I have put in an order for 50 or so single herbs from a very reputable hospital in south India and I intend to make up my own formulations using the classical recipes. I won't be beaten!

Where does the time go?

BH,'Happy Allan' has been off work this week and we have been out and about. Also, I have been a busy bee, I have :-

• been for two interviews (more about that later)
• seen the Chiropractor twice,
• took some disabled friends to see the Blood Brothers musical at our local opera house - which was fab...
• took others to see the War Tunnels (previously called The German Underground Hospital) which were buit during the German occupation of the island. It's pretty cold in there and quite sad, though very interesting ....

• put highlights in my friends hair
• played tennis
• went to look at a possibility for an organic vegetable patch - not suitable
  
• went walking
  
• went on a cycle ride
• searched town for new work clothes
• took Ayurvedic doctor out for an evening walk
• what else - oh ate too many lunches out and afternoon tea and cake.

The cycle ride.

We cycled from home up hill to St Martins (without stopping to walk I might add) were we visited Ransoms Garden Centre with the sole purpose of having a big piece of cake and a pot of tea in the Garden Tea Room. Ransoms is one of THE places to visit for afternoon tea.

In order to feel a little less guilty we did walk around the garden centre on the pretence that we were interested in looking at the garden furniture, plants, animal food stuffs, fish, clothes, fencing, granite Buddhas etc. In actual fact we were both incredibly thirsty and peckish and just wanted to get to the tea rooms. I chose banoffee pie whilst BH chose cheesecake. Each piece was so large and sweet we should have shared one. We have eyes too big for our bellies.

Back on our bikes for the cycle home we passed via Gorey. Gorey is on the east coast of the island and has a very pretty harbour overlooked by Mont Orgueil Castle.











The castle has under gone some very sympathetic renovation and recently reopened. I visited in June with my brother who was on holiday, here are some photos taken then.

From the back of the Castle











From the front of the castle











Looking down from the topmost tower to Gorey harbour.








The interior of the castle is pretty interesting too; I will share that with you at a later date.

Back to cycling. Here are some photos taken of the ride back along the coast to home. As you will see the tide goes out such a long way . Gorey has a sandy beach but as you come around the coast from east to south it gets very rocky (tourism of Jersey arrange evening moon walks around this part of the island).

Here is a photo from further round the coast looking back to the castle.














And another looking away from the castle, out to Le Rocque and the more rocky area.














On the job front.

On Tuesday I went off to The Boathouse restaurant for my interview, I was there for an hour and a half and thought it went very well. I was offered the position that afternoon.

I also went for another interview on Thursday morning with a lawyer firm, in fact where BH works. It was a role for project work within IT which I have done before and thought might be interesting. This job was a full time position so not for me.

I have now accepted the Boathouse position and on Monday will be driving out to St Aubin harbour to start my new job.

Yippee, I will have money again for the first time in 4 years.

Some people...

Some people are just great....

In an empty field aside a main road a man and his young daughters have planted some seeds. Here is the result.

When I stopped to take these photos the chap was there with his girls (age 5 and 10?). I told the youngsters that I thought their field was wonderful and would make everyone smile on the way to work.

Apparently they had planted the seeds in the empty unused field so that people without gardens could enjoy the sight of all the flowers.

They had returned to the field to collect seeds pods to use next year.


There are poppies, cornflowers, sunflowers and other flowers, and some baby ladybirds so the 5 year old told me. Lovely eh!




Update....

Dad - He seems OK at the moment. They have managed to get him to keep his drip/catheter in and they are stabilising him, They intend to keep him in for a month - no long term plan as yet - is that good or bad?? Good I think, at least they are not sending him back too soon. He seems happy with himself, so much so he is asking for his cowboy hat and Brut aftershave to be taken in. Bless, he obviously has his eye on one of the nurses, God help them.

Sister 1 - left a message on the answer phone. She was quite sweet and now I feel guilty for my sarcasm. I will speak to her later tonight or tomorrow. Oh, she sent me a lovely top in the post, it was a car boot purchase she bought when we were visiting Dad in May. She said it looks better on me! This is unusual though, but very nice.

Dog - Well we decided not to have a puppy. As I am going back to work it would be unfair to leave a little puppy dog alone (although someone told me today that it is OK to leave a dog for up to 4 hours, especially after a good morning walk) Gosh, what to do?!? I still think its not fair to leave a little puppy for so long.

Job - I am going for an interview on Tuesday. This is at a newly built restaurant overlooking the beautiful harbour of St Aubin.

They are looking for an accountant to cook the books and help manage the business, 25-30 hours a week. I think it would nice not working for a bank or accountant. When I was in finance I used to think that all I was doing was making rich men richer - here at least people will be enjoying the experience, well hopefully!

I have no experience in catering but I will but my brain to it tomorrow and work out what is involved and needs to be said.

Herbal Medication - Yesterday I found a local government document dated 2/6/06 or 6/2/06 that states "The Medical Officer of Health has confirmed that an Ayurvedic practitioner does not require a licence to work in the Island and there are no objections on medical grounds to Ayurvedic treatments" Yippee, if it means what it says.

I have forwarded the document to the chief pharmacist (a local government official!) for his comments. Maybe this is going to be a good week.

GOM - Actually I am going to stop calling him this in the hope that one day it will become untrue. You know what they say about daily affirmations.

Happy Allan is taking this week off as holiday. I thought it would be nice for us to have a week together before I start work (if I start work). The weather forecast is cloudy tomorrow and then sun and cloud for the remainder of the week. As they are always wrong my prediction is that it is going to be glorious and sunny.

We are going to go sightseeing, to visit some historical sites that we haven't been to for years, have picnics, go to the beach, swim, cycle (me on his bike), walk, and anything else that takes our fancy.