Eat Mangoes Naked

Yes, eating mangoes naked would be very random and a little bit crazy but that is exactly what I want to become more of! I bought a book the other day with this title and read it cover to cover in a day – absolutely brilliant and exactly what I needed! It’s all about experiencing pleasure, which is all around us, not only in the obvious places but hidden in the crevices and dark places of our lives as well.

So, now I am reminded of the big ‘why’ behind selling everything, quitting an amazing job and moving my life overseas. I am inspired again to completely let go and to truly experience all that this journey has to offer. Yes, I value pleasure, enjoyment, creativity, appreciating the simple things in life, but I’m not very good at putting these values into practice - of just being, stopping long enough, allowing myself the time to appreciate those simple things. The messages we often get from a very young age and from various sources tell us that if we’re not being productive or doing something for someone else we are wasting time, lazy or simply selfish. This is why I often feel guilty or restless for simply enjoying myself for no other reason than because I can! Honestly though, what is actually wrong with spending time doing things that may seem pointless to the rest of the world but they are things you love to do!? Nothing!! In fact, what use are we to anyone else if we haven’t first learned to nurture ourselves!!

So in a nutshell….one of my challenges on this journey is to look for those simple pleasures in the ups and the downs and allow myself to fully experience them without judgement or hesitation. And of course those pleasures will involve being a bit silly every now and then…..or maybe a bit more often than that!

Sunbaking at Tescos

A miracle happened today – the sun shone on us with enough intensity to actually feel it’s warmth! Yes, if you’re familiar with the English winter, you will know that it is indeed a miracle! It is a very bizarre thing, to go outside on a very sunny day with blue sky, but to feel nothing but bloody freezing in your body – absolutely no sunshine to be felt, even though it is shining ever so brightly! There have been a few times when I have ventured outside with excitement because I’ve seen blue sky and sunshine from the comfort of my living room window, only to be completely let down and confused about why it is still so cold! Well today on our lunch break, we ACTUALLY felt the sun on our skin as we walked out of Tescos (English supermarket). We were stopped in our tracks, sat on a rail and soaked in the warm rays. Ok, so I’m being really corny, but honestly I have been craving that feeling so much and the winter blues have been really getting to me! I think I can speak for Tim too when I say this, that it has affected him just as much! We have discovered, that this is a country we could definitely not live in permanently simply because of the weather! As we move into the end of Winter, we welcome the days where you can get up at 8am with there being light outside and the sun still up and shining after 4pm. It’s time for a season change!

Wine can only be described as 'bottled poetry'

So, on our second day of job hunting in late Nov last year, we both scored a Christmas temp job without any interview….sweet! It was only 3 weeks work, but hey, it was on the phones taking incoming wine sales calls for the second biggest wine distributor in the world – Laithwaites wine…how hard could it be! We definitely didn’t expect to get work so quickly, but were pretty happy to be recouping some dosh straight away. So after 2 days training (the standard is 2 weeks), we were on the phone to customers taking their Christmas orders. We pretty much loved the job instantly….maybe at the point that we found out we would be getting 40% discount off wine and regular tastings whilst on the phone to customers! We made it known (not so subtly) that we were keen to continue working after Christmas and were stoked to be selected to stay on with guaranteed work until the end of March. So, needless to say our wine consumption since November has increased considerably but it is a little hard to resist quality bottles that we can get for under 10 Aussie bucks! We bought 30 bottles and 4 magnums just before Christmas and I'm not even going to mention how many we have got through. Most of them Tim has drunk anyway! lol. Honestly, the wine we have been able to try has been absolutely incredible! Up until this point, we haven’t really tried a lot of wine from outside of Australia and New Zealand, but we are discovering that there are some pretty special wines from around the world to be experienced. I say ‘experienced’ for a reason, because wine is about so much more than the taste! The only way I can really describe it is ‘wine is poetry in a bottle’….unfortunately I can’t take credit for that quote, but I read it somewhere recently and thought ‘yes!!’ that is exactly what it is. There is so much complexity in wine and it is a real buzz for us to be learning more about it. There are not many things in this world that have been created for pure enjoyment (other than chocolate of course!), but wine is one of them and we are just a little bit happy that we can be on the receiving end of that enjoyment. Our current favourites are from the Rioja region in Spain and Puglia in Italy.

When we reflect on our discussions for 2 years leading up to this trip when we said what we really wanted to do was experience the world through food and wine, we feel pretty blessed to have these jobs.

Sal.

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A winter wonderland and the feeling of being a kid again.

So, if you’ve watched the news recently, you will know that the UK has had copious amounts of snow. Apparently, the most snow in this area (Cheltenham) since 1992! Now, despite the snow having melted away and it being miserably wet right at this moment (which is classic UK winter) we have to tell you how amazing it was to experience the snow that we did, as corny as it may sound.

We had to get up early for work on the morning after it snowed and having no idea that it had, I looked out the window and was shocked! It was one of the most surreal and beautiful things that I have ever seen – a blanket of white covering everything in sight! A winter wonderland! Although I probably shouldn’t admit this, I instantly regressed to being an excitable child and all I could do was shout…. ‘It’s snowing’ over and over! Yes, I’m sure you can imagine it! The English dreary winter had disappeared and we completely forgot how cold it was. We watched as people in our court tried to get out of the driveway in their cars to go to work with no success and having to return to their car park. We certainly weren’t going far that day! Which was a relief, because all we wanted to do was get out and play in it! Needless to say, that’s what we did…..after we put on a few layers that is!

One thing I learned that day is how much we need to do things that connect us to the feeling of being a kid again. We get so caught up in the responsibilities and stresses of daily life that we often don’t give the time to appreciate the innocent fun to be had and the feeling of freedom that goes along with it.

"If my heart can become pure and simple, like that of a child, I think there probably can be no greater happiness than this." - Kitaro Nishida

Sal :-)