galadhir

Blergh! Some of the weird taste of last week's spinach smoothie was not just due to leaving the cottage cheese out. I'm having another one today, and the taste persists. Some of it must be because I was using spinach from the garden, and it really tastes as though it was grown in dirt. It was washed and everything but - hmn - definitely a very earthy vibe.

So... Saturday was Shimmyfest, and I was surprisingly not nervous at all. I think the nerves had been beaten out of me by the heat. After that 36°C day I no longer cared about anything in the world, and I was not looking forward to this hafla any more, even though I'd spent the whole year looking forward to it previously.

I packed my bag full of three costumes - the one I'd specifically made for the solo, the heavy metal one with a black skirt, which I thought would probably do for the show-back of the workshop I was attending, and a galabeya I'd made for the Saidi dance Elizabeth's group Allulah were performing. Plus makeup and hairbrush and props (in this case a Saidi cane.)

Fortunately the venue (which was in Christchurch near March) was quite cool and had a nice draft through the corridor when all the doors were open, and the day was only 30°C - which felt tolerable after the Friday inferno. I arrived early - earlier than the zouk, and the first workshop was already going on so I spent the first hour alone reading a book. Which was fine by me.

Then it was time for the workshop I was attending, which was a tribal style 'slow' workshop, teaching you the value of dancing with slow precision. This was supposed to start at 12pm and go on for two hours, and the hafla itself was to start at 4pm and last til 7pm. Giving me (I thought) two hours to browse the zouk and find something nice to treat myself to for my birthday.

The 'Slow' workshop however didn't actually start til half past, and it went on til 3pm, giving me only an hour to eat some lunch and get into costume for my solo, so browsing the zouk didn't happen.

The workshop itself was surprisingly rigourous and muscular. We learned the tribal sidewinder move, and the figure of eight with the hips while putting your weight on the 'wrong' leg. Then we learned a choreography to showcase these moves, and did some stretching to warm up and cool down.

This hurt my back and convinced me that perhaps tribal is not for me after all, but fortunately adrenaline and excitement was carrying me by that point.

Then of course she said that she didn't want anyone wearing black for the show-back. And I had only brought an extra black outfit. So after not being able to get into any of the emergency outfits she had brought I decided the galabeya would have to do for that too.

My solo was on first, and changing into costume for that defeated me. I made the mistake of taking my hair down to begin with, but with it down I became so hot that my hands were sticky with sweat. Plus I still had not lost enough weight around my chest that the bra I had made for my solo felt comfortable. Plus I put the mesh stomach thing on the wrong way round.

So I was struggling in the toilet thinking 'I can't get this on! But I've got to wear something.' Panicking for the second year running. Then I thought of combining the heavy metal bedlah with the white skirt and stomach cover and went with that:

I was a little disappointed not to be able to wear the outfit I'd specifically made for the solo, but it more or less worked. What a relief that I had packed that extra costume after all!

The dance got applause and two guys coming up to me afterward to tell me they had enjoyed it, so that was great and I'm calling it a success. Now it's time to retire this one and make something new.

Then into the galabeya for the Slow showback. This was much less of a hassle to wear, and had been much less of a hassle to make too. (I am now 4 stone - 56lb - lighter and I still can't buy bellydancing outfits that fit me. I quite like making stuff but oh how I wish I didn't always have to.)

Then I flung a different belt on and went out to perform the Saidi dance, by which time the exhaustion was beginning to work its way even through the excitement. I began to feel weird and achy before I even got home, being very glad to reach the end of the drive before I stopped functioning.

Sunday I was mostly dead, and on Monday I made the mistake of going to Louise's class, so today I am dead again but this time with added pain in every joint. It was worth it, but I'm glad I only do it once a year!

So it was my birthday yesterday, and for my present I got the belly dancing sword I had been trying to get for the past three years. Huzzah!

I just happened to be browsing on Etsy and saw that someone in the USA was selling a proper sword for a price that was reasonable enough it would be worth me paying the postage to post it over to me in the UK.

Honestly this shows how dire the sword situation is here in the UK. All we have available here are these props from Swords Kingdom which look fine on the photo but are very obviously props and not real swords.

In the US you can buy swords like this for a really decent price from Kult of Athena, but they don't ship to the UK. OTOH, I've seen a whole class of belly dancers with swords like this, so perhaps the situation was different a few years ago.

Anyway, I suggested this one to DH as a present he could buy me for my birthday and now it is finally here :)

It comes with a scabbard and everything, so will not poke holes in my bags any more.

It's much heavier on the head (and on the arms) but I will acclimate to it - in fact it's less painful already.

This is a proper sword and it needs a name. Any suggestions?

22. If you have a backyard/garden, do you save rainwater for watering the plants in the summertime?

Yes, we have four water butts that catch water from various points on the roof. When they run out I use my (cooled) dirty washing up water. I use eco-friendly washing up detergent and none of my plants have ever objected to this. In fact I believe that the dirt is food for them.

In the worst droughts, when the water butts are empty, the used washing up water is enough to keep the newly planted plants going. If plants have been in the ground for longer than a year they are expected to have formed enough of a root system to handle going un-watered.

23. If money were no object, would you rather have a gardener, a cleaner, a chef, a masseuse, a beautician, a florist or a hairdresser (or someone else) to be ‘on call’ for you every day? Choose one :D

Oh no, how am I to choose between chef and masseuse? I hate cooking and would love a personal chef to make me tasty, healthy meals. But I also have pain all over my body and massage often sorts that out for a day or so. If I could have a massage in the morning every day I might almost be pain free.

I'm going to go with chef, because I do hate cooking and I don't have the time to do it well myself. Plus I hate the thought of a daily massage even if it would make me feel better.

1. What is your biggest waste of time in your home?

The computer, 100%. When I'm not at the computer I'm usually doing something useful.

2. When at work, what is the activity that you find wastes the most time?

I work at the computer, so it's very easy to just check what's been posted on Facebook or Tumblr, and then I'm back to wasting time scrolling social media.

1. When getting busy with a date or significant other, what ritual could you do without?

I don't know what this one means. Is 'getting busy' a euphemism? Do you mean 'when going on a date?' I don't go on dates these days, and when I did I didn't have a pre-date ritual other than deciding what I was going to wear. (And you can't do without that.)

1. What is the biggest waste of time on the Internet?

Instagram, I think, or maybe TikTok. Although I personally waste most of my time on Tumblr.

1. What do you do at a restaurant to waste time when waiting for your meal?

...talk to the people I am eating with? Is that a waste of time? Or is that a big part of going out to eat?

I was doing my usual routine at the gym on Wednesday when something went crunch and I suddenly could not hinge at my hips without agony. However, because I'm used to having pain in the sacroiliac when I do the workout I didn't think much of it. I finished the routine and then cycled home.

It continued to be painful however. Whenever I moved from sitting down and standing up I was in agony for about five minutes, and I could not bear weight on my right leg.

Obviously, by the time I decided it wasn't getting any better, it was the weekend. And we were going on holiday on Monday. So I self-referred myself to physiotherapy, and got an immediate appointment with an AI on the NHS.

This was/is a bit skin-crawling because it tries very hard to be a human, but it isn't a human, and it's infuriating because I can only explain what's happening via multiple choice statements that often have nothing to do with what I would actually like to say.

It guided me to talking about the ongoing back problem I have had for years, and made it impossible for me to talk about the painful hip. Then it gave me some exercises for the back.

Deciding that I would at least get physiotherapy for the ongoing back problem, I figured I would do the back exercises, and after a week of exercises to restore flexibility to my lower back I have had three days of much more walking than I've been able to manage for years.

It hasn't really helped the hip, but I'll take it.

Much more walking is happening because I am on holiday in the Lake District, where all there is to do is go walking (pretty much.)

We (me, DH, Son and Daughter) are renting out a historic National Trust farmhouse for the week. Or at least, some other people are renting out the big farmhouse, and we are renting the small workers' cottage attached. It's on the grounds of the Sizergh Estate and there's pretty much nothing but nature around us.

The distant speck of a white house is where we are staying, viewed from the front door of the Big House of Sizergh Manor.

And here's the view from the kitchen window:

So far we've gone into Kendal in search of Kendal Mint Cake, taken a steam train to Windermere aquarium, and taken a 19th century steam yacht gondola on a trip around Coniston Water.

Tomorrow we're going to a nature reserve so Son - who is a keen birder - can try to see an Osprey. It has poured down today, but I'm told it will go back to patchy showers and sunshine again tomorrow. I certainly hope so!

Do you still pay for things with cash? Have you been somewhere recently where they don’t take cash anymore?

I always try to have cash on me in case I meet a homeless person or Big Issue seller, but I tend to always pay by card. (Which means I wouldn't notice if anywhere didn't take cash.) I have to remind myself to use cash occasionally on a 'use it or lose it' basis. (I don't want to lose it.)

Have you ever used a photobooth? Are they still around where you live (where’s the nearest one?)

I have used them many a time, every time for getting some sort of official ID - passport, drivers' license, student IDs etc.

They don't seem to be around any more. There used to be one in Tescos, and in the Post Office but it's not there now (neither the photobooths nor the Post Office.)

I assume that now everyone can take photos on their phone it's no longer profitable for the photobooths to exist. Which is a shame, because it's actually quite difficult to take a photo on a phone that is acceptable for use in official documents.

We're being overlooked again both from inside and out. The heat-pump people are back to try to figure out how to zone the house into upstairs and downstairs so we don't have to heat the whole house at the same time. And the neighbors are putting up a fence just outside the kitchen window.

So the heat pump people are in the kitchen (where the lines from the heat pump come in through the wall.) The kitchen which is only a doorless archway from my desk. And outside the kitchen window, barely six feet away, the neighbors are working on the fence. They have a garden, and the fence is a long way from their house. But it is not a long way from my kitchen window, and with the window open to catch the morning chill I can hear everything they're saying, and they can watch me at the sink.

(We could hold a conversation while I was at the sink and they were over the fence.)

Again, it is a good thing that the fence is being mended, though I would have preferred the new one not be so high, or so visibly made of plastic. And it's a good thing that the heat pump engineers are figuring out how to fix our heating, but ugh.

So, in order to (a) look busy when the engineer pops his head round the corner to ask me things, and (b) not be watched in the kitchen, I have been shamed into opening up the file of my cozy fantasy and adding some new words.

It's pretty good, that's the thing. Every time I re-read it I realize with a shock of surprise that it's not bad at all. And yet I never want to write. I'd rather do almost anything else, and frequently I do do almost anything else. I guess my self discipline has atrophied. It's like I was never a professional writer at all.

I suppose the difference is that none of my heart is in this. I'm not writing it because I feel driven to. I'm writing it because I can write - I'm fairly okay at it - and because it's fairly enjoyable to create a world out of nothing. I enjoy reading my work back and seeing what I made. That might be enough reason, honestly, but it's not a pressing one.

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUgh! 28°C today after several weeks of 11-14°C. I'm not acclimatized. Give me a run up at least. And it's going to be 32°C on Monday. Half of me is Neanderthal! I have the red(ish) hair, I have the pale skin that doesn't tan. I'm not built for this.

I cannot picture me cycling for an hour through the heat, then spending an hour weight lifting, then cycling back for another hour. Not without making myself sick. And it is Daughter's birthday party in London tomorrow.

That will involve much travelling by train and underground to get there, a lot of noise and socializing while there, and then much travelling back. That's enough in itself to result in a fibro flare-up. Doing it immediately after a strenuous day under hot sun would be extremely reckless.

Especially because we are also planning to go to the Crick Boat Show on Monday (32°C! You never used to get temperatures over 30° in England in my lifetime and now it's normal, apparently.) And I'm planning to go and help Son pump the boat out on Tuesday. All of which things require me to be reasonably functional.

I feel bad because I had almost a week off last week - I don't want to get out of condition - but equally, I ought not to be sick for Daughter's birthday. I think I might give today's exercise a miss and hope that I have become acclimatized to the heat by next Wednesday when it's time to do it again.

Chronic illness calculus. So much fun :)

That last leg didn't sound like much but boy was it tedious and fiddly!

• made two long beaded swags and sewed them on to the bra. This was the step I was most nervous about (getting them symmetrical) but it went off without a hitch and looked absolutely fine.

• sewed on 10 hooks and eyes (8 hooks on the top of the bodystocking, 8 matching eyes on the bottom of the bra. Two hooks and two eyes on the cuffs of the sleeves.)

• sewed on four sets of press-studs (ie four bits with the bump and another four bits with the hollow.)

• realized that I'd sewn on the press studs for the right sleeve on the wrong side of the strap and fixed that.

• worried that the press-studs were too small and I should have gone for a larger, more powerful size.

• was haunted by the idea that the press-studs might give way, and the sleeves fall down to dangle uselessly from my wrists during a dance, but the fiddly hooks and eyes would make casually removing them impossible. So...

• decided to remove the hooks and eyes from the cuffs and close them with elastic instead. Didn't have any elastic.

• removed the elastic from one of my old homemade Covid face masks and sewed on two strips of elastic to each cuff. That way, if a sleeve falls down, I can simply slip it off and toss it disdainfully aside, and it can be part of the dance.

• congratulated myself on learning something from that time my home-made harem trousers started falling down while doing a sword dance. (Be prepared for your costume to sabotage you.)

• tried on the bodystocking - fine (maybe a little large but can be taken in later.)

• tried to hook the bodystocking to the bra and put the whole thing on. Failed. The bra is still too small. This was not unexpected - it still isn't the end of June, so I am not in my full shrunken form. Sewed silver material to a bra extender for use just in case.

• Didn't manage to get all the hooks and eyes engaged all around. It's like getting into a spacesuit. The whole donning process may need assistance or practice. Lesson learned - make a bodystocking with shoulder straps next time, this is ridiculous! But other people seem to manage it, so maybe with practice it will become possible.

So, I have made some progress on the African wax print bedlah:

• sewn silver stretch fabric around the bra band (because both my teachers think it's 'not classy' if you can see any part of a bra's original structure.)
• sewn the wax print fabric around the bra cups.
• sewn the wax print fabric around the straps (in a tube so that the bra straps can still stretch inside it.)
• stitched on two lines of big holographic dangly sequins, and one line of lace to mimic the belt. (Except that the lace is the other way up to give myself a bit more cup size.)
• I've cannibalized a necklace that I will never actually wear to give myself a center piece & stitched that on.
• I've made four danglies to hang from the front just behind the center jewel.

I'm making the danglies and the swags with jewellery wire, because I had a phase of making necklaces, so I happen to still have the supplies & equipment hanging around. At least it means that things should be unlikely to snap mid performance.

Now I've just got to make 1 - 5 other danglies (depending on how it looks when I pin the first five on) and a couple of similar (but much longer) beaded swags, and then stitch them on. After which it will be finished, and I can start on the power-mesh.

I want some kind of white-and-wax-print decoration on my arms, just to balance the whole thing out. Possibly a wax-print armband holding up a white gauzy sleeve? Or just a dangly strip of white gauze? The possibilities are limited with the wax print fabric because it has no stretch in it. I'll have to workshop that a bit!

But the rest of it I think will be done by the end of June, as long as I keep up the momentum :)

ugh, I am not feeling great today so I'm having a day off of cycling and weight lifting. It's spitting outside, so I would have normally not cycled anyway. I would have driven to the gym and done the weight lifting, but I have a headache and I feel sick and my limbs and back hurt, so maybe I could just not.

I have lost another half stone, to a total of 3.5 stone, ie 49lb (approx 25kg) and I am continuing with the diet (though I'm eating more and slowing down atm.) It seems more and more likely that by the end of June I will be too small for my nice blue belly dance dress. So, I have been busy combing the charity shops for skirts and making bedlah to wear instead.

The black one is the right size for me now, and I can pair it with a black trumpet skirt and be dramatic. This is the one I was making for the heavy metal solo that we still haven't decided music for.

This silver and African wax print set is uncomfortably small for me atm (and also not finished) but the possibility is that it will be the right size (and finished) in June. I would pair this with a layered white skirt that I also found at a thrift store.

This would require me to buy or make a white power-mesh thingy to cover my stomach, because I am not going out there with my stomach out (I possess a black one already.)

I am however very encouraged by the fact that Soheir Zaki (RIP) seems to have had many different colours of bodystocking which she paired to her outfits, so I have a good role model for refusing to let it all hang out :)

And if the black set becomes too big for me before then, I can just sell it. There are a lot of plus sized dancers out there who never get catered to by anyone, who would probably like a new set.

Doing belly dance costuming on a budget by making it yourself is the way to go if you don't want to drop £200 or more at a time for a professionally made set, and while I'm changing shape it would be stupid to buy anything really nice. The downside is that everything looks very hand-made. The upside is budget, but also that I am learning all sorts of new sewing techniques as I go.

Despite the rather disparaging title of this post, I've been very pleasantly impressed by the windows people. They did the whole upstairs on Wednesday, not even needing to put ladders up. They just put the outside parts of the window through the gap and pulled it into the socket from the inside.

Then they did all the windows downstairs, and the front door, yesterday. And today they're just finishing off with the patio window/door that leads into the garden and forms the whole wall along the back of the sitting room. This is apparently much more complicated than any of the previous things so it requires a day of its own - certainly they're hard at work on it and have been since 7.55. (It's now 9.43)

I am so pleased with the new front door! The old one was a bit ratty even when we moved in. The blue paint was flaking off and the wood of the doorstep had begun to fall apart - there was a chunk missing. It was also very plain and let the drafts through, and generally we ignored it.

This one however is a nice green colour. It has stained glass, and a knocker in the shape of a bee. It feels sturdier and fits way more snugly in its socket. When the sun shines through the door panels, onto the floor of the hall, it's very beautiful.

The workmen did attempt to force one of our internal doors with a crowbar. (It's a sliding door and it is finicky - there's a knack to it and they didn't have the knack, so they attempted to force it and broke the lock.) But they have fixed that now.

How easy it is for an experienced person to get through a door with a crowbar! A slightly worrying thought.

Well, I think I will get out of the chaos by cycling into town to get groceries and go to the gym. I don't really want to do either of those things, but there's no peace to be had here, so why not?

Well, all my future belly dance plans got tossed into the air and scattered. Mostly in a way that I'm happy with, but still...

So, as I wittered on about endlessly my plan was to do a new sword-dance solo to Ya Baba and also a heavy metal duet with another lady from Elizabeth's class, to Khepri - Fangs of Apep

To which end I had even bought a studded belt and decorated a black bra for a heavy metal outfit. I found a black skirt and a snakeskin patterned skirt in the charity shop and tweaked them to fit me properly. I was going to wear the black skirt for the heavy metal dance, and then use the same bra and belt with a few red items and the snakeskin patterned skirt to make a villainous Wen Yao outfit that would work for Ya Baba too.

Then of course I was like 'I don't actually like Fangs of Apep' And in browsing on YouTube I found Wolf Totem by The Hu which I fell in love with and suggested to the other lady for our dance instead. She said she loved it, so I thought that was settled.

But the best laid plans etc, because it turns out that the particular version of Ya Baba that I liked so much is not available to buy. This is the second time YouTube has done this to me! And I really don't like the other versions as much. I'm not sure I really want to do a sword dance to any of them. (And why do you even need seven different arrangements of the same tune. Argh!)

Also OL, (my partner in the duo) has a number of other suggestions for tunes which she might prefer to The Hu, so we are not decided. Some of them are not even heavy metal, so the whole outfit is called into question now... LOL! This is what I get for jumping the gun.

OTOH, if we go for one of the other tunes, then Wolf Totem by The Hu is available for me to use for my own purposes, and I will use that for a new sword solo. It's certainly thematically appropriate for a sword dance, though sadly much less Meng Yao related.

Meanwhile Elizabeth has asked me to do a sword dance solo when the group is performing at Aquafest in June. I don't know if I have time to develop and memorize a new choreography for June, so I'll have to crack open baby's first choreography and see if I can improve on my old dance.

In other words, it's all up in the air again and I have a new studded belt and decorated bra for nothing ;)

Ely Aquafest will be an interesting place to perform, that's for sure!

So, it was Louise's hafla last night, aka the 'Hob al Raqs' Hafla. I wonder if I can get a copy of the running list up here? Hm... but it's very big, so here is a link to the pdf instead.

After having been sick with nerves and dreading it for two days prior, the nerves cleared up on the day, and I gradually got ready by ironing my veil (for the Nawwarat group dance) and practicing putting on a dramatic blue eye make up look from YouTube.

(Did you know that you can use cellotape on your face to get a sharp wing to your eyeshadow? I didn't. But I do now.)( Read more... )

DH of course, who turned up with two huge cameras, (one for video and one for stills) was very popular and everyone wanted to pose and show off their sparkling outfits. There will be much excitement when he posts the finished photos to a friends-locked group on the web. I'm looking forward to that too. He is a treasure and everyone knows it :)

PS. The other lady from my class who said she might do a solo did not in fact do a solo despite being objectively much better than me. I don't understand - surely the point of practicing a dance is to perform it?

PPS. I wonder when I will feel as though I have the right to use the dance name I picked out? I mean I'm not good and I'm certainly not professional, but I am up there performing. Does that make me a dancer yet or is there another trial you have to pass first?

End of term for Elizabeth's class and she let slip that next term she would be expecting us to write another solo.

One of the other ladies suggested to me that perhaps--as we both grew up being into Heavy Metal Rock--we could do a dance together to Khepri - Fangs of Apep

I could definitely put together an outfit for a heavy metal bellydance, with a black lace skirt and chains and a cropped band t-shirt. It would be nice to revisit my heavy rocker phase, and I do have the hair for it these days. It would also be really nice to dance with someone else. It's great just to be asked :)

But... just in case she is ill or changes her mind, I think I'm also going to work on a solo dance - if I don't use it then, I'll still use it later.

Today I was practicing Louise's veil choreography and my Fos solo for the hafla on the 11th, and you know I've been turning over the thought of using Ya Baba for something for a while now. Then this morning I woke up and looked at my sword and thought, "it would be nice to do another sword dance."

But I had been missing the thing that would bring everything together and give me the inspiration and excitement to actually start anything.

Well, it arrived today while practicing something else.

Obviously what I wanted was to do a sword dance inspired by the scene in the Fire Palace when Meng Yao is torturing Nie Mingjue for Wen Ruohan's entertainment.

• Nie Mingjue is a clan leader who rescued Meng Yao from bullying soldiers and made him his favourite, but Meng Yao killed one of his men. Almost immediately afterward MY saved NMJ's life by taking a sword thrust that was meant for him.
• So with streaming tears on both sides NMJ exiled Meng Yao, who went off to serve NMJ's enemy (and actually to spy for the good guys.) NMJ then got captured and MY had to torture him enough to make Wen Ruohan distracted, so that WRH would let his guard down and MY could stab him and win the war.
• This succeeded in winning the war, but meant that MY and NMJ's relationship never recovered and they became bitter enemies, eventually killing each other and being buried in the same coffin.

I have a lot of problems with doing the whole sexy & playful part of belly dancing, but Meng Yao is going full ham in that scene, being the most homme fatale a spurned favourite could possibly be while dressed in immaculate robes and eyeliner, and fondling another man's sword.

This is absolutely ideal for a belly dance! I'm sure I can do scheming villainous homoeroticism with a sword!

I was like 'I bet that would work with Ya Baba.' But now I have come home and looked up the lyrics, and it turns out they could have been written for that scene:

The wound My beloved (Oh Father) is on two sides
And I swear by God (Oh Father)
I have never loved anyone but him
We are not being lifted up (We are not being lifted up)
And the fire is in my heart (And the fire is in my heart)
It burns my veins, it burns my veins

So yes. I'm going to do that one regardless, even if I do a fun heavy metal one first :)

Found at least a couple of tracks that I absolutely love, so I thought I might post them here. It turns out the genre I was looking for is Arabic Afro House.

Note, all the links here go to YouTube.

• My current top favourite Arash Mohseni - (Ya Baba) I followed the algorithm from:

• Bladi, which is one of many I like from Maro Hereira Bladi - (Original Remix) by Maro Hereira

• I don't know where I found this next one, or what it would be classed as, but I like it. Faylasuf - Alchemy

• This one, I think is unbelievably beautiful and ties with Ya Baba for 'tune I would most like to dance to next.'Taoufik - Our Memories

• I love this cover, which sadly doesn't appear to be available to buy anywhere. Ya Rayah - cover by Ahmed Alshaiba feat, Farah Fersi & Mohamed Aly

• This one's less in your face but it kind of sneaks past your defenses and suddenly you're bopping along. Sey0six - Ya Hobi

• And this one is perhaps too short for a dance, but great for just listening to.Habibi (Albanian Remix)

It's a start :)

90 discussion questions. 1. If you could travel anywhere, where would you go and why?

There are so many places! If I'm imagining myself being as physically limited as I am now - whereby I find walking difficult for more than about half an hour at best - then a cruise might be best.

I would like to cruise up the Danube and see the painted churches of Romania. But then again I would also like to cruise down the Nile and see Luxor. I could take a few lessons with Egyptian Raqs Sharqi teachers and get a new outfit while I was there.

If, on this imaginary trip, I'm also imagining myself as physically fit again, I'd like to go to Mexico and see what remains of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. Or perhaps to Peru to visit Machu Picchu

Alternatively, my son would like to go to Japan, so perhaps I would use my imaginary trip to take him there.

It's approximately two weeks since we had the heat pump put in, and I know I promised an update on how it is going :)

I thought it would be a bit colder, but it's not. We have been so toasty that we had to set the thermostat down a degree.

I was also worried that there might not be enough hot water in the tank that DH could have a shower in the morning and I could have a bath in the evening. Probably - I thought - we'd have to boost the hot water with the supplementary immersion heater if we wanted a bath full of hot water in the evening.

But no, the hot water is actually hotter with the heat pump than it was with the boiler, and the tank is hot enough throughout the day that there is enough left in the evening to run a pre-bedtime bath and more.

The cost of running it seems to be about equal to the cost of both electricity and gas that we used for heating the house, which DH seemed to think was good, although not as spectacular a saving as I expected. Still, it means that we are no longer dependent on oil as a household, and that is a step toward a less fossil-fuel based world, while not being worse for us in any way.

Not much going on with me, but it's been a while since I've posted and I know that if I don't make an effort I'll go silent again, maybe for another year :) So:

• As promised, an announcement that The Boat of Small Mysteries is out in paperback. Though I only pressed the button yesterday so it may take some time to work it's way through to the shops.

• Louise's belly dance class are now in full preparatory panic mode for the Cambridge hafla on the 11th of April. Next week we do the dress rehearsal for the group veil choreography which we are putting on there. I'm not getting on well with the veil - I get it stuck on my hair, or step on it. Even when I don't do that, I can't make the turns fast enough to keep up with the rest of the class, though it's quite a slow and elegant dance. Eh, this is what I get for trying to dance when I am naturally unathletic. Nevertheless we persist.

• Louise's veil dance is set to Rumeli Hisarı nın Yapılışı Which bears out my point about her always finding the best music.

• I am also doing my Fos solo at the Cambridge hafla, so I have started practicing that again, and have completely revamped the outfit that goes with it. I must practice putting the outfit on also, because it involves body glitter and fake nails, neither of which I have experience with.

• I'm at the end of week 10 of the 12 week low calorie diet I am on, and although I will have lost 3 stone (42lb) by the end of it, I still have a good 3 stone left to go, and I am afraid that if I loosen my grip even slightly it will all come back on and more. Still, this diet has been true to its word so far, so I'll trust it as I move to the next stage (intermittent fasting instead of permanent fasting.)

• My fear that I would lose so much weight before April that I wouldn't be able to wear the dress I bought at Christmas for the hafla in April has not been borne out. The dress is stretchy, and I had a lot to lose!

• Health-wise, I have been feeling less sluggish. The permanent pain in my hands and feet has eased - thank God! I find it easier to stand up and sit down, and much easier to get in and out of the car. I can also fasten my seatbelt without taking off my coat, which is just a factor of cars being too small, rather than my health, but is still an improvement in my day to day life in the winter.

5. How many local birds can you name?

• Robin
• Blue tit
• Great tit
• Crows
• Rooks
• Jackdaws
• Magpies
• Pigeon
• Wood dove
• Collared dove
• Blackbird
• Starling
• Wren
• Red kite (a kind of hawk)
• Buzzard

A tiny little wren lives in our garden and scurries around our fences. He is my favourite. But the family of blackbirds, and the robin who comes down to greet me when I go out are also my favourites. The rest of them are passing through, but the wren, robin and blackbirds live here with me.

On very bad news: my belly dance teacher, Elizabeth, popped over to the Middle East to get some dancing in during the half term holiday, and she is now trapped there thanks to the war. We suggested she find the embassy and let them know she's there but that's all we've heard, so none of us know what's happening beyond that. Some prayers for her safety would not come amiss if anyone reading this has a prayer list :(

On slightly better news, DH and I are having a heat pump put in, to run our central heating, instead of the gas boiler we previously had. And when I say 'we're having a heat pump put in' I mean right now. One engineer is outside drilling something. One is putting sticky back plastic over our carpets to protect them, prior to checking which radiators need to be replaced.

(Apparently we need larger radiators because the water coming from the heat pump will be at a lower temperature than that coming from a boiler, so we'll need a larger surface area of radiator to provide equivalent heating.)

We were keen to get a heat pump because we are with an electricity provider who get all their electricity from renewables (mostly wind farms around here.) That way, once we swap our gas hob for an electric one, we will be freed from fossil fuel use except for the cars. (They're on the plan too, but second hand electric cars are not yet as available as we need, and who can afford a new car?)

I'm very impressed with our electricity people so far (Octopus Electric.) They said they'd be here by 8am and they were here at 8.10am. (In contrast to the scaffolding people who said they'd be here yesterday and never turned up at all.)

They're putting protectors on our carpeting where they intend to walk. They say it will take them three days to install the heat pump system, but we'll only have one day without heating. And they have given us three fan heaters to keep us warm on that one day, and told us we can keep them afterward.

It'll be hard to go back to a system where you have to heat up the hot water tank in order to have hot water, (rather than the current system where the boiler heats the water on demand.) But we're doing our bit for the planet, so that will have to be the consolation :)

When you leave your home, what essentials do you have with you?

It's one big thing - my bag. My bag contains:

1. Car keys
2. House keys
3. Mobility scooter keys
4. Phone
5. Hand gel
6. CBD oil
7. Pack of paper handkerchiefs
8. Noise dampening loops
9. Wallet
10. Pen
11. Notebook
12. Hair-tie
13. Chapstick
14. Three of those silky reusable carrier bags that fold down small
15. Pill box with painkillers that need to be taken three times a day
16. Bottle of Lactase tablets - in case I'm going to be eating anything containing lactose
17. Sheet of Mebeverine tablets - in case the lactase doesn't work or I eat something else that doesn't agree with me. (I have IBS, this happens a lot.)

This is after I reduced the size of my bag and deliberately pared down the contents to essentials because my previous bag was hurting my shoulders.

I don't want to have to think about what I might need every time I go out, so I try to have everything I might need all the time.

I have just joined Bluesky, but it does seem to be very worthy and very focused on the big issues of real life, so I don't know how long I'll last over there.

I'm doing it again already, spreading myself too thin. That's it now. No other sites of social media allowed. I already know I can't keep up with one, let alone two. (Or three, in fact, since my non-writing real life friends and activities are all on Facebook.)

Ooh, ooh! There are leaf buds beginning to uncurl on the medlar tree. I barely got my apricot tree replanted in time because there are buds there too. They're still tightly clenched but they're visible in a sort of lovely plum bronze colour.

Snowdrops and crocuses are carpeting the graveyard of the church in our village. We've nearly made it, folks. These last couple of weeks are the worst, but the end is in sight.