Dear Alula, Yesterday you cried. You were inconsolable. You want to leave now, you sobbed. You don’t want to make friends in England, you said, because you’ll just end up leaving them, so what’s the point? You’re really bad at math, you cried. And you call braids braids, not plaits. Who calls them plaits anyway? …
My heart is hurting. It’s aching in my chest. I feel a state of panic. Adrenaline coming in fits and starts. How can I leave this? How is it possible? What am I thinking? The days are like this at the moment. I make a decision to go. The next day I change my mind. …
John left Bali yesterday. For good. Kadek cried all day. I stood, looking at all the junk he’d left for me to clear up, and scowled. When I first heard that John had been offered a job in London my first thought was, well at least there’s Skype. It was funny though because about three months before …
Last night was the first time in three years I’ve cried because I missed home. I had a craving for fields. Yes fields. And woods. And the smell of bonfires. And strawberries. Summer and autumn sights and smells. So if you dropped me back in the UK right now I’d swear at the cold and …
Picture this: A girl. The top of her skull ripped off. A zombie shuffling away into the distance, having eaten her brains for breakfast along with a nice, ripe tomato. This is how I feel. I have just finished my seventh book. It takes between 4-8 weeks for me to write a book (this one …
For those of you who’ve followed us since the beginning you’ll remember that our reasons for leaving the UK were numerous. We wrote these reasons on post-its and stuck them on the wall of our bedroom in south east London before we decided to up stix and get the hell out of dodge. The reasons …
We’ve had friends staying the last week. Sorry to neglect you. Here’s a quick catch up. I have started and written 30,000 words of my new book. I’ve been dragged rafting along the Ayung River – about as much fun as being shoved inside a carrier bag and thrown repeatedly against rocks. I’ve butterfly stitched …
As I was lying on the massage table I started musing on a conversation I had today when I mentioned to someone that I used to be on a senior management team. I had to pause at the time and try to remember the words in the right order. Then I had to shake my …
I caught a taxi over London Bridge on Thursday and went right past my old office. It was like a regression – like remembering a past life (in this case not the kind where you discover you were Cleopatra with grape-feeding slaves but the kind where you find out you were the grape-feeding slave). And …
I’m not ready to hang up my travelling boots. I have started discussing with John a plan I am hatching for some time in the mid 2020s when Alula no longer needs stationary parents (or nearby parents for that matter) when we will buy an old airstream and drive across and around the Americas for …
canwelivehere.com 