100 THINGS TO DO IN GUERNSEY WHEN THE REST OF THE WORLD HAS GONE TO SH*T! NO.9 LE DEHUS DOLMEN

“Find Dehus Dolmen by travelling east from L’Ancresse  turn left into the road just in front of Sarnia Controls. Or, travel north from Bordeaux Harbour for about a quarter of a mile and look out for the sign on the lamp post on the right at the first corner. The site is about 150m on the left. There is parking for one car to the right of the mound. Open 9am until sunset. Free admission. Perry’s Guide Ref: 7 H4” http://www.megalithicguernsey.co.uk/le_dehus_dolmen/

Dehus Dolmen is a prehistoric passage grave approximately 10 metres in length. One of the capstones has a remarkable carving of a man featuring a bearded face, arms and hands, with what appears to be a strung bow, and a series of symbolic designs, known as ‘The Guardian of the Tomb’. Large quantities of finds dating from 3,500-20,00BC have been found at the site, including lots and lots of limpet shells. And body bones. It is a magical place. We didn’t stay too long (the hand in the photo of the front door to the dolmen is my son’s… once you see it!). We had parked the car near to Beaucette Marina and stumbled upon this during our walk – what a lovely surprise! Many moons ago I took a daytrip to the standing stones at Rollrite, Long Compton, Oxfordshire. Back then we had a lie down in the centre of the stones for a while and could tune into the ancient whooshing whirls around the circle. Today, at Dehus Dolmen, we clambered onto the top of the mound and just enjoyed the view.

100 THINGS TO DO IN GUERNSEY WHEN THE REST OF THE WORLD HAS GONE TO SH*T! NO.7 THE RONEZ NATURE TRAIL AT LES VARDES QUARRY

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We did see some big machines in action, and watched a large digger make a slow ascent back to base

A lesson in quarrying Guernsey Granite, the stuff that local Guernsey folk are made out of!

Great to see the quarry in operation before clock off time at 3pm on a Friday afternoon!

There is a nature trail around the perimeter of Les Vardes quarry, it’s steep, and uneven terrain and we struggled with our off-roading Mountain Buggy but we made it all the way around! We went on a gloriously sunny Friday afternoon and enjoyed the route. Thank you Ronez! Next time we will bring a picnic and enjoy the view looking out to Port Grat and Rousse.

This ‘island wiki’ gives you an overview of quarrying on the rock:

https://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/Ronez

One Hundred Things to do in Guernsey when the rest of the World has gone to Sh*t! No.3 La Vallette Underground Museum

La Valette Underground museum is a treasure trove of remnants leftover by Hitler’s occupying forces in Guernsey, and Alderney. The location was set up to refuel Hitler’s U-Boats, you can still see a tank in situ and smell the gasoline. Other aspects of Guernsey’s military history are covered. The collection is will truly chill you to the bone, and embed how brave and courageous islanders who witnessed local atrocities and lived alongside the Nazis were. This museum is one piece in the jigsaw puzzle of the occupation.

http://lavalette.tk/History.html

100 THINGS TO DO IN GUERNSEY WHEN THE REST OF THE WORLD HAS GONE TO SH*T! NO.1 THE MILLENNIUM WALK

Amidst a global pandemic, Guernsey, a very small obscure island in the English Channel, has been carrying on as normal. Yes, we did a lockdown. And now we force all arrivals to quarantine, throwing the book right in the face of anybody that dares to pop to the shops for ice cream or sweets to go with their 9087 hour netflix binge, or a bottle of water. Leaving your cell/hotel room for cigarettes and milk, if you are in quarantine town, is the same as doing a big fraud or buying yourself drugs off the dark web. You will get pinched for breaking quarantine, which is ironic because that’s like breaking a prison sentence in itself? If you have bottomless bags of cash and can afford somewhere with an infinity pool, and stables, you might not be so tempted to nip out before your seven or fourteen* days are up (*depending on where you came from). This new way of life has been challenging. As a new mother I have enough guilt to start my own religion. Living comfortably during a global pandemic adds an entirely brand new dimension to guilt, and what religion may come of this will be mostly of the bread and wine kind (with cheese and dark chocolate used as symbolic ways to give blessings and thanks to our Sir Lord and Hero St Pier of Gavin, and the Dr Brink). They will be revered at the May lockdown-lift Festival of Drinking in Pubs, where cocktails named after Sir Lord St Pier of Gavin, and the Dr Brink, will be sunken by many, many people.

In light of being trapped on a small island with nowhere else to go (is the Isle of Man a “destination?” and you can’t ever really get to Alderney when it isn’t hoolie-season) I will put together a daily ‘one hundred things to do‘ like notches on a bedpost.

I am being flippant as a coping mechanism as my family live across the shores, in England. Flippancy defends me from feeling savagely sad about not being able to have a mummy cuddle anytime soon. I will offer a ‘guide’ for what people want to do after there quarantine is up, or if they choose to come here freely once the pandemic has f*cked off (#upyourscorona!!)

Number – One – Things to do in Guernsey when the Rest of the World has Gone to Sh*t

#001 Go for a walk, run or truffle shuffle around the reservoir at St Saviour’s. The Millennium Nature Trail is a thing of beauty. True, it’s not an orgy, or a bath of gin. But in these colder and rainier months it is a glorious mud fest of autumnal mulch that is the colour of the rare and ubiquitous pumpkin latte that will absolutely blow your cockles off. Your may even spy some fairy toadstools. If it is sh*tting it down, you will be in safe hands around the trail. You can take a journey into yourself. Let the rain wash away anxieties and the wind blow off some hot air from your ego. Let the earth mulch beneath your feet and ground you, and let the rosiness in your cheeks warm your fiery heart. Take new eyes with you if you have been around the reservoir before – you will always discover something new here.

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Apple mulch for the Guernsey herd

I got the big beat.

❤ Fix Up ❤ Look Sharp! ❤

Hello, FWFG TRUTH Day 20!

I feel like I  finally arrived at 2018!

I’m feeling like Madonna circa 1990s, desperately wanting the fame, notoriety and wealth to run through Saumarez Park, flanked by bodyguards.

I had a hypnosis session at The Cure Clinic yesterday morning, and I had session 5 with Badrul at the Meridian Clinic, Guernsey, in the afternoon. I feel like a new woman! I did some YWA TRUTH sessions by candlelight in the evening, burning the Nag Champa and Neom gloriously hard, kindling and tending to the fire within.

My hypnosis session was like a kaleidescope of rainbow vegetable-visions and big, bountiful, bouncing sunshine balls of happiness and self-love. I felt more confident to use the cosmological and phenomelogical space creatively, rummaging around respectfully and re-ordering my inner world and internal universe, constellation, galaxies and finely re-tuning my heart-strings. There’s no ordinary way to describe hypnotherapy at The Cure Clinic, it’s a magical abyss that re-births worn-out and old ways of being and feeling. I heart it a lot.

For dinner we had locally foraged scallops, and some ginger/garlic/lemon courgetti peas. The day had a luscious zesty zing to it! I do feel fixed up and sharp.I had some QT with the treadmill today, to glow with sweat, for the sweet release jogging (like I am Madonna in the 90s flanked by body guards) gives me.

If somebody told me that raising my vibrations was a life goal I would have scoffed it off as b*llsh*t ten years ago. But it’s a home truth. After days like yesterday I feel my vibrations and inner energy circles, rhythms and rhymes, harmonise and fall gracefully into new places. It’s deliciously divine way to get into the groove, and feel the big beats. It all feels like travelling for a holiday without moving.

I keep taking myself back to beinspiredyoga’s New Year’s Day session,  grimacing my way through my first ever Wheel Pose and collapsing into an ecstatic heap!

I’ve been shimmying and armpit-licking my way into 2018 with Adrienne every day. Raising my vibrations and getting weird. Feeling surreptitiously outrageous. Popping and clicking my 35-year old creaky-bonies into place every day on the mat. I get the feeling that by day 30 I will have clicked everything into place. I feel humbled. Am I am grateful for the first 21 days of 2018. BTW my knees-are-good-knees-are-good, less sugar = less crepititus for me hooray-booOOya!!

Journalling through it all is good to do, some days you forget where you mind has been going. It’s good to draw a map and leave breadcrumbs for rainy days where you might feel stuck indoors, feeling like a wet playground, emotionally.

For the Spring Equinox I have booked a detox retreat… Now, that’s what I call Radical Self-Love!!! #thankQGalaDarling

❤ Namaste ❤

 

F(WFG) THE WORLD!

Over recent weeks I have been finding what feels good with Adrienne, on her Youtube Channel. Recently I have started to  channel my inner olympic-gold-medal-winning-high-diver for my take on the halfway lift, just to find something new and I liked it! Doing what you like is fine, imagining a big yellow sun ball for a root-to-rise is good for the soul. I heart the precious space I carve into my day for instruction and flow with Adrienne, it’s quite magical. And it helps with everything else. This summer we were findingwhatfeeledgood with Adrienne in the park and on beaches, before swimming in the delicious apple-crisp-green and slush-puppy-blue sea. I’ve always wanted to be able to do-yoga! And every now and then my bum levitates above my knees for a few split-seconds of crow pose! I did the 30 Days Yoga Revolution with Adrienne, and the Beginner’s videos. It feels good to be a beginner.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” in Psychological Review. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans’ innate curiosity. Touching the top of the pyramid is spirituality. Yoga with Adrienne is the new order! And reiki – I went to see Kelly Harvey at the Natural Health Clinic for a glorious and nurturing spiritual awakening. All of this led to me going to the Meridian Clinic in Guernsey for a course of Colonic irrigations, as my gut chakras were kaput. No amount of googling could say if colonic irrigations were good or bad. Sometimes, the only way to really know what feels good for you is to try it out for yourself. Having the guts to be brave and experimental is tough. I often feel a manic panic rattle around my bones when I follow the feedback and try to find out what can make me feel better. Especially when I look back on the weird and wonderful things I have tried this year.

A few years back I quit smoking [insert slow hand clap here] Everybody is vaping now, nobody smokes! Am I right? Vaping is pretty disgusting too. I was nursing a nicotine addiction with electronic cigarettes for a very long time [insert a shameful number of years here]. I had enrolled on a beginner’s yoga course at the start of the year, because I was vaping I couldn’t ‘find my breath’ and commit to the practise. I had to respond to that sign, that my breath needed serious attention. And so, I went to see Tammy Lodge at The Cure Clinic to get quit! And it worked, incredibly and amazingly brilliant! After my one and only ‘stop-vaping’ hypnosis session I got home and immediately put on my rubber gloves to throw all of my vaping paraphernalia into the bin (because they were toxic and they belonged in the landfill). And that was the end of that. I did have two roll-ups in fits of desperate, craving-rage (smoking those two seedy rollups was a divine experience) during the course of the weeks and months that followed, but on the whole I think that’s a pretty stellar achievement. Nil vapes since seeing Tammy at The Cure Clinic, Guernsey. The deep hypnosis was magical and made quitting a habit that’s harder than heroin, kinder and less painful. I also used some obnoxious medication – Champix. Half a pill of Champix every other day worked for me. The cravings dissipated gradually and then suddenly they were gone. The Cure Clinic was lifechanging. But it doesn’t happen overnight! I had 7 sessions of counselling and 8 sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy this year too, to be the best that I can be. I have turned myself inside out and upside down, and I hated it, loved it, hated it, loved it! Whenever I feel mawkishly uncomfortable and like I could easily slip out of my skin and try to hide in somebody else’s for the rest of my life, I know that I am getting closer to finding the sweet spot of change… The worse it feels, the better, somehow. And then the cycle repeats. Going round in circles, taking things deeper. It’s all good for the soul.

And now, the next farewell will be to sugar. Sweet sister of mine, sugar. surreptitious soulful and syrupy saint of dopamine-goofy smiles, sugar. I tell myself that I’m not a sugar monster. But I am a dark chocolate fiend. I read somewhere that you crave chocolate because it has the exact same composition as breast milk… And I crave chocolate, a lot. I love it! And anything with nuts and dates. And honey. I love honey. And I tell myself that I am not a sugar monster. Give me more dark chocolate, dates and honey? Everything that is processed contains a f**ctose or a syrup.

Well, over the next few weeks and months I am coming clean.  When I’m lying in the foetal position with a hose pipe up my b*m, and Badrul is saying ‘it’s really pouring out now’ I think about how it came to this. Two too many courses of antibiotics this year? Too many raw brownies from The Raw Store? Work stress? My hatred of ab/obliques exercises? Too much emotional eating? Feeding my winnie-the-pooh paunch with too much creamy sugary cr*ap? It’s definitely not the bottle of wine I down each night before bed or the 12 cans of coke I guzzle each day because I don’t live like that, that makes it harder because on the surface my diet isn’t bad. The other day I made a banging vegan butternut squash lasagna. I love courgetti. I binge on rice cakes (I like chomping, so the more jaw stretches and neck exercises I do, the better for me). I don’t drink dairy milk or eat shovel sized portions of cheese – it makes my sinuses fill with mucus. I keep a food diary but sometimes I’m blind to my own evils.

Old ways won’t open new doors, embracing the freedom to be experimental with taking better care of yourself is divine and disgustingly uncomfortable, in equal gloriusly sunny measures.

“I saw God
Just one big shiny flash
God
You’re secret’s safe tonight
God
So much, so much to lose
God
So glad that we’re alive” (Hole, Hit So Hard)

“In the hospital, we see addiction every day. It’s shocking, how many kinds of addiction exist. It would be too easy if it was just drugs and booze and cigarettes. I think the hardest part of kicking a habit is wanting to kick it. I mean, we get addicted for a reason, right? Often, too often, things that start out as just a normal part of your life at some point cross the line to obsessive, compulsive, out of control. It’s the high we’re chasing, the high that makes everything else fade away.” (Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy)

“And you’re like a nineties Jesus
And you revel in your psychosis
How dare you?
And you sample concepts like hors d’oeuvres
And you eat their questions for dessert
And is it just me, or is it hot in here?

And you’re like an nineties Kennedy
And you’re really a million years old
You can’t fool me
They’ll throw opinions like rocks in riots
And they’ll stumble around like hypocrites
Is it just me, or is it dark in here?” (Alanis Morisette, No Pressure Over Cappucino)

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bardo-Retreat-Rose-Lois-Presley-ebook/dp/B00O4LJQ4C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412315809&sr=8-1&keywords=the+bardo+retreat

The Bardo Retreat, by Rose Lois Presley.

“Sometimes we hold hands with our diaries everywhere we go, we tease the hair away from their eyes and tuck these strands behind imagined ears. We blow our diaries kisses. We hush their pretty peachy mouths with our fingertips with a ‘Sssssssshhh’. We hide them beneath mattresses because they are filled with our deepest darkest secrets. Sometimes we tie them to rocks and throw them into  wishing wells like bad pennies. Sometimes we rip out their pages, and surreptitiously post these out to sea in small bottles. We set fire to the torn out pieces of scrawl and scribble. Diaries, all that thinking written down loud, are an unbearable burden.  Diaries are all that we leave behind, a collection of our wildest moments, emotions pressed and sealed our secret tomes. Diaries are all that we leave out of conversation in entire lifetimes, lost, forgotten and locked.  Diaries are a lot like bricks and consciousness is a lot like a window.”

(The Bardo Retreat, Copyright © 2014 Rose Lois Presley)

Every object has a balancing point, a centre of gravity.

“It was that mid-way drift along the highway, over the middle white line on the road, the line that separated nowhere from being. Once you cross it there is no going back. Elvis died. Nowhere was being. Being was nothing, all nothing happening fast. I felt the bars of Graceland’s gates against my cold, charcoal, chiaroscuro fireplace eyes. The distant whispers of matchstick kisses lingered across my bruised, open, waterfall mouth. Dark mascara rivers ran down my broken Snow White red fairytale smile. Loneliness had set into my bones, the kind of loneliness that you have to hit hard, against a wall or with a knife, to prise the icy melancholy out. I was bone and sadness. I was the wall, the knife. I was a pen and my bed sheets were paper. Every night I left ink stains, markings, messages and mistakes. Sometimes I woke up and it said “too much”, sometimes it said “enough”. Other mornings I’d wake up to find “MORE” written all over my pillowcases in strange and unfamiliar handwriting.

I was the ice cube, picked up out of a glass of cold water and held like a small crystal ball. His eyes made blue matchstick sparks in mine like he set my heart on fire and watched me melt. He could see no future in me, because I had ‘nothing’ and ‘nowhere’ written all over my hands, cheeks. These wrong words were all tangles and tied like ribbons to my hair. I was the water that fell out of his hand and onto the floor. And so I had no face, no shape or shadow in the present. I looked out into the future and I did not see any reflection staring back. The past was all that I could see, taste, feel and breathe. The glass shattered, the mirror smashed and the straight line that cut through the dark desert highway distorted, fractured and forked.

The past and Baudelaire were all that I could think about. I was the wound. I was the knife. I woke up unknown. I fell into a well of all and nothing, of being and nothing. I was nothing. I was nowhere, all happening so fast. I fell and disappeared, diluted in the waters of a deep, dark well. I was silent, I was absent, drowned and gone. I chartered my descent into these destructive depths. I wanted to remember where I had been. I found myself one morning lying still, playing dead, a tangle of tears with my heart cut to ribbons, alone, empty and lonely on a bathroom floor, nowhere, nothing. I left a trail of breadcrumbs to the place where I melted like an ice cube and I fell to the floor like water, spilled. I was dead to me.”

(The Bardo Retreat, Copyright © 2014 Rose Lois Presley)

Amazon Kindle

I drove my new convertible into a granite wall, not my finest hour, unintentional. It’s not the way I go.

A James Dean tattoo would be an appropriate marker of this moment, airbags exploding like the fourth of July, body numb, immediate fingertips to teeth to check that they were still in tact. Heart sorry, I am grateful that nobody was hurt and that my body soon let the shock go.

My fingertips move through the final edit of The Bardo Retreat with hesitation and grace, making sure that the novel delivers my wildest moments with clarity and poise. The walls we build, us emotional stonemasons, fall apart little by little. And sometimes we smash through them, heart on the accelerator, because we are ready to live free.. .