The Chip Butty

I seem to be finally getting a life here. Or choosing to enjoy the life that I have rather than compare it to my life in San Francisco and then choose to not be happy because Im homesick.

I love my life here. It's amazing. I just went through a big wave of homesickness and sadness and I have to remember that will come and go. Anyway.... choosing to not get to deep and whiney and get you caught up on what I've been up too the last few days.

For one, I've weened myself off of Dexter. I am on Season 3, episode 6 so it took a while...but I finally did it.

On Friday nights our friends Vicki and Ben invite us to the Social Club in a village near by called Blagdon where they live. It's a place where all parents can bring their children to the pub on a Friday night from 6-8, drink pints for 2 pounds, and eat English fare (Ben and Vicki have 2 super cute little girls, 7 months and 2 years old). Last Friday I learned about these things called Chip Buttys (see attached). This consists of what we in America call French Fries jammed in between two pieces of white bread with some Ketchup or some Brown sauce. My friend Vicki calls this Britain on a plate and the brown sauce Britain in a bottle. Tim ordered it like it was a totally normal thing to do and when the plate of food arrived I looked at him and was like, "what in the hell is that?? It's just chips and white bread!" He was like, "yeah?" and then everyone at the table could not believe I did not know what this was like I was the crazy :). I tasted it and it was weird. Who knows..I thought beans on toast was completely repulsive when I first moved here and now I crave it. Anyway...the place is absolute chaos. Babies and kids up to about the age of 7 running around the pub like bananas while their parents casually socialize and bounce babies on their knees while drinking large pints of beer. Im pretty in love with this place and seems we have a new ritual on a Friday night. They have these great friends who are both cops. Tanya is a detective (just like Dexter's sister ;) and her husband Mark is on the team that busts graffiti artists. He knows every graffiti artist in England. I have not spoken to him much about his line of work and am DYING to but I have to ease my way into it as I guess he does not like to talk to much about it. His wife Tanya tells us about the cases she is working on. I love it. Oh..and for the record...I love graffiti art so hopefully he just busts the gang taggers but I will find out and get back to you.

I am so greatful to my friend Vicki. She's seriously saving my life out here. Always inviting me to things and introducing me to her friends and Tim and I are getting a nice social life. Tonight Tim and I are going over to their house and I am cooking them and our other new friends Steve and Rachel (who are Ben and Vicki's best friends) a Vegan dinner. I have these paraniod visions that Tim and I are this nightmare couple who want to be their new best friends and totally overstep our boundries and want to be with them all the time. So I try to be cool around them but really I want to kiss them all the time and tell them how much I love them for giving me a life here. Anyway...staying cool ;)

I've also included some other pic's. My favorite picture that Tim drew, a picture of a storm coming in over the Cafe the other day, a 15 pound bowl of crab apples that I made crab apple jelly out of (sort of unsuccessfully but it tastes good, it's just having a hard time acting like the jelly it's suppose to be and acting more like syrup) and a shot of our front yard with the apples falling off the tree near the small bridge.

AND lastly..Tim and I went to our first Kundalini yoga class last night in Bristol. Got to say..NOT the best class in the world and it's held in a cub scout lodge with bright lights in a basement by a guy who's website is called The Sleeping Serpent (gag). BUT....all that aside, it was a nice class and the only one it a 200 mile radius so Im not going to complain. It was just nice to take a class, he was not smarmy like I thought he would be and we will go back. Might even inspire me to be courageous enough to start my own class in Wrington. We shall see......

The Spa fixes everything

Tim came home early from work yesterday to fix my mini melt down. I was having a full on anxiety attack at that point. My mind had gotten the best of me all day as I freaked out about living in a small village and feeling trapped and..bla bla bla..you have heard it all before...like yesterday. So to make me feel better, he brought me here (see attached).

It's amazing, this place. The spa is in Bath, where the Roman Baths were. The city was founded in 50 BC by the Romans based on the healing mineral springs and opened up a bunch of public baths back then. So as your sitting outside (at twilight :) in the mineral springs, the same mineral springs that the Romans used back then, you get to look at this ancient city, outside, and float around in the water, or use the steam rooms or the indoor pool. There is a cafe there and you go in your bathrobes and towels. So we did....and ate a nice dinner (with a bunch of other people in bathrobes...it was super weird but I liked it) and of course I had a large glass of red wine to even further chill me out.

Anyway..I realized once again what a bore of a baby I am. I mean seriously. Im having an amazing adventure here and I forget it all the time and focus on the bad rather than the good.

The country side is truly amazing right now. The autumn is here and the leaves are changing to these bright red's and oranges (I'll take some pics and post them) and I have a beautiful life and an amazing beautiful man.

Life without drama is boring

I seriously have not a whole lot to say. Maybe that is why my postings have gone down. Then again maybe Im over thinking what I post. I guess I don't want my blog to turn into the Hilary's home sick blog, Hilary misses America blog, Im feeling alienated today blog, Im sad today blog. Bla bla whaa bla..... Then again maybe I should just write it and not worry so much.

I guess I should not be so hard on myself. I mean, it's inevitable that Im going to go through alot of emotions moving away from the only country I have ever lived in, the greatest friends and moving from a metropolitan city to a small village.

Right now Im going through the comparing England to America stage. We went out for Pizza last night because I have been craving it for so long and it just sucked. Like most of the food here does unless you love meat and starch. My upbringing in Minnesota actually did get me prepared for the English diet then 10 years of California ruined it all. Either way..why the English can't make a decent Pizza is beyond me. San Francisco can make a great Pizza and they are alot further from Italy. Anyway...I do love England. I did the same thing when I moved from LA and when I moved from Minnesota then a year later I fall in love with where ever I moved.

I just like to torture myself maybe??? Tim says I like to complain. I tell him that may be so but it's for the pure lack of any drama in my life. I need to complain about something since I have no gossip or drama. Because in the end...being in love in a healthy relationship is boring. No boy drama, I have no work drama, no drama in my small village, no drama with any of my new friends or any gossip for that matter, everything is just honkey fucking dorry. Whooo hooo...yawn.

So now I feel boring and bored. I mean..isn't this the place I've been striving to get to for so long? So much for "The Peaceful Life". I've got it and Im bored to tears. Does this make me boring? What is that old saying? Only boring people get bored. EEK. Am I boring? I would really hate to admit to that. The thing is there is so much I could do. I just need to do it. Take a sewing class, get into my hobbies, shit....write my book (if I knew what to write), do yoga. This is the ideal time to have a baby honestly. Then again maybe that is why people want babies. Because they are bored. Im bored and now I want a baby. That should fill up some time. Then it makes me question if I really want a baby or am I just bored? Or am I in this place because it's time for me to have a baby and that is why the universe has brought me here, to this place, at this time. There is a reason Im here. I know that. I have no clue what it is. Maybe just to save myself a heart attack from being overworked and to much stress? Or maybe Im suppose to marry Tim and have a baby and live in a small village? Who the FUCK knows. And Im exhausted of the tricks my mind plays on me. A constant tug of war. I never know what is right anyway. I can have a plan but that does not make it the right plan so I can never commit to a plan because then that means I get stuck thinking I need to follow through with it and things change constantly so what is the point of even having a plan? Try to stick to something that does not stick anymore? I guess that's what Buddhism is all about. Flow with the river and all that. Just let go. Be lead by life. I've read all 2000 books and have had amazing awakenings on a spiritual level and I still can't let go. So I guess this is just who I am. And today Im homesick, bored and am in desperate need for some drama. I guess I should take my own advice. It's okay to be uncomfortable. And today that is what I am.

Dexter

I almost made it out of the house today. Instead it started to rain so I stayed in my bathrobe again and am now on Season 3 of Dexter and I can't stop. Im fully addicted. Im loosing any ability to do anything but watch this show. Im not creative, I don't get out of my bathrobe, I dream about Dexter, I dream that the cast are my friends, I don't want to write in my blog or clean my house or myself. The only reason Im even doing the dishes and writing in my blog is to just say that I actually did something other than watch Dexter today. So..there. Done. Did it. Hi ya all. Once this fing season ends I will be able to get my life back.

I was reading a friends blog who lives in LA yesterday. He's a rock photographer and his girlfriend is an art director for David Lachapelle among others. They look like they have a fab life. Photo's and video's posted of the things they are doing and all the art they are creating and it made me jealous and also wondering what I am doing with my life. What art am I creating? Am I doing what Im passionate about? What is that? Is this the best place for me to be fed creativity? I guess there is that whole saying about "compare and despair" as you never know the thoughts in someone else's head or how it works or what they are thinking or what their life is really like. It's just a fantasy that you have about their life as you see it from the outside. Someone might look at my life and think it's amazing to live in England. Look at pictures of Tim and I and see our love and think WOW..how amazing that she lives in England and is in love. So...I have to remember that.

So what am I doing today to make the best use of my time here? Well..yesterday I sat and watch back to back episodes of Dexter and ate popcorn in my robe all day. Tempted to do the same today but Im going to go for a bike ride instead and do something creative. Be inspired by my friends rather than jealous. Maybe I'll walk and take pictures and then paint later or knit. Cook and move around the routine. I think that is what gets me every day. Doing the same ole same ole. So..going to mix it up a bit and gain a new perspective on my life. Look at my life like an outsider would and be grateful for this amazing life that Im living. All the experiences I've had and continue to have and once again just be in my body and life and enjoy it.

Moving

I never know how to begin....hummm....we saw UP yesterday. Another movie that once again reminded me to live in my moment because life goes so fast and I don't want to end up wondering why I worried so much, or wasted so much time trying to change what is and just be in my life, embrace every movement, every minute and everything I do. It's the most difficult job for me and also such a crime to miss out on my life the way I do. With the amount of stress I put on myself and then realize the day is gone and I missed most of it.

If Im not in my moment, which is almost never, Im constantly thinking about what needs to happen next, tweak the moment that Im in, think about what needs to happen in the future and what has happened in the past. I relate this all somehow to the moment that I am in and the result is never being content or happy with the life Im leading, which, by the way, is amazing and all I have wanted for years. To be out of my crazy job, to be in love, really in love, and to have time.

I realize whenever I move I do the same thing. When I Moved from LA to San Francisco I HATED SF. For almost two years I hated it. All I wanted to do was move back to LA, which, by the way I hated by the time I left. I wanted to get out of the 365 days of summer, I wanted to get out of the dirt, the traffic and move to a beautiful city that was clean and where I did not have to drive. When I finally let go of LA I fell in love with San Francisco. But it was not easy. It was so hard to let go of my friends there, the amazing parts of LA that I loved, the craziness and insanity of it and the people that live there. I thought I would NEVER be able to make friends like the friends I had in LA. And after I let go of LA I met the most amazing people in San Francisco. Same thing happened when I left Minnesota. My group of friends there was amazing. So now...Im here...not loving the small village, the fact that I have no friends and I will never make the type of friends here that I have in SF and bla bla bla....my GOD how I let history repeat itself. Im amazed I move around as much as I do when Im so reluctant to change really. I want the change, Im so desperate for it and then I get it and I hate it and want to go back. I swear I cant stand myself sometimes :) Im exhausting.

So anyway...my point for GOD SAKE...is that it's the fact that I am never in my moment. If I were I would stop thinking about what this village and England isn't, and focus on what it is. Especially now that it's Fall. It's October, my favorite month of the year. The leaves are changing, it's getting colder, the birds are chirping, the sky is clear today and Im completely in love. I love my days. I just need to relax and shut down the mind. Meditate more and stick to my yoga.

We got up this morning to do yoga and meditate and it felt so good. Of course my meditation consisted of planning our trip to Bristol next weekend to go to H&M to get me leggings and a cute raincoat......practice ;)

The mind is amazing really. It can do all this thinking in the blink of an eye. Faster than the speed of light. It's a difficult beast to tame.

Missing the City

I miss the city. I really do. I wonder how I will do here for an extended period of time. Today Im not so sure I can make it in a small village. As long as I don't look at it like we are going to be here forever than Im okay. I can do it for a year but not sure if this is the life that I want. I like my social life, I like to have all my friends around me, I like to have the option of drinks or dinner with friends any night of the week. I miss the convenience of it and I miss San Francisco. I also miss the energy from a city and the energy that it gives me. Lights and night and tall buildings smashed together. Loads of people walking around the streets morning and evening. Just being able to get in the car and go to the ocean or the mountains.

Makes me think that Tim and I need to get out more! We do but there is also a lot to see here too. Ireland, Scotland, lot's of things right next door. Just need to plan them out. So...I guess not quite done with it here but honestly...Im not so sure Im cut out for small village living. I need the energy of the city to feed me and I need my friends around me. Anyway...3 months in..I think Im just really homesick. Im on an adventure right? This is always my problem, I think that were ever I am that is it. This is how it's going to be forever and then I feel trapped and get scared and want to get out. So..taking it easy, breathing, enjoying this experience as I DO KNOW that it will not last forever and love being here, in the beauty of this village and the life I have here and know that it's amazing in this moment.

The other thing is that I miss my girlfriends so much....because of my recent trauma even more. Going over to one of their houses, sitting on a couch in my pajamas and crying or talking or whatever. I do have some great friends here already so that is the good news. My friends Vicki and Ben and Steve and Rachel are amazing. We had a dinner party the other night and Steve was talking about my blog and Tim said, "oh, well then I guess you know about the miscarriage." And Steve just took my hand and said, "no, I have not got that far, are you okay, my God Im so sorry," and we all got to talk about it. And they are amazing. They are totally my people. So open and non judgmental and so fun and at the same time so loving and I feel really lucky to have met them so soon. Although now two of the 4 that I have made might be moving to Hong Kong so that sucks for me. Good for them though.

Anyway...maybe if I loved the home I was in. Once all the paper work is good to go with immigration and we know we can stay for a while we are going to move into a bigger place with some more character. Once that happens that will help too. I need to love the place I live in. Im a cancer....as social as I am I also love to hibernate in my home and create projects for myself. All and all just unsettled, homesick and it's cold and grey here today so whaaaa....being a big baby really.

Okay..got to run. Just wanted to complain about how horrible my amazing life is.