Sunday Blog 158 – 10th November 2024 For those of you who’ve been following along, I finished up my five weeks of globetrotting with a two-week yoga retreat in Rishikesh, India. Last weekend, from midnight Friday through to ten pm Sunday night, I was travelling back home. The interwebs were not consistent and sometimes when …
Author Archives: pipbrennan
Travel pastiches and grief journeys
Sunday Blog 157- 27th October 2024 At the conclusion of last Sunday’s blog, I was marooned in the limbo of a Heathrow airport hotel. Before I move on, let me linger on my six-day stay in London. Very rusty on London landmarks, I caught sight of an enormous statue when walking through Kensington Gardens. For …
Travelling alone but together
Sunday Blog 156 – 20th October 2024 When I landed in New York on the first of October, it was my very first visit to America. I’d meant go to an in-person yoga retreat with my favourite online USA teacher in 2020 but…the world had other ideas. I waited until 2024 and chose New York …
Love note to Limnisa
Sunday Blog 155 – 6th October 2024 I’m running a little behind–or is it a little ahead–in my Sunday blogs on this valedictory trip remembering my dear Mum. There’s a bit of commuting going on. London. Athens. Limnisa. London. New York. That’s all since 18th September. As I’m in America now, it was already Sunday …
Travelling shrine
Sunday Blog 154 – 30 Sep 2024 Graduation photo From the night before she died, I started making shrines for my mother. It began with a candle and a photo nestled alongside the fragrant bouquets I’d received from kind friends and family. I burned candles all night long, without stopping, in the days between her …
Early steps on the valedictory tour
Sunday Blog 153 – 22nd September 2024 One of the absolute wonders of travel to me is that I can be me, but somewhere far from home, if I just travel enough miles. And since Wednesday, I’ve travelled 17,000 kms/ 10,563 miles. The I, the Me that is housed in my body can find itself …
No funeral without laughter
Sunday Blog 152 – 15th September 2024 Perhaps you noticed there was no Sunday blog last week. It was half a conscious decision to pause, have a minute’s, or rather a week’s silence. The other half was the exhaustion of washing up on the Sunday between my mother’s death and her funeral, with the clock …
Goodbye darling Mum
Sunday Blog 151 – 1 September 2024 Almost to the very end of her long life, my mother, Bet, remained who she was, of sound mind. Funny, spunky, unpredictable. In the emergency department last week where she was being treated for her broken hip, she was next to a man who had imbibed a little …
None of my Favourite Things
Sunday Blog 150 – 25th August 2024 Of all the careers to fall into, like Alice down the rabbit hole, museums would surely have been the least likely one for me. Long before Marie Kondo, I understood all too well the dull sheen items get over time when they no longer spark joy. One of …
Grateful for gratitude
Sunday Blog 149 – 18th August 2024 It took me 39 days to complete my 28 day Gratitude Practice. It started with a bang – within the first three days I’d found a ten dollar note at Maccas when I went to use their loo, and then won an Instagram competition which included a 45 …