Stereotypes.

8:00 am: Wake up and have a proper English breakfast including my personal fave black pudding , yes that's the mystery item in front of the real bacon and I really do like it!
10:00 am: Step outside for a breath of fresh air and work up an appetite for lunch. Ok-Ok while an Englishman's home is his castle not everyone actually lives in one. As a mere pleb....I did go and partake of lunch in the tea room (slightly confusing I know) at Ripley Castle and it was fabby.

Noon: Thirsty work all that digesting and castleing, so a beverage was in order.

3:00pm: Tea time and of course one gets a little peckish in the afternoon so a small tart (in my case) or cream bun should do the trick!

7:00pm: I had to hav a few..........
8:00pm Again all that digesting builds up a thirst, so a quick pint of Sam Smiths and I'm a happy girl.

Jesus no wonder the Brits are the fat bastards of Europe!

Ok-lest you think my next post will be of my coronary bypass, let me assure you that was not a real day in my life (ok the beer bit was)! However, one of my observations this trip has been the amount of large people I’ve seen. When I first moved to America the sheer girth that the natives could grow to astounded me and I’m sorry to say the Brits are catching up.

Upon entering a household in England I hear the following "do you want a cuppa"? and "put some meat on yer bones"! to wit I reply "Yes, milk & one sugar thanks" and "I'm OK as I am thanks".

Yorkshire Lass.

The Yorkshire dales are not even a 20 minute drive from Mums house and they are a stunning national park that runs through the backbone of England straddling the Pennines. Every time I go here my sole (ur...i mean soul) is satiated. The fields are veined with old dry stone rock walls (not a lick of cement used) and aged farm storage houses. Rivers cut through the bottom of the valleys and there are old trees, aincient ruins and myriads of wild flowers that bring splashes of colour & personality to this green & pleasant land.

Can you see my satiated soul?!
I say 'mint sauce' my bro says "The dales; where men are men and sheep are nervous"!

As a kid after a big Sunday lunch of roast beef, yorkshire pudding, gravy, roast potatoes, mashed carrots and of course home made apple pie & custard……we all needed to walk off the gluttony. Dad would drive us all out to the moors to ‘blow off the cob webs” & we’d walk ankle deep in bracken and heather until we were done. The dales pull strongly at me to walk, explore and get lost in its beauty and tranquility.

Today instead (after only two halves of black sheep lager) I drove my Mum's teeny tiny little car into a teeny tiny little excuse for a wall and caused a teeny weeny little scratch. A momento for her (as it were) of my visit!

Addict!

I had no expectations for this trip except one, which was to be able to connect my laptop to my Mums DSL line at home. WRONG!

First of all her DSL line thinks it’s a dial up. It also requires software that Mum no longer has and therefore will not recognize my computer. No problem, I’ll just grab my webmail from her PC. WRONG! My Mums dinosaur uses Windows 98 and for whatever reason it will not recognize my webmail address or my camera cable. My other hope of an unsecured signal was also dashed, ‘don’t panic’ I thought, I’ll go to plan B.

I joined a great gym under the pretense of working out, but really it’s for the free internet access. So despite the fact that there is no sound and I can’t check my fave porn sites, at least I can retrieve my e-mail from there…..sort of. Over the last few days only one or two of the four monitors has been working and I’m either waiting for a nine year old boy to finish his game of destroying the world one pixel at a time, or there’s a fit beer drinking bloke (yes British gym = pub) is breathing down my neck ready destroy the world one pixel at a time. Breathe Sharon, breathe.

In case you’re thinking ahead here and wondering the obvious, the good news is there’s not a Starbucks in sight of my Mums flat, the bad, there’s also not a wi-fi post.

No problem, my bro lives in the 21st century and has wireless. Having not seen him in over two years you’d think I have the decency to chat politely before pushing him and his wife aside, pulling out my laptop and making myself cozy. Hell no - there was posting to be done! Dear God I can’t describe the bliss, heaven and nirvana I felt at the sight of new e-mails cascading in to my inbox, I was finally a complete and happy woman. No time to waste as posts were circling like planes ready to land at Heathrow, I signed on to blogger. WHAT?! Now my computer thinks blogger is a virus (which I now have on good authority it is) and won’t let me in! Again, no “how are you’s” no “hey the house looks great” no “how’s it going at work” just “Bollocks-Red can you come & help me”?!

Somewhere in my evolution I must have turned into an instant gratification yank and forgotten my ‘let’s all form a nice queue” roots because with time, blogger graciously let me sign in. However with so much time lost and a better offer showing up (namely dinner and Top Gear on the telly) my bro flippantly said “well if you need to log on just come over when we’re at work, sit in the driveway and use the wireless from there’. So feeling like a junkie needing a massive hit I took him up on this generous offer (a key would have been charitable) and the next day madly went searching for the signal. His novice suggestion of the car was no good at all, the front bench, very low & intermittent, bastards, bollocks and god dammit this is my karma for being an addict, I knew it was going to work by the trash cans!. Hallelujah-free at last, free at last, a strong signal and I’m free at last!

A picture tells a thousand words.

I've been taking so many pici's that are quintisentailly English, so for those of you that have never crossed the pond, here's a few to give you a feel of what Endland looks like in May. Which reminds me of a pick up line used by another Brit to me years ago "i'll provide the tea....you bring the crumpet!"
A lovely water feature with no bathroom nearby!
Tiptoe through the tulips..... dedicated to Paul Chamberlain who's the only non Btit who'll get it!
A room with a view.

Yer big pansy!
Author in full bloom.
Headline from the Daily Mail today.... 'It's mass Wisteria!'

Surf and the city.

This morning we did our daily ladies walk, this time to the Alhambra gardens. After only three days Mum is speeding up her gait and doing really well. Her friend Ruth joined us and it was delightful to stroll, chat and listen to the melodic songs of the birds. I must be an old lady at heart because I’m quite partial to the pace!

After working up an appetite with the over 70’s club, I enjoyed a leisurely lunch in the city with my bro & Lesley. Gentrification is everywhere and the restaurant we dined at sits on what used to be the road between an old building and a new development. The feel is hip and modern but with history integrated and embraced. This trip Leeds feels like meeting an old friend who looks ten times better than when you last them. 'What about the food'? I hear you cry......well as we dined at an Italian Restaurant that flies all their ingredients in from Italy, it was fab! Lesley was in the loo from whence I just came and upon exiting the ladies, I'd marched boldly foward finding myself not as expected in the bar of Brio but the gents urinal! Hence the big grin.....or was that the Peroni?

Leeds is the fastest growing city in the UK and the skyline shows it. New glassy office blocks and apartment building are springing up everywhere especially along the River Aire. There’s even an O’Neil Surf shop in town and when I enquired how many surf boards they sold, the bloke said 'ummmm we don't really sell any'!

It turns out Lesley’s nephew was a windsurf instructor in Egypt for a few years. So while on a diving trip there, Red and Les showed up for the perfunctory family windsurf lesson. Chris, 25 (who mainly taught advanced students) wasn’t so much worried about the elder family novices embarrassing him, as he was my brothers Speedo’s! 'Baggies don't fit well in a wet suit' was/is my bros' excuse. Thank God the surf culture has permeated even the North of England as demonstrated here by our hero!

English country garden.

Upon taking a nice little walk this afternoon we ambled past a hedge and my Mum (who has a keen eye for the inappropriate) observed a plastic bag stuck in the shrubbery “I bet there’s dog shit in there” she said with authority! Neither one of us had the nerve to check, but I was still thinking about that plastic bag late into the evening. So forgoing Church on Sunday morning I did a little detective work to see if Mums hunch that some people will do anything to avoid prosecution was correct, thankfully she was wrong!

I’m on a (not so secret) mission to get my Mum walking this trip and so bought her a pedometer to make it fun. As an aside I counted the number of steps from Leeds to Maui and it was 14,831! Doctors recommend at least 2000 steps daily so despite the 17 hours of bum in seat, the only way I can explain my profuse activity must be excessive trips to the loo!
In my new role as fitness instructor we started out with a gentle meander through the Canal Gardens. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and awash with English visuals for eyes accustomed to swaying palm trees.


I often see people whose picture I want to capture, but fail to follow through due to awkwardness. I was telling Mum this whilst pointing out my muse on a nearby bench, when the urge to capture this handsome devil overrode my apprehension and I strode up to him asking permission to take his pici “I’ll break yer camera I will” he replied in true Yorkshire style. I’m not sure who’s smile was bigger, his or mine.

Homewood bound.

Eureka I made it to my first post-a high speed connection has not been the easiest thing for me to find in the old country...still here I am!

As I started my journey from one home to another, I realized that I was stopping along the way at the only four places I’ve ever lived on our big beautiful earth. 1989- Present: The brilliant little town of Makawao on the lower slopes of Haleakala, Maui. This epic little town is small in stature but large on personality. It supplies one shop of everything you need with a mixture of old world charm and new age calm.

1981-1989: How cool a sled is this to get picked up in on the way to Blighty?! Here is my best friend on the planet Jules, in her shagadellic convertible mini. She picked me up at SFO for a quick brekie between flights and we had a few quality hours of pure joy being in each others company.
San Francisco was home for many years when I first left the UK and I had some wild experiences there that I’ll save for another post! I never thought that I’d want to live anywhere else, but when I moved to Maui the feeling I experienced when I physically landed was an overwhelming sense that I was home.
1987-1989-Thanks to my good buddy Jules, I was set up with a killer job in London after I finished four years of college in Leeds. We worked (and I use that term loosly) at the Grosvenor House Hotel on London’s Park Lane. The Hotel has an apartments section that plays the roll of London’s HQ for many large American corporations and Jules and I were the two cheeky receptionists. How we got away with being drunk at work, sneaking into Sir.Rocco Forte’s office and generally goofing off under the thin guise of professionalism is a testament only to the fact the management was infinitely worse than we were!
1961-1987: Leeds, UK, home to a hand full of famous peeps including Peter O'Toole, Chris Moyles, Corrine Bailey Rae, Jimmy Saville and um…..well me! Yorkshire folk have a reputation of being hardy, forthright & funny. Or as my brother would say we call a spade a spade and not a hand operated earth inverting tool!

Old dog-new tricks.

Ooooooooooo I’ve been having fun the last few days. Between my big floaty board and the gentle super freak sails I’ve actually had moments of “I’m really sailing”. Trust me that's nothing short of a miracle given the number of tantrums and amount of frustration I've created along the way. To prove it here I am SMILING!
For those in the know…..this would have been a great ‘shove it’ if only the wind was blowing in the opposite direction!
Ha.....still SMILING! I’m just so bloody flabbergasted I can sail :-)
Lest I get too cocky, there is nothing like this sport to humble my lily white English ass. Yesterday as I sailed out on my first reach and hooked in, I watched the hook oh so casually keep on sliding out as I hadn't tightened the harness correctly! Mudafaka….I'm assuming there are a finite number of errors to experience and I can now happily cross off #23 “Be sure you've put your harness correctly”. Jesus, that’s kinda like “Be sure to remove the lens cap before taking a photo”! Anyway, I’m counting on not having to revisit error #23 again. Can’t wait to see what #24 is…………….

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Finally as this is my first historic windsurf post; let me bore the pants of you with this little vid.....proving (I think conclusively) that people from Leeds ought to stick to the land!

A recent mass exodus from Mokuahi Street.

All credit goes to my friend Floyd……he knows me well!

To blog or not to blog....?

I'm not much for things like '101 things you don't know about me' because honestly, unless you have a huge woody for that person, who really cares?! So, if you're of the same ilk you have been warned, this post kinda falls into the same catagory. Nonetheless I was checking Mediation Photography and came across his post about blogging burn-out (which I don't have) that asked some interesting questions that for some reason I wanted to answer. So I ‘borrowed them'……..

Q: Do you check your blog often just to see traffic and comments continuously? Why do you do that?
SP: But of course! Why- because if I’m at work it’s fun to skive off for a few minutes and the comments are like getting little surprise gifts.
Q: What happens if no-one reads your blog? Will you still write?
SP: Absolutely-it’s instant gratification creativity. Sometimes I just check my own blog to re-read what I’ve written because I like it so much!
Q: How much has blog affected your life?
SP: Well if you call waking up in the morning cozying up in bed with my lap top “affecting” my life…..then yes I guess it’s seeping in.
Q: Do you feel a subtle tension to go update, check blog and respond?
SP: The tension is there but its subtle like a roller coaster, climbing, climbing and then it peaks and it’s over and I don’t care anymore. With regard to responding to comments it’s like a mini conversation and if I feel so moved, I spout up.
Q: Can you say blogging is one of the positive influences in your life?
SP: Well I can say it’s become quickly habitual …is that positive? It’s entertaining-but sometimes I’m late for work and a few days ago we were later than I'd have liked for dinner because GP was posting, so that’s not so positive!
Q: How do you handle negativity on your blog? Do bad comments keep bothering you even after you walk away from your computer?
SP: I pretend it doesn’t matter, make all my friends read the miserable bastards scathing words then rehash my quippy off hand reply in 'word' for hours on end!
Q: What creative energy has been enhanced after you started blogging? Have you felt uplifted or does it feel like an obligation after sometime?
SP:My creative juices have a more constant flow due to the blog. I used to paint a lot more but that requires additional time. This is more on the fly, I see an image capture it with my camera & coupled with a remark-I’m done. Plus the public display aspect gives exposure with anonymity which is appealing. Also, I won’t post if I feel obliged-it takes all the fun out of it.
Q: Is blogging your way to tell the world how angry you feel about issues? Then do you not stay angry about the same thing after you write- or let it go?
SP:Nope-anger rarely shows up in my posts, it’s just my way of getting people to look (with me) at all the little oddities in the world-that’s all.
Q: Do you feel you have been disconnected from your world just because you are not updating blogs and making comments?
SP: Not even remotely.

Fame!

My friend Cheyenne & I were talking this morning about how miserable it must be to be well known. So, as luck would have it I walked in to Simmer Style this afternoon the dude behind the counter says “hey I know you, you’re…(slight pause) Sharon”! As I’d never met him before I got it right away….."from Giampaolo’s blog" ? I say. Ahhhh how the ego is seduced by recognition-I loved it and wasn’t miserable for one moment! Ok-Ok appease me it's only my second public recognition sighting, I'm sure I'll be over it by the third and not dedicate a whole post to it!

It turns our Mark sneaks over to my blog here and there as he’s thirsty for more windsurfing photo’s (bloody hell he must be parched by now)! So, as I was already on my way to H’oo to take pici’s, Mark these are for you so you can compare them with your morning sesh!

I'd say this one was a kite & a bit high......

BOOOOM!
PS: As if one “it’s you” wasn’t enough as I was finishing this post, GP walked in with a bag of goodies from another fan! I kid you not-gifts from Alcatraz! Thanks Eileen, I’ll wear the hat, drink the beer & play the tape (it will probably sound better if I drink a bit of GP’s beer)! Cheers.

Parents behaving badly.

Elena Kielelani Chamberlain was born to my friends Paul & Kacky yesterday. As a handy coincidence my bother sent me this pici earlier in the week. Duct tape wins again, and again and again, she has so much to look forward to!

Blog Burgler

From Kerry to Paul to me, coz funny just is funny :-)

No Self- No Problem.

Between my house and garden I have a total of four Buddha statues together with prayer flags on my back deck. I’m far from Buddhist but I’ve meditated for years and have even grown to like the smell of incense. I took lessons in Tibetan thangka (pronounced tonka) drawing with the lovely Terris Temple and am so proud of my achievements one exhibit even resides on my fridge! I have tickets to see the Dali Lama on April 25th and have just finished a four evening meditation class taught by the only Buddhist I know! If one reflected on these facts it may appear that the person in question was a closet case!
For me however, the statues are simply symbols of serenity and peace, while the flags come in vibrant lively colors that make me smile. I like to paint & draw & loved learning to use a piece of bamboo to perform the sacred measurements that allowed Buddha’s image to arise from my white page. As for the DL……well I have to confess I’m simply curious to see if His Holiness has any affect on the non Buddhist me at all. And the evening class, well that came about to help a friend and I received heaps of amazing new information that I will be chewing over for quite a while.

I think there are about eleven ‘I’s in this story – I'm (twelve) not sure if I (thirteen) protesteth too much or rest my case! I keep forgetting no self-no problem.

What are you reading?

When ever I think of the term ‘book club’ it conjures up images of blue hairs drinking tea and discussing the latest harlequin romance novel they've devoured (not that there’s anything wrong with that)!

And while I’m sure we’ll get there, six years into the evolution of our book club we’re dressing up like our heroines and discussing if we lost our virginity the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ way, all (of course) in the context of the book! How freakin’ cool & intellectual is that?!

I'm now just getting into our next book which is about the cultural, medical & spiritual clashes between Hmong & American cultures in 'The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down' by Anne Fadiman.
What are you reading?

Has anyone seen this man?!

Anyone who’s spent a considerable amount of time on Maui will recognize this character. We all seem to have our own name for him, Beardo, Cat In The Hat etc. though actually his real name is Dave!

While he has an air of homelessness about him, amusingly he & I seem to frequent the same places like Starbucks, concerts at the MACC and this morning Baldwin Beach where we were both enjoying a morning stroll. What the hell, perhaps he thinks I have an air of homelessness about me....which reminds me yet again to never judge a book by it's cover.

These are my people!

At dinner last night, while inflating Ely’s ego things got a bit carried away!

In contrast after dinner (and taking in to account 30 minutes of digestion) things settled down!

A quickie on Oahu.

This past weekend I popped over to Oahu to see my wonderful friends Floyd, Michael & Lehua. Sunrise crab catching is easy when your front door is just a minute from the beach. Leaving Floyd to sleep in, Michael, Lehua & I snuck out to catch the sunrise and it was a beautiful change as I am such a sunset girl at home. My chums rented a killer pad in Lanikai and this was our base camp for fun, relaxation and some long over due catch up.

Kailua is just minutes away and the water is a mesmerizing blue that just invites you to play in it.
Spot the imposter!

I don’t have many little people in my world so it was a treat to reconnect with Lehua. She’s a great kid, inquisitive, daring, smart, competitive and (refreshingly) feels like an eight year old. Not an 8 year old going on 15. I thought more than once this trip that it would be helpful if families had more than two parents, as always being the effective & conscious grown up is bloody hard work!
This was our football, volleyball, water polo ball, pool belly ball and egg that we hatched from our bums ball!
We packed a lot into a few days, Chef Mavro’s, speed, boogie boarding, night time and morning beach walks, Wynonna & the Honolulu Symphony, Chef Miller-Moynihans (killer grinds gents) Dim Sum, balloon art, cheating scrabble, and lots of great chat and laughs. It was great be back in the family bosom again and as always my sincere thanks for the abundance of experiences received. Until July........

The games people play.

I have no idea if I’ll ever go to Italy & meet GP’s parents and while I’m sure they’re as easy going as he is, the thought is hideously intimidating! As Europeans we are saturated with invisible prejudice without even knowing it. Shite like, the English hate the Germans, no ones too keen on the French but thumbs up all around to the Swiss. Now I live in a part of America where I’m not required to confront my class, upbringing or narrow mindedness, excellent! Instead I get to sit in my bubble surrounded by people who become comatose in the presence of what they consider to be a nice accent. It’s ridiculous really....

When I fantasize of the day that I may meet Dottore & Signora Cammarota the list of pre conceived ideas they will have of me (as I imagine it) is startling. English stereotypes; she can’t cook, she’s not one of us, is she of the right class (?) she wants another glass of wine, must she insist on wearing those union jack knickers at the dinner table and she has freckles....mamma mia! Not to mention the unconventional friendship I have with their son, che palle! That’s a lot of hurdles before I’ve even said “buon giorno”! Not to mention my uninformed opinions of them, dear god no one will be able to hear them selves think because of all that discrimination!
Still in my Makawao hideaway I make (in my invisible friend kinda way) small in roads to their liking me by (of all things) cooking, because god knows it won't be the language! I already measure my success via a secret scale beginning with Giampaolo, does he spit or swallow my food?! It’s like a warped video game, if he swallows then I advance to the next level, but still have to fight off all the dark archaic and sinister demons that surround the higher level of
‘i genitori’!

Tonight in my fantasy of ‘meet the parents’ I advanced a stage with my risotto ai cavolfiori. The good news is it looks like the picture in Jami Olivers example, the bad news is that if ‘i genitori’ had actually tasted it, all their inevitable ‘we told you so’s’ would have come true! Luckily though, I would whip out my handy deck of scopa cards which would so shock and delight them that I’d have them drinking Earl Gray & eating McVities before they could say ‘arrivederci'!
I win-I win!