Beautiful Land! Beautiful Earth!

My beloved spoke and said to me,
   “Arise, my darling,
   my beautiful one, come with me.
¹¹ See! The winter is past;
   the rains are over and gone.
¹² Flowers appear on the earth;
   the season of singing has come,

Isn't that a great passage?
Its a passage in the bible that Carolyn and myself added music and sung at my wedding, and its a passage that a friend spoke to me about at the beginning of the year!

And isn't it amazing that our words have power! Since I heard this passage again, Greece has been in bloom and not stopped flowering.
I've seen new wild flowers that I've never seen before and Greece has been Green for a lot longer than the previous years.
Summer comes and everything goes brown.
BUT this year everything has remained green.

Nature at work!

Beautiful Olive tree

Above my village in the Mountain of Hortiatis

Poppy fields!

In the DVD 'What the Bleep do we know', it talks about how its been scientifically proven that the water in our body changes shape as we speak things over ourselves. 'I'm fat!... I'm ugly!...I look Tired!... I'm beautiful... I feel happy, pretty, etc.' - Now thats food for thought about how we see ourselves! And how we need to be to one another!

I wonder if thats the same as we speak good things over the earth! Or that we look after our planet and remain aware about the enviroment, maybe the earth will naturally repair itself. They say that the ozone layer is repairing itself due to awareness of our world and how we look after it!


And last but not least, I have just recently starting singing and playing my guitar with Oliver and my niece. Its been such a wonderful time together and a joy to do it!

So I end again with this passage - maybe something for us all to enjoy!

My beloved spoke and said to me,
   “Arise, my darling,
   my beautiful one, come with me.
¹¹ See! The winter is past;
   the rains are over and gone.
¹² Flowers appear on the earth;
   the season of singing has come,

This morning I decided to do some painting with Oliver. He's getting really good at drawing in the lines and paying attention to detail.

So we sat in the kitchen and set him up for a morning of painting... The concerntration on his face was priceless. His was humming too! Such a beautiful moment to share with you all.

I love the dappled light in these pictures. A special moment together!

Name Days and English treats!

In Greece one thing that is celebrated more than England are Name days. Usually holy men and women, but also saints and biblical characters or importance!

This weekend were the names Lydia and Konstantinos! So having neighbours with both of those names, we decided to all meet down in the garden for scones and tea... and a splash about in the paddling pool!

Scones and Tea... with Oliver diving around in the pool in the background!

Tea poured...

Adding shampoo to the pool added to the fun filled afternoon!



Encounters

I, Lynn Webb, would like to make a little guest appearance on Rachel's
blog, giving you some insight into Albanian life from my perspective !!!

I decided to go walking through my home town Shkoder, taking my camera: set out to view city life thru a lens

My first encounter was with a man who was very cross that I was wanting a picture of an old chair by a kiosk instead of showing the world what Albanians can do - building high rise apartments that are the same the world over, I think he wanted to show that they were trying to become "modern" like the rest of Europe when I wanted something more quirky and bohemian to be displayed abroad.

 

My Bohemian chair!

The next encounter was with two men who wanted the world to see their happy faces , and so here they are - shame they did not show their toothless grins !!!

 

 

Say cheese...pleeze!

 

Finally I had a wonderful shot of a Woman with fishnet tights and red patent heels, standing next to a pile of big fish from the river; But the fisherman selling the fish was adamant that I could not take the shot! what a shame instead the next best was some eels in a bath ...

 

 

Bath time.

I hope you enjoyed the walk with me thru this interesting corner of Northwest Albania.

A Long Time in Coming.

Well, its been a while since I last wrote a blog!

So much has happened! And so much to blog about! But I will be breif on this blog as my husband isn't here and isn't able to spell check for me!

Since I last wrote I've crossed borders, had Jamie's parents visiting, my car broke down in Albania and so we travelled back to Greece by coach.

A visit from my 'In Laws'

I had my first swim of the year (and first coffee Frape!) and to top it all off, my sister returned back from the UK with my new niece... the beautiful Anouk Florence.

Anouk!

Jamie is now spending some time travelling to and fro between Greece and Albania working, without his wife and child trailing after him... which probably means he can get some work done.



But that also gives me a chance to get creative again. So this weekend was spent playing my guitar, reading Living etc (Glossy home magazines!!!) and sifting through all my fabrics - all in preparation for my next few prjoects!

I full and inspired and ready to get cracking with more projects.

My next blog will be a guest blogger! So keep checking me out to hear all the things my guest has to share!

A Year to Remember!

There are times in everybody's life that will never be forgotten. Things that change you as a person, make you stronger, define who you are.

February 2010 was one of those moments for me.
I was diagnosed with Molar Pregnancy.

Without going into too much personal detail it's when, at a point of conception, a mass of cells grows instead of a foetus, becoming cancerous and needing to be treated through chemotherapy (simple version!). It's quite a rare disease (I like to see myself as unique!), but treatable. And so May last year, I moved into Charing Cross Hospital.

I had a great team of doctors, shared my ordeal with some fabulous strong women, (I want to especially mention Becks   - you're amazing!), and had wonderful support from my husband,family (my mother-in-law was AMAZING!) and friends (through internet and those close by!)

I wouldn't want this to happen to anyone, but I feel that through this experience, my outlook on life has changed.
I see how miraculous life is, how fragile we are as people.

This year was a rollercoaster of Tears, Pain, Relief, Joy, Laughter!!!! And it won't be forgotten for all of these reasons.

For more information on Trophoblast Diseases and Molar Pregnancy visit the Charing Cross Website:

http://www.hmole-chorio.org.uk/index.html

My 'inmates' at Charing Cross Hospital