I had a dream last night, a vivid saga. I can’t remember the story, as is the way with dreams, but I do remember, the Meercats. Two baby Meercats had become entangled in a cloth, for some reason I decided to help. I got down onto all fours. The two babies trapped now apparently in two separate cotton bags rolled off. Suddenly Meercat adults squared off between me and the babies in bags. Their teeth bared snarling perilously close to my nose. I remained strangely unafraid, almost unaffected but really still, just looking at them. Suddenly the atmosphere changed and the Meercats relaxed and went about their business, there was no sign of the pups. One of the Meercats stood up tall, as they do, at least In David Attenbrough documentaries they do, and said to me, in the cut glass accent of a handlebar moustached, English peer, “You’ve been living dangerously for faaaar too long, it’s time to desist.”

I’ve been reading a book, The Strangers Child, it’s about the sweep of time and memory. Set in pre World War I years it moves through to the present day. One character said in reference to her memoirs, “It’s a pity I took so long to write them. Anything interesting that happened to me, happened after 6 o’clock and after G and T, its difficult to remember. ”

The story was peppered with Gin and Tonic episodes in stately Victorian gardens, shabby terrace houses, cottage kitchens and gentlemen’s clubs. Fairly soon I return to Australia from Sri Lanka and I was enjoying my last nights at Udekki.com, a tropical paradise resort. I probably haven’t had a G and T for 30 years but last night fresh prawns, and chilli pasta and good company called forth my recent reading history and I was given the mother of all G and T’s. The warm tropical evening drenched in sea breezes made me sleepy and maybe gave me my colourful and advice-full dream.

When I stretch the back of my neck long, which I do while standing 100’s of times a day I can feel the pull of my spinal muscles right down my spine. My neck gets long my weigh redistributes to my heels and my posture elongates. When I first started to correct my posture like this I felt like a Meercat, with its head poked up above the African Veldt.

I’m coming home to Sydney very soon to see my friends and family, check in on my house and generally have a knees up on Australia Day. Have I been living dangerously? Maybe that’s not such a bad thing? If I do desist from living so precariously then how do I do that? Do I really want to? That pesky Meercat, with his English Peer authoritative voice may be relevant, in an inner voice sort of way, or a G and T hallucination. Who knows? I know that in the last few days I have travelled to Kandy in Sri Lanka and stayed at two beautiful yoga retreats and returned to the sea side with a huge sense of gratitude that I have travelled so far, changing over time from an opinionated teenager, to an addled 20 something, a hormonal cascade in my thirties, ambitious in my 40’s, second winding my way through the 50’s and now I really don’t know what I am and it is of no consequence. Each moment turns my breath and my diminished appetites towards regulating and caring for my body and being. Now I, at least have the insight to say yes to what life brings and ask of life with no expectations of receiving, I think I might finally be getting out of my own way, I hope my inner Meercat approves.

There are always animals, here there are the non human kind. At Udekki the dogs form a sub-culture, a family society under that table. The mother and farther look a little like dingoes and are gentle to fault. In fact most dogs here are harmless and look like dingoes. There are two puppies, one the dun colour of his parents the other a long legged black chewer. The puppies constantly play fight, brawl in the sand and then stretch out exhausted. Digging is one of Blackie’s favourite pastimes. Holes appear around paths and plants and as I walk buy he will wag his tail and make a lunge for the legs of my pants or sarong and his sharp little teeth clamp shut. Holes appear in cushions, chair legs get chewed. Blackie has been adopted by an Austrian family, they don’t know what they are in for. He will probably chew his way out of the transport container in the airplane on his way to his new home.

Many children, who come here, are afraid of dogs. Who knows why, usually it’s the parents teaching them to be afraid, very afraid, so they cry and whimper in the presence of a dog. The gentle parent dogs here are often a balm on the fears of these children. I’m glad these frightened children haven’t been witness to the recent manoeuvres of dog politics going on. A new bitch dark, long legged and sleek has entered the scene. Daddy dingo is enamoured and the stiff legged posturing and barking, growling escalates on the beach between the two bitches. Last night an older dog, tough, the equivalent of a red-necked tattooed, biker, bad ass, rocked up from the fishing camp and our daddy dingo was out of his fighting weight, but had the advantage of youth and territory.

This occurs nightly on the beach at sunset. The sky, a golden dome, over the brilliant yellow sun sizzling into the horizon. I throw sand at the growling dogs and dive into the water. I expect to come up covered in golden motes of water and I’m not disappointed, diving like a dolphin, swimming until I am breathless, stretching in the wavy water. Up and along on the beach fishermen brace themselves against the weight of their nets filled with thousands of small white fish and the occasional puffer fish, these they unceremoniously chuck out of the nets onto the sand, worthless and jettisoned. It’s infuriating It would be simple to throw them back into the water, still it’s not my call. The bloated puffed bodies of the fish slowly deflate on the beach and the nightly tide claims them.

The dawn is cool. I hear the doves on my porch and I get up to fill the large shallow water bowls that are used for foot washing and bird drinking. There is a white cat who lives behind my house, mostly this old Tom sleeps. This morning I heard a kerfuffle and the two puppies had bailed up the cat, but they really did come off second best.

By the time I had pulled on my swimming costume all was quiet again and I went out into the coolish air to see a beautiful green, yellow and brown cockerel drinking from the water bowl filled with fresh cool water. The day had begun. I wonder what dog wars will be waged on the beach tonight.

I am of the light and in the light but born in darkness.
Emerging into the light I cast shadows.
Some shadows balance the light and others I create from the movement in my mind.

So fireworks universally, Dubai, Sydney, London, New York, and Udekki (Sri Lanka). If it is not raining here we will take tables to the beach and play music, eat, and as the midnight approaches the fireworks will start. Rockets, mainly. One of the workers here a woman called Widgera, is a mad firework fiend, she holds the rockets in her hand and lets them go at the last moment, it’s quite something for us fire squeamish people to watch.

There are a few different types of sparklers here, the short fat ones blaze with a magnesium ferocity that burns holes in skin, clothes and the screens of phones. The longer ones are safer. I should be more enthusiastic about fire, being a fire sign, but I’m not. I love a cosy lounge room fire or a barbecue, maybe a candle or oil lamp but the ragged hole in my favourite tee shirt put me right off.

it’s impossible to wear anything that has a synthetic base in the tropics. It almost immediately sends me into a hot and heating panic, let alone its inherent inflammability. In fact anything that is difficult to pull on distresses me these days. Damp legs caught in pant legs, tee shirts on, despite my best efforts, backwards just does my head in. I think the tropics is getting to me. I do remember putting on complex garments, with pull through ties and arm holes that seemed to disappear as I entered the garment. I also remember discarding the same garments in little heaps of expensive material, on days when I was sartorially ambitious but didn’t have the bottle to follow through.

So if you are going to the tropics think simple, love a sarong, a flip flop, a singlet or a tee. I dress appallingly at Udekki, nothing matches really, I am the proverbial stripes and florals dresser now, co-ordination, matchy-matchy fabrics a thing of the past, my daily choices are limited by the following criteria; is it cotton? (tick) Is it easy to get on? (tick) I’ am even beginning to see the value of the poo catcher pants that I have so rubbished when I had a Balmain veneer of up-myself-taste. In the mid 90’s I remember saying, “Shoot me if I ever get one of those mobile phones?” Yep that went well. A poo catcher may well end up on my bod, why? Well they hardly touch the skin and that must be my third question re clothes, will this garment annoy/chafe/abrade/irritate me? If it doesn’t then a great big TICK… Actually I use the same criterias in relation to everything, hummmm… says far to much about my internal processes, but what the hell it’s New Year?

So the New Year eh? Resolutions, let me know if any of you come up with a good one. Last night a guy asked me if the yoga I taught was spiritual. Not sure exactly what he thought spiritual was but here’s what I answered, ”Not really, we are all spiritual enough to be going on with, but are we good human being? Yoga the way I understand it makes you a better person, happier in your body, less reactive, kinder to yourself and others, more tolerant and adaptable. “ He seemed happy with that. Soooo my resolution is to do more of what I know to be good for me and to become a better person I might even become wiser, but don’t hold your breath.

Christmas Eve, I can hear fire crackers going off on the beach. The feasting is about to begin. It’s been raining for days, unseasonal and the punters are not deliriously happy, though I think I am the only one who really is deeply happy protected from the sun by thick rolling layers of cloud. Yep the firecrackers’ cacophony is plummeting to its conclusion as the rain starts again.

Normally on celebratory days at Udekki resort we have dinner on the beach and eat massive amounts of lobster, crabs, clams and fabulous butter vegetables, I better get my arse to the party, but here I am listening to a play list of amazing songs and holed up under my mozzie net.

I’m not antisocial in the normal sense. I can related and enjoy people but I seem to be on the extreme edge of self sufficient. Tex Perkins is howling away along with Antony and the Johnstons, Dead Can Dance and Built to Spill. The music I enjoy is not Trad Jazz or old standards, they are often poetic and lyrically complex rather than simple or run of the mill standards, funny how your taste reflects your soul.

The party was fabulous, tainted by the incessant rain but all told people are on holidays and determined to be happy. And now it is Christmas Day and the rain continues, unseasonal storms of incessant rain, some wind and seemingly endless. If you look at the BBC weather charts Sri Lanka is covered in clouds and continues to be.

A few days ago I went to a nature reserve to see native animals in the wild. A 4:30am start, after a night of mozzie incursions didn’t augur well. A Banshee child in the car, flooding, a mad driver, 2 breakdowns and animals making themselves scarce meant I returned to Udekki really headachy. But who am I to complain at this juncture, the floods here mean people are flooded out, displaced 100,000 of them so far. We are lucky at Udekki we are safe and sound, but I suspect we can expect many more storms as the planet heats up. I have become an advocate for planetary action but feel a little helpless as to what action to take to help. The problem with that is it would be easy to do nothing but gradually an anger is arising in me and I know will lead me to take action. This anger hovers over the love I carry around.

Often I feel helpless and hide away in songs. The artists, musicians, painters visionary scientists who are not afraid to allow themselves to feel the hollow depth of life while living on the surface of themselves are frustrated and some guiding principle of action eludes them. I probably fall into this category. The transformative energy of harnessed anger is probably going to be my salvation and maybe effect a change. I was thinking that when I return to Australia I might see if it’s possible to get shops to stop using plastic bags.

Nearly all our children’s toys are plastic, look around you at the carnage of Christmas, the waste, the breakages… So many of our implements are plastic based, storage jars, furniture, clothes etc. mostly they do not decompose. I sit here thinking through the sweep of history, the agrarian revolution, regarded by some as the beginning of the end, the industrial revolution, the technological revolution. Medical improvements for some, food production changes, not all of them exactly good.

So I ask you good friends, what can we do to walk more gently on this planet? Who do we need to become to act responsibly? What action can we take? And what will we as individuals gain? What will future generations gain? We are after all the cause and the solution all rolled into one, the guardians if you like, Just sayin…

“Follow me down to the valley below, you know, moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul.” Lazarus, Porcupine Tree.
The tropical rain, thunders down here sometimes at night, from between clouds the moon appears washed out and a voice inside my head breaks the silence, this fiery world with its emotions so inflamed makes me more than sad.

My nightly carnage killing the mosquitoes makes me sad, so many poison vectors in this world, increasing as the world’s temperature increases. The ice caps melting, the storms increasing in number and velocity because of the warmer oceans and next door a former verdant oasis parched to a desert. Islands in the pacific inundated, the ocean is predicted to rise and drown populated lands. We continue to kill for oil, financial gain and self righteous beliefs of right and wrong. I say we because I am part of the push of population, the generation that ignored warnings from scientists on global warming. The generation taken in by self servicing media wanting to get your attention by milking disasters while, while peddling complacency.

People are becoming desperate. In certain countries the writing is writ large upon the landscape, lakes and rivers drying up, the rhythms of nature out of sync because of changes in temperature, exponential increases in carbon dioxide atmospheric levels in the last 10 years. And naturally competitive people kill each other for food, water, control, profit and self aggrandisement. Al Gore was right in ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Here I am in paradise, surrounded by couples and families having a relaxing time, children doing what children do, screaming because a dog looks sideways at them, squealing and wriggling. The Sri Lankan staff here are amazing, gentle always smiling.

I can hear the sea pounding eating into the beach, a coal fired electricity generator pier nearby has altered the way the sea moves against the beach, even walking along the beach the voice inside my head wonders will many more generations of children, will have this beauty in their experience?

As a child I spent hours attempting to walk on the beach and leave no footprint, I wanted my impact on the earth to do no harm to be unnoted, I wanted the crabs and clams in the sand to feel safe as I walked by. Now I want to leave a foot print I want a clean outline of my passing through this planet. I see suffering mostly caused by ignorance, lack of self inquiry and no impulse control. My footprint is writ in love.

So I put on some music and the sadness in me transmutes into poetry and I move in ways that open my hips, mobilise my arms, I am well again, able to find silence through yoga. Nightly at sunset I walk on the beach and watch the crabs scuttle out of the sea and into their holes on the beach, making it all the easier to harvest them for the crab curry. The sand dollars bask in the evening sunshine and shells display their beauty strewn about by some mad design as the fiery sky and golden sea seduce me to awe.

My nails seem to grow faster in the tropics. I seem to be often having a go at taming them with my little nail kit. The bluntish tongs of my nail clippers, chew rather than slice through the crescents of white. Another day in the tropics, I have just had breakfast and the warm morning has sent me gasping back to the shade of my room and mosquito net. I attempt to do some spine lengthening yoga and the exertion sends me back to gasping for breath as heat courses through my body. Prone and horizontal I tighten my legs to activate my spine and lift my torso unsupported. I’ll do ten of these lifts, I think and end up maybe at five. I then take a moment to roll over and contemplate my newly cut nails and try some supine exercises to lengthen the postural muscles of my legs. Yep can’t seem to get past five. I unfold my legs into the air and look at the negative shape formed by the edges of my feet silhouetted against the ceiling. I wonder just how I will ever teach yoga in this climate when I can barely move. Still I did mobilise my hips by lying on my side and drawing my ankle in front and behind me, yep stiff hips.

I’m still in the recovery stages of Dengue Fever and tiredness seems to be derigeur. The rhythm of the days is punctuated by the arrival and departure of guests at Udekki. The roads , traffic and distances make predicting the exact time of arrival difficult and exhausted travellers and newly arrived winter refugees spill out of cars and minibuses at all hours of the day and night.

People come to Sri Lanka to bike through back roads, view the dolphins, escape the northern winter chills, snorkel, chase monuments and explore a different climate. After the craziness that is India, Sri Lanka seems much more manageable. Local people are full of smiles and the shake of the head can mean anything. I agree, I will get it, what a good idea, they assert and you sit back and maybe you’ll get what you asked for or maybe some variation. I asked for a pot of tea this morning and after much head nodding got a cup of hot milky stuff. In the same ball park at least.

Things that are self evident are really not so self evident in so different a culture. When I visited Colombo to deal with visa issues and book myself into hospital, I was finally lying on a bed attached to a drip. A pert lass with big hair trotted into my cubicle. She was the enrolment person. She wanted a deposit there and then to continue my treatment. She asked me to come with her to organise the credit card.
“Girlfriend,” I said, “You will have to rip the drip out of my arm and I’m sure that nurse over there who took so bloody long to find a vein will probably be most unhappy. Is there some way we can do this at my convenience?”
She said, ”You have to pay a deposit.”
“Yes, I think you did say that.”
“Are you able to pay?”
There I was covered in spots, hot, dehydrated, prone, cranky and convinced my days were numbered, and my sense of humour was getting darker, no, it was getting black.
“If you say so.” I tried, going the route, it you can’t win then agree with what ever they say.
My driver a roguish fellow with good English was watching and I could see him rolling his eyes. He led the girl away before I was tempted to stick pins in her eyes. I gave him my credit card and passport and he shooed the pert backside away from me. About 20 minutes later she returned with a document and credit card for me to sign and Bobs you uncle I was ensconced in the private health system of Sri Lanka and that my good readers was day one, it got sillier. Yet I was hung off drips for 24 hours, which was exactly what I needed and the fungus that was invading my upper legs was noted and treated, more than I can say for the local doctor at Udekki who was more concerned about the passing of Merv Hughes, than my condition.

I was expecting to write posts about the clear skies, soft tropical breezes, amazing sea food and somehow magically transform from one black hearted, soft white skinned miscreant to a tropical Pollyanna. Not really going to happen, you do carry the traits you express and repress and what can I do with that? Well, other than, be kind or failing that at least agree with people, even if they are crazy and back away slowly from the madness of others beliefs and behaviours that seem so at odds with my world view, my little island of sanity or not. At least my nails are healthy….

I’m in the final stages of recovery from Dengue Fever, that means I am tired and my ability to concentrate is limited. The area where I live in Sri Lanka is not subject to this blight but a quick visit south to Colombo about two weeks ago had me in the sights of a Dengue riddled mosquito. It was a fun trip to an Asian City, full of beautiful buildings with a patina of damp and decay. Many of the older shop houses and older areas are being demolished to make way for some government Despotic wet dream of a modern metropolis. Shame really but Sri Lanka in general is attempting to pull itself out of the humid torpor of the nineteenth century or further back in time.

It’s easy living here to give in to complaining about the slowness of events, the easy going attitude to breakdowns and the smiling complacence of locals with regard to life’s vicissitudes. It throws into hard relief my impatience and tight attitudes to getting what I want when I want it.

Over 60% of the population of Sri Lanka have had Dengue Fever, certain areas are prone. In cities like Colombo a slight downpour fills old drains, discarded pots and containers and within a day a new generation of disease vectors is airborne. Woe is me.

I returned home and in my blood the sinister virus festered. Within 3 days I had a headache, nausea and after a walk on the beach the sudden appearance of spots. I lost my appetite and fluid became a major challenge. At first I thought it was food poisoning. A day in bed should fix it, I thought.

Having spent time in Singapore a country also prone to Dengue Fever It’s hard not to note the differences. In Singapore a widespread education program, mosquito eradication program and smaller area to police had brought the problem to manageable proportions. A city the size of Colombo and the widespread areas in Sri Lanka that are prone to Dengue are much harder to fathom. Suffice to say, bring a personal insect repellent with you if you do travel here.

I’m sitting on my bed as I write this under a mosquito net and even though the mosquito sitting above me in my personal domain of insect freeness is harmless, on spotting it, I snarled and clambered about on my bed in slaughter mode. My skin still has hot spots of itchiness and a seemingly unrelated fungus infection near my bits is being treated with condy’s crystals and steroids. The bright red patches are fading and have gone from the size of a hand, to palm size to matchbox size.

White skin in the tropics is a little prone to everything, even now I find being in the wind or sun makes my itchy bits itch and my exposed bits crawl. The recovery states of Dengue fever are difficult, my hands and feet turned a nice shade of puce and the lancing pain streaking through the flesh was horrible. Anti Histamines are my new favourite drug for the evening. Last night was the first time I slept without drug assistance.

There is no cure for Dengue Fever and you can be reinfected, once bitten you can get it again and that can be serious, haemorrhages and dangerous blood problems, best to avoid.

The local president has his picture everywhere, The long shot in guru white robes and red scarf, a red polka dot shirt version of a godly presence in smaller images and a new purple shirt one of a smiling El Presidento. Very occasionally I’ve seem one of the images defaced, with crossed eyes or devils horns. The population here revere him as a god. Perhaps rather than spending money on Coal fired Electricity generating plants in a country with no coal he could spend some on health education not self aggrandisement.

To those of you concerned about my health I promise I have been look after by the comedy team known as the private health system and that little adventure deserves its own post.

The day finally dawned when there was a place on a boat vacant for me to take out to sea to view the dolphins now living off the west coast of Sri Lanka. The two local boat men loaded us into orange life jackets and a bevy of people pushed the boat into the sea. Along the shores shoals of small white fish dart and weave. The local fishermen spin nets into the surf and haul them in.

Tuna eat the small fish and come to these waters to feast and along with them come the dolphins. The dolphins are found a few kilometres off shore. There are also whales majestically gliding by. You can find them by their breathing spumes.

We motored out, the 8 people in the boat, amongst the flying fish and the coal tankers waiting to off load their cargo. The wind was kind and it was only as the shore line disappeared that I remembered my last encounter with a motor boat. I was 12, my father took me fishing, an attempt at bonding maybe, hard to say why he thought I would remotely enjoy fishing. The boat was my father’s hobby and I thought I might be able to persuade him to take my brother and myself water skiing…never did happen.

I caught a squid, it jerked and slimed its way across the bottom of the boat, I was horrified, by its terror, by its pink colour, its size, well maybe it wasn’t so big, but at the time it seemed huge. I was summarily dismissed as a whimp, no disputes from me on that score. Then we went home and I remember the waves being big and the boat thumping alarmingly over them, I was green by the time I got to shore.

So to the ocean, off Sri Lanka. We passed the tankers and the wind was still, the orange plastic life jacket started to feel decidedly warm. I took long breaths into my lower lungs and let it out slowly. Okay so far, sip of water, all good. The wind picked up, we hadn’t found the dolphins yet. There were a few other boats with orange clad tourists eagerly looking. All the boatmen were chatting to each other above the noise of the engines and finally one spotted the pod.

The waves were swelling, my breath was slowing, sip the water and grip the edge of the boat, that’s best. If I let go the heat started to rise to my head, I already had a sweat going despite the breeze. The dolphin pod is huge literally thousands of dolphins. Occasionally they spin in the air, if they do it once they usually repeat it. Unbelievably beautiful. We circled around slowly trailing lines to catch tuna, cause that’s what the dolphins were gorging themselves on.

Then we saw the tuna leaping in the air, the dolphins had created a circular trap for them and had herded them. Leaping around them the joy of food, sushi with a tail, the sleek dolphins undulating and arching through the water were achingly beautiful.

I was gripping the edge of the boat, breathing slowly wondering when we would be going back. The boatman, driver guy got a phone call, a jangley electronic tune, One of the boats had spotted a whale. We were off still further from shore to chase the oceanic mammoth. Okay, I thought, I can do this, I can keep this together. I took another sip of water and felt the wind getting stronger at least the plastic life jackets insulating effect was ameliorated.

We didn’t find that whale but the waves got bigger, the clouds scudded in quickly to create a dark grey-green and blue mottled effect in the sky. The boat returned to the dolphin pod. I could see the land again, the distant spikes of the wind turbines and the vague outline of the coal fired power plant in the distance.

The boat finally turned for shore, the big waves bounced the hull hard, we jerked like fish on a line, thump, thump, thump. I felt my neck jarring and tried to ride the bumps by semi-standing but I did miss time a few rises and falls. Thumpety thumpety.

The boat mercifully quickly covered the distance to Udekki , approaching the shore at an alarming speed, “Brace yourselves.” We were advised the engine revved and as the nose hit the sand the boatman killed the engine and we slid gracefully to land.

So I took no photos of the dolphins, emerged as I was in the personal drama of keeping my morning cup of tea within normal bounds, but I was able to transcend my gut and look with awe and wonderment at the huge elegant, sleek pod sliding through the choppy waters. I stepped out of the boat and fell onto the sand, vertigo took over for a moment. No food passed my lips for 24 hours and the next day it took me about half an hour to loosen my neck.

Was it worth it, yes a thousand times yes, but I wish I had remembered before getting into the boat that I apparently get sea sick and taken some ginger or a homoeopathic remedy called Cocculous with me. Just sayin.

Udekki means the drum and the nights and days are often awake with rhythmic sounds. The fat drumming of sudden rain, the random sounds of people eating, the cutlery clinking, voices rising and falling in cadence in conversation peppered with laughter. This morning the intermittent cries of a distressed dog, I thought. The sounds woke me ahhhhee, ahhhhee, woop, woop Then about 20 seconds later again ahhhhee, ahhhhee, woop, woop, no variation in volume or tone. The noise came closer and closer and I went outside wrapped in a sarong to investigate, a turkey stared at me from my back porch and fled, the noise stopped.

It’s mid morning as I write this: I can hear the dolphin boats returning to shore with their load of orange life-jacketed tourists, wind blown and happy. The staff scurrying about getting coffee and puffing up cushions and primping the pool area. A bird hoots in the trees and a man chops at something while a breeze nestles amongst the trees, moving but still.

Yesterday I went to an Ayurvedic Health Centre in the nearby town of Norochcholai. A week ago I had been dumped by a strong wave onto my hip and jammed my sacrum. Reasonably painful but manageable with stretches. I wanted to see an Ayurvedic doctor who knew how to move soft tissue around bones. The previous week I’d had an amazing massage with the Doctor’s son, strong and effective. So along I trot to my next appointment and It was not quite what I expected. First a massage with a woman who talked and talked and talked and was really concerned that I didn’t pray to Jesus. “Christ.” I thought, “All I need is a relaxing encounter with an evangelist.” She was sweet but as I unclenched my jaw trying not to say anything that might offend recognising that a quiet massage may not be a cultural norm. There was another person in the room a very plump, no fat but pretty moslem girl who was covered in medicated oil and place in a steamer.

Let me explain. A wooden box with compartment underneath containing a gas stove. Medicated water is boiled up onto the bed which is covered by a thick layer of neem leaves and the patient lies on the leaves for 30 to 45 minutes, turning at least once. There is a round cover and only your head is exposed.

After a painful but hopefully therapeutic massage it was my turn in the steamer. Oiled up, naked and a little distracted and unfortunately tense I lay on my bed of leaves and finally was left alone to cook. Then our talker came back and poured a handful of oil into my hair and massaged my scalp. Not that I mind a head massage I don’t but a head full go oil, uck, lank hair and a face that felt like thunder. What can you do?

I sit her the next day writing. My back is really stiff I’m going to have to do some rather unpleasant yoga to remedy this. I liked the steamer, I like massage but I realised how culturally defined we are. I like quiet, silence, rhythmic mellow sounds. I remember going a few years ago to an Indian Beauty Parlour to get my eye brows threaded (if you have never had it done its quite amazing) and the ladies talked to me to each other to themselves in an endless patter like rain, like the drum.

I wonder if the stiffness in my back is associated with my cultural predisposition to want what I want rather than flow with what I have. I’ll have to go have another steam on my bed of leaves and see. At Udekki I have a steamer and a neem tree outside my clinic. I have a bottle of medicated oil, so I will be steaming my oh so tense soul into a rhythm more in harmony with the endless sound of waves on the shore near my house.