It has taken me 45 years to find my favourite word. On asking a friend, many years ago what his favourite word was, he said ‘humility’. This friend always inspired me with his complete fullness whilst seeming that he lived in total emptiness，through his silence. He will not remember that he once told me that this was his favourite word. I remember his art books lined neatly across his dirty floor, no home on a shelf but finding homes in themselves, in his hands, through his eyes and thoughts - no need for a dead shelf. I once wrote him a [View Full Entry]

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Missing sleeping on him, alongside him, waking beside him, seeing his curls feeling safe in the comfort of coupledom The sound of a bouncing dog on the hard wooden floor, laughing at his twisted jumping around a bowl of food being delivered, seeing his understanding of the world develop, him knowing when he is naughty but still doing it Waking with a normal heart, not empty or heavy Family walking in the sunshine and darkness The endless possibilities ‘That look’, the look that took my breath now given to another The yard, the hands, the ring. The sound of his return [View Full Entry]

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This week, I have been to end and back, very quickly New sounds, new smells, new thoughts, old suppressed tastes surfacing when I don’t want them. bile in my thoughts 5am, the ceaseless rain woke me. My first thought is of him / them / loss / hurt. Instantly, I feel the void - the inevitable gap. It does not stop me breathing. I breath around the void whereas he has a void around his breathing. holding onto myself. not knowing that this time would come in such a way. Repayment not in kind. him, safe in his woven dreams. He [View Full Entry]

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This is the blog I placed on 16 March. I removed it because I felt as if it was 'hanging out my dirty washing' but I am now replacing it because it has a time and place and I will also be able to guage my movement. A separation - 16 March 2009 I had realised, without a shadow of a doubt that the relationship that Chris and I have been sharing during the last couple of months has deteriorated into something that seemed painfully irretrievable but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. But now, I understand everything. I [View Full Entry]

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This walk around Tongli is a walk I would like to give as a gift to my dad who has told me how he has recently taken to getting on the local public buses in his home town of Matlock and tells the driver that he wants to go to 'Anywhere'. This is made possible as the bus ticket has a special straight UK pensioner fee of Free to any stop including 'Anywhere'. Dad then catches the bus towards a certain direction and, after a while, about 10 miles or so, he gets off the bus and walks home again... Something [View Full Entry]

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The Chinese dog Has a smack then a kiss then a smack again We go round in circles - he’s cute then really not He’s always hungry, always wanting, always needing, always jumping And we deliver until I get fed up, bored with it and I yell, “no” and turn my back Only to turn again and see his face, his head tilting, his seat bottom jumping back And his paw lifting to me and I bend down to kiss him and big love him And it all starts again. Over and over. Bobs [View Full Entry]

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On the eve of the New Chinese Year, 2009, year of the Ox, I tentatively approached a man in the old Pingjiang district of Suzhou with a hanzi hand-written request that I had asked my friend to write for me. Every morning for the previous 2 months, I had walked my dog past the little barber’s shop deep in the back lanes of Pingjiang and I’d noticed more and more of the life within the tiny shop. The man inside had become accustomed to me walking by and, after a while, on seeing me pass, every time raised his hand in [View Full Entry]

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Today is the 20 January 2009. For the first time whilst living in China, I truly feel that I have really been included in something - even if almost as a side show. This morning, I heard music coming from the street by our house and followed it to the front gate of the neighbouring pagodas. People were setting up tables in front of the gates and across the streets in the public area. The tables had A4 typed sheets with plates placed alongside. Long red banners were being raised, flags on long canes were planted along the street and a [View Full Entry]

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24 December, 2008. We’ve been in China for nearly 5 months now and sometimes, it is made up of tiny exquisite red paper cuts, or the heavy fragrant scent from yellow plum blossom and at other times it’s made up of walking in pedestrian areas down the lanes, struggling against bikes, motor bikes, mopeds and people and dogs then trying to cross the huge road at the end of the lanes where no one adheres to a red light and you have to take your life in your own hands to get across. There are no rules. One day, you can [View Full Entry]

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Okay, so the British are responsible enough to know that you just don’t go out a buy a dog on a whim. That to have a dog means that you need to dedicate time, energy, commitment, love, care and money to it and for an EXTENDED period of time. And, that if you’re in a foreign country and not knowing exactly what you will be doing in the next 6 months or year, then to buy a dog is a very stupid idea. This being fully understood, we went to the animal market to buy the cat that I had eyed [View Full Entry]

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