JANUARY 1st HOW I’M STARTING 2022: Begin as you intend to continue I say. We are travelling meeting up with friends and indulging in delicious healthy meals. We began 2022 with a gratitude tradition. Last night we read aloud our reflections on the many memorable moments of the last 12 months. Now to begin 2022 with a positive mindset and to continue this ritual of gratitude and appreciation
JANUARY 2nd THIS IS ME: At breakfast this morning in our favourite eatery in Phnom Penh. After the most relaxing and fun filled break we head home to Kep today
JANUARY 3rd BREAKFAST: The last hoorah on our Xmas/New Year domestic trip for me was this fabulous smashed avocado, mango and pickled radish on toasted seed bread with a poached egg breakfast. Some minutes later we were were in a vehicle hurtling towards reality and home and are very glad to be back in Kep right now
JANUARY 4th SOMETHING BLUE: Well I waited all day for clear blue skies and calm blue seas and wasn’t disappointed. When we went for our afternoon swim this was the vista
DECEMBER 5th THIS YEAR I’LL: focus on the positives, spend more time with friends and prioritise fun
JANUARY 6th BEGINS WITH G: Gecko graffiti I spotted on a wall in a demolition site
JANUARY 7th WORD TO LIVE BY: I started a gratitude practice several years ago when I was going through a rough patch and it has been a saving grace. I record at least three things I’m grateful for every day with photos and write up red letter days for a gratitude envelope and read them at the end of every year. Yesterday I added my first day to the jar for 2022
BTW: The Buddha is a shot of mine I had printed to hang on our wall but just haven’t managed to put it up yet
JANUARY 8th GET IN THE PHOTO: I have spent most of the morning preparing new resources to teach shapes as monk classes start again next week. It was actually quite difficult to get in the picture and as I am fond of saying, “this is as good as it gets”
JANUARY 9th PLAY: Today we hiked and had a picnic lunch in the Kep National Park. I just love the play of light on the incredible tree on the walking trail and photograph it every time we visit. This was a big achievement for me as I hiked our favourite path to our pond-picnic spot and back (10.8kms). That’s the greatest distance yet, since my knee surgery 14 months ago
JANUARY 10th MAKES ME SMILE: This pair of twins, who are often on their bikes and playing in our yard with their cousins always make me smile
JANUARY 11th LUNCH: We usually only eat breakfast and dinner but this was the picnic lunch we prepared for our hike with friends in the Kep National Park on Sunday
JANUARY 12th I AM HERE: Monks classes started yesterday and I took this in the break. I am here every Tuesday and Thursday morning for some learning fun and shenanigans
JANUARY 13th HAPPY: Of all the monks we have ever taught Peron would have to be the happiest. We had 7 in class on Tuesday and arrived to most of the boys hanging over the fence awaiting our arrival this morning and a total of 13 with at least 3 new novices and several more still out on the alms walk, this morning. It’s always a happy time at the pagoda
JANUARY 14th REFLECTION: of the patched-up, old, galvanized iron, salt drying shed in the shallow waters of the salt ponds. We drove past this scene in the Tuk Tuk yesterday returning home from the monks’ class
JANUARY 15th HECK YES: Mimosas in the front yard garden with our tribe. First home gathering for 2022
JANUARY 16th SELF CARE: My idea of self-care is doing laps in the pool and that’s exactly where I was this afternoon
JANUARY 17 IN THE SKY: The latest addition to the pagoda is this column with four devotees all standing in an open lotus and giving the impression of floating in the sky when you look up at it
JANUARY 18th SERENITY: Today we walked home from the pagoda and stopped for a brief break and to admire this quiet, secluded, serene spot along the coast where there is a gap in the dense coverage of the mangroves, some shade and a glimpse of the sea view
JANUARY 19th LUCKY NUMBER: Think of a bingo call or if you happen to know it the Chinese idiom for walking! I know you can guess
(yep that would be “legs 11” and “the number 11 bus!”)
JANUARY 20th A PATH: Once again we returned from the pagoda via the salt fields and production is in full swing. The rain didn’t help this morning but the fields were teeming with rakers, spreaders, carters and storers. I can’t help but wonder how many times today she has walked that path to the drying shed
JANUARY 21st HAPPENS EVERY DAY: We eat healthy vegetarian food, which exemplifies an ‘eat a rainbow‘ philosophy and is almost always prepared with love from scratch at home. Tonight’s raw, roasted and pickled salad with feta is chilling in the fridge and I’ll make zucchini fritters to go with it when we return from our swim
JANUARY 22nd I LOVE THIS COLOUR: as anyone who knows me will already be well aware. I also have an obsession with scarves and natural fabrics
JANUARY 23rd PLACE: Blackburn Street; heritage listed circa 1880 row cottage. The first house I ever (jointly) owned. It’s more than a place to me it’s still home. We left Australia almost 11 years ago and this was the last photo I took a week before leaving. I have fond memories of the years we lived here and we haven’t been able to go home for over two years now…….. one day we will see it again
JANUARY 24th A SHAPE: These rectangular, recycled, reusable, postage packs are a great new addition to the range produced by the talented rural women at the IWA workshop here in Kep. We collected these three prototypes from the workshop yesterday and will mail them to Switzerland tomorrow. I hope they arrive in good shape and that the customer is not only satisfied but places a huge order
JANUARY 25th FLOWER: We see water lilies everywhere here in natural and man-made ponds and it’s on my hit list to have a second pot pond with white ones in it in the front yard
JANUARY 27th DINNER: My signature dish and one of my favourite dinners. Not tonight’s dinner but one I always love and have made for more than three decades
JANUARY 28th NATURE: Today we were out in the villages visiting friends and delivering backpacks to kindergarten children at Kep Gardens Association for IWA. In these parts nature looks a like this
JANUARY 29th A BOOK COVER: I mostly read on my iPad these days but love the work of this Bhutanese author and have read almost everything she has written, many several times over. This one is my favourite children’s book
JANUARY 30th MIRROR: “Good morning sleepy head.” Playing around with a little hand mirror before I was really awake
JANUARY 31st I NEED TO DO THIS: Honour the traditions and culture of places we have lived by continuing to remember and make the dishes we learned at that time. Today is the eve of Chinese New Year so we made dumplings from scratch just as members of northern Chinese communities all over the globe would be doing. Tonight, we have a Chinese banquet for dinner
THE PROMPTS
