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The Bali Experiment

Oh January, you bleak and brutal beast! Since our return from Bali you have frozen us, whipped rain on our faces and made the dog's football so hard that it's like kicking a canon ball across the garden. You've reminded us of log-fires, hygge living-rooms, snuggly socks, warm blankets and what deep winter in England is all about. The last few weeks since coming back (two weeks? three? time feels strange in January) I’ve spent a lot of time inside. Not just physically, but inw

Jan 124 min read

Doors Left Open

Our last week in Bali passes in a blur of tropical Christmas madness! Christmas. Films. Badminton. Family meals. Secret Santa. Laughter. Lovely rituals of being together in a clan in a totally different place. I feel at home here. My feet like this soil. And then, suddenly, it’s time to go south again. Back toward the airport. Back toward departure. Back …. home. We teeter on the edge of leaving and time feels strangely elastic. “I can’t tell if we’ve been here for ages or it

Jan 55 min read

Dark Moon

Our car arrives back in Ubud from Lovina and I am filled with a massive surge of relief. The noise, the scooters, the crazy jammed up streets, the now familiar chaos all feels like a breath of fresh air after the heaviness of the north. Driving slowly up the road to our previous previous apartment feels comforting, like slipping back into a home/neighbourhood that I hadn't realised I'd rooted down in. Glitzy Christmas decorations hang between palm trees and shrines. Restauran

Jan 16 min read

Ghosts In The North

Lovina isn’t really called Lovina. The place name got sticky-taped on in the 1950s when the first tourist resort opened. It means “Love motherland” or “Love Indonesia.” When we arrive there, at the most northern point of Bali, Lovina doesn’t feel full of love. It feels dark, tired and guarded. I climb out of the taxi and look at the hotel: a ramshackle stretch of buildings on a littered strip of beach, half-empty, half-forgotten. It feels like we’ve arrived after the party ha

Dec 31, 20256 min read

Amed Avatar

We leave Ubud under a sky as purple as a bruised pear. News articles are talking about cyclones in Indonesia, major flooding, roads washed away. There’s a familiar tone to them, anxiety driven, urgent, dramatic … basically designed to make you imagine danger from a safe distance and appreciate the safety of “staying small” and “staying safe”. And like many things, when you’re actually in it, it doesn’t feel so frightening, but more like an “experience” you’re moving through.

Dec 29, 20254 min read

The Laundry Lady

A day or so before John and I are due to leave Ubud and travel east, we’re sitting in a small coffee house we’ve visited most mornings since arriving. The air smells faintly of clove cigarettes, humidity, and earth. Across the road, the woman from the laundry steps outside. She’s holding a tray of canang ... flowers, rice, fruit ... and a stick of dupa already lit. I’ve seen her do this every day, sometimes twice a day, and as we sit there watching her move from the step a

Dec 24, 20254 min read

Pain, Paper Pants & the Profound

Roadside, near Monkey Forest, Ubud. A bend where bikes lean low, horns beep, engines rev, overtakes blur, knuckles grip handlebars, warmth fans across skin with each uphill acceleration and dust swirls in the hot, fume-laced air. We wait for Sudiana. He appears, gliding out from behind a pickup, curving smoothly into the bike area of the studio. He removes his helmet: chiseled Balinese features, wide alert eyes, a warm smile. He beckons us over. We go. “Hi, long time no see,”

Dec 20, 20255 min read

The Mysterious Creature

Catapulted into global consciousness by Eat, Pray, Love and populated by seekers, healers and floating yogis clutching green juice, I arrive in Ubud fully aware of the cliché, trying not to be too icky about it. I haven’t come to Bali to find myself or to have a spiritual experience. My belief has always been that Life itself is the ultimate Mysterious Creature: a sentient force that presents us with experiences and obstacle courses, highs and lows that refine and transmute

Dec 14, 20254 min read

The “Thing” With Bali

When I came to Bali, I wasn’t sure what to expect as I’d been told many things. The general consensus was that the island, once beautiful, is now crawling with tourists, Australian “bogans”, pretentious yoga couples floating down the streets and women in their fifties attempting to hopscotch in the footsteps of Elizabeth Gilbert. Despite all this, I wanted to come here with an open mind. Bali had called me and I was determined to find out what it had to say. To me. Personally

Dec 10, 20254 min read

Bali Eve

Tomorrow, I fly to Bali. Writing that feels surreal and more than a little bit poignant. You see, two years ago, my life took a shape that looks nothing like the one I inhabit now. After a prolonged period of feeling that I just didn’t “fit" in my world anymore and laying awake night-after-night knowing that I needed to steer my canoe in a different direction, I eventually did the unthinkable ... and jumped ship. This jump wasn’t done in the neat, well-planned, “I’ve-got-a-sa

Nov 30, 20252 min read

Where's Your Edge?

When was the last time you did something that would require: a) An eyebrow-lifting time commitment (as in, over 100 days)? b) Gut twisting accountability to keep you on track? c) A serious self arse-kicking d) Massive “inner-toddler” tantrum taming e) Dragging yourself over the line of what you want to do, should have to do, can do? Some people commit to run marathons to get a taste of this delightful formula. Some people train and trek to Base Ca

Nov 28, 20254 min read