Let's talk about God baby...

"Let's talk about God baby. Let's talk about You and Me. Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things we can be. Let's talk about God. Let's talk about God." Thank you Salt n Pepa (with a little amendment from me).


Emboldened by blaming everything on my friend Cara, and having promised myself that no topic is taboo, I want to talk about God.
Scary! God is a sensitive subject but I subscribe to the view that God is individual to each of us. I began to question why we are here from a very young age - always asking questions!
Now, for many years I struggled even with the word God. I saw the word as a symbol of male domination and a weapon of control, bearing no relation to any concept that I could relate to. And so I turned to Eastern religion, studying Transcendental Meditation and reading books on Zen Buddhism and Taoism. The simplicity and "rightness" of their concepts made sense to me. The idea that we are all connected, that we are here on this earth to evolve spiritually, that we reincarnate all made sense to me.


I spent 5 years studying 12th to 16th Century Italian and Flemish art at university and at no point during my studies did I consider the Christian subject matter as representative of real life events. God as a big hairy scary man with a beard sitting on a cloud shouting at everyone? Everyone told how to behave by more beardy men who subjugate women and persecute minorities? Nah, no thanks. I'm a woman, I'm not a practicing Christian, I like sex! This Christian God just wasn't believable to me.


But there was something out there that I was desperate to find, to understand. As early as age 5 I can remember lying in my bed in the dark and trying to figure out what was going on, why I was here. So how did I get to where I am today with my own personal faith and my own relationship with God?


I'm nosey - I like to know things, we all do. And despite my lack of faith in the Christian God that I was raised under, I still knew that there was something more out there - something more than just the life in front of my nose.  


God aka: The Observer, the source, the field of intention, Love (my favourite), the Almighty, infinite, all pervading - the list goes on. I have finally decided that despite my aversion the the word, God is still the most easily translated. So God is the word I will use for these purposes.


Maybe I'll tell you where I am now and then fill in the gaps: At 45 I am now a true believer in God. I regard my faith in God as immutable - more of a knowing than a belief. I see God in everything and pay more and more attention to his messages, many of which are delivered with a sense of humour which rivals Billy Connolly's!
I use the term God and the male form because that is how it is in this Christian society. It still rankles to have to do so because I hate the connotations, the idea that God is a man. Not only does it offend my feminist sensibilities but more than that - I cannot bear that we have created God in our image as if we are the be all and end all - too arrogant. To do so is to limit Ourselves and our God - proof of which is in every war, every murder, every lie. Excuse my outburst, I feel strongly about this.


For me God is in the spaces. God IS the spaces. I like to understand things, I like to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together so that I can assimilate stuff - make sense of it. God continues to be my most constant study. And the more I discover the more I am changed.


Now those of you who know me well (and some of those who don't!) will know that I have lived my life fully, so to speak. By that I mean I have had my share of experiences - many of them melodramatic, many of them leaving devastation in their wake. But I'm not a born again Christian by any means. In fact if I manage to explain my own personal God to you then there are many who will regard it as blasphemy. That doesn't concern me, none of my business. We all have our own personal Gods even if that god is money or power or doing good. Every one of them serve their purpose - I know. 


Key texts which have helped me on my spiritual journey:
Anything by the Dalai Llama
The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint Exupery
Conversations With God by (well, God) and Neale Donald Walsch
The Tao Of Physics by Fritjof Capra
Manifest Your Destiny by Wayne Dyer
What The Bleep Do We Know - film and book
How To Know God by Deepak Chopra
The Seven Secrets of a Successful Person (or something like that) by Steven Covey
Don't Sweat The Small Stuff, and it's All Small Stuff by the wonderful and now departed Richard Carlsson


Oh I can't think, and looking at my list it reads like an art student's - which I guess it is! But that is who I am. I'm a woman and artistic and a mother and a wife and my faith reflects who I am - as it does for all of us.


The biggest clarification as to what God is came for me through reading "Conversations With God". My sister had given me the book some 18 months before I first picked it up. Knowing my interest in this subject and always being so thoughtful with gifts, she had given it to me for my previous birthday. But having such a strong revulsion to the word and concept of God, I had shoved it on a shelf and ignored it. 


Ah but everything in its time and place. When my mum died after a long battle with breast cancer, and my life had once more sunk to depths of grief and pain beyond that which I'd experienced before, I returned to this book in desperation.


What I found was a text that changed my life. Oh dear, I am sounding a bit evangelical! I really don't mean to. This is my own personal experience and I share it with you because I've learnt a lot. And a bit like Therapy, if I can help another in a similar situation then it seems worthwhile.


So to give you the gist of the text: this book is by God, translated by Neale Donald Walsch (thank you). In it God discusses his reasons for creating us and the world we experience. What kept me reading is that his words described my own life experiences perfectly. I'm not saying it was easy reading, especially with my prejudices.  God had to talk a lot of sense before I was going to take him seriously.


I remember standing in the middle of Islington in London - out on a day trip to search out new business - and reading and re-reading the first pages of this book. I confess it took a while for my brain to absorb it because (as my sister says) I had no files on this.


The gist of the book is this: Neale Donald Walsch sat down one day and ranted to God, writing down all his questions and complaints...and he got a reply. Yes, weird. As he sat with his words on the page he had the urge to pick up his pen and write. And the words that he wrote were the words of God. Freaky huh? Too right! He was freaked by it, I was freaked by it. 


But as I read on I discovered that it all made perfect sense. I mean Perfect. So God tells of how he was sitting up there just "being" in all his glorious and infinite perfection. And he got bored. What's the point of "being" if you can't experience it? So he decided to break himself up into "individuations" (Neale's word) of God - Us. And being individuations of God, we are imbued with the same qualities, the same abilities, the same choices - that is every choice. In making us in His image, we each have the power to create our own lives.


Pretty powerful stuff and like I said, fairly inflammatory. Okay, downright blasphemous. But these are God's words. Yes interpreted through a writer, but undeniable - to me anyway. Because I had proof of what I read, what He said. I had lived my life in a frenzy of experiences and I had concluded that the words I read were true for me.


True because God tells us to question everything. He tells us to be suspicious of religions which would have us subjugate our right to choice. He tells us to listen to ourselves and remember what we know. And He talks of Quantum Physical phenomena like the time - space continuum and the constant momentum of everything.


Once I assimilated the ideas and connected them to my own experiences, the book made me laugh - roar with laughter! Seriously, the Buddha laughs for good reason - he knows how the world works. God is a funny guy. Did you know - Neuro Scientists have proven that we learn best when laughter is involved. It leads to optimum absorption of information. Think about that. really think about it. How cool is that?! We learn through laughter, we learn through having a good time, feeling good. Nice one God.  


That's probably enough for now. I never imagined I would write the above - I never imagined I would feel this way. I always regarded my faith as a private matter and was embarrassed by people who did discuss it in public. But it is part of who I am and I think that the fact that I am a Divorcee, a Step Mother, the daughter of a cancer victim, a bit of a loony (although I prefer the term eccentric), totally in love with my husband and a believer in God is interesting and probably makes me similar to a lot of you out there.  


I'd love to know what your own experiences are, so let me know if you want to discuss.
x






     

Hello everyone!

Hello! I've been buying all week in London - Autumn/Winter 2011. Yummy things ladies. Lots of delicious knitwear and fun & funky fake fur accessories - brilliant!
So I haven't been here to Blog. The one I've just posted is from 2 weeks ago.
I'm working hard on a Therapy Blog and it's nearly ready to launch. I don't want ot be wasting your time so it has to be good!
Speak to you soon.
Laura x 

Blue

Blue

I know what I like and I have a capacity to repeat a pleasureable process ad nauseum (a human neccessity rather than anything unique to me). When I was a child my brothers and  I were forced to take interminible drives in the country (I speak as a 7 year old - now I appreciate greatly the efforts my parents went to to keep us occupied and interested in the world around us).

Anyway, one of my methods of relieving boredom involved singing a certain (usually concocted on the spot and pertaining to a current topic) song repeatedly. Not only was there repetition but it was never ending. No matter how loud the admonishments or real the threat of The Wooden Spoon (“dodge the wooden spoon” - one of our favourites), I was not to be diverted from my mantra. 

“This is a bumpy ro-oad, this is a bumpy road. This is a bumpy ro-oad, this is a bumpy road...” You get the picture.

I have continued my obsession with indulging my pleasures ad nauseum as I’ve travelled into adulthood. I have also continued my singing. Which brings me to “Blue”.

Ah Joni Mitchell. Don’t you just love her? Actually it’s just as likely that you don’t. She’s a bit like Marmite is old Joni, isn’t she? Like another favourite of mine, Barbra Streisand. We had a discussion about this, Chris, Heidi & I, you know - what is it about Joni and Barbra that can irk so? It was suggested that it’s their insistence on being most forcefully who they are. We humans aren’t comfortable with that, are we? Oooh no, being transparent, being “ourselves”...

“you’ve got to be feckin’ jokin’, am wan o’ them stripey things over there” (thanks Billy!)

Right now I’m sitting on a Southern Train to London Victoria and the haunting strains of “River” are playing out their drama in one ear while the besuited man diagonally opposite me gobbles the last of his Ginster. Here are the words:




It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

But it don't snow here
It stays pretty green
I'm going to make a lot of money
Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river I could skate away on
I made my baby cry

He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on

I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
I wish I had a river I could skate away on

Oh, I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river I could skate away on

© 1970; Joni Mitchell  


(Listen to it on YouTube.)

This song reminds me of me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt that way - yearning for an escape and lured by the fairytale. Nowadays it reminds me of my son too. Now in our twenty fourth year together, there have been many heart wrenching moments between us, and the line “I wish I had a river I could skate away on...I made my baby say goodbye” has a poignancy now that was missing all those years ago in my Edinburgh student house when I was first hooked in by “Glass Of You”.

Joni’s not the easiest to sing but I am determined to do something with her songs. Indeed, it’s thanks to old Joni and “Blue” that I’m inspired to attempt to warble in public once more.

I can carry a tune. Poor mum was always being slyly lambasted by my Grandma for her lack of a musical family. Grandma played the piano beautifully and I have a cousin who’s immediate family could put on a semi professional musical recital that would get the Classical X Factor judges talking (yes I am envious Trish!)  

But I can carry a tune, I have a good ear (what, only one?) I am prone to ENT problems and so suffer from Tinnitus, but it doesn’t seem to interfere with my good ear. So I progressed on from tuneless dirges to my parents’ record collection.

Ah “California” is playing - this one I will sing. I love this song, it’s so light and cute and so filled with longing for a place that I have never visited but know I belong. And the song begins in Paris - one of my favourite cities - bliss. Really, it feels like this song is mine, tailor made for me and all my layers.

I sang at school - you know, the usual - choir, school productions, folk club, that sort of thing. Of course Scotland has a fine and ancient tradition of folk music - deep and lyrical and haunting and ethereal, like so much of Scotland.

But I can’t say I ever took it seriously. I sang because I loved to sing, in the same way that I wrote because I loved words and made things because I loved getting stuck in and creating things (anything) with my hands.

As the years have passed I have continued to sing. It is indicative of my mood and forms the soundtrack to my life, in the same way that writing and art have. It is a part of who I am - part of the “wee loud Scottish lassie” that is me.

Now I’m sounding quite grown up and reflective here, amen’t I? Well, I am trying to give an honest account of who I am so I haven’t quite finished yet. 

I literally sing wherever I go. I mean singing loud enough to hear, to myself, unconciously. There I’ve said it, I’m a nutter. What happens is that I get a tune in my head from the radio or the shop hifi or my itunes and that tune stays in my head and I sing it out loud until I hear a new tune and then that one takes over. Kind of like a musical relay race permanently running in my head.

Now I don’t notice it - I’m just singing my song and thinking about what’s on my to do list for the day. But other people do, oh yes. I must hear on average twice a day “Oh someone’s happy”. And invariably I say “Sorry?” because I have no idea what they’re talking about. Living where I do and it being a friendly place, I have now resorted to smiling  and nodding in response- it’s quicker.

Thing is, when I said my singing is indicative of my mood this seems to refer mostly to my global mood. By that I mean that a piece of bad news or an irritating phonecall will not stop me from singing, even severe upset doesn’t deter me if it’s short term. But I’ve suffered from depression - you know, the one with the capital D? The one that, in our current parlance, everyone claims ot suffer from? Now that stopped me singing. That and severe, prolongued trauma - death and illness (not mine...death, that is), that sort of thing. But it takes a lot to stop me singing.

I can also tell you that I have no shame. My son will testify wholeheartedly to this. I will stare at people on buses and the Tube and if they look up I’ll smile. I have also been known to join in other people’s conversations - I can’t help it, I forget that they’re not talking to me! Mind you, embarassment was the best weapon in my armoury as the mother of a teenager and I honed it to perfection.

So picture this - and this picture comes coutresy of my dear friend Heidi who heard, then saw, me passing her gate last summer. She described me thus:

You were singing the way you always do. I could hear you coming down the High Street as I was approaching my gate. I was going to call out to you but you were such a vision of purple shoes, jangling charm bracelets and perpetual motion that I decided just to enjoy the sight.

Yes. Have any of you out there seen Billy Connolly talking about the Irish Limousine driver’s wife? He describes her as this permanently moving creation of noisy jewellery, shiny red lips and short skirt. It cracks me up every time I see it but I laugh partly in shame and in secret remembering what Heidi saw that day.

“I thought you said you were shameless?” I hear you cry! Well I am but only in as much as I can’t control myself and do strange things unconsciously (I’m not helping am I?). If I’m behaving in a conscious manner than I always try to behave appropriately. Oh, alright.

Have you ever seen someone in the street singing to themselves? I have, a young woman once while I was sitting on a bus, and she looked like a certifiable lunatic. Really, she looked as if she was talking to herself - well she would with no sound. So that’s what I look like most of the time. 

See what I mean? 

Tell me that you do the same.
x

Why I Write

I know that many of you who know me in my other guises as shop owner, acquaintance, or customer, may find my ramblings rather odd.
Shall I make you laugh?
I asked Louise our fabulous manager what she thought of my Blog. She answered that she "got it because she knows me", but that her husband wondered what I was on. That's not the funny bit. She then suggested that my customers may be put off buying from Therapy if they thought that the buyer was a complete lunatic! Too funny. Thank you Lou!


Of course, Louise may well be right, I write and my customers walk. I rather suspect though that, after an initial charitable glance, most of them will see there's nothing about our shop and not refer to it again.
Now I blame my public spewing on my dear friend Cara. Yes, if you have any complaints or queries about my writing, then ask Cara - it's all her fault. You see Cara laughs at my stories, Cara tells me to write it down, start a Blog, make her laugh. She's very demanding is my friend Cara. Cara is my equivalent of "bad boys did it and ran away".


At least Cara is my excuse for writing. I love to write, just as I love fashion. Everything is a book to me. I have all sorts in my head - from children's books to erotic novels (ok, rude).


I read a very interesting article in You magazine last summer (another reason I'm here). It was about women of my age (mid forties) suddenly benefitting from a change in hormone levels, being inspired to do something for themselves for the first time in their lives. Apparently as levels of our reproductive hormones Oestrogen and Progesterone drop we move on from our role as bearers and raisers of children. Simultaneously our Testosterone levels increase making us more motivated to concentrate on ourselves and our own personal desires. Hey at last, there is some justice in the world!


As examples of this, the article interviewed a number of women who had put this theory into action. One of them was an author. She talked about the years she'd spent being envious of every writer she saw interviewed and how determined she'd had to be to follow her dream, how her family suffered while she hid herself away and wrote. I was envious, I wanted to be her, to be writing. I felt an ache reading her short interview. I couldn't bear never knowing whether I could do it.


I was that 13 year old, mortified and puce with embarrassment, cringing while my critics discussed the merits of writing about what you know and the correct grammatical use of the word "myriad" (something I have never forgotten). 
The event was a rather charming and earnest writers workshop organised by my school and set in an idyllic thatched village somewhere in the wilds of Scotland. I had been asked to attend and thrilled to be spending time with my older and wiser peers. Eager to appear grown up, I wrote about a 16 year old girl discovering she's pregnant. Ok, so it was a little ambitious for a barely pubescent school girl who's own sexual experiences consisted of one snog with my best friend's brother. (I must admit the whole tongue thing came as a bit of a shock.)


And I was stopped in my tracks, my writing was halted, I halted it myself. I became a margin artist: A shadow artist too afraid to make my voice heard, content to hone my writing skills
on marketing documents and private therapeutic outpourings.


Well enough already! I'm hoping I now have enough "stuff that I know" to have something interesting to say, and enough wisdom and hindsight to do something positive with it. Perhaps you can let me know.


I'm going to be away from my computer until Thursday now so please enjoy a well-earned rest.
Thank you.
x 

"It's Fashion Daahling!"

I love fashion. I love it, everything about it. I love the fabrics and the drama of Haute Couture, I love the satisfaction of seeing a woman transformed by the right clothes, I love the surrounding palava - all the models & marketing & retail that revolve around fashion.


It seems frivolous, it's certainly not brain surgery (thank goodness) but it also has a serious side. After 4 years of studying 12th to 16th Century Italian and Flemish art, I ended up writing my final year dissertation about fashion (I know, what fun!) I looked at the influence of Japanese designers like Rei Kawakubo and Yoji Yamamoto on Western fashions, looking at fashion as an indicator of the current zeitgeist. Sounds like a load of rubbish, doesn't it? Actually it was based on solid references and meant I could pour over back copies of Vogue and call it study. I'm no fool!


My first attempt at creating fashion was interesting. I was 7 and had been given a reconditioned Singer sewing machine for Christmas. As I've mentioned, I was obsessed by making things - anything. I loved my wee hand operated Singer. It was so beautiful and solid and cold to the touch. It was the first time I'd ever owned a proper machine and I was fascinated.


My skirt was created using scraps of fabric that my mum donated. Simple seams and elastic threaded through a gusset to form the waistband, great. I continued to make my own clothes until I started working full time. My tastes were odd, to say the least. I had a penchant for making trousers out of curtain material. Completely hideous! I have photographic evidence somewhere but I'm not going in search of it. My poor son also fell foul of my dressmaking experiments. Linings for his Moses basket were turned into dungarees - when he lay down he disappeared.


Fortunately my procurement of a Management Trainee position at Jenners Ltd, Princes Street, Edinburgh put an end to my creative (and generally unsuccessful) attempts at fashion design.
I realised that after 5 years of study, my eye was more discriminating than my hands and decided to concentrate on buying as a career.
The rest, you may say, is history.
Let me try to describe to you in more detail what it is about fashion that I love so much: I have a bit of an obsession with form & function - I love things that are beautiful and practical in equal measure, and clothes fit that bill. I love that our clothes are an indicator of who we are, how we wish to be regarded by our fellow men. Even someone who purports to have no interest in fashion is still making a statement about who they are by the clothes they choose to wear. Fashion can give real pleasure to people and give us a psychological boost that can change our perception of ourselves. Fashion is therapy, hence the name of our shop. I have had meaningful, life changing conversations over the sale of a pair of jeans and I've made some good friends along the way.


Haute Couture is my passion. Literally meaning high fashion, it is to clothes what Da Vinci is to postcards. Haute couture is a dying area of fashion - too expensive, not enough artisans, not enough patrons - just like fine art. But like fine art, Haute Couture is the stuff of dreams. From such heady creations as those of the late Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent et al come the latest High Street trends. We need the highest level of fashion design in the industry because without it there is nothing to inspire the next generation of young designers or fuel the voracious appetite of the celebrity emulators.


Louise suggested I start a Therapy Blog so I'm working on that. Let me know what you'd like to see. New trends, problems solved? Let me know!
x






    

Brigadoon aka Petworth, West Sussex

I first came upon Petworth on a beautiful autumn afternoon in 2003. It was 5th November - Guy Fawkes night, and the perfect weather for it - bright and sunny with that special light peculiar to English autumns - clarifying, but more than that. If I hadn't known the season from inside my cosy car, I might have thought it a summer's day - exquisite. And made more so by the glowing wine drop colours of the autumn leaves.


Having no sense of direction, I arrived from Guildford along the London Road only to make a left turn at The Stonemasons roundabout and finally arrive in Petworth via the Chichester road! What a nutter.
When I clambered out of my hire car in the free car park I had no idea where I was. I had arrived in Petworth on my way to see a customer of mine in Chichester. At the time I was working for Chris's wholesale fashion agency in Shepherds Bush, London - out on a road trip in search of new business. My customer in Chichester had recommended I try the town for a new account.


Having emerged from the car park via The Old Bakery into Golden Square, I paused to take in my surroundings. A pretty little square dominated by a large white building housing the local bank, a pretty florist sprouting foliage in the afternoon sun, a row of shops, not a soul in sight.
Eventually I stopped an old lady and asked fro directions to the High Street. "It's there dear, right in front of you." 
And so it was, leading off from the square, a discreet, quiet little street - as quiet as the square by the looks of it. And so I made my way slowly in the sunshine, enjoying the luxury of stretching my legs after the unaccustomed driving. 
I walked half way up the street until I ran out of shops. Still no ladies' boutique and, aware of my time, I turned on my heel intending to return to the car. (I wasn't very good at my job - having no heart for cold calling.)
As I turned I caught sight of a little courtyard down a narrow covered passageway (or Close, as we'd call it in Scotland). Timidly I started down the passage (I really am a wimp when it comes ot doing anything I think I shouldn't) only to come out on a delightful light filled space. Simply decorated with plain planters and gently fading shrubs, it appeared as an oasis of peace. I was moved (literally - too much of a scaredycat to hang around). I returned to my hire car with the thought "I want to live here" swirling around in my head.


Now I'll tell you something - I'm a Towny, I am. I've spent most of my adult life living in either Edinburgh or London. Actually I feel a bit of a cheat referring to Edinburgh as a town, somehow it still feels like a village. But that's probably because I grew up there - my backyard so to speak. But I'm still a Towny. I like my corner shop and I like being in the thick of things.


More to the point, the reason I'm a Towny is because the "country" in Scotland is pretty hardcore. I used to drive the Jenners Saab from Edinburgh down to the Borders to buy men's knitwear from the likes of Pringle and Ballantyne - yummy. Well I used to drive these country roads and I tell you there's feck all out there - I mean nothing - one wee croft stuck at a 45' angle to a hill with a few sheep grazing nearby, knowing that by late October it'll be knee deep in snow and your nearest neighbour is ten miles away. No thank you. Scared the living daylights out of me! Nah, I'm a sociable soul, I don't want ot live in the country.


But I did - I walked down Petworth High Street and I fell in love. Love at first sight - sure as I'm sitting here.


So I drove out on the Chichester Road with such thoughts circling my consciousness and my view saturated with all the glorious colours of the autumn Downs. As I drove over the Downs my thoughts turned to my mum who had died only a month before. I'd been grieving pretty dramatically over the previous week and Chris had sent me out on the road in the desperate hope that it might take my mind off things. I've been a huge fan of therapeutic driving ever since.
With tears in my eyes I said to mum "I wish you were here to see this view." To which came the reply: "I am here, I can see it."


Ooh the hairs on the back of my neck are all prickling just writing the words. I swear it was my mum's voice in my head. I talk to myself enough to know the difference. What inclines me to say that is the effect her words had on me. On hearing her voice I felt this immense sense of calm. Now I meditate and I've done a lot of New Agey stuff, I was brought up on it, so I know the sensation when I feel it and this was like an enormous blanket of calm - my mind was calm, I felt no sorrow, no pain. I knew for certain that everything was indeed "all alright" just as Susan Jeffers said. 
I sailed along engulfed in this serene state through Chichester and on to Bournemouth where I couldn't wait ot check into my B&B and phone Chris.


"Hello darling, how's your day been?"
"We're moving. I've found this place, a little market town, you won't know it. It's called Petworth."
"Petworth? I know Petworth! I practically grew up in Petworth."
"Oh, well we're moving there."
"Well, what are we going to do? We can't commute to London. We'll have to think of something else to do, somewhere we can live over the shop."


And that dear readers is how we came to reside in Petworth. 


And I write this as a warning to any unsuspecting soul who decides to stop and take a look instead of just passing on through. You will not escape. Just like the fairytale Brigadoon which so captivated then captured the young Gene Kelly, Petworth will lure you in with its gentle beauty and sly charm. In the seven years we have lived here I have met many like me who came and couldn't leave - bit like a Sussex version of Hotel California. Well, they were British boys weren't they?


Of course I do intend to leave (or we did, not sure it's possible now - but more of that later) and I wanted my Blog to be a testimonial to this magical town. Now I know. Not only am I an outsider but a foreigner too. I admit I was nervous when we first opened Therapy. I thought that my customers might be scary posh English ladies who would boss me around and treat me badly. (I was moving from London!)


Before any of my lovely customers take offence, let me assure you that this was not the case. The number of difficult customers I've had over the years I could probably count on both hands - not bad for a wee Scottish lass plonking herself down in the wilds of West Sussex. So I'd like to start my Ode to Petworth by saying, on behalf of my husband and I; 


Thank you to everyone who has been a part of our lives here. We have the best, most interesting, funniest, friendliest customers possible and it makes our daily working lives such a pleasure.


Chris has a story he's fond of telling his London best friend Geoff. He says: "I live ten yards from my office but it can take me half an hour to get there in the morning". (In the morning? That'll be right.)
"Why does it take you so long?" (Don't you just love best friends?)
"Because I stop to chat to so many people."


Lovely. And true. Petworth is not like every other Market Town in the Home Counties, no. And shall I tell you why? Because it's full of nutters! Really, it is. Wonderful, colourful, friendly, interesting eccentrics - full of them. I don't know if it's the fact that there are still a lot of local Petworthians living here - families who've lived here for generations. I envy them, how secure would you feel if you could trace your roots every day of your life because you're living them? 


Or maybe it's the plethora of antique shops in the town bringing interesting collectors - characters with lives lived out like an Agatha Christie novel or an episode of Minder?


To be a little more prosaic, I do actually think it's appeal has something to do with its layout and the fact that road vehicles have to pass through Petworth if going north or south between the coast and London. I wonder if the town lays dormant in our minds until one day it creeps into our consciousness and we're hooked? 
Sorry, I'm supposed to be being prosaic amen't I?
Also Petworth is laid out in streets leading off from the main Market Square. it's not just a row of shops on either side of a main thoroughfare like Storrington or Midhurst. We're lucky to have the car park with The Old bakery leading off and into the town centre. It naturally leads walkers round the adjoining streets. Yes, I'm very pleased with Petworth. Thank you. x


PS: Remind me to tell you about my mum's other visits - she's a doozy!














     

Can anyone help?

I want ot know how to move 2 Pages docs from my Macbook & convert them to Word for my PC.
Help!
It serves me right to be honest. I was so excited about my new Blog and the chance to spew in public that I took my Macbook on the train to London. There I was, feeling a bit self conscious and a bit pleased with myself for looking like most of my fellow passengers. It was such a luxury to have an hour and a quarter all to myself... rubbish. Pride comes before a fall and now my spewing is stuck in the ether!
x