I'm trying...

...at least I think I am. 

Having woken up feeling a bit blue, not blue as in cold, but down-in-the-dumps, I thought I'd promote someone who has amazed me these past couple of years and who writes a blog.  In fact THEY write a blog and it's a good one too ;-)

Let me take you back to a time when I was little and having piano lessons with Ernie, an all-round-good-chap who had many talents: singing, piano playing, laughing his socks off, gardening and, most importantly, an insane patience with 7-year-olds who were prone to tantrums in regards to piano practice and scales.  In the good old days I had piano (and singing and clarinet) lessons with him on Tuesdays, and then Thursdays when I started going to Girl Guides and Church Choir.  After these piano lessons (on Tuesdays and later on Thursdays) my Mum, brother and I would "hang out" with our cousins.  Literally my Mum's cousin and her children.  

We were four children and my-oh-my how I love the things we used to do.  Proper kids stuff...climbing trees, making dens, pretending to be horses and gallop round the garden for what seems like hours.  Anyway the point of the story is to promote one cousin in particular, the eldest of our group of four.  David.

David.  He hated peas in his pies.  

Sounds ridiculous I know but for some reason this memory is prevalent when I think about all those Tuesdays and Thursdays I ate dinner at my cousins.  My Mum would take microwave meals for the three of us and then David, for some reason, always had a pie...I think chicken...and it always had peas in it and he didn't like peas so there would (sometimes) be a little squabble about these peas and he'd pick them out.  We'd all be sitting at their massive dining table with the foam padding under the blue flowered, child-proof tablecloth and sit silently whilst the pea issue would be resolved.  From these events I always figured that David was still a fussy eater...but oh no.    

David is currently travelling in Vietnam with his fiance Sally.  They've lived in Australia for, oh, eight months or so and are making their way back to England in time for Christmas.  It turns out that as much as I've moved on from the seven-year-old who doesn't practice the piano...*hmm...I'll rephrase that, twenty years on and I still don't practice the piano, go ask my tutor*...It turns out that as much as I've moved on from the seven-year-old who didn't eat sandwiches, just crackers, but somehow ended up in Pescara, my cousin too has moved on from the pea pie days...go check out their adventures for yourself.  It'll make you want to follow in their coffee tasting, exploring stuff, travelling footsteps: http://sanddtravels.com/