Posts Tagged "guest blog"

Therapeutic Running-Guest Post

Posted by cafebebemama on Aug 6, 2010 in Blogger Love, Guest Bloggers, Mummy Tummy Begone | 4 comments

Run Mami! Run!

I met Maria of Mummy’s Busy World at Cybermummy in July. She’s a delightful blogger and mum to Little M. One night on Twitter, she wrangled a few of us into considering running a 5k with her in September. That includes me! I’m still trying to decide but when Maria wrote some of us an email the other day, I knew that she needed a platform here on Cafe Bebe. You see, a lot of us are struggling with our weight and who we used to be before having babies and Maria said it really well. As her delightful blog is from her son’s perspective, I thought it would be nice for Maria to share her inspiration with you here. So get ready to be inspired and maybe you too will join up for the Adidas 5k Run in September. Feel free to show Maria some love in the comments below. She’s certainly inspired me to get my trainers back on…

Therapeutic Running

Thanks to Karin for giving me the chance to guest blog! You may know me as “Mami”. My son Little M over at Mummy’s Busy World is the blogger in the family, but I thought on this occasion I would speak for myself. He gave me the go-ahead so here I am!

Over the past few weeks I have been preparing for the Adidas Women’s 5k Challenge in Hyde Park for Arthritis Research UK.

It’s not my first 5k. I have been running since October 2003. I still remember the first time I ever ran. My boyfriend, now husband stood on the side of the track instructing me to “go slow”. I felt my chest was going to explode and I couldn’t stop wheezing and coughing. I hated it. My thighs rubbed together and I had horrible flash blacks of coming in last in the relay in P.E class.

However, I came back the next night. And the next and the one after that. Essentially that first night changed my life. I am not thin, or super fit, but I feel healthy but more importantly running has played an important part in different stages of my life. It has become my therapy.

I want others to feel the joy of running. I want you to feel the satisfaction of starting something you never thought you would ever achieve and DO IT! I ran a marathon in 2004, exactly one year after I started running. Yes, that’s 26.2 miles. I had never done a day of exercise in my life – and there I was at the finish line tired, sweaty, in pain and HAPPY!

I’ve had weight issues all my life. When I was younger doctors told my parents to put me on diets. My grandparents in Chile would write letters to my mother and send “special recipes” to lose weight. So I know how it is.

After having Little M, I had not only gained 50lbs (high blood pressure didn’t help) but I also got wrapped up in a very very dark cloud and running helped get me out of my depression. It’s not easy. I’m tired. My legs feel heavy. I would rather have a gin and tonic. But even going out for 20 minutes helps clear my head.

I write when I run.

I talk to my self when I run.

I even say a few Hail Mary’s!

My husband and I rarely get a free moment truly alone. It’s always, “you go I stay with Little M” or vice versa. Before having Little M we had running in common.

We would head out for long runs. We would talk, sometimes argue, make plans but he would always encourage me when I felt I couldn’t go any longer. I miss my husband sometimes. He’s there, but its just too damn difficult as you all know.

Running isn’t just about getting fit, it is finding yourself and achieving what you never thought possible.

We bought a running buggy and now we do family runs. Not the same as the old days, but we talk, we still argue, we plan for the future and he still encourages me. Now I have another little coach pushing me along and holding my water bottle!

I truly believe running and exercicse help push along the dark clouds. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my bouts with depression. And it doesn’t just go away after a run, but it certainly helps bring back the sunshine into my life.

So if you are thinking of giving running a go, you should. Absolutely 100%. You do not have to go fast. You do not have to go far. Just one foot in front of the other and let the momentum take you along.

Believe me, if I can run, anyone can run.

Who’s ready to for a 5k?

Maria x

Guest Expat Blogger- Vegemitevix

Posted by cafebebemama on Mar 5, 2010 in Blogger Love, Guest Bloggers | 20 comments

New Zealand Flag

US Flag

The delightful world of blogging has allowed me to get to meet so many brilliant people and Vegemitevix is one of them.  We’re kindred spirits, in fact.  Vegemitevix is a Kiwi (from New Zealand) who came to England much the same as I did.  For the love of an Englishman.  She and her Englishman have a similar love of Paris as well as I found out on her lovely post A Girl Guide in Paris.  You can read more about her life and adventures at http://vegemitevix.com.  I think you’ll love her writing and tales as much as I do.  Vegemitevix has this to say about herself:

Vegemitevix moved from the seaside city of Auckland in New Zealand to a small rural town in Hampshire in August 2008, to follow the love of a Englishman she met on holiday in Paris in 2007. She took along for the ride, her kids (two teens and a tweenie) the family pets, twenty boxes of earthly possessions and guts! Swapping pavlova for pork pies, beautiful beaches for Blighty and sun, sea and surf for snow and sleet, Vegemitevix blogs stories from the expat frontline.

I now bring you Vegemitevix’ guest post for my Friday offering.  It’s all about being an expat…something I know just a bit about.  If you’d like to read my post on Vegemitevix’ blog…head on over there after you read this one.  My post is entitled “Pork Pies and Other Faux Pas”…it’s a corker!

Things I’ve learnt from being an Expat

This is my third experience of living the expat life. I spent my early life living in a gold-mining town of Vatakoula in Fiji, I spent my kids’ early lives in Brisbane, Australia and now I’m here – in Hampshire, UK.

New Zealand’s national bird and icon is the flightless kiwi – a discreet brown little bird who forages for food on the forest floor! Yet Kiwis have a reputation for lots of travel. Who says Kiwi’s can’t fly? Huh!

I’ve learnt so much from being an expat. Some silly things, some trivial, some deep…and…meaningful, some things about the world, the universal way of things and some sometimes alarmingly revealing things, about myself.

Here’s a few of them.

You wouldn’t go into someone’s home and tell them they had a small house, you didn’t like the food and laugh at their accent, would you? It’s never a good idea to complain about your host country and compare it with home. It’s hard to not do this. At first everything is so new and different and interesting, but after a while the exotic light dims and the comparisons begin. My son (aged 14 when he first arrived in England) would often come out with terribly embarrassing comments such as

‘I got really lost on the way back cos all the houses look the same’.

And in answer to questions about whether he’d found a girlfriend at school.

‘No, all the girls are really fat in England. (He wasn’t trying to be rude, it’s not quite such an outdoorsy lifestyle here and he just lacks social graces sometimes..)

Ahem. Moving on…

Your home country’s national dish may be pickled turnips on a bed of fattened frog’s livers, but nothing in your new country will ever hold a candle to it. I will never understand what is so appealing about Cornish pasties. To me they are a heart-attack wrapped up in a stroke! Who would enjoy stewed mince meat and bland potatoes and veg swimming in coloured cardboard gravy, wrapped up in soggy pastry?

My Englishman!

He comes over all nostalgic and moist-eyed when he sees one. I don’t get it! But then he doesn’t get my favourite food, oysters. I particularly love Bluff oysters from the deep south of New Zealand! He doesn’t understand the attraction of what looks to him like the contents of a sailor’s spittoon and tastes like fermented cough mixture!

I’ve discovered that being an expat will do crazy things to your memory. You will all of a sudden magically memorise every single word of your national anthem, (even the Maori words that you used to mumble!) and you will be prone to bursting into song at any minor sporting triumph. You’ll remember the words and actions to the Haka despite the fact that it’s a Maori man’s ceremonial war dance. And you’re a woman! You’ll watch every All Blacks’ game you can (NZ’s national rugby team), despite the fact you loathed rugby and despaired of your rugby idolising nation!

Memories tinged with homesickness become more vivid when you’re an expat.

You’ll remember a hotter sun, a longer summer, a keener surf, and an easier lifestyle, at home. No doubt the grass is greener there too, despite the fact it doesn’t rain as much as here in England.

Nowhere has as much rain as England!

I’ve been here over 18 months now and I’ve been amazed at how few Kiwis live in my neck of the words. I haven’t met one fellow Kiwi – with familiar squashed dipthongs and flattened vowels – in this little town. This sad search for fellow countrymen and women lead me to throwing myself at a man at the Basingstoke Ocktoberfest who was wearing a t-shirt with a Kiwi advertising slogan on it – ‘Yeah right’. (It’s advertising for a beer called Tui) Keen on making friends I bounded up to him like a friendly Labrador, patted him on the back and said about the rapidly diminishing beer supplies at the festival

‘Beer at a beerfest, yeah right’

He gave me that look that silently asked ‘How long until your meds?’

I tried to explain but failed in light of the fact he was English and the t-shirt was a gift. I hurriedly lost myself in the crowd.

It’s possibly a blessing in disguise that there aren’t many Kiwis living nearby, as there’s no way I can loose myself in a clicque of countrymen. I’ve had to assimilate, though I’ve learnt to be careful to remain true to myself and my identity. I have to encourage the kids to not pick up the local accent. I was horrified when my ten year old daughter came home talking…

‘like is, dropping the ‘t’s in words like, y’know like wah-a not water’. I got her to drop it immediately. The fake accent. Not the t’s.

Being an expat makes you an immediate expert about everything that comes from your home country. At times you become something of a walking talking tour guide. Lord of the Rings? I know all the scene locations. America’s Cup – I was there wearing lucky red socks! How to shear a sheep….um….I’m a city girl!

Everyone you meet knows someone who lives in New Zealand, and they want to know if you know that someone too.

‘Where are you from’ asks the key cutting engraver.

‘Auckland, New Zealand’s major city’

‘OOOOOh I know Fred and Martha Anderson they live in Auckland. Do you know them?’

Patient look. Faint pleasant smile.

‘No sorry I don’t think I’ve come across them.’

There’s just under 2 million people in Auckland. I’m a friendly girl, but not that friendly! I don’t know everyone!

I’ve learnt so much from being an expat.

The most important lesson of all I think, is how deeply unsettling homesickness can be. It creeps up on you not on the dull dark days, but when everything is working out well. When the sun’s shining and the new family dynamics are working out. There’s no explanation, and often no warning when homesickness will strike. Learning how to work through it has been one of the major lessons of my life. After all it’s simply learning how to deal with change. Our whole lives we are travelling from place to place (emotionally if not physically) from age to age, from circumstance to new circumstance. Learning how to cope with change has meant that I am painting myself with resilience. I’m adapting and growing.

I’m forever learning and that is a very precious lesson indeed.