Happy new year

What an incredible way to begin the New Year than by being here in Vancouver. I just love this city and am delighted to be able to share it with Ewan and Elijah.

Our New Year began early, the joy of a jet lagged baby! It is the first year for quite some time that I haven't stayed up to welcome in the New Year, which meant New Year's Day was brighter than most and not just due to the weather!

We began the day with a cycle ride around a rather freezing Stanley Park, amazing place, mountains in the background and all the trees, birds and sea life to entertain the eye! This was followed by an early lunch - I am slightly addicted to these marvelous gluten free crackers called "Mary's crackers", yum, yum, and all the rather tasty salads from the wonderful Wholefoods. I would just love one of these shops back home, although it would certainly challenge the budget. Still, all a novelty, and indeed holiday treat over here!

After lunch we joined the owners of the apartment where we are staying, Jackie and Mick, for the annual Vancouver New Year's Day Polar Swim. In its 95th year it attracts about 4,000 people every year and this was an especially busy year due to glorious sunshine, albeit an air temperature of 2 degrees!

I have never experienced such crowds and indeed madness! We wore our bathers and dressing twin yo the beach as suggested by Jackie and Mick, which seemed a little crazy to us initially but when we got to the beach we realized this made perfect sense as there is nowhere to lay down clothes and towels as there is just so many people! In fact you just had to head for the general direction of the sea, and that was crazy too, as most people run in and then run out again! I managed 7 strokes, it didn't feel as cold as the predicted 6 degrees. In face we ended up going in twice it was that much fun!

It was a fab experience, Christmas Day Polar Bear swim in the Atlantic back home and then New a Year Day a Polar Bear swim in the Pacific, where next?!

I warmed up with a very busy Warm flow yoga class at the downtown Y Yoga studio, I do love being able to begin the year indulging in my greatest love - practicing yoga with like minded students, bliss!! We ended the say with a glass of bubbles, a perfect end to a lovely day. I felt very blessed.

Since then we have walked and walked and walked, I have been to more yoga classes and felt cleaner do clearer as a result. 2014 was manic for me and I lost my grounding a little towards the end of the year with the manic ness of life on Guernsey and the craziness of the corporate world where I work part time - essentially we set up a company at the end of 2013' just before I gave birth to a Elijah, and it sold for gbp39m in December 2014...that is quite some return in one year, and a whole lot of hard work for all involved.

So it is already so liberating to just be, without the pressure of work and it's materialism to come back to roots somehow,  to remember what it us all about...and being on one's mat, with other like minded souls facilitates that - you start to hear the gentle whispering a of the heart again. So too traveling and being elsewhere new, where the world becomes full of possibilities again and you can feel the energy working its way through - where coincidence and synchronicity seems prevalent again, this I live. A journey within a journey, of course all part of the journey. A journey of the heart. This I love. A Life full of heart I love.

We are now on Vancouver Island with dear friends...blessed indeed.

Happy new year to one and all, I hope it us filled with much love and peAce.

Xxx