abigailhartland

[abigailhartland]

Unconditional, uninterrupted joy

We have spent the last month in Agonda Beach in South Goa at Sampoorna Yoga School where I completed a 200hr teacher training course! 🙌After so much travelling around Sri Lanka we were looking forward to having a base for a month, but I was nervous about being in a non-baby related learning environment for the first time since Woody was born and Ged was nervous about being essentially the sole carer for Woody for a month! Here’s how it went...

The journey from Colombo to Goa went well thanks to taking the ergobaby on the plane and being lucky enough to have a spare seat in our row meaning we were all more comfortable and Woody slept 🙌 we then transferred him into the ergobaby and he slept the whole hour and a half journey to Agonda.

At 4pm we had our welcome meeting. Turns out everyone was just as nervous as me which made me feel better. We were put in to two groups of 30 (I was in the Tulip 🌷 group) and told to meet in one of the shalas at 6.30am the following morning for the fire ceremony which would officially start the course.

Our timetable was pretty intense and despite having long breaks for meals there was little time for anything but yoga. Here’s an example of a typical day:

6:30 Asana practice (Ashtanga/Vinyasa)

8:30 Tea and banana/biscuits

9:00 pranayama and meditation

10:00 breakfast

11:00 philosophy/anatomy

13:00 lunch

15:00 alignment and adjustment

16:45 tea and banana/biscuits

17:00 posture clinic/ asana/ workshop

19:00 dinner

Some evenings we had an extra hour of lessons so finished at 19:00 instead of 18:00 and sometimes we had extra philosophy Q&A for an hour after dinner. We also had reading to do, flows to create and practise, the whole Ashtanga primary series to memorise and exams to prepare for so it was all consuming. I didn’t actually leave the yoga village during the first 5 days, but it was never a chore. Our teachers were better than I could have hoped for, they are absolute experts in their field, full of passion, and so kind, supportive, encouraging and entertaining. I have learnt so much about the other Limbs of yoga and come away with a curiosity to learn more and an intent to try to lead a yogi life both on and off the mat when we get home.

The view from our shala - yoga from dawn ‘til dusk

Ged held the fort with Woody like a pro. He was essentially sole carer for a month and made it look easy. Their daily routine involved a morning and afternoon trip to the beach where Ged put Woody through what sounds like a boot camp involving long stretches of crawling, walking holding on to the pram, braving the pretty big waves of the Indian Ocean and climbing rocks. Then back to Sampoorna for breakfast and what became a routine 2hr long nap for an exhausted Woody. (It’ll be laps of Queens Park when we are home to try to continue these long naps!)

Meal times were interesting as most of the food was curried vegetables of some form as everything was vegetarian or vegan. The staff very kindly made non-spicy alternatives for Woody, but they were still curry and therefore very messy for a Baby-Led weaned baby. Most of Woody’s clothes are now turmeric-yellow and Agonda-dust orange in colour! Woody was a bit frustrated by the food, I think, because he couldn’t grab it well enough to eat as quickly or as much as he wanted so he was very shouty/ teary at a lot of mealtimes. Fortunately everyone was really understanding with a few wonderful friends who were really lovely with Woody and helped me and Ged out with him whenever they could! 🙏❤️

For anyone planning extended travel with a baby, I would recommend having at least one longer stay planned somewhere where you can settle in a bit and recover from all the moving around and packing and unpacking of the rest of the trip. Being in Agonda for a month really helped us all recharge our batteries.

Agonda is a tiny beach resort with nothing more than beach huts along the front and a single track road set back from the seafront lined with little market stalls, a few boutiques and several delicious restaurants and cafes as well as lots of beach front restaurants attached to the ‘resorts’. The beach is a 2mile white sandy beach that never feels too busy. It’s protected so you don’t get hassled by vendors either. Weekends were a wonderful mix of free time, beach time, eating deliciously fresh veggie and vegan foods in the local cafes, Ayurvedic massages, surfing, dolphin watching and eating dinner with our toes in the sand. Life in Agonda is so simple and beautiful.

On the second weekend, my dear friend Liv arrived for 10 days. We spent blissful times at the beach at weekends and going for sunset swims after my lessons during the week. Liv did drop in classes at Sampoorna and was able to join us for meals there too when there was no time to leave the village! Woody adores her so she also helped Ged out with him meaning that he could go surfing a few more times.

As I mentioned, I was designated a Tulip. Our group was full of inspiring, committed, warm-hearted, passionate individuals. Every single person gave the course their all, supported everybody else and was a joy to spend every day with. There were people from all over the world ranging from early 20s to mid 50s with many different paths having led us all to the same place. There were a fair amount of injuries during the course, some Delhi belly (in Goa) and emotions riding high and low with a fair few tears being shed on and off the mat, but throughout, everyone was so supportive and caring and fun to be around. We had each other’s backs and made sure that ‘no-one got off the bus’, to quote our anatomy teacher, Olivier.

By the day of our final exams and graduation ceremony, I felt like I was sharing my pride and joy with my own little Sampoorna family. It was such a special end to an incredible life experience; everyone wore white and garlands made of carnations. First we had the closing fire ceremony and then the presentation of certificates before heading to the beach for photos and back to Sampoorna for dinner with live music and an after party at a bar on the beach. Ged and Woody and other family members were invited to the ceremonies and Ged and another Dad got a special mention from the Course Director for all their hard work with the kids. He thanked us for bringing them and said that they had bought a different energy to Sampoorna that everybody had enjoyed. I felt really proud of my little family and so grateful to everyone who made us so welcome.

Tulips and our teachers ❤️🌷

I am taking home from Sampoorna so much more than knowing how to teach yoga poses (although I am so excited to start doing this too). I have learnt about our natural state of emotion, one of unconditional, uninterrupted joy and how yoga can help us to experience this. I have been reminded of how I want to live life and what is important to me and given the tools by which to try to live it, even if it won’t always be easy. I am excited to go home and start sharing what I have learnt with plans for an Ashtanga beginners course which will prepare yogis for led and Mysore-style Ashtanga classes. More information to follow xxx

[abigailhartland]

Time to relax...

This might sound pathetic given that we are on holiday but the first 10 days were pretty packed with sightseeing and that can be tiring even without a baby so we really enjoyed the end of our time in Sri Lanka at a beach resort in the South-West. It also coincided with Ged’s birthday which made for a brilliant day and gave Ged the chance to scratch ‘try surfing’ off his bucket list. This week we also went on a safari, had a traditional lunch at a family home, visited an elephant orphanage, the Dutch colonial fortified town of Galle, the 3rd tallest lighthouse in the world and a waterfall.

We have settled nicely into life on the road now. Woody is still sleeping in our bed, which I’m sure will wreak havoc when we try to get him back in his own room at home, but for now the advantages outway the thought of that! He is particularly happy sleeping like that (as you can see below) and we are getting more unbroken sleep doing this than we have had for months so hoping it continues! He did crawl off the bed one night which was a low-point but he is ok and we make crash pads to line the bed now in case it happens again (but really hoping it won’t if we cocoon him in enough with our legs!). We’ve also found that Woody makes a good phone stand for when we are watching Netflix.

Taking Woody to dinner asleep in the baby carrier only lasted a few nights as he was getting too hot and waking up and it’s also pretty uncomfortable for me or Ged too so we have changed his bedtime to 8.30pm instead of 7pm so he can come to dinner with us and then we put him down after that. It’s not the most leisurely dinner time but it’s the best we have managed so far and it means that he is sleeping in a bit later in the morning which is also better for while we are away.

Our guides in Sri Lanka were wonderful in the sense that they were really friendly and laid back and really lovely with Woody, but we did come to realise that they were pretty sketchy in the facts. When in Kandy I asked what the population was and they told me 20million. In fact the population of the whole country is only 20 million. On safari I asked how many elephants there were in Udawalawa National Park and our main guide said he didn’t know. Then 2 minutes later told me 50. And when we asked what type of whales we might see in Mirissa he said “dolphins”. I initially put this down to the language barrier (because we had numerous “rice paddy fields” and “cow” pointed out to us), but in the end we decided that giving facts just wasn’t their thing!

This week’s activities:

🐘 Elephant safari and Udawalawa. I love being out in the jeep spotting animals. There were loads of peacocks and beautiful birds and we saw a few elephants which I could watch for hours. We were with a lovely couple too so we had a really nice afternoon. I would probably recommend one of the other areas to anyone thinking of visiting though as they tend to have more variety and the elephants weren’t as numerous as I had imagined they would be.

🥙 Traditional lunch at a family home. We had typical Sri Lankan curry and rice made for us and served on banana leaves. They also use banana leaves instead of clingfilm which I thought was great, although possible more tricky to do in the U.K.! Sri Lankan curry and rice is a selection of about 6 different curry dishes, mostly veg, with one fish/meat and a dhal and rice and poppadoms. Ged impaled his gums on a bunch of fish bones and choked on a chilly while the guide tried to take photos of us.

🐘 Visit to Elephant Santuary. The santuary has been really successful in rehabilitating bambino elephants ready to be released back in to the wild and they were CUTE! I loved whatching then stomprun with excitement up to the milk givers.

🏝 Mirissa beach stay. This really exceeded our expectations. We didn’t think the hotel was going to be too great and I wasn’t sure that the beach and sea would be as nice as your would imagine for the Indian Ocean either. However, the hotel was right on the beach, the food was the best we had had, the beach and sea were really clean, the water like being in a bath and the bay had a lovely chilled backpacker-ey and family vibe. We had a lovely couple of days walking on the beach, paddling, eating, swimming and drinking passion fruit juice! 😋

🎂 Ged’s birthday - so easy to make a birthday special in a setting as we were. We went for a walk on the empty beach before breakfast and had breakfast overlooking the beach. Then Ged did a surf lesson with a local guy which was a long held ambition of his. We spent the rest of the day swimming and took Woody in the sea for the first time ever. The hotel made a beautiful chocolate birthday cake too and bought it out at dinner with candles in it. It was such a great day and a birthday to remember.

We really loved Sri Lanka 🇱🇰 and the beauty of its landscapes and people. It’s easy to see why it has been voted the No 1 place to visit by The Lonely Planet and The Sunday Times. We just hope that the boom in tourism that is sure to follow doesn’t dilute the people’s passion for looking after their country and each other.

So our next stop is a month at a yoga village in Goa and we woke up on our last morning in Sri Lanka to find Woody asleep in King Pigeon pose so we think he is on board. 🙏

[abigailhartland]

Ayubowan 🙏

I wouldn’t normally blog about a holiday but quite a few people have asked me to let them know how we are getting on traveling with a baby so be warned, it is pretty baby focused! The first two weeks of our trip are a guided tour around Sri Lanka and this entry is all about week one. 🇱🇰

For context, Woody is 9 months now so is going through the 8/9/10 month sleep regression, has developed separation anxiety (only at night suspiciously), is teething and learning lots of new things like clapping, cruising, dropping(!) and all of these things cause problems for sleep.

Hence, the first few days were a challenge! A combination of jet lag, sleepless nights with Woody (before we left and when we arrived), Ged and I being poorly after eating something that disagreed with us, long journeys in the mini-bus, new surroundings to try to baby-proof and being more anxious about keeping Woody safe than I thought we would be made it quite stressful. On about day 2 Ged asked me “well how do the travelling mum’s you follow on Instagram deal with all these issues?” (If they said anything, i would have overlooked it through blind wanderlust).

So we made some adjustments and now seem to be balancing everything Woody needs and having a really pleasant time discovering Sri Lanka! 🙌

•We co-slept for a few nights so we all slept more and this means Woody naps better in the day so we can plan long drives around those now.

•We also shaved a couple of things off our itinerary so that Woody always has a part of the day to swim or play or just wander around the hotel - this also helps with naps and sleeping.

•had our dinner at 6pm for a couple of nights so we could eat before putting Woody down. Now we are managing to go to dinner later and have him asleep in the baby carrier 🤞

•we relaxed! The Sri Lankans ❤️ babies and everybody wants to pick Woody up and walk around with him/take selfies with him. We found this a bit worrying at first especially in busy restaurants when he was heading out of eyesight. Whilst we still don’t let him out of our sight and I’m still not keen on photos of him being on other people’s phones, we feel totally comfortable with people wanting to hold and cuddle him now and it is actually a great help at times when we can’t carry everything or just need a little break (he’s pretty heavy now)! We have also relaxed about letting him explore. We are moving around every 1/2/3 nights so are constantly in new surroundings and at first just saw all the potential dangers of letting him loose in the hotel room/grounds like stray dogs/monster ants/hard shiny floors. He has to be able to do this though to burn off energy after long journeys and also so he can keep developing so we have got used to letting him explore more!

We have found Sri Lanka to be absolutely beautiful, my favourite area so far is the mountains around Ella (more below). The people are so warm and friendly and calm and caring, about all living things! I haven’t seen a single person get aggy yet and the traffic here is a true test of character! It feels as though crime is non-existent (although I’m sure it isn’t). Overall, it is proving to be a great first long-haul destination with a baby. We feel really safe and have visited some incredible places so far. Ged rolled his eyes and said “you are such a teacher!!” when he read the next part but hopefully some of you will want to know a bit about some of the places we have been to?! 😬 so here it is:

🥳 NYE - they go all out for it here. I imagined our ‘NYE gala dinner and entertainment’ at the hotel to be pretty tame, but it was not that. For us though we (Woody) made it to 10pm but wouldn’t sleep in the pram or keep his ear defenders off so we retreated to our room to settle Woody down and whispered happy new year to each other at midnight. So that was different!

🦁 Lion’s Head in Sirigia - now a UNESCO site it’s the ruins of a palace that was built between 477-496 on top of a 370m high rock. There are 2204 steps up and down but we made it to the top with Woody on Ged’s back

💆‍♀️ Ayurvedic massage - a very rare hour and a half to myself, it was bliss

🦷 Temple of the Tooth in Kandy - the tooth is locked inside 7 different locks to which 7 different people have the keys, one being the president. Our guide carried Woody the whole way around and they were getting lots of attention from other tourists

🌶 Spice garden tour. We learnt about the natural remedies the Sri Lankans use through their Ayurvedic medicine practice. We came away with some natural potions and resolved to use still more turmeric.

🏭 Visited a working tea factory that was established by the British in 1930. I learnt that I can’t drink black tea in England because English breakfast is one of the very strongest blends of tea. Also, tea bags are made from the dust created from processing the fresh tea into rolled fresh tea.

🚂 Took a train from Nanuoya to Ella which climbs up to 1800m above sea-level giving incredible views of the mountainous lush landscapes. Woody’s sticking to only taking unusual train rides with his first one being on the Severn Valley Steam Train, this being his second train ride!

☕️ Visited Lipton’s Seat - the 1800m high point from which Sir Adam Lipton used to watch over his sprawling tea plantation. It is so peaceful up there and there are message boards on the winding road up educating visitors to look after nature. They also have a recycling system!

⛰ Climbed up to Small Adam’s Peak - a beautiful look out point. There were so many beautiful photos to be had with rocks overhanging the valley below but I passed on those having Woody on my back!

🌉 Visited Nine Arches Bridge - built entirely out of stone after the British could no longer send the steel required because of the war. We walked along the tracks and then saw the 11.40 train to Colombo pass over it.

Thank you if you bothered to read to the end! I promise next week’s will be shorter! xxx