http://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/rbg-melbourne/childrens-garden.
This is a wonderful spot: adventurous, organic, spacious.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Sunny white beach glimpsed through tall white gum trees, the shiny white teeth of bride and groom.
The gods smiled on our friends on Saturday - the day before had been howling rain and wind.The day itself was windy, sunny and beautiful - down on the south coast, a 3 hr drive from Sydney.
As weddings go, this was warm, honest, funny. Like the couple is, too. The crowds gathered in partial shade looking over white white sand, rocks spraying the clearest summer sea green spray, shading out to colder deep. Children in pretty clothes, summer dresses flying, a few chairs for the older ones, shaven men in crisp shirts, and bare feet everywhere.
The bride wore a Japanese floral print dress, her hair in an elegant chignon. The groom in a white shirt, sand trousers. There, that was the Woman's Day moment.
It was a gathering of the tribes: alternative activists and health practitioners, Canberra public servants, Sydney corporate types, artists galore.
The wind nearly blew the oyster shells off our plates, smashed glasses and paper lanterns, a few kangaroos looked on nonplussed as we lunched on the lawn of the finest holiday house indeed, and the jokes were predictably bad.
And then to the sea, a bracing afternoon to swim. Now I feel really clean and quiet. The Leathermanman went for a huge surf, and was joined by the groom.
The power went out before sunset, taking the water with it - water pumps. Nobody minded, candles did just as well, and the gas BBQ worked. The champagne got tepid, so we switched to red wine. The full moon rose through a cloud, a tribe had trooped to a headland to watch it come up.
A sparkling conversation about the desire for consciousness, the full 100% of the brain in use, the full holographic omniscience. What about the need for ballast, potential? A truly inspiring conversation between a doctor I know and love and a chandsome and charming former Sanyassen and meditation whizz. Wow!
Oh it's a lovely season here in Australia when that is the focus of a weekend!
And I'm sure the bride will dance on her honeymoon. Thank you friends.
As weddings go, this was warm, honest, funny. Like the couple is, too. The crowds gathered in partial shade looking over white white sand, rocks spraying the clearest summer sea green spray, shading out to colder deep. Children in pretty clothes, summer dresses flying, a few chairs for the older ones, shaven men in crisp shirts, and bare feet everywhere.
The bride wore a Japanese floral print dress, her hair in an elegant chignon. The groom in a white shirt, sand trousers. There, that was the Woman's Day moment.
It was a gathering of the tribes: alternative activists and health practitioners, Canberra public servants, Sydney corporate types, artists galore.
The wind nearly blew the oyster shells off our plates, smashed glasses and paper lanterns, a few kangaroos looked on nonplussed as we lunched on the lawn of the finest holiday house indeed, and the jokes were predictably bad.
And then to the sea, a bracing afternoon to swim. Now I feel really clean and quiet. The Leathermanman went for a huge surf, and was joined by the groom.
The power went out before sunset, taking the water with it - water pumps. Nobody minded, candles did just as well, and the gas BBQ worked. The champagne got tepid, so we switched to red wine. The full moon rose through a cloud, a tribe had trooped to a headland to watch it come up.
A sparkling conversation about the desire for consciousness, the full 100% of the brain in use, the full holographic omniscience. What about the need for ballast, potential? A truly inspiring conversation between a doctor I know and love and a chandsome and charming former Sanyassen and meditation whizz. Wow!
Oh it's a lovely season here in Australia when that is the focus of a weekend!
And I'm sure the bride will dance on her honeymoon. Thank you friends.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Done
It's done: every last assignment, every last presentation, every last exam!
The floodwaters of social life broke over me by lunchtime last Thursday, 1 hour after the last exam, with champagne and prawns and divine dipping sauces (thank you Dr M!) around the fire in our garden til late. And then continued in a heady rush of friends I've barely seen, new neighbours, and family for 6 whole days! Wonderful to have my other life spill back out, with news from far away, people I'd almost lost. And the reality of being able to enjoy it all right now, and not be needing to do something else really, all the time.
By last night, all I could do was sit and watch a DVD by myself at home. The Lives of Others, gentle, insightful, serious film about the Stasi in East Berlin. Wonderful.
The floodwaters of social life broke over me by lunchtime last Thursday, 1 hour after the last exam, with champagne and prawns and divine dipping sauces (thank you Dr M!) around the fire in our garden til late. And then continued in a heady rush of friends I've barely seen, new neighbours, and family for 6 whole days! Wonderful to have my other life spill back out, with news from far away, people I'd almost lost. And the reality of being able to enjoy it all right now, and not be needing to do something else really, all the time.
By last night, all I could do was sit and watch a DVD by myself at home. The Lives of Others, gentle, insightful, serious film about the Stasi in East Berlin. Wonderful.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Sideways Rain
It truly is raining sideways as I sit on campus, researching and writing. Not the most fun kind of writing, but it IS taking me outside of myself, closer to a new professional life, I hope.
Every day I think of something to blog, see something in the world. Do I come here and write? I do not.
Every day I think of something to blog, see something in the world. Do I come here and write? I do not.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Beans in the Garden
I join the blissfully content mothers, who plant stuff in their gardens, nurture it, watch it grow over late-afternoon cups of tea, have their children pick it, cook it - and they eat it!
Today, the Pumpkin picked the first 12 beans from the bush beans, the ones from seedlings, not my own seeds from 2 years ago. My own ones are much slower, but also growing well. They will find their way into a stirfry and be shared around.
THIS is what's good about being home.
Today, the Pumpkin picked the first 12 beans from the bush beans, the ones from seedlings, not my own seeds from 2 years ago. My own ones are much slower, but also growing well. They will find their way into a stirfry and be shared around.
THIS is what's good about being home.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
My baby is five, and still cares for me..
Got that Nina Simone song in your head yet?
The Pumpkin is five, taller, thinner, has a new haircut, and is almost ready to be 5 himself. There was a great outburst not long ago: I want to be 4 forever, tears, inconsolation... It turns out he's sure he can't go to His Christine anymore, and will have to stop sucking his thumb when he's 5. Yes I know.....So I reassure him, often for days... that it's not a line to cross over just like that.
And today on his birthday, I see him and wonder if in fact, it is a line: I'm viewing him differently. A great piece of my work is done: the outside world will have him, with school and all. I know we took him to Cork and all those other places in Europe - and the USA and then Samoa two weeks ago for good measure. But. He most looked to me for what's what in the world. And his dad, the Leathermanman.
We went to the beach early, then home to play with great new toys, and had a fire in the back garden at the end of the day. Last year, he asked for pizza for dinner, and got it in our small apartment, with special friends in the autumn. This year it was dumplings with his godparents, who had cycled over on a warm evening. So we had Asian pork dumplings, stir-fry greens with oyster sauce and BBQ duck around the fire. Oh we're back in Australia all right!
The Pumpkin is five, taller, thinner, has a new haircut, and is almost ready to be 5 himself. There was a great outburst not long ago: I want to be 4 forever, tears, inconsolation... It turns out he's sure he can't go to His Christine anymore, and will have to stop sucking his thumb when he's 5. Yes I know.....So I reassure him, often for days... that it's not a line to cross over just like that.
And today on his birthday, I see him and wonder if in fact, it is a line: I'm viewing him differently. A great piece of my work is done: the outside world will have him, with school and all. I know we took him to Cork and all those other places in Europe - and the USA and then Samoa two weeks ago for good measure. But. He most looked to me for what's what in the world. And his dad, the Leathermanman.
We went to the beach early, then home to play with great new toys, and had a fire in the back garden at the end of the day. Last year, he asked for pizza for dinner, and got it in our small apartment, with special friends in the autumn. This year it was dumplings with his godparents, who had cycled over on a warm evening. So we had Asian pork dumplings, stir-fry greens with oyster sauce and BBQ duck around the fire. Oh we're back in Australia all right!
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