Moffat Beach Barefoot Bungalow, Sunshine Coast, Queensland

This is it! Moffat Beach Barefoot Bungalow!!! On the stunning Sunshine Coast about one hour north of Brisbane, this will be our barefoot escape from the urban jungle, we can't wait!

Show and Tell

What did we do over Christmas.. well we had a wonderful family Christmas lunch, then we escaped to the coolness and serenity of Seaview Farm Retreat up at Mt Tamborine, sheer bliss, where the only visitors were the friendly kookaburras and alpacas (one alpaca was called Jamie... Jamie Paca of course!) and the view from our private deck was spectacular - the full length of the Gold Coast's distant shimmering lights could even be seen from our spa bath too! Local wine from Witches Falls winery completed the getaway, not to mention all the delish local produce.
But there is just one other thing we did over the Christmas break too.... mmmm, veeeeeery exciting, we bought a beach bungalow at Moffat Beach! Stay tuned....as it will be available for holiday lettings - it's GORGEOUS!

The Most Beautiful Gift

I received the most beautiful gift ever this Christmas - a miniature original painting by artist Banx of my most favourite bookshop in the world... the Shakespeare Book Company in Paris - a wonderful surprise Christmas gift and one that will be treasured forever.. soooo many happy memories and hours spent exploring that bookshop and neighbourhood of Paree!

Christmas Dress

Mmmmmm, what to wear on Christmas Day? This looks wonderful I think.... by Banx of course!

Bright Star

My favourite film director of all time is Jane Campion, and combined with my love of poetry, I was completely blown away by her new film Bright Star about the poet John Keats (played by Ben Whishaw) and his intense relationship with neighbour Fanny Brawne (played by the brilliant and talented Abbie Cornish). As the Guardian newspaper in the UK so aptly states: 'it is a subtle yet measured film'. Campion's strength is her ability to allow femininity and sensitivity permeate the film without sentimentality - not unlike her film The Piano in that respect, in my opinion.

The film is truly about romantic love, on so many different levels entwined in the restrictions of that era when one of our greatest Romantic Poets of all time dies at age 25 thinking he is a failure, unable to marry his One True Love, due to lack of income, ill health and other insurmountable challenges. One of my favourite scenes in the film is the trapped butterflies scene.

Campion has a fantastic website of production notes and photographs (including those I have added to this Blog today) www.brightstarthemovie.com
I especially love Ben Whishaw's notes (pictured above) from the film set.

How beautiful is this poem after which the film is named:

BRIGHT STAR


Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

John Keats

...and apparently Fanny Brawne was known to wander Hampstead Heath for years after Keats' death hours at a time well into the night and she never took off his engagement ring. True unfulfilled romantic love...tragic and beautiful.

Friendship

For some reason Christmastime makes me stop, pause and reflect with gratitude the people who help to make my Life so fortunate, so diverse, so unpredictable, spontaneous, creative and wonderful. I am so lucky to have such inspirational, beautiful and varied friendships. The other night on the tele they showed different species of animals that have formed inexplicably close bonds that even over-ride instinct - the crow and the kitten in the US; the lioness and the baby gazelle, the elephant and the dog - maybe we can all learn from them about overcoming judgements and prejudices?

I was so inspired to read recently that a woman recently decided not to celebrate her birthday in the usual way - instead she spent the day in gratitude and rang or wrote or spoke directly to everyone that she believed had made a difference to, or touched her life in some special way..

I love this poem by Ron Carnell:

Treasures

It's so hard to find the perfect breeze,
One blowing none too hard nor soft,
Carrying a scent of wild flowers,
And moving clouds about aloft.

It's so hard to find the perfect sky,
One blue and deep and bright,
Carrying a sense of openness
With geese and wrens in flight.

It's so hard to find the perfect night,
One warm, quiet and unflawed,
Carrying a mood of solitude,
And a closeness to our God.

Yet no perfection's so hard to find
As that which you extend
And none I'll ever treasure more,
Than to simply be your friend.

Two Loves

I definitely have Two Great Loves... I wonder if that means I have a split personality? I LOVE Paris and all that European culture has to offer but I also LOVE Coolum Beach on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland... could you get more polar opposites? In October we were walking ten hours every day in the City of Lights and last weekend we were swimming in the Pacific Ocean, feeling sand between our toes (and everywhere else!)and wanting to live at the beach forever! Mmmm, now there's a thought.. 6 months France... 6 months Coolum... I will work on that one!