A Little Ray of Sunshine

my friend

Today
A lovely friend
From Sydney
Arrived to live in London
For two years
And we had hot chocolate
And giggled at the stage door
And her excitement at being in London
Reminded me how I felt
Over a year ago
When I first arrived
And she reminded me
That it is okay to be excited
Wonderful even

And the snow never stopped all day
And everything was blanketed in powdery white
And just to watch the snowflakes coming down!
And see the world transformed
Was utterly, deliciously, magical

The end.

Sing Out, Louise!

I’m so proud of my kids tonight

For the past three weeks:

“Project! Articulate! Every word is important!” 

Daily drills. 

Feel your feet. Activate the breathe. Let go. 

I’ve felt a bit like Mama Rose

“Sing out, Louise!”

Hoping I’m not nearly as crazy as she was.

But I get why she does it.

You can see the potential.

Hear the voice that’s dying to come out

And it’s just hidden by inhibition

Or from lack of ever trying.

And you sit in on the rehearsals. 

And you work through the score.

And you stay up late

And you wake up early

And you hope that all the hard work will be worth it

And you get to show night

And suddenly there’s that extra element 

That is simply not available in rehearsal,

The audience.

And your children lift their game,

And you sit watching their show

(It’s theirs now, they own it.) 

And you feel like you’re in one of those TV shows

And you’re watching the show like a montage

Except you know every word

Every bit of blocking

And the director is sitting to your left

And every now and then you look to each other and laugh

Or worry about a delayed cue

Or a missed line

And you hear the audience go wild at the end

Cheering your kids

And you feel an immense sense of pride

In your work. 

And you thank each and every actor

For all the lessons they have taught you. 

The end. 

Into the Woods

Into the woods
To find the snow fairies,
To see the kids having snow fights,
To see the snowmen who have popped up in the night.

There is a mum and and her little girl building a new snowman
Mum has the bucket and spade,
They're normally reserved for holidays at the seaside,
But the snow is calling.
The little girl sits next to the growing mound of snow,
Dressed in a pink jumpsuit,
She looks at all the white around her,
And shakes her little head,
Where did it all come from??? 


There are kids and grown-up kids
With plastic toboggans,
And people throwing snowballs at each other.
People are smiling
As they pass each other by,
Hello! Isn't this great? Isn't this lovely?

And then you walk into the Little Wood.
And it is oh so quiet,
The stillness of it all,
The picture postcard perfection of it all,
Makes your heart melt
And you hope the snow around you doesn't.

Journey to the Past

image by rosel-D

Dear Uncle Mordechai. Could you ever have imagined, two-hundred and twenty odd years ago, as you sat in the pub in London that your great-great-great (etc) niece would one day be here in this city of yours?! Because here I am. I’m in London! There’s no place like London! Demon barbers aside... The double-decker red buses, the Tube, the masses of people from every walk-of-life, colour, creed, background, and birth status. That building is from 1200 A.D and that one was built on Roman foundations. And yet, here I am, this child from Australia whose ancestor sailed from here over two centuries ago! And in the intervening time his son sailed from London too, and he had children and they had children and they had children and so on and so forth and in between there were whole World Wars and  the Depression and stolen children and whole countries were formed (including Australia which was signed into being in London!) and other immigrants arrived (including my mother) and suddenly history has fast forwarded, has appeared at this moment and here I am this Australian child born of Spanish, Filipino, Dutch, and Polish ancestors standing in London! And like a game from the Age of Empires, my map slowly unfolds around me as I explore this unknown yet strangely familiar territory. All the names from the Monopoly Board, all those markers from collective consciousness suddenly here in my real perceived existence. It is strange. It is lovely. It is just here. And here I am ready to start drama school, ready to begin this Next Chapter. And I think of everything that has brought me to this moment. Two hundred and twenty odd years of history. Twenty-seven years of my own history and memories and recollections of the life that has brought me to be living in London. And then I smile and let it all go because it doesn’t matter. Because here I am. And here we go. 

It's a Jolly Holiday with Mary

So it seems Mary Poppins is taking over my world.
I'm seeing her everywhere.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered her in my local park.

Last week I saw her at the Capitol Theatre.

That night I even got to shake Mr Banks’ hand (well really it was Philip Quast, who is even cooler, and it is lovely to meet people from your childhood, people who unknowingly sang and danced into your loungeroom and heart and soul every afternoon on Playschool). 

And then Mary’s image appeared on banners all over the city.

And then this week I heard an interview on Margaret Throsby with Valerie Lawson who is P.L. Travers’ biographer. 

And then tonight walking down George St (how apt!) I discovered that Town Hall has become Number 17, Cherry Tree Lane! 

Hallo, hallo, hallo! What have we here then?!

Chimney sweeps and umbrellas lit with fairy lights tumbling out of Town Hall! 

And the night was crisp

And the air was fresh

And it made me smile

Because anything can happen if you let it

Town Hall is transformed for the official Opening Night of "Mary Poppins", Sydney

The three (seriously happy) sisters and Philip Quast

Part of It All

There is a song in the musical [title of show] called "Part of It All", in which the two leads Hunter and Jeff sing about wanting to be a part of the buzz, excitement, inevitable post-show blues, and life that is show business. And it is lovely when you are in the midst of it, and feeling exactly part of it. When you spend your days singing and dancing and fluting and running to the theatre and from rehearsal to rehearsal and you go to sleep dreaming about inversions and chord progressions and you spend your nights covered in white paint and hair gel and glitter and the thrill buzz excitement of being in front of an audience. And you wake up ready to start all over again. And if that is being part of it all, I love it with every inch of my being. 

New Year's Eve

It’s days like these that will make you happy. Spending time with friends. Popping in to see Matt and Clairie-O, meeting lovely people and playing board games. Catching the train across the Bridge and seeing the myriad of people lining the foreshore. Sydney is made for big events on the harbour. A bright blue sky day. Warm. People of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life are out on the street. The air is alive. I meet Len at Dawe’s Point. All the “VIP’s” feeling extra special because they have invites. Wrist-tagged and bag searched and inside to where the mood is festive, the music pumping. The view is spectacular. I don‘t recall seeing the fireworks from this side of the bridge before. The Opera House to my right. The sound of the giant bangs. Explosions of sparkle in the sky. 

We walk around to Circular Quay. The kind concierge at the Marriott finds me a safety pin for my holey jumper. Walk up Pitt St and up to the State Library. On the steps of the palace I meet Heath and Lyn and Ben. We walk down to join the queue for the Cahill Expressway. It is orderly and calm and moves quickly. Onto the Expressway and down to the western end. The view is utterly spectacular. The Bridge, the Opera House, the Quay beneath us. People are patiently waiting for midnight. We eat ice cream. Girls in colourful costumes walk past to entertain the crowd. 

On the hour, the half hour, and quarter of the hour before midnight single fireworks explode over the city and over the Opera House. People cheer. And suddenly it is ten seconds to midnight. And the pylons light up with giant numbers, helping the crowds around the foreshore count down. And then it is 2011! And the fireworks erupt. A lone bird flies confused over the bridge through the smoke and glitter. The bridge becomes so covered in smoke you can’t see it any more, and even some of the fireworks are obscured. A giant hand appears on the Bridge. 2011, Make Your Mark. With your hands go out into the world and create. High five the people you meet. Offer your hand in love, in gratitude, in peace. Wave goodbye Sydney. 2011, I’m off to make my mark on the world!

Yum and Fun

My goodness what a weekend! There have been so many moments of inspiring, beautiful, and lovely in the past three days that I barely know where to begin. I performed in my first dance concert since I was 14, I visited the North Sydney Markets and Eveleigh Farmer’s Markets and wished all my wonderful vendors a Merry Christmas, thanking them all profusely for the past year of amazing locally and organically grown delights, I cooked up a storm with my housie/bestie Len, I met a ton of performers, musicians, and techies, I partied, I watched the 8th Annual Cabaret Showcase, and I marveled at the way the weather can change from bright hot sunshine to cold and rain and even snow in Australia in December (?!?!?!?!?), all in the space of 48 hours. Crazy!!

And now to the yum factor. Following the cancellation of other exciting Saturday night adventures Len and I decided to put a rare weekend night at home by baking up a storm. Len put his recently acquired Italian culinary skills to the test and whipped up the most incredible roast pumpkin ravioli in a thyme butter sauce. Dear future girlfriends of Len, this man is a seriously amazing cook. No seriously. Freaking amazing. The promise of the addition of roast garlic to reprises of this dish is something I’m very much looking forward to. Dear Len. Please stop reading the blog and get baking. Many thanks... :) I had some left over plums and cherries which weren’t going to last much longer, so making a variation on a Cyndi O’Meara recipe for a lemon tart, I whipped together a cherry pie. It was ridiculously easy, and oh so very, very tasty. And I realised afterwards, with considerable joy, that I knew where every single ingredient came from, and just about all the farmers who had worked to bring me these goodies. The eggs and plums came from Champion's Mountain Organics, the honey from Malfroy's Gold, the cold pressed macadamia oil from Hand n' Hoe Organics, the flour from Demeter Farm Mill, and the cherries from Yuri’s Sustainable Produce in Orange. 

Beautiful food, beautiful music, performing, and spending time with amazing people. Life really doesn’t get any better than this! 

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I just returned from a most delightful evening at the theatre. And by theatre I mean the outdoor amphitheatre at Centennial Park. The production was A Midsummer Night’s Dream staged by Wild Rumpus Productions. The audience sat beneath the trees with picnic rugs and hampers full of food. We had Mersey Valley cheddar and Jalsberg and dips and berries and fresh bread and wine and juice and olives and eggplant and semi-dried tomatoes and fresh tomatoes. Is it obvious that we feasted? And as the sun set to the west, the players gathered around us to tell the story of lusting lovers and impish elves and fairies. No set, no props, beautiful simple costumes, simple lighting, and some wonderful good old-fashioned story telling. This was Shakespeare at it’s best. Wild Rumpus Productions claims in the program notes to create performances “that are bold, irreverant and of the highest professional standard,” and that they did. Young and old, from the four-year-old pink fairy sitting behind us, to the oldest grown-ups were all kept entertained with spirited and playful performances that bought the Shakespeare text to life. Can life get any better than this? Sydney on a beautiful clear night, summer fruits coming into season, wonderful friends, fabulous food, and a night out at theatre. My Oberon! What visions have I seen! And thankfully, not a dream, but the stuff that dreams are made of. Wonderful.  

Wild Rumpus' production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is running until 28 Nov, every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 7.30pm. Highly, highly recommended! Tickets can be booked here. 

Podcasting

Last year I started listening to a FABULOUS podcast called MusicalTalk. Every week a group of Brits get together and talk about musicals. Their focus is mainly on London and the UK theatre scene, with occasional dips across the pond to talk about what’s happening on Broadway. They talk with actors, directors, writers, stage managers, audience members, all the plethora of folks involved in making musicals, and have a whole list of very well known industry folk on their interview credits including Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken, Anthony Rapp, Johnny Depp, and Stephanie J Block to name but just a few.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was listening to MusicalTalk and I thought, I like talking about musicals! Why don’t I do my own podcast? And talk about Australian musicals? And in a rush of excitement I told the girls at dance about it. And they got very excited. And then, last Thursday after Chris had whipped us into shape in Broadway Jazz, Flick and I sat down and attempted our very own podcast. The results are here for your listening pleasure. In this inaugural episode we talk about our first experiences of musical theatre. It was ridiculously fun to sit and talk musicals. It was ridiculously fun to sit and edit the thing (thank you Apple and your wonderful GarageBand invention!). In short I had a total blast. Do what you love. And you will be happy. The end. 

PS. We need a name for the podcast. Suggestions welcome!

The Best Things

In the past 7 days I have had several beautiful, inspiring, and exciting experiences...

On Monday I went down to Canberra (the above image is actually a photo of the air con and personal light on the bus!) to visit my good friend Susie La Q and her boyfriend Ryan, and after a delicious lunch in the CBD, we headed off to the Australian War Memorial. Even though I have been to the memorial countless times, each visit is an emotional, confronting, and inspiring. It is a beautifully designed space, and the exhibits never fail to move me. It seems that the more I learn about conflict around the world, the less I understand it. At closing time, the crowds are ushered towards the exit, and we were privileged to witness the “closing ceremony”, a simple service at the Pool of Reflection. A different soldier is remembered each day, his story read out to the crowd, and at the conclusion, a moment of silence followed by a lone musician playing The Lament on the bagpipes. Looking around the crowd, a multicultural mix of tourists from all around the world, I couldn’t help but wonder, what is the point of all this conflict? I am standing with people whose nations at one time or another Australia has most likely been at war with. And for what? Has it made the world a better place? Or does it just make people more mistrusting of each other? 

On Tuesday Susie and I visited Floriade. If you ignored the carnival rides and Easter Show-like stalls, you could almost believe you were stepping into an Impressionist painting. The rainbow of colours of poppies and irises and English daisies and chrysanthemums, the light green of the weeping willows dotting the perimeter of the lake was breath-taking (I love how in the photo below, the image has pixelated and it looks like a painting). The gnome knoll was a surprise highlight, with a myriad of brightly and imaginatively painted gnomes grinning up at intrigued passers-by. Thank you to Susie La Q and Ryan (and Sulley!) for a lovely couple of days! 

On Thursday I took Phoebe and her friend Sara (aged 7 and 8 respectively) to the Rock’s Discovery Museum for a school holiday program called HMS Discovery. Each “sailor” was given a passport, and the embarkation point, Plymouth, was stamped onto the yellow page. The year is 1792. Captain Natalie (not quite historically correct having a female captain, but we’re willing to be a little more open minded these days) reads her crew of 10 sailors, ranging in age from about 5 to 11, a letter from Captain Arthur Phillip to King George, requesting supplies for the colony of NSW. A projected image on the wall behind the ship tells us we are at the Plymouth dock. Over the (anachronistic) loudspeaker we hear sounds of a busy wharf - sailors stomping up an down the gangplank, cows and pigs mooing and oinking, the horns of the ships.

The crew were briefed on how to run a ship by playing Captain’s Coming, and were quickly inducted into the technicalities of port, starboard, bow, and stern, climbing the rigging, sewing the sail, and scrubbing the deck. The crew assembled in the Plymouth Storehouse, and were ordered to load the ship. Sacks of tools, timber, flour, and sugar, heavy chests with currency, a large sack of mail and cages of animals were quickly despatched onto the ship by the willing crew. Once all were aboard, the gangplank was removed, the ropes were thrown in, and the sail let down. 

The ship was off! The image on the wall changed to  a painting of a ship at sea, and the sounds of the ocean could be heard all around. The eagle eyed crew quickly spotted that the ship was overrun with rats, and spent time running around the ship throwing fat black squeaky rats overboard. Each sailor took turns in the important tasks of furling and unfurling the sail, throwing the ropes, and steering the ship. As evidenced by the sound effects, and a new image on the screen, the ship sailed into a storm, and the crew tied themselves to the railings to avoid being flung overboard by the rollicking sea - thankfully everyone knew how to tie a reef knot! They charted their way down around South America and found themselves in Rio de Janeiro. The crew avoided scurvy by eating lemons, limes, and bananas, and dancing to the music of Rio de Janeiro. But the stop was only a short one, as there was still a long voyage ahead. 

Finally, after 8 long months at sea, the crew could hear seagulls, which meant land was at last nearby! The distinct sounds of the NSW bush could at last be heard - cackling kookaburras and lilting lyre birds. The image on the wall transformed into Sydney Cove, and the crew rejoiced at having made the long voyage successfully. The cargo was unloaded into the Sydney storehouse, and all sailors were given a new Sydney Cove stamp in their passports. A most wonderful way to spend an hour in the school holidays... now I need to find a version for adults! 

The War Memorial visit re-inspired me to keep learning about conflicts around the world, and after a delightful couple of hours in the City of Sydney Library on Tuesday afternoon, I have a new stack of books on Afghanistan to keep me busy for a while. Yesterday I finished reading Three Cups of Tea, a powerful book about the importance of providing education in Central Asia. Once again, the more I learn, the more I want to know, and the less I seem to understand... the contradictory joy of learning!

So a very busy and wonderful week, with much to inspire me! And the best part, all of these activities were free! WIN! 

Beyond Zero Emissions

I used to be incredibly frustrated by what I didn’t know. I remember being in kindergarten and being annoyed at the way grown-ups kept using words I did not know the meaning of. As a six year-old trying to fit into and navigate the world around me, I was convinced that somewhere in the city were old men in suits whose job it was to invent new words and disseminate them amongst the adult population on a daily basis in order that there would always be words I would never know. 

As a grown-up, there are still many things I do not know. A big topic at the moment is global warming and climate change. As an average person with no scientific training and a slight aversion to numbers, I don’t “get” the science behind the debate. But as an average person, I can comprehend this. The stuff we use to fuel our society, namely fossil fuels, is finite. Humans live in a way that is detrimental to our health and the planet’s.

Last week I attended a talk at Town Hall on a new report called Beyond Zero Emissions: Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan. Thirty scientists, engineers, and academics got together and asked how can Australia move toward a more sustainable renewable energy existence. And they came up with a 200-page document thats shows how Australia can move to 100% renewable energy by 2020. And you know what got me excited? The men in suits say its possible. It’s not just bearded patchouli hippies. It’s Malcolm Turnbull and Bob Carr and former Australian Chief Scientist Robin Batterham and British engineer Allan Jones. 

We have to believe that change is entirely possible. It’s happening in Spain and Germany and the United States. Commercial scale renewable energy. It was something I didn’t really understand when I was walking the Camino across northern Spain a couple of years ago. I saw wind turbines and solar panels on a scale I had never encountered and I started asking myself questions about energy and how it all works. 

I still do not entirely understand the world. But tell my six year-old self that she would one day go to university and spend four years learning words she never knew and even after majoring in English there would still be an untold world of words beyond her cognition, and that’s not frustrating but entirely exciting. And tell the girl who read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and walked across Spain and saw wind turbines and solar panels that in just over 6 months she would be working for a sustainability shop and going to the Farmer’s Markets every week and eating beautiful organic food and learning that there is so much possibility. 

The world may be on the brink of collapse, but I choose not to be frustrated by what the men in suits beyond my understanding make up and implement across the globe. I choose to believe it is possible for men, and women, to put their brains together and come up with ways to make the world a better place to live in. As Annie Leonard says in the wonderfully eloquent Story of Stuff, with all the clever people on the planet, surely we can come up with a way to live that is not detrimental to our health and very existence. 

I live in a world where anything is possible. I can choose to understand. I can choose to make a difference. As Allan Jones said at the talk on Thursday night, “the barriers to 100% renewable energy are not technological or economic, but regulatory mindset and vested inteterest.” I may have felt powerless and small against the men in suits as six year-old. And I could continue to feel small and powerless against the people in suits today. But I chose to be inspired. I choose to be excited. I choose to believe the world I live in and the way in which I live on it can be beautiful, rich, creative, and sustainable. 

My Favourite Things

When you find yourself in times of trouble, Mother Superior tells you to turn around and face those troubles, climb every mountain, and ford every stream until you find your dream. When you’re feeling down and out, nothing lifts your spirits more than sitting in one of Sydney’s most beautiful theatres surrounded by twelve hundred obsessed fans of “The Sound of Music”. And as luck would have it, this is exactly where I found myself earlier this week, sitting in the third row of the mezz in the State Theatre for the annual “Sing-a-long Sound of Music”. Part of the world famous Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the Sing-a-long Sound of Music is an event for die-hard “Sound of Music” fans. It is an event that makes me feel that I am not alone in this world. There are countless others, of all ages and backgrounds, who like me, have watched “The Sound of Music” so many times that every word, lyric, tune, inflection, and dramatic pause has been committed to memory and stored in the heart, ready to burst open on a night such as this. 

The night commences with a fashion parade. The small children go up first, dressed in party dresses or traditional Austrian costumes, they are the Von Trapp children (or as one poor child proudly announced, the Van Trapp children... The fabulous female host laughed and said she must have lived next door to the Von Trapp’s). The children are followed by a motley conglomerate of nun’s. Traditional nuns in black and white habits with large crosses around their necks, naughty nun’s with red stockings beneath their habits, nuns with short skirts and a business man who has miraculously transformed his suit jacket into a rather convincing habit. The third group are people are dressed in traditional leiderhosen, girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, brown paper bags tied up with string, Maria’s, baronesses, Captain’s, an older gentleman fresh off the Mardi Gras float last Saturday in the most stunning cupcake wedding dress, and even a giant raindrop clutching a bunch of roses. 

The screening begins. The host talks us through the gorgeous opening shots of Austria. The field appears, and Maria is a tiny speck in the distance. The audience, with great excitement, shouts, “She’s coming! She’s coming!” Maria spins into view and the audience goes wild. The lyrics appear at the bottom of the screen (not that this audience needs help with lyrics), and along with Julie Andrews, we sing to the rafters, “The hills are alive!” We each have a showbag, containing 5 “magic moment” items. For magic moment number one we have two picture cards with an image on each side of the card - a question mark, a picture of Maria, the word “flibbertigibbet”, and a will of a wisp which looks like a  “manic sperm.” When the nun’s sing “How do you solve a problem like Maria”, we flash the appropriate cards towards the screen. Magic moment number two is represented by a square piece of floral fabric. After “My Favourite Things,” (throughout which every time the line “girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes” is repeated, the people dressed as such jump up and cheer), Maria and the Captain have an argument regarding new material for play clothes for the children. The Captain leaves and Maria angrily flops into an armchair by the window. We, the audience, shout “BEHIND YOU!” and wave our curtain strips  to encourage Maria to realise the curtains behind her will make PERFECT play clothes for 7 children, and when she does, oh the ripples of joy throughout the crowd! 


Magic moment number three is an invitation to the Captain’s Ball. When Gretel skips out of the parlour room, following the decision to have a party in honour of the Baroness, announcing “it will be my first party Father!”, we madly flap our invitations shouting “To the ball! To the ball!” Magic moment number four is a party popper. Maria and the Captain are in the gazebo. The Captain has told Maria there isn’t going to be a baroness, you can’t marry someone when you’re in love with someone else. The light is shadowy and blurry in the way that only classic love stories on the silver screen can be, the Captain and Maria lean ever closer and closer toward each other, and then, just when you can’t handle the suspense any longer, they kiss! And several hundred people pop their party poppers toward the screen. Fabulous. The final magic moment is when the Von Trapps sing Edelweiss at the Salzburg Music Festival, and with little plastic edelweiss flowers, we all wave the Von Trapps farewell. 

There is honestly no time in my living memory when I haven’t seen “The Sound of Music”.  I have watched it a thousand million times, and still every time I see it, it raises my heart, and lifts my soul. And on this magical night, with twelve hundred of my closest friends, I cheered for Maria, hissed the Baroness, booed the Nazis, fell in love with the Captain, and sighed for Gretel. I sang every note from Do to Ti, sobbed my eyes out during “Climb Every Mountain”, and swooned at the glorious rich sumptuousness of one of the most definitive all singing, all dancing, all technicolour musicals ever made.  And watching it on the big screen, surrounded by people who love it as much as I do, is truly one of my favourite things.

El Autobus

Image from www.sydneybusmuseum.com/ shopart.htm

I often think that it’s about time I got my driver’s license. Get myself a zippy little car and not be tied to the constraints of Sydney’s over-priced and archaic public transport system.  But that one hour (or so) each way of public transport commute is the best uninterrupted Me Time I get all day. I read, listen to music, and journal. And sometimes, when the stars are in strange alignments, amazing human interactions occur. Last night heading home from work on the 440 bus down Parramatta Rd, a lady sitting next to me asked in a thick accent how many stops were there until Wynyard Station. The eldery gentleman sitting on the other side of the lady piped up and said it was two or three. He then asked the lady, “¿Tu hablas Españoll?” (do you speak Spanish?). She laughed and said yes. Excited at the prospect of practising my Spanish, I said, “Yo hablo un pocito Español!” (I speak a little Spanish). It turned out that the rather adorable elderly gentleman was Italian, and he was a fluent speaker in Italian, Spanish, and English. The lady was Brazilian, and she was a fluent speaker in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. For the next 10 minutes we had ourselves a conversation in a mixture of Spanish, Italian, and English! It lifted my heart and soul to think of how the three of us had come to be in this conversation. Three people of entirely different ages and backgrounds traveling together down the road getting from A to B. Sure every bus trip isn’t filled with such magic, but how wonderful that there is the chance that it could occur. I’m sure I’ll get my license eventually. But in the meantime, I’ll enjoy the me time, and occasional surprising magic, of catching the bus. 

It's a Coconut!

This week we said farewell to two lovely interns at work, and so the team trooped down the road to Thai @ Home in Glebe for a final farewell lunch. On a whim I ordered coconut juice and almost fell off my chair when they presented it in an actual coconut!


I have since learnt that the type of coconut presented this way is a young coconut. A young coconut (bottom left photo - sourced from youngcoconuts.com ) is green and still full of clear coconut water, or coconut juice. As the coconut ages (bottom right photo - sourced from howtoopenacoconut.com), the liquid hardens into the white fleshy stuff, which we more commonly know in its grated and strained form of coconut milk. Also rather delicious. But I digress. 


For my surprise treat, the rough green outer edge had been cut off, and the top sliced to form a lid. The whole thing had been sitting in a fridge to chill, because it was cold, sweet, and fabulously refreshing on a sultry 40 degree celcius (around 104 farenheit for all you American kids) summer day in Sydney. Just heaven in a coconut cup! 
                                              

Superforest Humanifesto

Hello! This blog is being born for the following reasons. 

1. The inspiration to just write
2. Inspiration from the lovely folk over at Superforest.org. Superforest states that to be happy one should do three things: 1. Read the Humanifesto 2.Make things 3.Start a blog. I couldn't agree more. And here we are. 
3. Inspiration (and support) from my friends and family who have requested/suggested I keep writing. This is as much for you as it is for me. 

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word "inspire" comes from the Latin in + spirare: "to breathe". Which happily ties in with one of my favourite movies of all time, "Ever After" and the BIG moment when Danielle arrives at the ball to tell Prince Henry the truth. As she stands at the entrance, she tells herself "breathe, just breathe". Good advice for life's big (and small) moments. 


So this blog shall be about things that inspire, excite, and are beautiful. 


I hope you enjoy.

Much love,

Luisa