Hello there!
Well, I don't know if anyone out there is blogging at the moment after the BIG NEWS of the AMERICAN ELECTION, but I'll try for some normalcy here. I spent the day glued to CNN and need some light relief, so decided I'd share some pics with you, nothing too deep and meaningful.
Some of you may have picked up that I've been living a split life for several years -- half a week in Brisbane teaching at the State Library of Queensland, living in an 1880's heritage-listed property, and half a week up at the beach, 100 kilometers (62 miles away) to a house we built and moved into on the night of the New Millenium...gah! 16 years ago!
As I say goodbye to permanent living in Brisbane, I took a few photographs to mark the move, and rattled around in my files for some more...
I'm grateful for Brisbane, a beautiful, friendly, laid-back city (hello Lynda Young!)
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| The sun sets on my Brisbane sojourn!The State Library in the right hand corner. |
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| Inside the State Library. My Library Cafe on right. Also a great bookshop. |
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| View across the river to the city from my teaching room where I tutored students one-on-one. |
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| Favourite muffin and coffee in the Library Cafe |
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| Awesome walkways which are dripping with red bougainvilla each summer...at the South Bank |
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| Each Remembrance Day, the Story Bridge is festooned with red poppies |
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| My writers group working on characterisation at the Brisbane Markets |
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| The Brisbane Writers Festival is held at the State Library. Author friend Charmaine Clancy and I liked to relax and have a drink after attending classes |
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| Always media students acting out on the banks of the Brisbane River |
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| Our Heritage Unit in West End. On the deck when Nas and Ragesh Dean came to stay |
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| They built a huge artificial beach at South Bank many years ago. It's permanent. Well used on those balmy days and nights in summer |
The beach house needed extensive renovations as we've had it vacant for a time, rented it out as a holiday home and used it as a bolt hole occasionally, so the wear and tear was showing. It's a big house, so the renos have taken awhile--2 brand-new kitchen makeovers (upstairs and downstairs -- where we have made a private apartment for one of our daughters and which will become a Writers Retreat when she moves out), a new ensuite in a large downstairs bedroom, and the most exciting part--cutting off a little of the huge lounge/dining room for my own private writing room.
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| View of the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean from my writing room every morning. Inspired? I should think so... |
We've been doing the painting ourselves, and finally finished the upstairs a couple of days ago. That's all we'll get done before Christmas.
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| On the beach at Noosa on the Sunshine Coast |
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| Fishing at Peregian Beach at sunset |
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| Chilling on the beach at Noosa - hmm - melanoma territory! |
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| Peregian Beach's Baked Poetry Cafe's special breed of iced coffee. They even make the ice cream in house. Never tasted better and that's saying something! |
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| The inside of our beach house before renovations. The walls are now grey. More pics in future as Michael di Gesu has been begging! |
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| My favourite spot at the beach house--sofa bed on the deck to read and think while I watch the whales frolic. They've been awesome this season! |
I hope you enjoyed my nostalgic journey through Brisbane and onto Peregian Beach. We'll be renting out the Brisbane unit. Can't bear to part with all that rustic gorgeousness yet! And I've kept a few students who I'll be tutoring online and occasionally meeting up with through 2017.
- How about you? Are you a beach or a city person?
- What's been your most momentous move/career change so far?
As always, thanks for visiting my blog. I'll just go have a good cry now! And not just because there's a brand new MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD.
