Favourite Things: mug from home for my coffee, from Kym with two old grannies!
Â
This time next week I will be in Paris for the first time and Im so looking forward to visiting new countries and all the amazing experiences that come with them.
Whenever I travel I have a few rituals, that make the experience turn into an Adventure.
1) Special Journals specifically for travel, which are written in on the launch of every flight, with a list of every plane, where I sat and what I was thinking at that time.
2) Plane Letters and Plane Jigsaw puzzles. Friends and family write letters and make jigsaw puzzles that make the time go by and bring it back to the centre of what lifes truly about relationship!
3) Lonely Planet Guide Books. No matter where I go I buy one and read as much as I can about the country and the culture and try to find the random places that are not number one on the tourist hit lists.
4) I write a list of have too’s in the country, which often include something I have never done before. Skiing naked, eating frogs and walking on hot coals. (NOT!)
5) I try not to over plan, over book or even have accomodation for every night. Makes it a bit more spontanious and see where God and my curiousity takes me.
Standby for some updates. My trip takes me to Paris, London, LA and Sydney in 3 weeks.
I have just read my sisters blog: Jen, who is in London as we speak. I got inspired to tell you about my beautiful sister.
Jen and I grew up together surrounded by music, obsessed with theatre and consumed with dance. Wherever I went, she was not far behind and as we have grown older the tantrums about borrowing clothes and boys have decreased. With the conversations about life and the meaning increasing.
She is an outstanding woman, who has walked through a time of uncertainty and change, with her head held high and her smile still glowing.
Wherever you are right now Jen know;
1) Shame we can’t catch up on our around the world adventures…
2) I think you are amazing.
3) Family is everything, without it life would be so BEIGE!
Favourite Things: Judes New Art Installation downstairs
The concept of rest in our society is so undervalued. So many times I hear people rattle off all the achievements that they have attained on their day off and then wonder why, months later their lives crumble.
I have learnt the hard way, the importance of rest in my life. Work hard, play hard and rest hard: the recipe to a successful life…
This is a short post which reminds me and hopefully others, that a day of rest is that: rest. Nothing more, nothing less.
This photo taken whilst camping reminds me to take every moment I can to sit before the majesty of creation and rest. Even the creator himself after the mammoth effort of creating the world, had a day of rest.
Favourite Things: Carrot Cake Candle, burning right now!
Between Christmas and New Year, a group of brave individuals, drove unsuspectingly into the great outdoors of the wild West Australian coastline.
We went camping for four days, sitting on the beach at sunset, wasting away the sunlight hours with scrabble and eating whatever came our way with abandonment.
We were surrounded by many families and a few feral Aussies, but amongst that lot, we meet a french man, a swiss man and a canadian who were a breath of fresh air amidst the gum trees and hammocks.
The lovely french man, travelled and trained with Cirque De Solei, and my love of all things theatre created a great landscape for conversation despite the language barrier.
The sunset at Prevelly Beach was awe inspiring, but for me the combination of wind, fire and water (minus the mozzies) joined together for an unforgettable moment.
The guys were fire jugglers, and they put on an amazing show.
Wine glass in hand, friends wrapped in towels, the beach crashing and fire swirling was one of those arresting moments in time.
Check out these photos…
Toasts to random summer camping trips and the amazing people you meet along the way.
Okay, so it has been such an amazing couple of weeks, and I have not posted because basically I haven’t been bothered.
Hayley asked me today what my Christmas and New Year was like, and I described it too her ‘A Jack Johnson song’ Chilled, vibing, surrounded by great friends and family, a hammock, great fiction books (Self help books have been banned) and I basically didn’t HAVE to do anything.
I have such amazing photo’s from my camping trip to Margaret River, Christmas and New Year, but will take the next few weeks to unravel them.
Today I have driven the city to find my journal for 2007, which is a moleskin diary. All the regular haunches that sell moleskin, are all out.
I’m desperate, anyone know anywhere I can get them? or I may have to be in detox from journalling till I hit the UK (the birthplace of moleskin) in one weeks time.
Here is the history of the moleskin for those intrigued.
A simple black rectangle with squared or lined pages, endleaves held by an elastic band, an inside pocket for loose sheets, a binding in ‘moleskine’ which gives it its name, this trusty, pocket-size traveling companion guarded notes, stories, thoughts and impressions before they turned into the pages of beloved books.
He even suggested this method to his friend Luis Sepùlveda on giving him a precious moleskine before the trip to Patagonia that they were never to do together. It was precious because by then notebooks were no longer to be found. In 1986, even the last producer, a small family concern in Tours closed down. “Le vrai moleskine n’est plus” were the lapidary words of the stationer to Chatwin who had ordered one hundred before leaving for Australia Chatwin bought up all the Moleskines he could find but there were not enough. Now, the Moleskine is back again. It can go back to being a witness passing from one pocket to another and continue the adventure. Its still-blank pages will tell the rest.
‘I never travel without my notebook. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
—Oscar Wilde
Â
Here’s to a big new year of less stress and much love
Thanks for all who have been capturing moments with me in 2006…
