Category: New Years Eve

artists, creativity, goal-setting, life balance, Music, New Year Resolutions, New Years Eve, Uncategorized

Jan 2 Way to start the year with Amy, Pink and Ed Sheeran!

Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE

pink

Today was a gentle ‘at home’ day.  After the rigours of river kayaking on New Year’s Day, I tackled the garden: weeding, sweeping and generally cleaning up the mess left by my bird friends… mostly empty husks from the bird seed I give them.  (Why do the makers put grass seeds in the  wild bird mix? It makes such a mess and yes, makes unwanted grass grow in my flower beds.  Answers please!)

Addressing my goal of ‘do something good and new each day’ was a bit hard as I didn’t really leave the house (if you don’t count the garden). And you can’t count the things I’ve just been thinking about doing.  I’d been baking and cooking over Christmas so I wasn’t game to get the oven going again quite yet and anyway it’s too hot to bake so no new culinary delights would be attempted.

So as my Day 2 task, I decided today would be a day when,while I worked in the garden, I would only listen to artists I don’t usually listen to. So to keep me company I had, amongst others, the incomparable Amy Winehouse, Adele, Pink, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Motorhead, ACDC and Michael Jackson, Maroon 5, Hozier, Ed Sheeran, Meghan Trainor, Pharrell Williams… Bon Jovi!

I didn’t edit, just listened to what came up in my YouTube mix… made me listen to and enjoy music by artists I would never have thought I’d be interested in and made me realise I’ve been listening to SO MUCH OF THE SAME OLD MUSIC/STUFF FOR YEARS! Don’t get me wrong, vintage music in all its forms is great… I can never get enough of Nina Simone or Edith Piaf but it’s particularly good to listen to some young women from different genres and eras.  And if I’m not listening to one of them, I would usually listen to a talking book or ABC Radio National! GAD!

Ok on the scale of ‘something new’ it’s a pretty small beginning, I admit. But you have to start somewhere with your resolutions! And maybe it helped me start to break a music habit. Tomorrow I fly to Sydney … that should be a surefire place for ‘new and good’. If you have any listening suggestions for women vocalists and musicians, I’d love to hear from you.

PS: This evening, while walking to the nature reserve near our house, I saw a 40+ yo man on a skateboard (looking both uncomfortable and decidedly embarrassed) and I can only assume he received said skateboard for Xmas. Also two young men were sitting outside on the deck at the (closed) school near the reserve, drinking beer and playing chess.  So perhaps others have taken up the ‘do something good and new each day’ challenge.  Otherwise, there’s been a shift in the universe of which I am only just becoming aware.

PPS: My garden is looking hip and tidy thanks to the accompanying beats! And that’s a good thing!

Australia, birds, Birdwatching, goal-setting, Melbourne, New Year Resolutions, New Years Eve, Photography, protecting species, Threatened Species, Uncategorized, Victoria, Weather

New Year Resolves…Good New Things

Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE
Azure-Kingfisher2-ct280-280x220.jpg
Sacred Kingfisher

It’s another January 1 and the New Year sits before us.. untouched waiting for us to decide what to do with it.

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Cheeky Currawong

A Good Thing

You can choose to make no resolutions about the NY. Many do (or is that don’t).  While I understand it feels like a waste of time if you don’t follow through, at least you had a goal to aim for.  Is it better to have no goals at all and take what comes?

So this year my resolution is specifically vague.  I’ve resolved to do something new (and positive) every day. That is, something I’ve never done before.  So that’s specific. And the vagueness is that I’m not going to plan what that ‘new good thing‘ is. I’m just making a commitment to do something new every day.  It doesn’t have to be incredibly dangerous, exciting or mind-bending, it just needs to be new.

So. January 1.  I kayaked down the Goulburn River to birdwatch and enjoy the gorgeous scenery.  Well not all of the GR but a nice, friendly non-rapid bit with my husband and a friend who showed us the way, let us use his kayaks and drove us back and forth! That is friendship, I’m sure.  In return, I pointed out the birds I recognised… a few Darters, lots of Little Corellas, 2 wonderful, delighting Kingfishers, lots of ducks, a Currawong singing in the trees, lots of noisy Cockatoos.

As we were visiting friends in a beautiful part of the Victorian farming region, perhaps it was easier to find something to do that I’d never done before. The more difficult thing will be to discover something different just as part of my normal everyday routine when I’m at home with the cat and wondering why I can’t watch foxtel for another hour.  Let’s see.

Happy New Year. And may many unexpected, happy, healthy and magical experiences come to you whether you resolved it that way or not!  PS Thanks BirdLife for the photos … I was too busy trying to stay in the Kayak to take photos! 🙂

Full Moon, New Years Eve, Weather

It’s a new year…

Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE

It’s happened. 2010 is upon us. Last year was so full of strange global and local events that it is hard to believe it is all now in the past. What will come next?

We celebrated our NYE in Williamstown, Victoria in the upstairs room of a waterfront restaurant The Nelson Restaurant that we booked into at the last, fortuitous minute. It turned out to be a great spot with a fantastic view of the Melbourne city skyline and as it turned out, the best thunderstorm we’ve had in a long time.

My family were on the other side of the city and so it was a little bit sad that we couldn’t all be together. We’d had Christmas Day together so that made up for it.

Dinner was slow but not painfully so and we weren’t in any hurry as we were all there til at least midnight. The food was excellent and wine flowed.

As we settled into our entree of oysters and bruschetta we saw a lovely sight… the full moon rising over the city buildings… glowing amber and gold as it peaked through the pale clouds.  A full moon (and a lunar eclipse due as well) on New Years eve… it augured well as a strong start to the new year.

Rising storm
Rising Storm

The building housing the restaurant had a balcony overlooking the street and the city and a few of us went out side to see the moon rise. As we did we looked up to see an enormous black cloud bearing down on the city and we watched as it engulfed the slowly rising moon.  As it settled over the city, the rain and lightening started…it was better than the forthcoming fireworks! We watched, glad we were inside! – as people scurried out of the rain and the traffic started to snarl up in front of the restaurant. No accidents thankfully but rain always somehow causes a lot of chaos. Perhaps because it literally seemed to be arrive out of a clear blue sky with the temperature over 36 degrees until 30 minutes before!

The night was engulfed in rain, thunder, lightening and the noise of people enjoying the spectacle while trying to get out of the way of the storm as it circled and rumbled around us.

Inside the restaurant, everyone was getting to know each other as we crowded on to the balcony and ‘ooh’ed’ and ‘ahh’ed’ at the weather and questioned whether the fireworks would be washed out. We all felt sorry for the kids who were staked out on the grass to watch the 9.15 fireworks show until the weather had turned foul.  But just after 9.15 in what was almost the height of the storm, the fireworks started in the city, amongst the lightening, driving rain, raging wind and thunder! What a NYE!

The storm continued throughout the night, with each of us spending time out on the balcony watching the changing weather. The horizontal forked lightening was the biggest attraction. And the wonderful, fabulous rain that we all enjoyed so much because it had been missing for so long.  After 2 days of blistering heat of over 30 degrees and a hot northerly wind, we were all so glad to stand in the cooler air – as much as 10 degrees cooler – and feel the rain on our faces while the thunder crashed around us!

Coming from England where many summers were completly washed out by nothing but rain, it is hard to believe I could ever miss it but i really, really do.  In Melbourne these downpours are happening less and less it seems. No-one ever complains about the rain in Melbourne any more!(I’ve heard through the grapevine that there is a prophecy that 2010 will be Melbourne’s wettest year!)

As it came closer to midnight, the rain continued outside. Again we wondered if the 12 o clock fireworks would go ahead but bang on 12, the city erupted in an explosion of coloured stars even as the rain continued to pour.  We all shouted and screamed in good NYE style and kissed the nearest man (happily, my husband was beside me!) We hugged and wished each other HAPPY NEW YEAR! I dont remember anyone singing Auld Lang sine.  As we watched the fireworks the storm seemed to increase in intensity and as the rain was starting to sting a bit harder on our faces, the wind changed direction and everyone on the balcony was now getting a bit too wet, just then, a bolt of lightening shot down between the Melbourne office towers and cracked to earth just as the fireworks came near to their close.  Sydney might have better fireworks (some say!) but nothing could have matched the fabulous display put on by nature over Melbourne this 31st December 2009.

Happy New Year to you wherever you are.