Contracts exchanged!

Well, I've been quiet here for a couple of weeks while waiting for the process to get this far! And finally it did today! I've found a house to buy and today contracts were exchanged, so it's safe to say - I've bought a new home!! Real estate agents' photos below ...





Not my furniture, obviously! The top picture is the huge deep back verandah, which is going to be such a lovely outdoor space during summer ... Nice for yoga too!

I'm really happy about this. It's in a sleepy seaside area called South Golden Beach, about 25 mins drive north of Byron Bay (and Dena's shala!) And a 400m walk to the beach!! Hoping to move mid- to late-September.

Yoga and sunshine

Finally I made it to one of the Mysore classes at the Gold Coast Yoga Centre this morning. I've been going to the Saturday afternoon led Primary classes but for whatever reason it's taken a while to get to a Mysore class. And it was really great. Mark seems to be a lovely and encouraging teacher ... Every yoga centre is different - he told me he was happy for people to attempt all of primary, even if they hadn't done a pose before. (Of course in the led class this is what happens too.) So I'm just going to go with the flow and do this too. I've done/been given most (but not all) of Primary at some time. Although in the Brisbane shala, poses were taken away if you had an injury or something (as I often did!) and then it might be years before they were given back (if ever!)

Case in point is garbha pindasana. I used to do this years ago but - maybe it was when I got the meniscus knee injury, it got taken away and I haven't done it since then - probably 4 years. So when I started trying to do it again at one of the led classes I was completely hopeless! And I'm not talking about getting arms through lotus as I don't do lotus! It was the rocking round - I kept having to give up and move to the next pose in the led class!! Hopefully doing it in the Mysore class setting will give me the space and time to get it back properly again ... !

And also - Mark got my fingers touching in one side of Mari D! That hasn't happened since Hamish Hendry in London got me into that pose - again about 4 years ago! I was astounded!

It's a beautiful sunny day today ... hard to believe it's still 'officially' winter, although it gets somewhat chilly after the sun goes down. The Byron Bay Writers Festival is on this weekend - I'm going tomorrow for the day. My friend Victor is on one of the panels (on memoirs), and there are some great speakers whose sessions I hope to catch ... like Jeanette Winterson - I remember loving her first book Oranges are not the Only Fruit years ago ... Should be a fun day!