Arthur Boyd's paints. Lovely.

 

 Tomorrow morning, we're saying goodbye to Bundanon, the beautiful property we've been staying in for a month now as artists in residence. I'll miss the easy rhythm of the day - awoken from a solid sleep to birds singing outside, going for a run through the sunlit forest, working in the studio to the sound of the roof cracking under the morning sun, and talking and eating home-cooked food and writing and reading and watching and talking some more before bed. Even as I was experiencing it I was already feeling tiny droplets of the ocean of retrospective seething jealousy I know I'll be feeling for my current self when I return home. It's magical here. You miss it before you're even gone.

 

Bundanon skies

 

As with most goodbyes though, we're also saying goodbye to much ore than just a place. Here are some things we've learned at Bundanon:

 

1. Wombats poo on shelves. Anywhere you can find a slightly raised platform at about wombat-bum-height, you can be pretty sure there is a precariously balanced poo on it. Fact.

wombat poo

 

 2. Sunsets here can be lovely.

Sunset%20at%20Bunders

 

3. The neighbours are nice. 

Wombats and Kangas at Bunders

 

4. Reading is almost always worth it. The oldest typewriter repairman in New Haven exists, for instance, and we like him. He says business has bounced back since hipsters discovered typewriters were cool. You may have heard of him actually - he singlehandedly won the war. He also says: "It used to be when you were walking down the street and someone said "hello", he was being friendly. Today he's just answering a phone".

 

5. There's a horse in the apple store! A tiny pony!

 

6. So you know morals? Those things upon which the entirety of society is allegedly based? Well I don't want to worry you but there are people making all sorts of claims that morals have less to do with fine upstanding belief systems and more to do with rotting meat

 

7. Which means we may have been wrong. Which is okay. In fact, it's good. Being wrong is good for society

 

8. Virginia Woolf really was right when she said the thing about having a room of one's own. She should also have mentioned that cheese helps.

 

9. Arthur and Yvonne Boyd, and the entire extended Boyd family, really have left an amazing legacy to this country. It has been a privilege and a pleasure working here and we thank the Bundanon board and staff for their support. You really should come and visit. Or, if you have nine billion dollars you don't know what to do with, give them a call. They do some amazing things.

 

10. The neighbours really are awesome.

 

Hello little one