What a Queen's Birthday

Yesterday Monday 8th June was an official holiday in Sydney, to the honor of the Queen in Mother England. Though we did not get to see the Queen herself, there were plenty of opportunities to notice that it was a special day.
We spent the afternoon at the beach, too lazy to go anywhere else than just enjoy a warm wintersun, take the kids out into the sand and make them fly and laugh. Thanks to some offshore winds, the ocean was particularly flat, and there was one of these rare swells coming in at 14 seconds intervals. I took the advantage to wear my wetsuit and go out surfing on the fishboard Bine left behind for Anh-Dao before she and Yves returned to Switzerland. I ended up spending nearly 3 hours in the water, which with 23 degrees was particularly warm for the beginning of this winter season. It was a dream, I finally managed to launch in the steep part of the waves and get over two dozen of rides standing ON the board... You can't imagine how happy I was until you understand that I've now been trying for nearly a year since we've moved to Maroubra to get the hang of surfing a shortboard, nearly giving up full of frustration, wishing to return to my dear windsurfboard, skateboard, snowboard etc...
Well, it's still the beginning, but I believe yesterday was an important milestone.
Then, after sunset, on the way walking back home along the beach, fullmoon rose over the ocean's horizon, it was a wonderful moment.
Now that's not all. This morning on my way to work by bicycle, just before I left Marine Parade to head up to hill towards the city, I saw two sprays about 500m offshore. This sight appeared rather familiar to me, and at a second glance I noticed a couple of humpback whales. The first ones of the season! The whales are back!!! That's the beginning of the winter, and of the cold water. From now on we will be constantly watching out to the sea on our walks along the coast, hoping to see the whales jump and spray. Anh-Dao already saw them again, when she went to the rockpool with the kids a couple of hours later.
If this isn't paradise on Earth where else should we look for it then? Probably it's everywhere, if we just develop that sixth sense for it. What counts is that we feel happy where we currently find ourselves.
By the way, if you haven't heard of that new film from Yann Arthus Bertrand - HOME - which was launched last Friday on World Environment Day throughout the french speaking world, you can watch the high-resolution version for free via this youtube link: Click Here for the film HOME!. This film is a wonderful audiovisual poem of the beauty of the world, history of life, how everything is interlinked, and what we can do to cherish its biodiversity and reinstore the natural habitats that are so essential to the future of all life on our planet. I had to cry when I watched the film. It's definitely the more touching version of Al Gore's hard facts based film "An inconvenient Truth". Hope you'll find some time to watch it, too. There's not much new stuff in there, just presented in another way. And I think we can't be reminded enough - it's important and also so much more meaningful to keep these things in mind while we go about our daily lives.