12 minute read
Holey Moley
Busy bees are bloomin’ beautiful
HALCYON GREENS HOMEOWNER FAY SINCLAIR IS ABUZZ AS THE COMMUNITY’S RESIDENT BEEKEEPER
Fay Sinclair, Halcyon Greens
The population of Halcyon Greens has swarmed, thanks to the addition of a few thousand new residents. Avid gardener Fay Sinclair has introduced a hive of 2,000 native bees to the Pimpama lifestyle community to swell the population of these important pollinators.
Fay approached Halcyon to apply for the Gold Coast City Council Local Residents Bee Scheme, an initiative to boost the native bee population with $250 grants for hive and maintenance costs for properties larger than 1,200sqm. While native stingless bees are not known as prolific honey producers, the Tetragonula Carbonaria species at Halcyon Greens is common to South East Queensland and plays a key role in the pollination of Australian flora. With a flight range of up to 500m from the two-tier hive, Fay said the native bees will help to pollinate Halcyon Greens’ fruit orchards, rose gardens and raised garden beds as well as homeowners’ gardens. However, there’s no need for the full apiarist suit – Fay said the little black bees are social by nature and low-maintenance, requiring only a shaded, elevated hive with an easterly aspect and water access to keep them happy and buzzing since their arrival in mid-November 2020. “They look after themselves and don’t sting or annoy people, which is great,” Fay said. “I check on them daily and love to watch them buzzing in and out of the hive. If you stand there long enough, you can see the little bees return with balls of pollen, which makes their back legs look huge. They’re fascinating to watch as they go about their bee business.”
Native bees busy at work
Take a peek inside the gates
Halcyon Joint Managing Directors Paul Melville and Dr Bevan Geissmann
We don’t normally quote Charles Dickens, but the famous line from A Tale of Two Cities “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” seems apt to describe 2020.
We all know why 2020 was difficult and we’re not going to rehash it. For us it was the best of times because it highlighted the safety, support and social connection Halcyon homeowners enjoy. As we head into 2021, brighter times are here as the COVID-19 vaccination program is rolled out across the country. This will offer all of us an opportunity to be protected against this disease and hope that we can return to the things we took for granted such as travel, spend time with our families and help others. People often ask what life is like behind the gates of a Halcyon community and the articles in our magazine are the perfect example. They tell our stories and offer the best glimpse as to what Halcyon is all about. Our communities offer our homeowners a launchpad for them to enjoy their lives, explore new passions and rediscover old ones. It’s a launchpad which allows them to take it on or take it easy, to lean in or lean back, to discover their freedom and do what they want, when they want. With our first homeowners having moved into Halcyon Rise at Logan Reserve this month, we are again excited to welcome the Foundation members of this new community to the start of their new life at Halcyon. In coming months we look forward to sharing with you news of our upcoming tenth Halcyon community, this one to be located on the northern bayside of Brisbane. In the meantime though, make yourself a cup of tea and enjoy this issue of My Halcyon Days.
Dr Bevan Geissmann & Paul Melville, Joint Managing Directors.
Check out our new display homes at Halcyon Greens 7 Halcyon Drive, Pimpama, QLD 4209 Open Monday – Saturday 9am to 4pm Call 1800 050 580 for more information
Homeowner Rob Allman practicing his putting in the new display home
Score a hole in one at new display homes
Inspired by the hit television show Holey Moley, one of our newest display homes features a putting green in the backyard.
“Given we are a golfing community, we thought it would be a bit of fun and a chance to show people what can be done – especially with a bigger block,” Halcyon Greens’ Project Director Glenn Nugent said of the new homes. “Having a putting green in your backyard is a great thing to be able to enjoy with their grandkids or with their friends, even make a little competition out of it. “On the show Holey Moley, they all look like they’re having a great time so we thought we’d borrow the idea.” The new display village, which has five homes all styled by Coco Republic, is the third suite of display homes Halcyon has built since launching the community in 2017. “Each time we build new display homes we take onboard feedback we’ve had from buyers and are continually honing the design and style, adding improvements and making sure we future proof the homes,” he said. “They really are a guide for what is possible.”
Bright and airy bedroom with sliding doors to back patio
New Sunningdale display home now open at Halcyon Greens Stylish and smart master bathroom
Stylish neutrals in the kitchen
Clean lines in the open plan living and dining area
Coco Republic comes to Logan
NEW DISPLAY HOMES OPEN
Renowned Australian interior designer Coco Republic has helped take Halcyon Rise’s new display homes to the next level of understated luxury.
Coco Republic’s interior design stylist Laure Bebbington has created a bespoke look for the display homes, which reflects the region’s rich agricultural history.
“The Coco Republic aesthetic suited the Halcyon Rise beautifully and delivered elegant homely touches that are inviting and interesting.” Laure has selected a colour palette of rich rust, beige and deep cyan which brings a warmth to the home and tones in with the black and timber finishes. “The schemes feature pieces with interesting elements, vibrant colours and different textures, with a particular focus on mirrors, greenery and layering,” she said. “Layering is an important component of any scheme to create a welcoming warm home, cushions and throws are an easy way to accent and blend colours in the room, while greenery brings the outside in.” Laure said she likes to “mix it up” when it comes to decorating by using different colours and textures. “Beautiful and interesting textures are an easy way to elevate your home in Rise, I am currently loving boucle fabrics, ceramics, marble, textured weaves, embossed metal and natural materials,” she said.
“The main design focus and vision for Halcyon Rise is luxury living in Logan, with attention to detail, natural light, scale and elegance as the overarching concept and themes,” Laure said.
Dif erent colours and textures in the master bedroom
Greenery bringing the outside in Luxury living in Logan
Warm tones enhance the black and timber finishes
Check out our new display homes at Halcyon Rise 8 Halcyon Way, Logan Reserve, QLD 4133 Open Monday – Saturday 9am to 4pm Call 1800 050 580 for more information
Welcome to the ultimate games room
The Bunker is the first piece of B by Halcyon’s leisure facilities, which was officially opened at the community recently and featured on a local news bulletin.
Channel 7 Sunshine Coast covered the Launch of Stage 2 of the community, the Canopy Release, which was held in the new event space. The room has been finished with a modern take on a den and has an industrial feel with a fully functional bar, card and gaming tables, pool table, arcade games, dart board, lounges, an entertainment space and a 3D golf simulator. BBH Project Director Chris Carley said the 4K golf simulator, manufactured by AboutGolf, is the centrepiece of the new function space. “The large widescreen simulator is five metres wide and three metres high and features 74 famous golf courses,” he said. “For the golfers, and we have a lot of them, it’s the opportunity to play courses such as St Andrews, Pebble Beach and Gleneagles – albeit virtually.” Chris said for the nongolfers, the system has also been programmed for other bar games including beer pong, darts and cornhole. “We’ve built this space as the ultimate games room for grown-ups,” he said. “It sets the scene for the rest of B by Halcyon’s Health and Wellness Precinct, which is on track to be delivered in May this year.”
To read more about the golf simulator, go to www.aboutgolf.com
Pete enjoys the golf simulator The ultimate games room
FACILITIES UNDERWAY
B by Halcyon will be the home of the Sunshine Coast’s largest private day spa when the Wellness Centre opens in May. The luxurious facilities will include a wide array of activities and services dedicated to improving the health of our homeowners. The precinct will include: • Covered heated 25 metre magnesium lap pool • Spa • Hair salon • Sauna and steam rooms • Treatment rooms • Yoga lawn • Circuit room and gym
Construction will start on other facilities later this year and include: • Recreation club and bar • Dance floor • Fireplace and lounge • BBQ entertaining area • Private dining room • Music room • Cinema • Rose garden • Rainforest walk • Library • Workshed • Pottery room and kiln • Full size floodlit bowling green • Floodlit tennis and pickleball courts
Angie and Pete Wiseman with Jo and Ossie Feiner
WATCH VIDEO HERE
Machines that go ‘ping’
Words by Geoff Shearer
A stalwart journalist for News Ltd for 20 years and a former TV Week Features Editor, Geoff Shearer is one the country’s most admired arts and entertainment writers. He’s taken a step into semi-retirement to concentrate on his fiction writing, while relishing the chance to share his unique take on life with My Halcyon Days’ readers.
W“ HO you calling an asystole?”
Look it up if you need to, but it means flatline. Which is kind of where that pun went. You know, when the machine beside the hospital bed on Grey’s
Anatomy goes from “blip … blip” to “bbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”. Anyway, that was the pun running through my head as I lay on a trolley, connected up to all sorts of medical machines for a routine angiogram recently, hoping I wouldn’t make an asystole of myself. It also got me thinking about those machines, which we kind of take for granted nowadays, and how we were actually fearful of things like ECGs, EEGs, MRIs, when they started flooding hospitals in the 1970s-1980s.
Jefferson Airplane stalwart
Grace Slick questioned them in All The Machines, a single she released in 1984. “Doctor goes into a room with a fourfoot metal box; He pushes one of its buttons and listens to it talk,” she sings, “Fourteen years in medical school and the machines are doing his job. All the doctors listen to what the machines have to say. All the machines say I’m OK.” The inference is that she’s not feeling okay but the doctors are listening to their machines rather than her. It’s a genuine fear that some people have to any advancement in technology – that it will somehow lead to the loss of all human contact. Only a year earlier in 1983, the Monty Python film The Meaning of Life, addressed it in the now famous “the machine that goes ‘ping’” skit. Worried that the theatre room in which a woman is about to give birth is “a bit bare in here today”, the doctor orders a nurse to bring in as much expensive apparatus as possible, including the machine that goes ‘ping’. Being a Python fan, I was tempted to flip myself over, face down, as the medics left the room and back again before they returned, once the scan had been taken and I was gliding out of the imaging tunnel. Could you imagine them looking at the scan, going: “Gosh this guy’s heart has slipped behind his spine.” Which begs the question – who would they believe, their machine or the patient lying there in front of them? If you’re from Slick’s school of thought I’d be raced straight up to the operating theatre quicker than you could say “ping”. And just like that Python skit, nearly four decades later, I’d be the woman in the throes of childbirth on a hospital trolley, asking: “What do I do?” And the obstetrician, dripping with that rigid arrogance that John Cleese does so well, would scowl at me and mutter: “Nothing, dear. You’re not qualified!” Asystole.
Who needs an Uber when you’ve got Lyn?
HOMEOWNER LOVES DRIVING B BY HALCYON’S TESLA MODEL 3
The Bunker is the first piece of B by Halcyon’s leisure facilities, which was officially opened at the community recently. Lyn Lamble has become B by Halcyon’s unofficial Uber driver, using the community’s Tesla to transport her neighbours around. “It’s just effortless driving,” Lyn said. “It’s responsive, it holds the road well, it’s comfortable and we don’t have to go to a smelly service station to fill it up with petrol.” Lyn said it’s also incredibly fun to drive, especially out on the open road. “It just flies, you feel free, like a bird,” she said. Lyn regularly drives other members of the community to lunch, the airport, shopping trips and to medical appointments. “It’s nice to be able to help people, I’m on my own here so I know they will help me as well,” she said. Lyn Rudd has only been a passenger in the Tesla and is about to complete her induction to learn how to use the car.
