Year: 2020

Australian Mother’s Day 2020 is one we are likely to remember for a long while. Dare I say that the usual expectations (such as they are in this over commercialised world) of cards, flowers and cuddly moments with offspring are unlikely to happen- well at least unless they are super organised and efficient which some…

Several weeks into lockdown we have all had time to react, ab react and settle and I am wondering how it has all been for you? For me the initial weeks were a mystery of how best to use this time at home, which I was familiar with, but clearly this was experimental too.Families in…

Nancy was born in 1920. Can any of us imagine what she has seen in her long life? She was 100 years and a few months on this planet and had recently become bionic, after a fall. She had recovered so well, but an underlying aneurism took her back into hospital just a day or…

We woke up at 5.30am and watched the commemoration at the War Memorial in Canberra. At 6 am we all walked out onto our drives and we heard our young neighbour, Cayden play “The Last Post” in front of the eternal flame that his dad had lit up. The children put up their handmade sign…

Some of you know about it but not all. Not that there are many of you. Yes the secret can finally be shared. After we got back from London in January we found that our bees had flown the coup, buggered off from their beehive, formed a dark swarm and went in search of an…

Many lives around the world feel like this : Cocooned, hopefully protected, covered by a firm film of opacity but with shards of light filtering through.The photo was captured on a walk with the ever exuberant Dougall just a day or so ago. The path is often the same, the scenery, and nature’s trajectory constantly…

With virtual hook ups planned for later on Easter Sunday we fall back on the neighbourhood and all that it has to offer and we have some welcome and unexpected guests for the celebration day who have already taken up their places around the dining room table. A shy but brightly coloured one outside is…

The sky is grey and ominous a bit like the world and my roots – but what we need to focus on is our smiles. Look at these grey buds because however dark the sky, however dark they are, when the bud opens you cannot but smile. Sharing for smiles. Dougall has discovered trees and…

In the Garden I watch the crows on the empty branches of the Bunya Pine in the distance, crowing out to us all, a bit like neighbourhood security guards dressed in black, until the Noisy miners come along. What pests they are, the teenage hoodlums, the gangs who chase the crows up the Bunya in…

My mood has changed from positive and cheerful to one of shock and apprehension. Modi shut down India with no regard for his people. He then asked for forgiveness. How dare he perpetrate such an injustice without regard to their welfare and ability to cope. And then the utter humiliation of hosing them down with…