Year: 2023

I met Aja O’Leary on a plane returning to Australia from Cyprus. We talked a lot about our respective lives. She had come to Australia, met her husband, a melon grower, and made Chinchilla her home. Chinchilla is in the Western Downs of Queensland. I realised I had not asked her name, but I had…

Thank you all for all your suggestions – Junior will be named Dilli Darel. A mix of Indian with some Aboriginal and English thrown in. Thanks Alma ! Mum has been very attentive feeding him large lizards and frogs. She brings them to me first. Not quite sure why. Dilli Darel is growing by the…

This is my first post on WP and it is dedicated to the lasting memory of my eldest sister Niki. Niki was killed in a car crash in Egypt ten years ago today.This is Niki holding me in her arms outside my father’s clinic in Cyprus. At my birth, she was a mature 11 years…

After a week at home I was itching to get out and we had promised George a trip to Maleny to see if we could spot elusive platypuses in the Obi Obi Creek. We started our day trip in the magnificent Maleny Botanical Gardens set up by Frank Shipp, a South African immigrant from Durban…

It’s been an interesting start to the new year. After a lovely NYE with George at one of our favourite seafood restaurants I got home feeling a tickle in my throat. The 1st was lovely as we walked in nature but by the evening I was feverish, coughing and feeling nauseous. Then came the strong…

We landed in Australia on the 31st of January 2013. Today I am celebrating my first decade in this lucky country. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to end up here – on the edge of the world – but I could not be happier and more grateful that a chance headhunter’s email…