One boiling Saturday in 1970 when we were 15, my friend Helen and I decided to get jobs in the river-bound city of Melbourne. We took a red rattler train into town with narrow swinging doors, all dusty with the smell of everyone. Bourke Street was the target. We had ... READ MORE
I never know how cold it will be outside, but I always fancy the worst from the skies and the roads and the winds. I still dress with too many layers even though I have a coat that makes me look like the Michelin Man. I have three pairs of ... READ MORE
Attending house open-for-inspections is strange. You’re in the master bedroom just getting the gist of the room and a large man barges out of the bathroom leaving a cloud of odour and looking for the cellar. He doesn’t know about the cellar which a four-year-old couldn’t stand up in. You’re ... READ MORE
My eldest daughter Phoebe’s house was robbed a while ago now. She came home after work and from picking up Rosie at childcare, walked into the little house and knew something was wrong. The front window was broken apart like an eggshell. All the drawers and the wardrobe in the ... READ MORE
Not long ago my travelling daughter went overseas for a month with her husband and the kids, Alfie and Hazel. Skies full of birds, clouds and aircraft. And cold air. I missed her clever thoughts and kind heart instantly. The trip went well. Even now, at such young ages, they ... READ MORE
Health If you looked at your life, you’d see where the slow neglect began. As we age, it takes us with it like leaves on a river. We’ve lived to negotiate the fads of the day. Your mother was under general anaesthetic to extract you. There was little breastfeeding then, ... READ MORE
Today was again full of thrashing wind. Makes you feel like you’re in a little tent hanging onto a high hill. In these last months, we’ve been trying to settle A’s 94-year-old mother Mildred into a nursing home because she could no longer live alone. She had been in the ... READ MORE
Swarms of corellas have come to raid the trees setting my nerves on edge. When a car stops by the white lake of them on the road, they barely move, so completely bold, they make you smile. Today the light still holds smoke from the scheduled burn-offs and now at ... READ MORE
Christmas Past; Sydney In Sydney from upstairs, we could see Wedding Cake Island. The small island in Coogee Bay is a low clump of rocks with frothy water all over it. We loved to watch him swim across the bay as he always did on Christmas morning. His slow strokes ... READ MORE
You take the same way most days, through the park to let the dog inhale the world and roll in the grass. You notice people with dogs that look like themselves, one called Yogi was shaved, large and white and its owner also large, white and shaved. Two fat galahs ... READ MORE