There has been some ‘argy-bargy’ on our local Facebook gardening group about controlling what some people see as ‘pests’, not so much snails and slugs, but hungry possums, bandicoots and birds etc. Increasingly, others say we should not impose ourselves on the natural world, especially here in
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‘If you go down to the woods today……sing sing …….Today’s the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic.’ Well I love picnics….I think it’s in the genes of bears really, don’t you? Most picnics require a bit of shopping before hand; bread, wine and stuff like that.
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Some people might say that the best part of writing a book is typing the words THE END. Or that the most satisfying part is setting out on the journey and writing that first sentence. But for me, there is one stand out moment of pure joy
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Every autumn my guardian Pauline Conolly takes me to Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens so we can gather Spanish chestnuts from their big tree. It’s very exciting. It’s usually a bit chilly, but there is a lovely fire in the cafe where you can warm up first.
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The following story on the Launceston woollen mill was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald. On January 8 2024 I watched the movie Mrs Lowry and Son. The images of the industrial landscapes and the mill workers portrayed by artist L. S. Lowry prompted me
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Sissinghurst garden; a place of history, romance and beauty. House hunting in the spring of 1930, the English poet Vita Sackville-West viewed a crumbling castle in the Kentish countryside. Standing in the middle of a cabbage patch she looked up at Sissinghurst’s romantic, Elizabethan tower, turned to
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SHAKEN AND STIRRED! Thanks to classic wines such as Penfold’s Grange, Australians are now less likely to be perceived as a nation of unsophisticated beer swillers. However, cocktails are perhaps more generally associated with Manhattan or Paris than ‘the
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It is such a pleasure to host this guest blog by John Paul Bernett, who lives in the atmospheric Yorkshire town of Whitby. One of the joys of social media is connecting with people completely outside one’s usual orbit. I am a pretty conservative Australian writer/gardener with
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CLENCH YOUR PEN AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! Authors are constantly advised not to respond to negative reviews. I fully agree; you simply cannot argue with another person’s opinion. It is worth remembering that many literary classics suffered a hatchet job when first published. I particularly love
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A PRICELESS GIFT On September 26 1968, Australia’s Consul-General in New York, Sir Reginald Sholl, received a visit from an elderly gentleman offering to present the Australian government with a pair of earrings associated with Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s wife Elizabeth. Sholl’s visitor was Edward Manley Hopkins, great-grandson
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