A tribute to Tasmanian silversmith Mr Harold Sargison on the anniversary of his death. Recently I have been trying to decide what to do with three full cutlery sets (from several generations) plus numerous boxed sets; demitasse spoons, fish knives, fruit knives and forks, teaspoon sets etc
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Singing a song of Sixpence. 💛 During a major decluttering, some dusty life vests turned up at our Blue Mountains Home. Dear me, they were very bulky compared to modern ones. And as I was ripping up old diaries I found this gem from the early 1980s.
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Whenever I post photos of my (often large) containers of cut flowers there will be people who say; ‘Beautiful Pauline, but I can’t bear to pick mine.‘ I have no such qualms. 😎 For me it’s simply an added and wonderful way of enjoying the garden. I
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I came across a pile of garden magazines in a recent declutter and one in particular brought back uncomfortable memories. In the 1980s I was working fulltime, but also trying my hand as a freelance writer. In 1988 my husband Rob and I bought our first freestanding
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Sam Hood was a well known commercial photographer in Sydney for many years. During WWII he would take photographs of service personnel, which were naturally very popular with friends and relatives. In November 1941 H.M.A.S. Sydney was lost in an encounter with the German ship Kormoran. All
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Afternoon tea was such a common social event when I was growing up in rural Tasmania. In my family coffee only made an appearance in the 1960s as ‘instant’ granules. I have been ‘decluttering’ and have come across so many bone china cup/saucer and plate sets. Those
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When I was a child growing up in Tasmania (1950s) there was a small green bowl sitting on the mantlepiece above our wood burning kitchen stove. It is human nature that an empty container becomes a receptacle for small objects, and our green bowl was no different.
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When you finally decide to do some major de-cluttering, it’s often not the cost of an item that makes you decide to keep it rather than cull it. This humble little wooden apple corer must be well over 100 years old. It belonged to my mother Myra,
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In a letter to the nature page of The Weekly Times in 1934, a little girl began by mentioning Splash, a most unusual pet. Dear Charles Barrett – I am writing to tell you about Splash the platypus which belongs to my uncle, Mr Robert Eadie of
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In the midst of WWII, British P.M. Winston Churchill, decided he would like to have – a live platypus! 😨 After Australia’s Prime Minister John Curtin gave his assent, naturalist David Fleay was given the task of preparing a young male and organizing its voyage to England
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