Harmony at Home has been trading at 30 Govett’s Leap Road at Blackheath (Blue Mountains) for the past 13 years. There is also a store down the Mountains at Richmond. The proprietor is Jock Ferguson. I just love the many Australian themed goods they stock. In the
Read more →
CHRISTMAS PUDDING …now the strangest tale I ever heard was about Charles Dickens cooking one in a top hat. However, my own effort surely comes a close runner-up. By the way,
Read more →
Erigeron karvinskianus is commonly known as Seaside Daisy. It’s a hardy perennial that can cope with wind, heat and salt spray. Now this doesn’t sound as if it should grow in the Upper Blue Mountains of NSW, but it also copes with frost and snow, and thrives
Read more →
In April 1920, Clarice Tucker (nee Thomas) was a young married woman living at Edenhope in western Victoria, not far from the South Australian border. Her family were from the small town of Inglewood, near Bendigo. It must have lifted Clarice’s heart when a letter from her
Read more →
Beatrix Potter was born in 1866. She experienced a stultifying. genteel London childhood that caused her to withdraw into her own world. It was a world that would later be made magical by her artistic talent and love of nature. We, and generations before us, have been
Read more →
Shame on me for treating Pip Williams’ The Bookbinder of Jericho so badly. In my defense, it wasn’t in pristine condition when I picked it up from our local street library. I was reading it among the giant rhododendrons in the park at Blackheath, in the Blue
Read more →
I recently wrote an article for this website about Enid Blyton. If you haven’t read it, here is the link. It was inspired by a piece I came across in the wonderful Australian newspaper archive TROVE. Written in 1952, it was a reaction to the South Australian
Read more →
Enid Blyton was an integral part of my rural Tasmanian childhood, as she was for most ‘Baby Boomers’ around the world. In later life we discovered that the prolific author entertained us at great cost to her own children, but that’s another story. My siblings and I
Read more →
Yes, there really was a brand called Billy Tea. And what a great advertisement. The company was established by James Inglis in the 1880s. ICON OF OUR COLLECTIVE MEMORY We are an increasingly urbanised society, but the image of the Aussie swagman watching his billy boil will
Read more →