Just before Christmas, as the bush fires crept ever closer to Blackheath and we all suffered in the heatwave, I photographed a little tractor and water tank in Wentworth Street. I assumed it must be someone’s home fire protection unit. Mind you, I did wonder about the
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Hello Peeps My elderly guardians Pauline, and Dr Bob went on a little ‘rest and recuperation trip’ to Sydney this week, after the bushfires in our village of Blackheath. I believe it’s called a ‘sojourn’. I wasn’t allowed to stay home alone due to a previous incident,
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My favourite place to stay in the city is the Sydney Hotel QVB on York Street, directly opposite the Queen Victoria Building. While it is no fancy five star hotel, for someone who appreciates and writes about history as I do, it’s pretty well perfect. For the
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Hello, Editor Des here. Well we had nasty fires up here in the Blue Mountains at Christmas time. It was very scary for my guardian Pauline Conolly. However, Mr Bob Conolly and myself protected everything and were extremely brave…especially me if I may say so. But the
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Absinthe is a distilled, highly alcoholic drink. It is anise flavoured, derived from the plants wormwood, green anise and sweet fennel. It was popular in early 20thC Paris, especially among bohemian artists and writers such as Picasso, Proust, Vincent van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar
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Who would imagine that dear old hydrangeas would hold up so well during the recent fires and heatwave conditions in the Blue Mountains? The origin of the name seems to contradict the very notion that they would! ‘First discovered in Japan, the name hydrangea comes from the
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Hello, Editor Des here with a ‘sort of’ Christmas story. I’m really writing it to annoy my employer/guardian Pauline Conolly, because do you know what she gave me for my present? A plate that I’m supposed to paint. Good grief, I’m 19, not nine! And how am
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It can be a bit of a worry when your long term neighbours sell up, especially if they were really nice. What if the new owners have non-stop barking dogs, or are throwers of wild parties? That might sound a bit grouchy, but as an aging baby-boomer
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I have been watching in dismay as our Australian farmers continue to battle fire and drought. One of the most heartbreaking things is seeing hard working people being forced from the land due to crop failure and the high price of hay. Of course those on vast
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One of the most beautiful villages in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales is Wentworth Falls. It’s hard for a proud Blackheathen to admit this…but it’s true. My favourite destination is Conservation Hut, originally built as a resting place for bush walkers, and a meeting room
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