My mother cooked on a cast iron Lux fuel stove for many years. She could judge the temperature of the oven simply by putting her hand near it. Her technique never failed, even for delicate sponge cakes or cream puffs. How on earth did she do that?
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I live just around the corner from the Blackheath duck pond, in the beautiful Blue Mountains. It recently underwent a complete makeover and re-design. The long-necked turtles were re-homed at The Rhododendron Gardens. Two metres of silt were removed and will be used elsewhere. The last
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Desmond, aka Editor Des, has been sitting at the woodheap bird watching with his mate Bob Banksia; full name Mr Robert Banksia Serrata. They have been hoping to see the arrival of the blue wrens. No luck so far and I think the tension must have led
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Gathering tinder for the fire is very satisfying. I have loved doing this I was child, gathering sticks in the Tasmanian bush. Behind the dear old dogs in the following photo is the woodheap on our farm. It was taken circa 1960. We had an open fire
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Letters have virtually disappeared these days, along with postcards, greeting cards, telegrams and, to some extent, telephone calls. Social media rules, and I confess I have adopted the new forms of communication wholeheartedly. However, it also gave me great delight recently to look back at a time
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School excursions; these days Tasmanian schoolchildren might visit Parliament House in Hobart, or perhaps even venture further afield to the cultural institutions of Canberra. Here in Sydney there are always school groups at the Art Gallery of NSW and the Australian Museum. It’s all part of enriching
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Sister Rosa O’Kane was from Charters Towers in Queensland. She was aboard the troopship Wyreema when the armistice was signed in November 1918, and the ship was recalled to Australia. After the Wyreema reached Freemantle, Rosa was one of twenty army nurses who volunteered to care for
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Celebrations for the June 2 Coronation of Elizabeth II started well before that date in Ulverstone. The biggest social event was the Church of England Coronation Ball. According to The Advocate’s expansive piece published on May 22, the town ‘made history’ by holding the first large scale
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The story of HMAT Boonah in WWI should have prepared us better for the challenges of the Covid pandemic. Arthur Thwaites was a chemist’s assistant from Parramatta. He enlisted on October 15 1917 as part of the medical corps, but was not called for overseas service until
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In June 1889, an American woman called Edith O’Gorman (her married name was Auffray) visited Launceston while on a world lecture tour. She professed to be an ‘escaped nun’, who had fled a New Jersey convent in 1868 and converted to the Protestant faith. The most colourful
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