CHRISTMAS DOWN-UNDER John O’Grady once wrote a best selling book called, They’re a Weird Mob. It was about Australians and yes….we are a bit strange. What do you expect when we live in an upside down world? Alice in Wonderland described our fair country as; WHERE
Read more →Hello, Editor Des here, Well I have been searching all over Sydney for the best Christmas tree. I found the first one in Cremorne when we were having a little holiday. I thought I really set it off. I’m a true ornament. Hahaha. Red and green
Read more →HEAVENS ABOVE….DUCKS! I wandered out into the garden one spring morning and heard a soft clucking coming from high in a gum tree. It was a goose like duck, which was soon joined by a wooing male. Such handsome birds. They are Australian native wood ducks, and
Read more →In Australia’s bicentennial year of 2000, artist Vernon Treweeke completed a mural of an imagined night train journey through the villages of the magnificent Blue Mountains of New South Wales. The mural decorates the walls of the pedestrian tunnel beneath Katoomba station. Three of the villages were
Read more →INTRODUCING EDITOR DES OF BLACKHEATH Thanks for agreeing to this interview Editor Des. I must say, you are the personification of sartorial elegance today. A. Thank you. I bought this suit in a posh shop at Henley-on-Thames. Well that’s in England. It does look quite expensive. Now
Read more →Spring warmth after frost and snow is one of the joys of nature. It was that period in the vernal quarter when we may suppose the Dryads to be waking for the season. The vegetable world begins to move and swell and the saps to rise,
Read more →Hello, You know how Pauline Conolly posts rather showoffy pictures of her garden? Well I’m about to take her down a peg or two, hahaha. Made a little bicycle tour the other day and by gum there are some pretty dire ‘blots’ ! Here I go down
Read more →The spectre of climate change and periods of prolonged drought have created an upsurge of interest in the growing of Australian native plants. However, we have been slow to embrace them. I suspect this would surprise and disappoint women pioneers such as Elizabeth Macarthur, who began
Read more →MEMORIES FROM OLD COOKBOOKS We all become a bit nostalgic around Christmas time, especially when it comes to food. One of my favourite photos is of my mother Myra making Kiss Biscuits with her grandchildren back in the 1980s. Katey and Graeme now have children of their
Read more →My partner Rob and I are making our way home from Sydney to the Blue Mountains by rail; a two hour journey. As the train begins to climb, an American lady sitting behind us asks someone a question across the aisle; ‘Excuse me, will I know when
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