WARNING…..INCLUDES CONFRONTING SPIDER PICTURE! It wasn’t until my friend Dianne told me about her battle to get rid of ivy in her new garden that I realized my own ivy problem had become super-serious. Stupidly, I had deliberately spread the variegated variety around. I’d considered it more
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THE VICTORY….HEART OF ‘OLD’ BLACKHEATH The Victory Theatre opened in 1921 as The Arcadia. Locals even enjoyed an early form of 3D. It is now a vast antiques centre. The bear (Editor Des) is not for sale, though sometimes I am sorely tempted
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BLUE MOUNTAINS TWITCHER Introducing myself…Editor Des. After a bit of training I’m now a master bird watcher in the beautiful Blue Mountains. I was originally banned from this pursuit by my guardian Pauline Conolly, because I kept chattering and scaring Mr Satin Bowerbird. For heaven’s sake,
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Hello, Editor Des here. Well I like visiting medical museums. In fact, I quite fancy myself as a doctor. Last year I performed a little operation on my neighbor Fred, after he carelessly lost a second leg. It was reasonably successful. These museums can be
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I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity. Eleanor Roosevelt. What wise words; especially for future scientists….and writers! English crime novelist Ann Cleeves was asked what motivated her
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Writers spend lot of time alone, so it’s great to get out occasionally to enjoy the social buzz of a café. There are plenty to choose from in my Blue Mountains village of Blackheath. Altitude – Good name for a café in the Blue Mountains. Last food
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What a joy the busy Blackheath Growers’ Market is. Mind you, I’m glad I can walk up there. These days people have to park their cars almost down to my own house near the duck pond. It’s held on the second Sunday of the month
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Hello, from me….Editor Des of Blackheath. We have so many bees at our place here in the Blue Mountains. I know, because I help my guardian Pauline Conolly look after the garden. Or rather she helps me…ha ha. Of course the bees are asleep now, keeping
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A CONTINUING KOOKABURRA CONNECTION In June or July every year a pair of kookaburras arrive in my garden at Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. The rest of the time I only see
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Most of my garden seats are made from ‘found materials’; concrete blocks, stumps, slabs of stone and bits of timber I deem wide enough to sit on. My impatience when I have a notion to create a new one knows no bounds. Fortunately my aging muscles seem
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