We all dislike our driving licence photo don’t we? I look like a terrified, but hard core criminal in mine. No, I am not going to display it here. Why on earth aren’t we allowed to smile in these photographs? Just a shadow of a grin would
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When it was announced that there was to be a new cafe in the Collier Arcade at Blackheath my associate Editor Des and I were very excited. We love to do a little writing over a working lunch. It’s a lot quieter in the arcade than out
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Hello. Did you know that Australia’s dear little koala had a very bad time during the bush fires earlier this year? Well they can’t run very fast, so that was a problem. I was in Sydney the other day and people were protesting about it all. I
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Daydreaming in our pandemic iso-world is a national pastime. Here is an imagined dinner, hosted by myself and my partner Rob in our new house at Blackheath, in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. There are four courses (well sort of), and four dinner guests from
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I was intrigued to come across a reference to one of my articles on the internet recently. It was included in the description of a rare and beautiful item offered for sale by Hordern House Rare books, located in Sydney’s Surry Hills. This tiny object was of
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The Avalon Restaurant and Cocktail Bar at Katoomba is housed in the old Savoy Theatre (constructed 1936). The venue is full of vintage memorabilia. What a sense of fun there is here. It has a definite Alice-in-Wonderland quality. Upstairs is the dining room. For a sense of
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It is mid winter here at Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, cold and very wet. I have been watching Monty Don’s TV series on French gardens. Oh dear, the longing it evokes is almost physically painful. How long will it be before we can enjoy that beautiful
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I’m pretty sure these old tweed pants are the most ancient piece of clothing I own and still wear. I bought them at Bloomingdales on a visit to New York about twenty five years ago. I was delighted, because they were only size 4. Mind you, this
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Well during this creepy Covid-19 crisis my guardian Pauline Conolly has been using a funny little dumpling recipe. She heard about it on ‘Aunty’ ABC radio. It’s just self-raising flour and soap, sorry soup (tee hee, my little joke)….yes, that’s it, very simple. I said even I
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OK, so it’s difficult to know what to give my guardian Pauline Conolly for Mother’s Day. Well I’m in lock-down, and I can’t get to the shops. Yes, I could pick a bunch of flowers, but that’s a bit ho-hum. Anyway I decided to be creative and
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