2024 is over and here is my last blog post of the year – written in haste on New Year’s Eve. I always have good intentions to do a couple of posts a month and life happens. So, because I don’t have a heap of gas in the engine and not much to write about, here is a story I wrote a couple of months ago. I entered it into the Australian Writers’ Centre Furious Fiction competition.
Continue reading “Writing”Category: Uncategorized
Murrumbidgee Boy
Patrick Bryon 1967 – 2024
Dear Patrick,
You first came into my life in the 1960s.
Continue reading “Murrumbidgee Boy”Slow train to New York
It was the day before my birthday and I was on a slow train to New York – travelling through the folds of the Appalachian Mountains and for a while, following the course of the Juniata River.
Continue reading “Slow train to New York”Thirty years ago today…
On a quiet Sunday afternoon in Hong Kong in 1994, we were married.
Love you, Dev. You’re a legend x
Continue reading “Thirty years ago today…”
The Picnic
I was recently invited to read a short story at a writer’s event called Melbourne Sub. This event gave writers the opportunity to read their work in front of an audience. The Picnic is based on an event in my family in 1902. Emma and her ma, Hepzibah, were my grandmother and great-grandmother, respectively. They were pioneer women living on the Hay Plains in far west NSW. They were kind, resolute and stoic. I am proud of them both. This is their story.
Continue reading “The Picnic”Last Drinks
Two significant events happened on Sept 25, 2021. The first was that the Melbourne Football Club won their first Grand final in nearly 60 years. The second one was more personal; I stopped drinking alcohol on this day. For those who know me well there are two surprises. One is that I care about football, and the other is that I’m on the sober bandwagon. No one is more surprised than me.
Continue reading “Last Drinks“My Father’s Hats
The last thing I could do for my father was to place the old tweed cap on his head as his body was wheeled out of the house. Once the cap had sat snug on his head, but now it fell down over his nose. Not that it mattered now. The ravage of cancer had shed his body away to nothing. ‘He can’t go without his hat,’ I said.
Continue reading “My Father’s Hats”Broad city and me
I’m feeling a bit sad and discombobulated. Broad City is done.
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The Need for Top Gun
I recently stepped outside my comfort zone and watched Top Gun.
America, my beautiful
My love affair with America began with TV in the 1970s.
The Pelvic Floor Coffee Club 