Letters from Home: Thoughts of an Avant Gardener
I have come to the decision I am not perhaps avant garde. Looking up Webster, it says: "adjective - favouring or introducing new and experimental ideas and methods ... But I AM an Avant Gardener.
Letters from Home: How not to clean your kitchen cupboard
There’s something about late autumn that seems to kick start the urge to have things neat and tidy before the chills of winter, send us to hibernate in front of the fire so we rush around cutting limbs off trees, raking up leaves, deciding where to plant spring flowers. But with that done, we move inside, find the winter doonas, check the flues in the fires are clean, and then – worst of all – decide to tidy the house ...
Letters from Home: My one attempt at protesting
I am not a fan of protests. I really don’t see the point of marching up and down, blocking streets and shouting, especially when recently a TV reporter asked a group of young women the reason they were protesting and they really couldn’t give an answer. Even so, way back - I did... just once...
Letters from Home: The old house
I see it every day and think of the woman who loved it. This poor little house is in our main street, it's been for sale for two years ... I see it and think how much the original person must have loved it.
Letters from Home: Graffiti – the writings on the walls
Yeah ok I confess!!! I LOVE graffiti. Well, not the modern sort that is simply vandalism but I quite appreciate the angular artistic Picasso sort adorning walls around the city. I also find it interesting, as I drive along busy roads, that so often those who have a political message can’t spell...
Letters from Home: A tale of two Falcons
It's a simple truth that our family has always been Ford fans. For as far back as I recall the cars have been descendants of the original Henry... I recall driving off in a new model way back and hating leaving my treasured XC at the dealership ... My son has told the person who is taking him that Yuri is indestructible, surviving the 2014 bushfires and saving our dogs ...
Letters from Home: Servant to a dog
Eric, the male Scottish Terrier, thinks the sun shines out of our son. No one else matters. I am just the housemaid. I am permitted to feed him and say nice things and open and shut doors for him, but if my son appears... I cease to exist.
Letters from Home: The violin
Why is it that school teachers feel the need to torture the parents of their pupils? ... younger son for some reason decided to learn the violin. The teacher even let him bring it home to practice ... Ode to a Violin ...
Letters from Home: Will of the wasp
Once again, it was a case of act first, think later... If there were medals to be won for that trait, I could compete for Australia. It’s been a failing all my life and has, many times, got me into hot water. A nest of wasps appeared, the little European devils imported along with sparrows, rabbits, foxes and prickly pear from other places to be total pests to us Aussies ...
Letters from Home: How to buy homewares
Thinking back today on things I lost in the bushfire. My dad when he passed, left me some money, and I decided I would put it to good use and change things to improve the house we were living in a year before the fires. First was the front room carpet – and after doing so I was able to write a missive on - 'How to buy carpet in four not so easy lessons'. Read on, dear people, and learn. I can smile, now.