Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Fran Cleland

FRAN CLELAND

Fran Cleland has been a writer for 40 years.
Currently she is the writer for
The Regional Horse News, covering horse events and stories.
She spent the previous 20 years with
The Weekly Times, and prior to that as the editor of
Hoofs and Horns and at Stock And Land, where she wrote the very popular From The Homestead column.
The Homestead column was later published in book form, and Fran spent a lot of time talking at Country Womens gatherings, and on a weekly ABC radio program.
The Homestead column is revived here on
Australian Rural & Regional News
in its new form as Letters From Home.

We hope you enjoy your letter.
Let us know.

Letters from Home 37/2024

Letters from Home: The hosiery hijack

Fran Cleland, ARR.News
Life
Am I the only person in the entire world that loses socks? I can go into a shop and buy six pairs of identical black socks, the family will wear them once, throw them in the washing machine, and out will come 12 socks with different patterns that have obviously never met each other.

Letters from Home 36/2024

Letters from Home: Confessions of a killer

Fran Cleland, ARR.News
Gardening
I have a confession to make, especially today when many of you think of me as kind, loving and a good friend. In truth, I am a mass murderer - a cold-blooded killer ... It must have been last night’s thunderstorm which took my reason...

Letters from Home 35/2024

Letters from Home: Goodbye to the tree

The tree was beautiful and we loved it. It was a maple that was young and growing when we moved here after the fires, and was part of many different trees on the property, all quite immature ... Boy did it grow.

Letters from Home 33/2024

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 34/2024

Letters from Home: Free to bad home!

Fran Cleland, ARR.News
Family
One 11 year-old Jack Russell female named Elizabeth, for scaring her parents and causing trouble. Worming day...dogs line up for treats...

Letters from Home 30/2024

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 32/2024

Letters from Home: How not to clean your kitchen cupboard

Fran Cleland, ARR.News
Life
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 31/2024

Letters from Home: My one attempt at protesting

Fran Cleland, ARR.News
Life
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 28/2024

Letters from Home: A tale of two Falcons

Fran Cleland, ARR.News
Family
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 29/2024

Graffiti

Letters from Home: Graffiti – the writings on the walls

Fran Cleland, ARR.News
Life
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 25/2024

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 26/2024

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 27/2024

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 23/2024

Letters from Home: The walk

It seems all my life I lead head first think later ... the family will happily vouch for this. After the bushfire, while we lived in the rental house on the hill in our local town, I decided to go for a walk. I am not really a walker, never needed to with farm work but off I set. First I intended to go just to the corner of Fitzroy Street and back ...

Letters from Home 24/2024

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.

Letters from Home 20/2024

Letters from Home: Smile, you’re on candid camera

Well, sooner or later – usually later in life, your plumbing will act up, and your doctor will tell you that you will need a colonoscopy. It’s a word to put fear into your heart, and sympathetic expressions ( or evil chuckles) on the faces of friends and family who have endured the procedure. In case you’ve never had it done, I will share my firsthand experience.

Letters from Home 21/2024

Letters from Home: Looking back

It wasn’t my best day. Revisiting your old neighbourhood can be a bittersweet experience. It's amazing how many memories come flooding back, and how different things can seem at the same time.

Letters from Home 22/2024

Letters from Home: The time I almost made it as a TV star

There are times in life that seem bloody hilarious when you look back at them, but at the time they were painfully embarrassing. I have been friends with Jean Purcell for many more years than either of us care to recall, and many years after what I am about to tell you happened – she still won’t let me forget it.

Letters from Home 18/2024

Letters from Home: The garden strikes back

So many people love their garden. Whether it’s just a small plot on an inner-city porch or a sprawling acre or more in a country town, we spend hours, planning planting feeding and trimming and the nicest compliment we can get is to have someone see our creation and exclaim how lovely it looks. The thing is, once the garden is created, it is necessary to keep it in order. Plants are wilful.

Letters from Home 19/2024

Letters from Home: Being personal with a pig

God was so unfair to pigs when he made them so tasty... they are as intelligent as any dog, make great companions, and if only roast crackling wasn’t so delicious, they might have a far happier life. Nigel did ... Nigel was a little black piglet that arrived in a little box, a gift from my father supposedly to be fattened up and dispatched for Christmas dinner.

Letters from Home 15/2024

Letters from Home: Walking Queen Mary

People who think all dogs are the same really have no idea. Like humans, each is totally different, each has their own personality ... Eric is a gentleman ... Pink is sunshine ... Trudy a worrier ... Then there's Mary Queen of Scots ...

Letters from Home 16/2024

Letters from Home: Bad News Bears

If I dislike anything in the world it’s what I call Bad News Bears. We have all met them and they come in many disguises. When I was at primary school they were known as Tattletales.

Letters from Home 17/2024

Letters from Home: A should have known better day

Due to advancing age I have a problem keeping my eyebrows in shape. When I take my glasses off I can't see them... with them on I can't do them - so I entrust their maintenance to the kind beautician at my local hairdressers ... the new, sparky young thing brightly handed me a form to fill out - a form?

Letters from Home 13/2024

Letters from Home: Life BBC – Before Bank Cards

Remember way back when we used to use paper money and coin? Pay large amounts with a cheque? Yes, me too, but those days are long gone. Simple days I sometimes long for, especially after today’s abortive effort. This morning, our three new bankcards arrived. My husband’s is the main card, mine and our son’s run off it...

Letters from Home 14/2024

Letters from Home: The travelling Calendulas

Yes it sounds like a rival band to the group headed by Roy Orbison, but no... it's simply a dainty little yellow/ gold/ orange daisy you probably better know as English Marigold. It's a tough little critter with a smiling, pretty face that doesn't ask for much and once you have it, it's there forever...sneaking through the garden beds and into your heart.

Letters from Home 12/2024

Letters from Home: The bloody tree

Gleditsia triacanthos, AKA the bloody tree... Now, I love trees, there are so many shapes and sizes, colours, and there are several beautiful ones in the back yard planted by the previous owner, thank you Hayley ... they are lovely. Except one... I have an ongoing war with the Bloody Tree

Letters from Home 11/2024

Letters from Home: Ex libris

I can see you admiring my library, You’re most welcome to stand there and look, But if you want our friendship to last past today, You won’t ask to borrow a book. “Oh! I’d love to read this one,“ you chortle, As you pull out the best from the rack ...

Letters from Home 13/2024

Letters from Home: Eleanor Rigby

Self service checkouts. Like most of the population I dislike them. There are many reasons, of course doing people out of jobs is the main one, and pandering to the world's current do it fast and run attitude another. But speaking as one who way back worked as a part time checkout chick, I have other reasons.

Letters from Home 10/2024

Letters from Home: Pill popping

Well, the pill popping has started. To misquote John Travolta - I've got PILLS they're multiplying, and I'm losing control ... Sitting at a horse show last year with my husband, his mate of similar age turned and said to him, "how many pills do you have to take?"

Letters from Home 9/2024

Letters from Home: So many ifs

Easter used to be fun in our family, but not any more. It's the hardest time of year for our family, it's when our darling granddaughter took her life. When we lost our Jessica to suicide the police knew just where to look: her phone and laptop.

Letters from Home 6/2024

Letters from Home: Time moves on

I just phoned Bunnings;   I wanted some picture hanging strips so I don't have to stick nails in a wall... I spoke to a bewildered girl that eventually, after much explaining, found what I wanted, and she made me feel very old. I asked her to read out the directions on the pack, and she said to me - and I quote - "It says it holds up to a lub but I don't know what that means..."

Letters from Home 7/2024

Letters from Home: Of gardens, dogs and Agnes

People who love dogs often love gardens, and often, keeping mental peace while loving the two can be fraught. Many people have written stories about the perils of dogs and plants ... Doctor Seuss ... Banjo Paterson wrote a poem called “A dog’s mistake” ... Pam Ayres also struck trouble ... Enter Agnes…

Letters from Home 8/2024

Letters from Home: Battle of the Mynah birds vs Fran

I read in the local Facebook forum that there was this you beaut marvellous bird trap that could catch up to a dozen birds at a time.... As they have been bloody pests in the barbeque area where my husband feeds the dogs - stealing food and pooping copiously everywhere ...

Letters from Home 4/2024

Letters from Home: One special rose

I have lots of roses. They are always rewarding with their different shapes colours and perfumes and are often admired by visitors. But there’s one in the garden, that’s a bit shabby and out of shape, and is the one most loved and cherished by all the family. She’s had an interesting history.

Letters from Home 5/2024

Letters from Home: Always read the labels

You learn this as you go. When there’s a man in your life you quickly learn to grab the printed directions and stash them for future reference as men do not read labels or follow directions ... What I have especially learned by trial and error over too long a period is to keep the labels from plants bought for the garden ...

Letters from Home 3/2024

Letters from Home: Buying “online”

The pandemic taught us many things, some good, some bad, and apart from the possible terrible damage to our health, it has done some bad things to our credit cards. We learned, first by necessity and then by total impulse, to buy things online. We began timidly.

Letters from Home 2/2024

Letters from Home: The story of the new fish

So - I was given a lovely barrel fountain some time back. It has a top half with what looks like an old hand pump that runs by solar and trickles water into the larger lower cask. I love it and the sounds of the water. Recently, for some totally unknown reason, I decided I might like some fish in it... 

Letters from Home 1/2024

Letters from Home: Gardening on another planet

Well that’s what it feels like. Twenty five years at Mickleham, on top of a granite, rock covered hill made me learn which plants could cope, thumb their leafy noses at the wind and rocky soil and grow, and which took one horrified look at what they were expected to cope with and turned their toes up. The roses showed me just how tough they really are by not only surviving but flourishing, and they did well. Many even survived parts of the house falling on them in the blaze, others laughed it off and kept flowering.

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