On Friday night, we were waiting for our Uber, when we noticed the police helicopter circling above the centre of Melbourne, only two hundred or so metres away. The television in the hotel lobby showed aerial shots of a crashed car, multiple police vehicles, and patches of blood on the ground. Clearly something dreadful had … Continue reading Don’t Live in Fear
This week, Médecins Sans Frontiers, or Doctors Without Borders, was ordered to remove their mental health team from Nauru, where about 800 refugees, including 90 or so children, are being kept in offshore detention, at the behest of the Australian Government. There have been repeated, independent reports of the appalling conditions that these, already traumatised, … Continue reading A Message to Scott Morrison
I think a lot. In fact, there are people who'd say that it's possible I think too much. The thing is, there are so many things to think about, and so many things to discover and learn about. I hear something, so I look it up, and then I look up a bit more, and … Continue reading Contemplations
About six weeks ago, I wrote about the huntsman spider guarding her egg sack in our rain gauge. Since then, we've been away, it's rained a little bit (not enough to endanger the egg sack), and every day I've been out to check if the babies had arrived. I'd actually come to the conclusion that it … Continue reading They’re Here!
We've just arrived home from a two week holiday in New Zealand. It's been a few years since we've been there, and this time we went back for a family wedding, and then took off in a camper van (Wilderness Motorhomes are the best!) for nine days. We headed off to Hanmer Springs, and then … Continue reading The Resilience of People
Yesterday morning I got up and went outside to check the rain gauge. We'd had some rain forecast, and there had been a light sprinkle when we went to bed. It's been dry - really dry here. Total rain for 2018 - 120.8mm, compared to an average at this time of year of 395.6mm. Even … Continue reading Drought and Spiders
I'm currently doing a very hefty rewrite of the second book in a series. The first one will come out later this year, and I've seen some absolutely marvellous concept cover art from Jade at Steam Power Studios. I really can't wait to see the finished thing, but back to what I was wrestling with … Continue reading Asking the Big Questions
I think it’s the perfect day to reblog this.
As regular followers of my blog probably know, I have a bit of a feminist bent. My last post was about heading off to celebrate our daughter’s twenty-first birthday in the town where she attends university.
Over the last few days we’ve been chatting and catching up, and one of the subjects that came up was going out for the evening to a pub or club to go dancing. Our daughter enjoys dancing, doesn’t tend to drink when she’s out because she always has to drive home, and doesn’t go out a lot, but like many young women, enjoys the occasional night out.
But she tells me that pretty well every time she goes out, she and her female friends have to fend of ‘handy’ young men. It’s not unusual, it’s just what happens all the time.
There are apparently a number of techniques that these young men use…
View original post 535 more words
I live in rural NSW. Although I'm not a farmer, I know quite a number who are, both in my personal life and my professional life. As a town dweller, I can bemoan how dry the countryside is, but it doesn't have quite the same impact on me that it does on my farmer contacts. … Continue reading Drought, Governments, and City-Centric Focus
I think that recently, nearly all of my widely scattered blog posts have been about being busy, and as I sit here, cat parked upon me, I'm contemplating just how many evenings I'll have at home this week. That would be...one... And of course I have a new book coming out this year. That does … Continue reading New Book Coming This Year! And Other Stuff.
