Why I Chose to be Motherless – Part 2
Thank you to everyone who commented on this site or on Facebook, or who wrote to me personally after last week’s post. Your words and support mean so much. To those who contacted me because you’ve experienced similar, thank you. We can draw strength...
Why I Chose to be Motherless – Part 1
I recently read an essay, Motherless By Choice by Katie Naum, and felt awed by its honesty, its sincerity and its wisdom. It struck a chord with me and spurred me to tell my own story. As always happens when I write stories from my childhood,...
Versatile Blogger Award and more …
My dear writing friend, Maureen Helen, has nominated me for a ‘Versatile Blogger Award’. Thank you, Maureen, not just for the nomination but also for being a wonderful role model and friend. Now, I’m meant to...
My Journey to Writing
If someone had asked me a decade ago what I would be doing in ten years’ time, writing a novel would not have been on the list, nor on the horizon. It wasn’t even on the planet. I’d always thought of myself as Maths/Science orientated as I...
Letting Go
Our daughter is leaving home in just over a week. She’s moving interstate to go to university. There’s a good uni ten minutes down the road, but she wants to experience a different city, live in a different part of Australia, and who knows where she’ll go...
Christmas Memories
So, Christmas is over and the night has now claimed Boxing Day, too. Ah, Boxing Day, my favourite day of the year. I feel as if I can now exhale: the rush and stress of Christmas is behind me and the holidays can truly begin. I love the day so much, I could...
Part 3: And life goes on …
This is the third and final instalment in this series about my sister’s death. If you want to read the earlier instalments, click for Part 1 or Part 2. However, I pulled all three posts together as a single essay, which I called, ‘Tribute to a...
Part 2: The next few days
This is Part 2 in a series I’ve written about the death of my sister. If you wish to read Part 1, click here. I have made it easier to read by pulling all three parts together as a single essay, ‘Tribute to a Sister’. ~ My sister’s boyfriend’s...
Part 1: Friday, November 13th, 1987
*I’ve combined the three blog posts about my sister’s death into a single essay, which might be easier to read and which you can find here. On Friday, 13th November, 1987, my sister, Fran, and I were in the thick of end-of-year exams at the...
On Smacking Kids
This post is about something personal and very important to me: the physical punishment of children. On Friday, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) issued a Media Release with their Position Statement and brochure on the use of Physical Punishment...