Why I Chose to be Motherless – Part 5
If you’ve landed here, you might want to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 first. In Western Australia My mother packed up their house in Tasmania, and in February 2011, my husband flew over and brought both of my parents back with...
Why I Chose to be Motherless – Part 4
Here’s the rest of the story. Because it’s long, I’ve split it into two parts, both of which I’ll post today. I apologise, once again, for the length of these posts, but I’m nearly there, nearly through telling this story. If...
Why I Chose to be Motherless – Part 3
This is the third post in this series. (Click here for Part 1 or Part 2.) Thank You Thank you, once again, to everyone who has written to me—your words made me cry, but in a good way. Writing down my story has felt like letting the...
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,...
Bottling the Kids
There’s been a lot going on this year—mostly good, but not all of it. Normally, I cope. Normally, I feel good about the good things, but I’ve had trouble feeling good at all this year, about anything. I think I’ve worked out why: I don’t like...
Another Excerpt from the Novel
IDA’S LAST BABY After that, Len and I gave it another try. This baby was breathing when they took him from me, and I saw him, silent but alive. ‘Henry,’ I said. ‘His name is Henry, after my father.’ They midwives bundled him in a towel...
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...
Why Getting A New Dog Is Better Than Having Another Baby
As readers of this blog would already know, our eldest child moved out of home a few months ago leaving me feeling bereft and with empty arms. I wasn’t quite ready to move on to the next phase of our lives—the one where the children leave. I asked my...
Letter To My Daughter On Her Leaving Home
I sat on the plane feeling empty and bereft. It took off, up and westward, following the sun. The buildings below quickly became matchboxes, and the clouds drifted in and thickened into a matted carpet so I could no longer see the city below, the city where I’d...