When You Don’t Want Your Kids To Make the Same Mistakes As You
Last week, I wrote about how I’d found it hard to let go of my children at puberty—the age when they started wanting autonomy over their lives. Although I spent a long time writing that post, I felt as if I’d barely skimmed the surface....
My Week: A Camp, A Concert, & An End Of An Era
I haven’t done this for a while, so here’s a wee update: 1. Son #1 arrived home yesterday after a twelve-day camp. I know I sound like a soppy mother, but the sight of him in a beanie, sunburnt and unwashed, and smiling at me from the other side of the...
What Not to Say to Young Women
Last week, our seventeen-year-old daughter sang at an Eisteddfod. She’s in Year Twelve and hopes to pursue classical singing after school. She always takes care with how she presents herself for a performance, and for this item,...
Camping at Lucky Bay, WA
We’ve just returned from our family holiday. This year, we camped at Lucky Bay in Cape Le Grand National Park, about 800 km southeast of Perth. We’re experienced campers now, and I’ve come home recharged and refreshed. There’s also a few more...
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...
Bittersweet
It’s that time of the year, busy with Christmas preparations, end-of-school services, speech days, and a graduation: The spec family Our eldest has finished school. Hard to believe, really, as I still think of our family as looking like this: 2003 But no, this...
Family Secrets
Between August and October 2010, I had a couple of long telephone conversations with my grandmother in Tasmania. She was 88-years-old at the time and I wanted to learn as much about her life as I could before she inevitably left us. And I did … My grandmother,...
A Snippet from the Novel
An excerpt from my novel, ‘Ida’s Children’. LEN’S CAMERA One night he came out, full as a boot and holding up a cardboard box as if it was a priceless antique. ‘I won! I won!’ he kept saying as he came over. He’d won a raffle and had a choice...
A Letter To My Daughter’s Teacher
Dear Miss, You see me and run your fingers through your hair, trying to look nonchalant. I can see that you’re uncomfortable, possibly intimidated: I’m a good 20 years older than you, and my body is rigid, my mouth set. You know that I’ve complained about you and that...
In Memory of My Father
It is one year today since my father passed away. He had Alzheimer’s and over the preceding year I’d watched his brain and body decline. The day before he died, I walked into his room at the nursing home and did a double take: I thought I was too late. He was lying on...