Category: Australia

  • Winter in Australia

    Winter in Australia

    I manage to write more in winter, because there’s not the pull of the outside and nature:  swimming, walks in the sun by the sea and all that to tempt me. It’s always been a problem for me, the attraction of outside activities versus the obsession to work on my writing. And it’s not always…

  • Seventies feminism in Australia

    Seventies feminism in Australia

    THE SECOND WAVE OF FEMINISM: THE SEVENTIES: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… The 1970s were a time of great change in Australia. This post is based on my memories of that time, and the beginning of the Women’s Movement in Sydney, Australia. By 1972, the fledgling beginnings of…

  • Hurrah Helen Garner!

    Congratulations to Helen Garner Helen Garner, one of my favourite Australian writers, deserves this hurrah. She writes across genres, and has recently won the prestigious Windham-Campbell prize for non-fiction. When she received an email asking for her telephone number from someone at Yale University, she thought it was a case of spam. This brings great…

  • “Kids Will Be Kids” by Ian Harry Wells

    Here’s a story from my Teachers’ College friend, Ian Wells. It’s great for me to re-live that all-important primary school teaching experience through his words. It’s the kids’ future that is at stake, and they do it well in small schools. One Police School visit in the mid-seventies was particularly memorable, but it wasn’t so…

  • Babies are awesome … otherwise … we’d think again …

    Babies are awesome … otherwise … we’d think again …

    Is there an optimal time for a woman to give birth? Is it once you have an amazing job — when money is no longer a problem? Or maybe not until you have achieved your long-term career goal?  Perhaps it should be as soon as an optimal partner is on the horizon? Or after sowing…

  • Malabar Headland in Sydney

    Malabar Headland in Sydney

    One of the last remaining wild areas on the eastern seaboard of Sydney has recently been rescued from the hands of developers through protest and last-minute government intervention. Malabar Headland, named after a ship that was wrecked there in 1931, is linked to Maroubra Beach at one end, and to the suburb of Malabar at…

  • Black Swans Surfing

    Black Swans Surfing

    “Only in Australia” Thanks to Brian Moore for alerting me to the video clip below: Four black swans seen riding waves at Kirra Beach on the Gold Coast (Queensland) in Australia. #Only in Australia This post shows two photos I took at Kirra Beach last summer. (Not the video clip, which may have been taken…

  • Dolphins at Tamarama

    Dolphins at Tamarama

    If any creative person deserves to be discovered it is Paul Atroshenko: Artist, Photographer, Video Maker. Have a look at his website displaying his eclectic works of art, including symbolist paintings, and his excellent travel photography. He has also created amazing videos of walks around Sydney. And check out this recent one of dolphins playing…

  • Ocean Baths and Swimming Pools

    Ocean Baths and Swimming Pools

    I love the part in the “Life of Pi” movie where the hero explains how he came to be called ‘Pi” from the French word for swimming pool (piscine). Swimming pools have always been an obsession with me too: from the rough ones built into the Clarence River bank at South Grafton when I was…

  • Sculptures by the Sea 2012

    Sculptures by the Sea 2012

    Every year at the end of spring, there’s a council sponsored exhibition of sculptures by local artists, displayed along our beach front walk between Bondi and Tamarama Beaches. In 2012 I went on a week day to avoid the huge crowds that follow the routes on the weekend. Some of the best works this year…