Blog Articles
Toy Boy! The Sequel!
The lid is off gadget box two so I’m sharing a selection in a photographic tour!
And they came into the house two by two! After all, if one is good, surely more is better!
A Special Day for Special People
Today is 12 May and it's International Nurses Day! How wonderful is that!
Why this date?
Florence Nightingale - probably the most famous nurse of all - was born on the 12th May, 1820.
Universal Panacea
Good Health In A Jar
I’ve just been on the most wonderful few days away at the lighthouse on Bruny Island, Tasmania, with fellow LoveCats, Rachel Bailey and Nikki Logan, and our friend, Alison.
The quarters were cosy and fun and graciously old-fashioned – a delightful cross between staying at my nana’s place and visiting a working museum. And there were treasures that, as a medical romance writer, I couldn’t resist!
The (Post) Spring Clean
We’ve had the wettest summer since records began here in Victoria. In fact, nearly half our annual rainfall has come in what would normally be our driest months. There have even been days when we’ve had humidity on a par with the tropics.
With all that dampness, summer warmth and probably the ghosts of much-loved pets, our tatty old carpet has developed an unpleasant mustiness.
The Cold Shoulder...
The pain started at the top of my left arm, persistent, niggling... but nothing drastic. A tiny restriction of movement. Hardly worth mentioning, it was so minor. But I mentioned it anyway because I’d already had a frozen shoulder on the other side, ten years ago.
Understandably, my doctor wasn’t concerned.
But as the weeks went by, the pain got more and the movement got less. A sudden action, the recoil when I burned my finger on the stove, a grab for my hat as it blew off, meant the pain would explode down the arm muscle and I’d have to clutch it breathlessly until the agony subsided.
It’s a frozen shoulder – adhesive capsulitis. I’m in the lucky demographic – a woman between 40 and 60 years old. Sometimes it happens after an old injury, and sometimes it happens just... because.
101 Ways to Use Christmas Leftovers
Okay, perhaps the 101 is... a slight exaggeration but leftovers are some of my favourite meal starters! And with a fridge bursting at the seams with leftover goodies from the festive season, it’s a chance to flex the creative cooking neuron.
So, leftovers...
"Knock Three Times"
Well, we washed our kitchen window and we've had a little superb blue wren knocking at the glass ever since! He's completely outraged with himself because all he sees is a belligerent, persistent competitor for cute little Mrs Wren's affections.
He's been courting her on the trellis at the back door and impressing her to bits with his bravery with this cheeky reflection. Now she's dashing around collecting grasses and cobwebs to make her nest leaving him to his posturing and pecking at the window.
"Love is Blue"
It's spring! Signs are everywhere of flora and fauna revelling in the longer, warmer days. We were away recently, camping with friends near the Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales. Our camp was visited by a handsome male satin bowerbird on the scrounge. Spring is the time when his thoughts turn to "home decor". His sex appeal and ability to be a successful mate are measured by the beauty of his bower and the goodies he's managed to collect to show it to advantage. It's all about blue!
eHoarder!
I’m a hoarder! Not just of things but of emails.
Email hoarding is a bit insidious because it doesn’t take up shelf space or floor space. They’re not a fire hazard like piles of newspapers. No-one can tell when they drop around for a cuppa that they’re in the company of a compulsive hoarder of emails!
Anyway, I had thousands and thousands of them. Emails from 2002 when my friend was overseas on holiday, emails from 2005 when I was on the conference committee... and more from the 2008 conference when I was on that committee. Emails from friends and family. Business emails – important ones with vital pieces of information and receipts. Joke emails. Emails with cute little GIF files that had Santas popping out of chimneys, sparkly Christmas trees, Easter bunnies delivering eggs, Valentine hearts pulsing... in short a GIF for every occasion.
Ionic Woman!
It’s official – I must be nuts! It’s winter and we’re camping at Airey’s Inlet on the southern coast of Victoria, Australia. The wind is roaring up from Antarctica to blast us in freezing gusts (Do you like that horizontal scarf effect!) and the intermittent rain is icy. I’m swaddled in thermals and woollies and a padded jacket that makes me look like a shiny black marshmallow!
Model for a Day!
I'm one of thos
e unfortunate people who can look just awful in a photograph. Some of my passport and driver's licence photographs have been truly scary! Even the ones where I've gone and paid for a "proper" photograph to be taken! After one memorably awful session for a passport photograph, the photographer finished and looked at the pictures then offered to take some more. By that time, there was no way I was going back into that studio to do it all again. I needed a caffeine infusion stat!
Favourite Comfort Food for Winter
It’s a whisker away from winter DownUnder and that means I can indulge in my favourite food group – soup! I love thin soups, smooth creamy soups, chunky soups!
I prefer making it from scratch – starting with the bones to make the stock. Ham bones, beef or lamb bones. Chicken bones especially because they really do have medicinal properties for us and the winter colds and flu.
Using stock cubes is out because I have some food sensitivity problems.
Confessions of a (Semi-) Reformed Duck Liner!
Before I started writing, I was a medical scientist. My days were spent at a laboratory bench and my watchwords were accuracy, meticulous technique, mathematical precision and rigorous quality control! These are great traits for a medical scientist because there is nothing worse than having racks loaded with urgent special stains, for instance, and then finding you’ve run out of the reagent you need next.
Nothing was left to chance.
If it was within my control, then controlled it would be.
The Case of the Expiring Jellies
It started wit
h the rice flour...
“When did I last use that?” asked myself as I studiously ignored the fact that I should have been working on Tom and Kayla’s story and instead reached down to pick up the packet. Mmm, since it expired in 2002, the answer is that I obviously haven’t used it for a very long time.
Still 2002, only eight years out of date... less than a decade...
Which is when the neat row of jelly crystals caught my eye... all thirteen of th
em. A baker’s dozen.
“When did I last make a jelly?” I asked myself as I brought them out into the daylight and stacked them on the bench. A very, very, very long time ago since four of them had a use-by date of March 1989.
Forty Furious Seconds to Fame
I needed an event! A backdrop - part-social, part-competitive - to put the characters in my latest story together.
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