Mother’s Day

How was your Mother’s Day? I know I’m a bit behind in sharing mine but it’s been a little frantic around here.  The day after Mother’s Day, first thing in the morning I had a clinical exam, where I had to perform a number of tricks in less than 20 minutes.  I can only liken […]

A New Year’s Eve Dinner

Our New Year’s Eve wasn’t full of party revellers, huge crowds and explosive fireworks.  It was celebrated in a very civilised yet casual way of a sit-down dinner party for 10, held at a recently renovated tiny cottage on the mid-NSW coast. We were in Stuart’s Point for New Year’s Eve and staying in the […]

A Suburban Backyard

The first time I can recall visiting the home of my great uncle and aunt was in 1977.  Having just moved to Australia from New Zealand, Doug and Margaret were the only relatives we had in our new country. Doug was an author and a poet and Margaret, a painter.  After living in Circular Quay […]

A Musical Soiree

I had a weekend of music with an 80’s concert of Australian rock bands on Saturday night and then a piano recital the following night.  The only thing they had in common was that there was someone on the keyboards at both. I’m going to sound like a Philistine, but this was the first piano […]

A Springtime Wedding

A very good friend of ours married a few weeks ago.  We were thrilled to be invited to share in his very special day. While I’ve known the groom, Shinji, since I was 16, I’d only met his fiance once and that was at his daughter’s wedding where, because of the volume of people, we didn’t […]

Not Quite Nigella’s Halloween Party

Carl and I scooped the invitation of the year when we were invited to Lorraine’s Halloween Party.  If you are a regular reader of Not Quite Nigella you would know that her Halloween parties are famous and that her readers eagerly anticipate the Halloween post. The invitation strictly said that entry was only permissible if […]

A Sunday Lunch

My mother always told me to choose my friends wisely and I certainly did that when I chose a chef to be my friend and better than that, a chef who loves to invite friends over for a very fine feast. Stumbling out of the Hilton on Sunday morning then foolishly filling up on Eggs […]

The Dinner Party

Last Saturday night Carl and I had nothing on.  And we didn’t mind.  But then at the eleventh hour close friends of ours phoned and asked if we would like to come for dinner – to a dinner party!  Suddenly we were keener than mustard for a night out.   I might have mentioned my […]

Irene Gleeson, the ‘Lioness of Africa’

A few days ago I was enjoying a quick catch-up with Lorraine and Celia.  We were talking about what we’d been up to and I had to let them know that sadly, I’d been to another funeral.  ‘Another funeral?’ asked Celia, ‘Wasn’t there just one?’  And I said, ‘No, there’s been two’. And so I […]

Not Quite Nigella, the Book

When I started my blog two years ago, no one was reading it.  Carl’s job every night was to click in and out of my blog to cause something to show up on my blog stats.  But quickly Carl’s fingers wore out.  As did his keyboard.  So as I didn’t know of any blogs besides […]