Arabella is on school holidays for two weeks but as she has exams the minute she returns to school, she has work to do. At her school the girls in Year 12 are assigned a teacher who will be their mentor. As luck would have it, the deputy principal specifically requested my daughter and […]
Potato Scallops and…Thursday Nights and Saturday Mornings
April 3, 2012 By 38 Comments
When I was 15 I thought I needed a job. Part-time work was available for teens in most retail stores for Thursday night/Saturday morning shifts. (This was back in the day when weekend trading was only permitted on Saturdays from 8am until 12md. I went to my local shopping mall and walked from store to […]
Coq Au Vin and…Entertaining Perils
March 2, 2012 By 51 Comments
Entertaining can be full of perils and the perils absolutely multiply if you’re trying to pull off a dinner party with your own small and unpredictable children under your feet. My mother didn’t like to do things by halves so instead of inviting a manageable amount of six guests, she would invite 12. And there […]
Vanilla Slice and…Not Everyone Can be a Ballerina
February 12, 2012 By 43 Comments
I went to ballet classes when I was growing up. Did five years of them. Every Thursday afternoon from 4-5pm. Mrs Warwick was the teacher. She was an older woman who ran the classes from a studio she’d purpose-built in her backyard. She had carrot-read hair piled on top of her head like she was […]
Chicken Chasseur and…The Lord’s Day
February 10, 2012 By 43 Comments
Sunday was the Lord’s day when I was growing up. You went to church. And you didn’t rock up in any old thing, you brushed your hair, cleaned your teeth and wore your Sunday best. And you didn’t only attend church, you went to choir practise as well. Choir practise was on for an hour […]
Bread and Butter Pickles and…Charlie Turns Five
February 9, 2012 By 39 Comments
I was so excited to turn five. Not just because it was my birthday but because it was the day I started school. In New Zealand you didn’t start school on the first day of the new school year like everyone else in the world, you started on your 5th birthday. I don’t know how […]
Florentines and…’You Don’t Play with Knives’
February 8, 2012 By 35 Comments
During my childhood, a favourite outing for my sisters and me (but not for my mother) was shopping day. My mother would pile all five of us into the car where we roamed about as we weren’t strapped into car seats and we didn’t wear seat belts. In fact at some stage a law came […]
Toothpick Appetisers and…Jury Duty Penance
February 7, 2012 By 37 Comments
Carl’s been called up to do his bit for society. Not that he has time to. It’s the second time he’s been called up in less than three months. A few months ago Carl received in the mail a letter from the Sheriff’s Department letting him know he was required to be at the Court […]
Devils on Horseback and…The View From the Staircase
February 5, 2012 By 31 Comments
I grew up in a house with a mother who loved to cook. Not only cook, but entertain. I have wonderful memories of those nights when we were given ‘fish n chips’ for dinner (the only available takeaway), were put into the bath early, came down to the lounge to dry our hair in front […]
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