Category Archives: Lifestyle

Chocolate, choc-a-bloc living and computerised cleaning

On Saturday afternoon I found myself grating chocolate – a jaw-clenchingly fiddly activity – for a chocolate pâté I was making. Yes, you read that correctly; chocolate pâté. It was an everything-free recipe (as in no gluten, refined sugar or dairy) I had cut out of a magazine over a year ago. Made in a loaf tin from a mixture of organic cacao powder, walnuts (soaked overnight to remove enzyme inhibitors – so the recipe said), maple syrup, tahini, grated chocolate and pure vanilla extract, it was actually very good – especially when garnished with berries – if very rich.

But I don’t recommend grating chocolate as a relaxing activity; it flies everywhere a bit like polystyrene beans and I ended up breaking a much-loved Pyrex dish in my attempts to sweep up the chocolate confetti littering the kitchen bench. I was rushing – hence the jaw clenching bit – as I’d done my beach cardio routine (see my last blog post) in the morning, washed the floors, cleaned Bertie’s ears, done a few loads of laundry and washed up all the pots and pans left over from making coq-au-vin the night before for a meals-on-wheels catch-up with a girlfriend, and now I had a 3.30pm appointment to get to. After that I just had time to bolt round the block with the dog child before heading across town – complete with grid-locked Saturday night traffic (argh!!!) – to meet friends at the cinema.

I studied Far From the Madding Crowd for my O’ levels at school (that dates me…) and know and love the book and the 1967 film with Julie Christie and Alan Bates. The 2015 adaptation is good; Carey Mulligan is excellent as Bathsheba Everdene and who can fail to be swept away by the rolling Dorset countryside? I’m not sure Matthias Schoenaerts’ Gabriel Oak has quite the same humble earthiness as Alan Bates’ character, but it was a fine film nevertheless and I got to SIT DOWN! Over drinks with my friends after the film, they talked variously of a holiday in Bali, sleeping in and siestas. Green with envy, by 10pm I was beginning to flag, my batteries seriously flat.

The next day I was up and out with Bertie and then across town again for a sumptuous birthday feast prepared in honour of a friend’s birthday. We all took a dish – from Greek rabbit casserole to chicken and fennel meatballs to the most divine lemon cheesecake and my chocolate pâté. A marvellous time was had by all but it was 6pm by the time I got home. Sated but happy, I was also exhausted and in bed by 9.30pm, which was bliss after three nights out and about.

So, come Monday morning, by which time I was once again bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I was particularly interested to read a blog post by motivational coach and author Andrew Jobling and to watch a video by Brendon Burchard of the High Peformance Academy. Both had content that really interested me, and after a choc-a-bloc weekend, the timing seemed perfect. Jobling’s blog was all about ‘do or die’ non-negotiable goals – I’m thinking writing a book – and how to stick to them, whatever life throws at you. Birthday feasts apart, committing to writing means keeping a day or afternoon free a week even if it means saying ‘No’ to a lunch or seeing a friend. It’s called commitment – and a healthy measure of self-belief comes in handy too.

But how do we stick to our goals when so many other things compete for our time and attention? Because everyone is busy. Burchard talks about getting into the right mindset and having focus and clarity. He asks if we can envision – really see, feel and sense – ourselves achieving the goal, as in becoming our future selves. Have any other wannabe authors pictured themselves holding a finished book at the launch party? I like his tip about programming in some quick wins to keep the motivation going and about gathering supportive people and mentors around you. And my favourite – given my choc-a-bloc tendency – is Bandwith Belief. This is where you ask yourself if the goal or activity is something that you have enough time or focus to do well.

Burchard – and he has a very compelling style – claims that we can all get 30 minutes to an hour back each day. Really?! But he’s not one of those lifestyle gurus who tell you to get up half an hour earlier each day. On the contrary, he advocates getting up to 50 minutes more sleep. But he does recommend avoiding distractions such as trashy TV or clicking through to banal or non-essential links on social media. The trouble is that I am not doing any of those things anyway – some weeks I don’t even turn the TV on and I go for days without looking at Facebook. But there is something I could do less of – and that’s housework.

And I’m not the only one harassed by housework. My recent Airbnb guest, GP, asked if I did all the cleaning myself, remarking that there was quite a lot of floor to clean (ah, sympathy, how nice!). She lives in a small apartment in Singapore but has one of those robot cleaners. As long as you take up any floor rugs (the robot might try and eat them), she says they are pretty effective. The conversation at the birthday feast also turned to computerised cleaners. In fact my friend Di is thinking of putting her birthday money towards one of these automated floor mops. And why not if it gives you more time to focus on more important things?

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Right now, either human cleaners or robots seem an attractive solution to broadening my Bandwidth! But I’m still intrigued to watch Burchard’s video on how to increase productivity by 30%. He says you can do that by working less and reducing stress. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Stay tuned for my next post. Meanwhile I could do with a robot at work to write grant and funding applications…

Never a dull moment

It’s been a long time between blogs but here I am again. There’s a lot happening in my world – from a potential new job to Airbnb visitors (the first since Easter), getting my shower fixed, my car serviced, my teeth filled, quite a bit of work and deadlines, deadlines, deadlines (luckily I am a big forward planner) as well as lots of family stuff and overseas phone calls. My father’s health is not so good but, on a brighter note, my 16-year-old Melbourne-based niece is somewhere – beyond the reach of phones and social media (sounds blissful to me!) – in deepest and darkest Peru doing a World Expedition Challenge, one of my London-based nieces is preparing to walk the Camino de Santiago with her boyfriend, a friend of mine has just been on a food odyssey to Hong Kong and Vietnam, another is doing the whole massage, cocktails on the beach and party thing in Bali, while my friend Simon is wandering around Europe. Everyone is on the move in one way or another!

Apart from changing jobs I’ve been aiming to keep myself moving by making enough time for exercise – it’s that whole work/life balance thing. Mind you, some of us have it relatively easy compared to the work culture in other countries. My Singaporean guest, an accountant, tells me she regularly works from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Yikes! I find it essential to make time for both exercise and free-fall soul-nourishing time where life just is without the phone beeping, the chit chat, the dashing off to cafes for catch-ups and social interaction. Time to move and time to just be, and sometimes a bit of both.

To that end Saturday mornings are now sacrosanct for a bit of cardio activity. Unlike many of my friends and colleagues I don’t go to the gym or have a personal trainer but I am a big believer in the outdoor gym. Bertie and I take off to Hampton Beach in good time on Saturdays. There are plenty of steps and slopes leading down to the beach so we intersperse jogging and walking with running up and down the slopes. Bertie loves it and scrabbles up the banks like the true working dog he is. I might not go as fast as him but I do get my heart pumping and it feels good, clearing out any stagnant energy from the week.

Then this week I bought a new bike –well, not exactly new, you know me… I found it in the Op Shop at work. I do already have a bike and I haven’t sat on it for about five years so it’s looking pretty neglected. But the difference is that this pre-loved bike is a classic ‘sit-up and beg’ model – so no back-ache-inducing forward tilt – and comes complete with a wicker basket on the front. All very Brideshead Revisited. Funnily enough, before I came to Australia I visualised myself riding along the beach path on just such a bike. I do believe that we can visualise certain things into being.

If the new job doesn't come off...

If the new job doesn’t come off…

Once I’d bought the (bargain) bike, the luck continued. I texted my dog-walking friend who has a Subaru Outback on the off-chance that he and his car might be in St. Kilda sometime soon. Nick is a glass artist and it turns out he works in a studio just around the corner every Wednesday. Bingo! So me and the new bike popped round at lunchtime and were able to watch him glass-blowing and sculpting. I was amazed at how malleable the glass becomes at high temperatures – Nick was making a giant acorn and welding on the stalk. I was in awe at the dexterity with which he worked. What a skill!

Adding the stalk to the acorn

Adding the stalk to the acorn


Apples and acorns and foil-wrapped potatoes for lunch

Apples and acorns and foil-wrapped potatoes for lunch

With the bike delivery scheduled for Friday, Bertie and I skipped off between work and a bit more work to the beach – not for cardio (hardly a goer in Wednesday work clothes and wellies) but for a gentle walk as the last rays of afternoon sun swept across the sand. As an added bonus, we met a pure bred Field Spaniel (Bertie is half field spaniel/half cocker) called Grace. We compared notes about our dogs’ behaviours and tendencies. We agreed that as working dogs, our spaniels need plenty of exercise – they need a job to do – and that they are hugely greedy and prone to pinching food off the kitchen bench. But we adore them.

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Bertie is the most delightful boy but he is quite a handful. If he gets onto the scent of something or is scared or curious he’s off like a shot and barks up a storm. We were in the country a few weekends ago and got up early to go out walking in the forest. It was rather magical – a bit misty with rain dripping off leaves, lichen and moss clinging to ancient tangled branches with no sound other than the birds and the occasional rustling in the undergrowth. Until a wallaby appeared from nowhere and Bertie took off in pursuit. It ended in a stalemate with the wallaby looking bemused on the far side of a gully as Bertie barked furiously! He’s scared of ironing boards, skateboarders, wheelie bins and now wallabies. Oh and he barks at the TV if there’s a wildlife documentary featuring birds.

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Nature programs aside, we’re both in need of a bit of down time so tonight it’ll be a case of SIT, DROP AND STAY… in front of the TV.

Fascinated by the Lives of Others

A few weeks ago I went to hear award-winning, London-based biographer Claire Tomalin talk at The Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. It was such a treat to share her world for an hour and discover how she goes about her craft.

Her first biography was of Mary Wollstonecraft, an 18th century English writer, philosopher and advocate of women’s rights. There’s a strong feminist streak to Tomalin’s writing and, with Mary Woolstonecraft, she set out to find the historical truth behind women’s lives.

Her most recent biographies have been of Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy but she has also written a book about Dickens’ mistress Nelly Ternan, The Invisible Woman, which was made into a film starring Ralph Fiennes. She described a process of falling in love with her subjects and inhabiting their worlds as she researched them. As she spoke of threading lives together, I had the image of a patchwork quilt – what a skill to be able to order all those squares into a fluent narrative.

Other people’s lives are endlessly fascinating – truth is indeed often stranger than fiction. Last week I read an obituary of Ann Barr (born 1929) who was features editor of Harpers & Queen from 1970 to 1984. She coined the term ‘Sloane Ranger’ and launched The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook and, later, The Official Sloane Ranger Diary. For those who don’t know what a Sloane Ranger is (or was) let me share the definition from the article in The Telegraph: “the country loving, upper-middle-class, well-connected tribe of posh, but not particularly rich or grand Henrys and Carolines (the men were noted for their mustard cords) who seemed to be everywhere 40 years ago.” Princess Diana was a Sloane Ranger – think Green Wellies, floral Laura Ashley skirts and blouses with frilly collars turned up.

I was captivated by this account of a self-effacing woman who was never afraid of off-beat ideas, had a pale face and red hair as a child, spent some of her childhood in Canada and then at a girls’ boarding school in Shropshire. Barr was clearly eccentric and unafraid of bucking convention. At the peak of her career she apparently dyed her hair a “startling version of its original colour and wore quirkily patterned tights and knickerbockers.” She lived in a top-floor flat near Notting Hill Gate and never married but had several romances. For the past 30 years she took up with a parrot called Turkey who accompanied her to parties. He survives her as do a host of devoted god-children.

What a life! How wonderful to have lived such a rich and creative life without needing to conform. As Oscar Wilde was quoted as saying: Be Yourself as Everyone Else is Taken. Hear, hear, I say!

This last weekend I heard broadcaster and writer Ramona Koval speaking about her memoir, Bloodhound, the story of searching for her father. Her parents were Holocaust survivors who ended up settling in Melbourne. Her mother escaped the death camps by changing identity and passing her 14-year-old self off as a 21-year-old Catholic girl, speaking Polish rather than the more familiar Yiddish – an extraordinary story in itself.

Koval always suspected that the man who raised her was not her biological father. She took 15 years to write the story of her quest which took her to rural Poland, to a nursing home in Melbourne and to a horse whisperer in Queensland. A turning point in her search came when she and her sister did a DNA test, both scraping away at the inside of their cheek for an answer! They discovered that they were half sisters and so clearly Ramona was on to something. By all accounts the book is as gripping as a thriller as the clues come together. Luckily, there were no ‘spoilers’ in the audience – I can’t wait to read it and find out what happened and if she got a definitive answer. I’ll let you know.

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

How often does one spend a Sunday in a church hall observing a skeleton sitting in a chair? It sounds like something from the Mexican Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) but our skeleton was not of the once flesh and blood variety, but a model – although we did dress him up to look like a cool dude – used for educational purposes.

I was, in fact, in a Feldenkrais workshop. I’ve written about the Feldenkrais Method before: pioneered by Israeli Moshe Feldenkrais in the 1940s and 1950s, it’s about developing awareness of how you move, exploring ways of letting go of the holding patterns in your body and reconnecting your movements into a fluid whole. I am a big fan of Feldy as we call it.

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The workshop was all about how to sit more comfortably, be it at the computer, on the plane, the train or in a theatre or cinema. Many of us spend far too much time sitting, which can put a lot of strain on our back, neck and shoulders. I was particularly happy to spend a day tuning into my body and relaxing the muscular effort having spent five hours in the car the day before.

A work colleague and other fellow fundraisers who were spending a weekend in Woodend (near Hanging Rock for those not so familiar with county Victoria), invited me up to join them for a day. Now, I had imagined that the person living in Woodend would be doing lunch and had taken some special biscuits and some chocolate as a present.

As it turned out I joined them halfway through a day out and caught the end of a farmers’ market at Trentham, about 25km further on from Woodend. As I bought some olive tapenade to add to my contributions to the lunch I was looking forward to, Bertie cocked his leg on the tarpaulin covering the stall. Luckily the lady didn’t notice so we continued merrily on our way on as he sniffed around for scraps and barked loudly at other dogs.

Our hostess and tour guide for the day bought some live chickens to add to her brood, and then we stopped at the bakery for coffee and refreshments. This would have been the ideal place to have lunch but I was advised to hold back as we were heading to a winery where they served cheese platters. What’s more vanilla slices were promised for afternoon tea.

After the coffee (chai in my case), we ambled round the various shops – giftware, New Age, vintage (we’re talking Edwardian and Victorian with pince-nez, lace-up boots, corsets, crinolines and outfits that wouldn’t look out of place in a Jane Austin film) and other quirky stores. Poor Bertie had to put up with being tied to various lamp posts when sunny paddocks beckoned just outside the township.

Retail therapy accomplished – I only bought a loaf of spelt bread from the bakery – we popped back to the house, a wonderful rambling building up a long driveway, to drop off the chicks. Part country chic and part scruffy, the house was once a coach house and had an observatory dome for star-gazing, a spacious verandah strewn with wisteria seed pods (did you know that wisteria belongs to the pea family?), a large garden and tennis court.

The winery was yet another 25km in the other direction and so it was close to four o’clock when we got there. At this point I realised that I’d have to drive straight home from the winery thus forfeiting the vanilla slice, but I was consoled by the thought of the cheese platter – my stomach was startling to growl with hunger at this point.

The winery looked elegant in the autumn sunshine, the late afternoon rays glinting over the lake. But our business was inside in deep comfy sofas positioned around the fire. I looked around and saw wine lists and bottles lined up for tasting sessions, but no sign of food or menus anywhere. “Oh no, they don’t do food here,” said our hostess, “just big dinners cooked by well-known chefs that sell out months in advance.” I pretended not to mind (in other words I ate my words…) as the first sip of sparkling Pinot went straight to my head.

I spotted this in the ladies' room at the café

I spotted this in the ladies’ room at the café

At 4.30 p.m. I got up to go knowing I had to get back to Skype my mother (my father had been very unwell the previous week and we were long overdue a chat) and to attend the Feldy workshop on the Sunday. Before I set off I devoured hunks of the spelt bread topped with the salted caramel chocolate that I had originally bought as a gift. Not a bad combination as it happens! I did my best to keep the journey home interesting by listening to a German Berlitz CD and singing along to Hayden’s Nelson Mass, but I was a little weary and stiff from sitting by the time I got back. And I felt a little cheated of culinary comfort.

So what a treat it was on the Sunday to play around with different ways of sitting more dynamically, making circles with the pelvis (a favourite Feldy exercise known as the Pelvic Clock), connecting the head and pelvis, freeing up the thoracic spine and the ribs (the thing about the rib cage is just that, many of us keep our ribs rigid and imprisoned rather than free and flexible) and bending our torsos sideways into C shapes. Another exercise we did was getting up from our chair all the while imagining a pair of spectacles attached to our behinds; the idea was to get up in such a way that we had to tilt forward. That’s the fun of Feldenkrais – it’s a way of freeing up bodies and minds to move with greater ease. I’m still feeling the benefits after a long day at work today. Yoo Hoo!

Culinary Catastrophes and very slooooow soup

This weekend I decided to let go of the to-do lists and writing compulsion and, instead, potter around the house, watch films and have a cook-up. A sort of brain de-cluttering weekend after a few intense weeks at work.

I started with a long bath on Friday night accompanied by a whisky and soda followed by leftovers for dinner. Bertie and I then snuggled up (he definitely thinks the sofa is HIS bed) and watched the first episode of Homeland (a friend from work lent me the first series on DVD).

On Saturday I tested out a slow cooker that a dog-walking friend passed on to me. I started with a curried carrot and lentil soup. The recipe stated that it should be cooked on low for 4-5 hours. I have never used a slow cooker before so didn’t want to leave it on while I was out. Slow cookers really do require a lot of trust. What if the soup boiled dry and caught fire? What about Bertie? So it was only on for half an hour before I took myself off to see Testament of Youth, the fabulous film adapted from the First World War memoir by Vera Brittain. Do go and see it if you haven’t already.

When I got home I put the soup on for another couple of hours and watched with fascination as nothing seem to happen – not a single bubble, pop or squeak, but then the whole point of slow cookers is the, um, slowness. Assuming that the soup would eventually cook, I turned my attention to Sunday night’s dinner. With my brother and his wife overseas, I volunteered to cook for my niece and my two nephews. Now before I start on my tale, I should explain that my sister-in-law is a Cordon Bleu cook and produces the most amazing meals. My 21-year-old nephew is also a highly accomplished chef. No pressure there then…

I used to love cooking when I was a child and young adult. Starting with domestic science classes at school when I was eleven to dinner parties at university and then in my share houses and first flat, I was a reasonably good and keen cook. Although I still enjoy cooking, something seems to have been lost in translation.

Anyway, a friend shared a Boeuf Bourguignon recipe with me, one she had downloaded from the SBS website and found to be easy and delicious. As a dish I could prepare in advance, it seemed perfect. Once I’d bought in a kilo of topside, a few leeks, shallots, a bottle of red wine, herbs, some carrots, celery and about 300g of speck and mushrooms, I was ready to go. So on Saturday night, in case the urge to write came upon me on Sunday (it didn’t), I sautéed the base of speck, thinly chopped carrots, celery, leek and onion.

Come Sunday afternoon all I had to do was brown the beef and add it to the vegetables with the wine, bring it to the boil and cook very slowly for 40 minutes. As the meat simmered, I started on the carrot puree, a special touch in this particular recipe which you stir in at the end, and on the fruit crumble. I had the meat on one ring, apples and frozen blackberries on another and the carrots on the back ring. My casserole pot is quite large and about ten minutes into the cooking, I noticed that it had knocked the gas knob up to high. I quickly lifted off the lid and brought the meat back to a simmer. But I fear the damage was already done as the meat was pretty damn tough and chewy when I tested it twenty minutes later. How could I feed the kids shoe leather?

Delicious apart from the leathery meat!

Delicious apart from the leathery meat!

In desperation I rang Ollie, the 21-year-old, and asked for his advice. He thought that I must have either over-cooked the meat when I browned it or during the actual cooking. I offered to run out and buy steaks – we could perhaps drain off some of the delicious bourguignon sauce to have with them – but they had had steak the night before. Ollie said there was some lamb in the fridge that needed cooking so he threw that into the top oven. I agreed to go down about and hour before we were due to eat and pop some baking potatoes in the oven.

I got the potatoes in just after 6pm – we planned to eat at 7pm – and then, keen to salvage my culinary credibility, dashed out to Woolworths and got some milk, a cauliflower and some cheese. I am proud to say – something had to work – that I produced a beautifully browned cauliflower cheese on the dot of seven. We also heated up the carrot puree and fried up the mushrooms. While the cauliflower cheese was in the oven, I got on with the rest of the crumble, rubbing the chilled unsalted butter into the mix of flour, almond meal and sugar (special low GI coconut sugar, if you please). Not only did it start to resemble dough rather quickly, I began to get pains in my wrists – too much typing, I say – so re-named the dish RSI crumble.

Phew - it worked!

Phew – it worked!

With a bit more flour and almond meal, the crumble turned out OK. Well more or less. We were laughing so much about how I’d never make Masterchef – the baked potatoes were a little undercooked and the carrot puree was on the bland side – that I forgot to time the crumble. The topping was a wee bit burnt, but salvageable, when I got it out of the oven but the apples were still a bit crunchy. How did that happen?! I did better than this in year 8! At this point we were all laughing hysterically. What we lacked in culinary precision, we gained in the most wonderful evening of belly laughing bonding. And I proved worthy of my nickname: Mad Aunt Lot-Lot.

Oh, and when I got the home the carrot soup was just about cooked!

Write for Your Life but avoid the red flags

I’ve recently had a quite a bookish time: I had my first memoir mentoring session last Friday (in lieu of the workshop I missed), attended a session at the Victorian Writers’ Centre on how to craft a pitch to publishers – “Every writer should be prepared to explain their story in one sentence,” (a quote from a literary agent), and then on Monday I was back at the Writers’ Centre for a panel discussion entitled ‘All About Agents.’

Memoir-writing is very much in vogue at the moment which is good in some ways but also means more competition! One of the main things I took away from my mentoring session is to ignore the pesky critic that sits atop many a writer’s shoulder chattering away along the lines of: why would anyone want to read my story, I’m not good enough, I haven’t lead an interesting enough life (climbed Everest, sailed solo round the world, invented something new or changed the world) plus my family and friends might not approve etc.

Because we all have a story to tell – if we’re brave enough– and we all have our unique voice, style and perspective on life. The challenge, and I say this as someone who is good at glossing the tricky stuff and making it funny, is to connect with the raw emotion and to write from an authentic space. So, for example, if you’re writing about your childhood, you need to take yourself back to that time and channel the younger you, not the wise adult writing with the benefit of hindsight. It’s a fine line balancing the light and the dark. Spiri, my mentor, suggested I read “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Chemo” by writer and comedian Luke Ryan. Have any of you come across it? Or does anyone have any good memoirs to recommend?

One way to stimulate and inspire life story writing is to draw on diaries, photographs and other memorabilia. When I shipped my remaining belongings from the UK to Australia a few years ago, I included a box of diaries, letters and other keepsakes. In the back of my mind I thought they might come in handy one day. I’ve had a lot of fun reading my diary from 1973. Interestingly it was quite a turbulent time in my family – marital mayhem and moving schools to name but a few challenges – and yet my entries are totally matter of fact: meals; visits to grandmothers; aunts; shopping trips; fun fairs; school; friends; and endless accounts of the weather ( I reckon I picked the weather obsession up from my mother!). Apart from describing a few horrable hedaches (my spelling had a way to go as you might expect from a nine year-old going on ten), a nasty tonsillectomy that made me throw up eight times and a not-so-good day or two at school, my daily accounts are almost devoid of emotion. I think that will change as I get older and my dairies become more private – as in lockable!

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The pitching essentials workshop run by journalist and author Maria Katsonis was fun too. We did some practical exercises and had to come up with a 30-second elevator pitch for our book, identify comparison titles and develop a mini synopsis describing our story or concept in one paragraph. The pitch Maria used was: ‘A true story about me and my experience of mental illness set against the backdrop of growing up gay in a traditional Greek family’. She admitted that it took quite some time to come up with something as concise and pithy: brevity is definitely the name of the game. I cheated a bit as I had already come up with some of these pitches for my A-Z but I may have to change them as my new project emerges. As for comparison titles I have been saying – but again this may change – that my book is Eat, Pray, Love crossed with Bridget Jones meets Embarrassing Bodies (the TV show). Go figure…

Red flags to avoid include explaining how or why you came to write the story, how much you’ve wanted to write since you were a child and how much your family and friends love your work. Hmm… I’ve fallen into a few of those clichéd traps before now. And never comment on the quality of your work. Your writing should speak for itself – it’s the show don’t tell rule.

It was somewhat sobering to hear the agents talking. One of them confessed she gets up to 38 submissions a week, more than she can possibly read. The focus for agents needs to be on the commercial potential of your work – if they can’t sell it they don’t make any money (typically they take 15% of all sales) and on career longevity versus one shot wonders! I was amazed to hear that so many writers fail to read the guidelines on an agent’s website and send in strangely formatted works in all different fonts or submit more words than requested. All no-nos that will consign you to the bin.

But I’m a long way off red flags and the editorial bin. My homework for the week is to identify the key themes of my story and how they might group together and, from there, build some kind of overarching framework.

A bit of fun – the Liebster Award

My grateful thanks to Chloe who writes a fascinating blog about life in Georgia (https://itstartedinoxford.wordpress.com/one), for nominating me for the Liebster Award, an initiative started by the blogging community to promote and share favourite blogs, giving them increased exposure. Chloe’s blog is a great read and gives a very visceral feel for living in a country that was once part of Soviet Russia. I highly recommend it.

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Please see the last section of this post for how the Liebster Award works if you are a fellow blogger. In nutshell, the person who nominates you asks you 11 questions and also asks you to provide 11 random facts about yourself. I thought 11 ‘About Me’ questions was quite enough so cheated and didn’t provide the random facts! As the nominee I, in turn, nominate 5-10 of my favourite blogs and ask them 11 questions. And so it goes on.

So here, dear readers, are my answers.

1: Where is your dream travel destination?

Europe, Europe, Europe – plonk me in just about any city in Europe and I’ll be happy. OK, so maybe not somewhere like Preston in Lancashire (sorry Lancastrians, no offence meant)… Although I live in Australia, I love to visit Europe whenever I get the chance. I aim to explore a new city every time I return to see relatives in the UK. In recent years I’ve visited Krakow, Copenhagen and Zurich. Give me cobbled streets, cafes with newspapers on racks, church spires, Royal palaces, Baroque, Rococo, Art Nouveau and more. I love the history, culture and elegance of everything European.

2: Dogs or cats?
Dogs every time! Just ask Bertie. In fact, we’ve just got in from a walk and he barked like mad at a couple of cats who had the ‘temerity’ to remain on the pavement as we approached.
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3: Do you have any hidden talent?
I think I’m a frustrated actor. I recently went to an interactive Murder Mystery dinner – see the picture below – and had a lot of fun playing a character called Ursula Eades-Jones who was big in the suffragette movement – the play is set in the 1920s!

That's me in the middle

That’s me in the middle

4: Can you speak any foreign languages?
I speak passable French and I did a degree in German and Spanish, both of which are a bit rusty nowadays! However, I try to keep them going by watching foreign language news on SBS and going to the French, German and Spanish film festivals.

5: What is your favourite type of flower?
I adore roses!

6: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Ooh, well. Perhaps retired from the formal side of work with a published book or two under my belt…

7: How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

A one hundred and ten percenter, funny (as in ha-ha, not peculiar) and all heart (when my busy head is not running the show, that is).

8: Tea or coffee?
Tea – there are so many wonderful teas to enjoy from caffeinated ones to herbal infusions. But you can’t beat a good English Breakfast!

9: What are you currently reading?
Autumn Laing by Alex Miller which is (and I quote from the ABC website) “loosely based on painter Sidney Nolan’s formative years with his patron, muse and lover, Sunday Reed, and explores the doomed affair between an artist and the woman who aspires to change his life”. It’s beautifully written and an engrossing read.

10: What’s the first thing you see if you turn your head right?
A framed poster featuring two Scottie dogs and advertising ‘Black and White’ Scotch Whisky.
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11: If you have any pets, what are their names?
Bertie is my two-year old spaniel. Love him to bits!!

Now, that’s quite enough of me!

I am nominating the following blogs for the Liebster Award. No offence taken if any of my nominees don’t wish to take part. I hope that you are anyway happy to be nominated!

http://annemadelinedesigns.com – Anne marie
http://ryanlanz.com/ – A writers’ path
https://serinssphere.wordpress.com/
Kiwi Bee at https://kiwibeeblogger.wordpress.com
http://dailyinspirationblog.com
https://kelzbelzphotography.wordpress.com
http://freshfieldgrove.com.au/category/blog – Farmer Fi
http://whattohavefordinnertonight.com/ – Harriet
https://paintintoacorner.wordpress.com/ – Sara
http://markbialczak.com/ – Mark

The Official Rules Of The Liebster Award (non-bloggers do not need to read on..)

If you have been nominated for The Liebster Award AND YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT, write a blog post about the Liebster award in which you:

1. thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.

2. display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)

3. answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.

These are:

1. What is your all-time favourite film
2. What does your ideal Sunday morning look like?
3. Town or country or both?
4. What is your favourite meal – feel free to share your recipe!
5. What would you do if you won the lottery?
6. Arts or Science?
7. How would you feel if you had no TV, phone or internet access for a week?
8. Most memorable travel adventure to date
9. Favourite drink – alcoholic or otherwise
10. What world issue most concerns you today?
11. If your fairy godmother could grant you one wish, what would it be?

4. provide 11 random facts about yourself.

5. nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)

6. create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.

7. list these rules in your post (You can copy and paste from here.) Once you have written and published it, you then have to:

8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

Every cloud – or cough – has a silver lining

I never got to the memoir-writing weekend workshop! Bertie came down with canine cough the day before. Poor boy he sounded as if he had something stuck in his throat and had been smoking Gauloise cigarettes! Apart from the hacking cough, he brought up endless amounts of frothy mucous – sorry too much detail – which he managed to deposit on my bed, his bed, the living room rug, carpets and floors. Luckily that phase of the virus has passed but he’s still coughing and so dog parks are out of bounds (canine cough is highly contagious) as is contact with other dogs. Try telling that to a two-year old… We sneak round the block for a very much reduced version of our normal walks, madly dodging other dogs by criss-crossing the road. And, before you ask, yes he was vaccinated but, like human flu, there are lots of different strains which can slip through the net.

As I couldn’t leave him with the dog-sitter (she has two dogs of her own), I tried to get someone to come and look after Bertie at home but it was too short notice. So that was that: workshop plans aborted. Although I had been very much looking forward to the weekend, I was pretty philosophical about having to cancel. Que sera, sera – and things often have an uncanny way of working out. In fact, the prospect of a weekend at home with no plans or deadlines was pretty attractive. Regular readers will be familiar with my ranting on about time or lack of it and my seemingly never-ending to-do list. So here was a chance for me to slow down a bit.

Needless to say, I filled up my time and studiously avoided writing. Because the truth is that I can’t think how or where to start with Project Rewrite! So I took myself off to a shopping mall, something I do very rarely – I think the last time was August 2014 – armed with the $50 voucher I received in lieu of soon-to-expire air miles. I needed some new winter boots and found the perfect pair on sale. While I was at it, I bought some heavily reduced pumps and sandals ready for next summer – there’s nothing like planning ahead. I also got some bits and pieces in a closing down sale and treated myself to some speciality teas, my favourite a crème brûlée black tea, and purchased new hair dryer at Kmart for my Airbnb guests

I also had a bit of a cook-up – soups and stews and poached fruits, all perfect for chilly autumn days. On Sunday night I invited a girlfriend and made slow-cook lamb shank soup which we ate with crusty bread. For dessert I stewed apple and blackberries which I served with the plum ice cream I had made over Easter; a perfect combination even if I say so myself!

On Monday I got in touch with the workshop facilitator, Spiri, who offered me a refund or the option of having a one on one meeting with her about my book and 3-4 follow-up phone or email mentoring sessions. I toyed with the idea of engaging a mentor a while back but then saw the workshop and booked on that instead. In truth, a few individual sessions will probably be far more valuable to me than a more generic group approach. What a bonus! Thank you, Bertie, for bringing that about!

From FOMO to JOMO and Slow Art

Having made some rather grand statements about returning to my book and possibly converting it into a full-blown memoir rather than a series of alphabetical stories, I’ve STILL not managed to write a single word. I have, however, jotted down some thoughts about possible themes on a couple of sheets of paper and I’ve done a bit of prep work for this weekend’s workshop.

Meanwhile I still grapple with the time issue, or lack of it. I heard Ruby Wax talking on radio – she’s over here performing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival – about the modern-day epidemic of busyness. We all rush around trying to cram it all in – from working, doing the daily chores and socialising to culture-vulturing, learning new skills, keeping fit and keeping up with everything and everyone. Ruby commented that many of us get stuck in fight and flight mode. Primitive man would have been flooded with adrenalin when fleeing from a wild boar, but his/her nervous system would have calmed down once the danger passed.

In today’s world many people live in overdrive without ever coasting along in neutral. So I was interested to read about how some of the big companies are buying colouring books for their staff to help them handle the stress of the modern workplace. Evidence shows that colouring can actually change the brain and induce calm. It’s a simple non-competitive activity that anyone can do, anywhere.

And that’s the good news: for all the madness and constant activity and stimulation, there are plenty of initiatives that put a bit of Zen back into our lives. From meditation to laughter yoga, singing, knitting, colouring and being in nature, there are plenty of opportunities for us to claw back some down time. When push comes to shove we have to make the leap from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) to JOMO (Joy of Missing Out). In my view time is the most precious commodity of all. A crowded day that involves rushing from thing to thing is never satisfying because we’re not fully present to any one thing; it’s just a blur of seamless activity and thinking.

So for me JOMO is the key to getting back to writing. Less is definitely more even if it means missing the latest film, saying no to lunch with friends or skipping the house work. Squeezing in the writing around all the other stuff merely inhibits the creative flow and becomes a pointless and frustrating exercise. So I’ve decided to ring-fence a day every weekend for writing.

I didn’t manage to pull it off this weekend but I did take part in an afternoon of Slow Art at a local gallery on Saturday afternoon. Apparently the average time a gallery visitor spends in front of a work of art is 17 seconds. The idea behind Slow Art Day, which took place in venues right around the world (see http://www.slowartday.com/2015-venues/) is ‘to attend and look at five pieces of art slowly’ and then meet up with the other participants over refreshments to discuss the experience. The Gallery at the Bayside Arts and Cultural Centre (almost on my doorstep) was one of just two Melbourne locations hosting a Slow Art Day event.

We looked at two pictures by well-known children’s book artist Graeme Base, and three landscapes by Welsh-born artist Daniel Crawshaw. I’ve probably been a 17-seconder all my life – especially at the big blockbuster exhibitions – so sitting for ten minutes t in front of a work of art was a completely new and enriching experience.

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It was interesting comparing notes with my fellow Slow Art goers over a delicious afternoon tea where I applied a similar mindful approach to savouring the cool, silky, creamy texture of the vanilla slice. Yum! The pictures evoked different emotional states in all of us. In the absence of curators’ captions, we invented our own meanings, narratives and interpretations.

One of Daniel Crawshaw’s pictures was of trees in what looked like a rainforest. The more I looked, the more texture, colour and clarity I perceived and the more the light changed as if the painting were a living breathing object. After a while I wanted to explore – possibly take refuge in – the spaces between the trees. Maybe I need to take my pen and notebook and sit under a tree in my local park. Who knows how that might shape and influence my writing… if I give it a little time.

You may delay but time will not (Benjamin Franklin)

Deciding to return to my book – a memoir-style life adventure arranged as an A-Z – is the easy bit. Finding the time to get to it is the challenge. The motivational coach giving the ‘Beginners Guide to Becoming an Author’ workshop encouraged us to get into the habit of writing 500 words a day. Surely we could find half an hour? That sounds reasonable but it often takes longer to write 500 words – depending on the space you’re in – and I don’t know about you, but sometimes that free half hour gets pushed back to the end of the day once all the must-dos have been accomplished, and the only thing that beckons is sleep.

I seem to have been chasing my tail for the last six weeks – Bertie and I have so much in common – trying to create space for some stillness where I can come back to neutral and just be. Once I get into that state, it’s easier to gain clarity and direction not to mention inspiration. I’m mulling over whether to convert my episodic A-Z into a more formal memoir or whether to flesh out the current structure and, as a friend suggested, top and tail the existing alphabetic entries to give the book more flow and continuity.

I tell myself that my new job will lose some of its newness and become a little easier and more manageable after the Easter break. I’ve had about 15 days there spread across two and a half days a week and have been head down from start to finish each time. No lunch breaks, faffing or chatting for me, a challenge in itself as I work in a very chatty office. I’ve been going a million miles an hour to get it all done – it’s called adrenalin.

In between the other bits of work and welcoming Airbnb guests, I spend a fair bit of time cleaning my house, making beds, re-potting plants, pruning enthusiastic shrubs that entwine themselves around my washing line, weeding, walking Bertie, washing Bertie (he does so love rolling in stinky stuff on the beach), cleaning my car (the worst job of all as it takes ages and is hard to do well – think smeary windows) and attending to all the other admin and household tasks we all have to contend with. Oh, and then there’s the socialising which has taken a back seat to everything else recently.

Anyway, today started well enough; I enjoyed a mini lie-in, something past eight instead of something past seven and had a cup of tea and a piece of toast with my guests. But Bertie had another agenda and was conducting a silent but messy protest at the later start and delayed walk. No wonder he was so quiet. He had chewed a hole in his mat and was pulling out the green filler. Never mind, the beach was glorious when we got there and Bertie had a ball in more ways than one.

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Back home, I had a cuppa, watered the garden and put on a load of washing before sitting down to do a little outdoor meditation. Another one of those habits that we’re encouraged to fit into our day along with preparing healthy food, exercising, stretching, keeping up with social media and writing in our Gratitude Journal. Just ten minutes of this and that can change our life…. or make us late for work…

But here I was creating a bit of down time – at last. Peace and quiet. Stillness. Feet on the Ground. Deep Breath. No Agenda. No rushing. Soon, however, the dog child was up to more tricks. He was paddling around in the just-watered flower beds chewing sticks, growling and barking at something – perhaps a bird– and trying to jump onto my knee with muddy paws. I am breathing in, I am breathing out, I said silently in my head, ignoring him. Then I heard the dog flap open and close and realised he had gone inside. The next thing I heard was a scrabbling chasing kind of sound as he ran round in circles in my study spreading the love – and the mud.

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He’s now worn himself out and is fast asleep on his bed – the one he didn’t chew up. And I have shown up at my desk. OK, so I will have to vacuum the floor but after that no more sabotaging the writing!

I’m currently reading a wonderful book called The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwaller, which is the story of an anchoress, a holy woman, in medieval England who chooses to ‘die’ to the material world and devote herself to prayer and to God. At the tender age of 17, she goes – with the door nailed shut – into a small stone hermitage attached to the village church. I’m not advocating total withdrawal from the world but writing is a discipline – for me anyway – that requires time and space away from other distractions. So I’ve booked onto a wonderful sounding memoir-writing workshop in Aireys Inlet, just down the road from my old haunt Anglesea, in April. What a treat to get away and be in the company of other writers with nothing but a blank sheet of paper and the opportunity to let the ideas flow. I think it was author Cate Kennedy who was quoted as saying: “Take the page and wreck it.” I intend to do just that.