A good life at any age
19 January 2026 | Living Well
Had my brain just screamed chocolate today, it would have been a good day! But today my brain screamed chocolate, cake, ice-cream, wine, cashews, more wine, cheese and large helpings of everything!
” You need a treat. You’ve been eating so well, limiting alcohol and you’ve lost 4 kg. Great work! Let’s have a coffee and a cake at the French Patisserie you love, just to celebrate.”
That was 10.30am. Delicious!
I was meeting a friend for lunch. Grilled fish, salad and a glass of Rose. But then the table near ours ordered dessert. The most amazing layers of berries, chocolate spongey stuff and those whorls of curled chocolate. Well perhaps we can share…..? No? Ok well I’ve been eating such healthy food lately…
I came home to write and at 5pm it was time to walk to the beach via Acland Street, St Kilda. I passed all the cake shops, saw people devouring ice-creams but my food calm still holding, until at 7 Apples I saw they had my favourite sour cherry with dark chocolate ice-cream in store. They haven’t made it for months and here it was. I had to have some. The rational brain kicked in. I would walk further. The salesperson must have misheard me. I thought I said a small scoop in a cup, but this one was massive and delicious. My walk was shorter than usual. My brain deduced it was still very hot weather, and I didn’t want to be heat stressed.
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Instagram ‘s a funny thing. As I scrolled and liked my way through the day’s posts I came across Retiring_Not_Shy and smiled. Clever. Funny. A woman who models my kind of clothes. Months pass and I post a shout-out for people to be interviewed for my book 50 Faces: 50…
16 August 2021 | 50 Faces 50 Lives
This week I met a remarkable man. Let me set the scene. It’s my first interview in over a year for my Ageing Well book. For the past year a Covid world made meeting people a risky business. So today I’m as excited as a kid at Christmas as I…
26 March 2021 | 50 Faces 50 Lives
I published this article after an interview with Petrus Spronk in November 2019..it seems like light years ago! It was one of the highlights of the research for my book and I’ll never forget encountering the creative mind in all its purity and the outstanding talent of this great artist….
19 February 2021 | 50 Faces 50 Lives
A dedicated cinephile- given me an aisle seat, a big screen, surround sound and an anticipatory hush and I am transported for nearly two hours into another world. If it’s a Good film and I’ve seen so many Good films this summer…. there is no other reality, other than which…
18 January 2026 | Life-Style
It’s holiday time and while Melbourne rushes to the beach, I rush to the city. The days between Christmas and New Year see beaches and shopping centres crowded, but the roads are free of school traffic so moving around is easy. There’s a laid-back summer vibe in Melbourne that I…
30 December 2025 | Life-Style
Let me start with a story. I was living the corner office dream in the 1990’s. A well-paid corporate job, big hair and shoulder pads, and a big ego, I was General Manager of an international consulting firm, saw little of the family and a lot of the coveted glass…
16 December 2025 | Life-Style
Had my brain just screamed chocolate today, it would have been a good day! But today my brain screamed chocolate, cake, ice-cream, wine, cashews, more wine, cheese and large helpings of everything! ” You need a treat. You’ve been eating so well, limiting alcohol and you’ve lost 4 kg. Great…
19 January 2026 | Living Well
Mention Wegovy, Ozempic, Mounjaro and Oprah in the same sentence and the mind goes into overdrive. The judgement noise around the use of injectable weight-loss drugs is LOUD. Taking away drugs from those who really need it ie Diabetics, was probably the first judgement call. Then there’s- only people with…
12 December 2025 | Living Well
I’m often asked what does Positive Ageing look like? It all sounds as if surround sound, continual happiness is the goal. In Fairyland maybe..but not in this world! Leonard Cohen, in one of his songs says something like- “There’s a crack, there’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light…
8 December 2025 | Living Well