A good life at any age
23 April 2021 | Arts
The Bendigo Art Gallery has done it again…secured a major international exhibition that is simply brilliant….what pandemic!!??
This regional gallery in central Victoria demonstrates time and again its capacity to build relationships on the world stage…this time with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and navigate insurance, exhibition design and the numerous challenges in bringing a major international exhibition to a regional city when most of the world is in covid Lock- down.!! But here it is..until July 11th 2021 and I was lucky enough to book during the first week and avoid crowds with my 10am visit.
Immersion in creativity, nostalgia for 1960’s Britain and for the first time understanding the revolution Mary Quant created, are my take-aways from this exhibition.
Who is Mary Quant? Now in her 90’s Dame Barbara Mary Quant or Mrs Plunkett- Greene DBE is a fashion designer, born in Wales who went on to disrupt fashion as Britain knew it and became a global brand. As a teenager in the 1960’s in the UK the fashion scene only reached Nottinghamshire villages via magazines and the one pop music show that appeared on black and white TV on a Sunday evening. Mary Quant was a London phenomenon. Little did I know the impact she would make.
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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
In the series 50 Faces 50 Lives this article published in June last year generated a large number of comments and conversation in our Viva community. Old age can be tough when illness strikes. My story about David living with dementia touched a nerve and it will be an important…
19 February 2021 | 50 Faces 50 Lives
The Bendigo Art Gallery has done it again…secured a major international exhibition that is simply brilliant….what pandemic!!?? This regional gallery in central Victoria demonstrates time and again its capacity to build relationships on the world stage…this time with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and navigate insurance, exhibition design…
23 April 2021 | Arts
If you’re a solo traveller in this world you probably know the scene. You’ve lived happily single for many years. Life is good. You have family, friends and you’ve created a life for yourself that is full of meaning and largely a very joyful existence. You’ve done it for years…
23 April 2021 | Arts | Life-Style
When Felicity Huffman received 2 weeks gaol time for illegally trying to secure a university place for her daughter, I yawned. A Hollywood actor behaving badly.. again. Two weeks penance? But last night I stumbled across a doco. on Netflix which more than grabbed my attention. Fifty people were indicted…
24 March 2021 | Arts
If you’re a solo traveller in this world you probably know the scene. You’ve lived happily single for many years. Life is good. You have family, friends and you’ve created a life for yourself that is full of meaning and largely a very joyful existence. You’ve done it for years…
23 April 2021 | Arts | Life-Style
I need to attend a daily meeting for addicts. While I enjoy a glass or two of wine, this is not my demon. Instead I can be seen marauding around homewares stores, devouring every episode of Grand Designs and I have a cushion collection large enough to decorate Versailles. I…
24 March 2021 | Life-Style
Hi Everyone! After a well-earned rest we’re back and it’s our second birthday! Yey! Happy Birthday to all our readers, subscribers, contributors and dear friends. Two years ago, with a heart full of excitement and fear I pressed PUBLISH on my first article sending it out into the stratosphere, expecting…
19 February 2021 | Life-Style
I’m cooking up a storm in the kitchen since the arrival of my new stove with the big oven and 5 burners. It’s that time of the year when the salad spinner goes into hibernation and the heavy cast iron pots come out to play. I thought I’d share a…
23 April 2021 | Living Well
Two threads weave together. The first thread was from two conversations I had this week. One was a pricing conversation with a carpenter. The other conversation was with a friend about her concerns about parenting and grandparenting in 2021. The second thread was coming across a book about the art…
17 April 2021 | Living Well
Let’s talk heart health. It is estimated that over 5% of the Australian population had a condition related to heart disease in 2017/18 (i.e. stroke, coronary heart disease, heart failure.) There were more than 1.2m hospitalisations for coronary illness in 2017/18, that’s 11% of all hospitalisations. Indigenous Australians have heart…
24 March 2021 | Living Well