A good life at any age
11 June 2021 | Life-Style
This travel romp was sent out to our subscribers last week and received some lovely feedback. Come travelling with me……..
I’m itching to travel and decide to have a 3 day minibreak in Port Fairy. It’s all spur of the moment and I feel that buzz of excitement of new adventures at last. The cat looks perplexed as I make bookings and then the black overnight bag is hauled out of the closet. She knows this means trouble. Whenever this bag appears Gracie cat hurls herself under the bed to sulk. The neighbours are on feed cat duty, a stone cottage is booked in Port Fairy and I hurl my bags into the car with that wilful, wild look in my eyes that usually find me at Heathrow airport… ah well on a Covid travel scale- 3 and a bit hours from Melbourne is the wildest I’ll get.
There’s that sense of freedom and adventure. I last went to Port Fairy 10 plus years ago. I remember stone cottages, dairy cow country and wild beaches.. and the cheese factory at the nearby town of Warrnambool..that’s it. I know the area has become hugely popular for tree and sea changers and property prices have exploded. It’s an area 3 hours plus from Melbourne where Irish migrants settled and place names like Killarney are found. I love driving and the miles roll by until I decide to stop in a little country town for morning tea. There are 2 cafes. One a chip shop smelling of fried food so I head to other with lace curtains and tables all set for the throng of customers that never come.
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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
Lockdowns, winter colds and rainy Sunday afternoons are great times to catch up on what’s showing on streaming services. For winter I’ve extended my subscriptions to Netflix, Stan, Binge and Apple+ TV which gives me a huge range of outstanding content. I tried Brit Box but saw nothing but oldie…
8 June 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…
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
I’m itching to travel and decide to have a 3 day minibreak in Port Fairy. It’s all spur of the moment and I feel that buzz of excitement of new adventures at last. The cat looks perplexed as I make bookings and then the black overnight bag is hauled out…
11 June 2021 | Life-Style
Wallpaper…. mention it to any younger person and they’ll talk about a background pattern for their iphone. But I’m talking about the stuff that comes in rolls for walls – hard copy! Often already glued, you cut it into required lengths, wet it or peel the backing, then haul it…
30 May 2021 | Life-Style
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
Household budgets make me shudder. I did my last one in 2020 and look how that year turned out! When I ran my consulting business for 20 years I was hugely busy and also super organised. (What do they say about giving important tasks to busy people?!) Quarterly reporting was…
11 June 2021 | Living Well
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