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…

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…

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….

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…

Over a year ago, I began the joyful task of collecting stories of  people in their 60’s and beyond. I wanted to discover how different people made sense of ageing and how their early life experiences shaped their lives as elders. I call this collection of stories 50 Faces 50…

I’m in Bali and I’ve found the person who will be my driver for my 2 week stay. The first trip is to a local shopping mall. As he skillfully navigates the insane traffic with an air of quiet and calm he is warm and friendly without being too familiar….

As many Viva 70 readers will know my mind has been rattling around the idea of how to do something useful in the area of climate activism when the last time I was politically active was in 1970’s around the Vietnam War! So apart from becoming a more diligent recycler,…

I’m winding along country roads to find the home of Terry and Jill Williams. Cows grazing, rolling hills, a tiny old brick church, now a private home. Google tells me to keep going. So I do. Driving past rural properties with their never to be understood exotic numbering system. House…

Six Degrees of Separation. I met Graeme Leith some months ago. Friends gathered to have lunch with him at the winery he established. Passing Clouds. It was a pleasant lunch overlooking the neatly planted rows of vines. He’s written a book about his life of winemaking and he generously gave…