My Mother (who you are getting to know quite well by now….) was not a good cook.  The key goal of her cooking was to provide food that would make the family feel full ie not hungry. If we ate for an army of 500 and clutched our stomachs because…

I caught up with our Viva 70  friend, Graeme Leith at Passing Clouds winery  the other evening. Always lovely. Lots of my photos of Bali shared over a glass of wine and the setting sun just over the hills. Such a beautiful place out there at Musk. He’s retired from…

Education and learning is a well traveled friend in my life. In my 20’s I worked in an alternative school for 10 years, an innovative child – centred learning program where kids’ interests, not age, was the organising principle of the curriculum. Steiner school. Montessori, Summerhill, Preshil were all precursors…

It’s 3 pm and the sun has a gentler fingers as it touches the body and soul.  Clouds gather and a soft wind rolls in from the beach. My afternoon nap was blissful. But now its time to head down to the green tables under the trees for my massage….

Have you heard of Sou Fujimoto? I remember his name from a visit to the temporary Serpentine pavilion in London when I visited the gallery there in Hyde Park. Like a spider’s web this beautiful building makes you gasp at the imagination and technical skill displayed. The main image shows…

We all live in our own worlds. The world of our town, our city, our home. We form judgments about other places from what we’ve heard or what we’ve seen on the news.  Or perhaps we form an image of other cities from fragments of story that we have amplified,…

An extremely hot summer’s day saw me seek shelter  in my favourite cinema. A film about the singer and poet Leonard Cohen caught my eye. Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love. The film documents the relationship of Cohen with Marianne Ihlen, the muse behind the very successful ballad ” So…

A special pre – Christmas treat awaits dear reader…………….another story from our guest writer, Graeme Leith. We bought you the  narrative of Graeme’s life last week in 50 Faces 50 Lives and also a wonderfully funny story by this very talented writer…He’s made a good drop of wine in his…

What a wonderful pre-Christmas present for our Viva 70 readers!  Our Canadian Viva 70 contributors have done it again! This is a story of people making magic happen. The recipe? Take a small group of people with a great idea. Let it ferment.  Mix in large dollops of passion that…