PRE- ORDER Fleur's newest novel 'Into the Night'
Misty mornings bring meaningful memories. I love misty mornings – especially ones that take you by surprise. I had been hanging an early load of washing out, when I walked around the front of the house to see a light mist rolling in from behind the hill. My thought was: ‘Wow. Look at that. Amazing!’ My…
Victoria Brown is a local celeb. In fact, she’s probably the most famous person I know, in person! Vic and I share many things in common; we are farmers’ wives, love writing and reading, theatre, good wine and lots of laughs. Vic takes things one step further than I do – she acts in the…
I’m an exceptionally emotional person – I’m the sort of person that cries over a ‘help the poor/disadvantaged/orphans’ ad, as well as the beautiful baby/nappy ad! When I read books, I tend to be right along side the characters – walking with them- as they experience their own story. I’ve just finished a book and, as I…
So here we are, writing a third book! I’m not really sure I ever thought this was possible! As most of you know, I sort of fell into writing and never expected to have the response to my books that I have. Purple Roads, well, what to tell you? I’ve been writing as much as…
Thunderstorms are awesome things to watch – I love the power that comes with them, the electrifying excitement, the knowledge that there are some things that humans can’t control, that we just have roll with. They sometimes bring a great deal of rain and some times, inconvenience – or at least that’s the way we see…
It’s time to go to work. The boss has just whistled and Wally has leapt up from his sleeping position. He’s wide awake ready to do his masters bidding. Dogs are amazing creatures. Not two minutes before, Wally was sound asleep, head on his paws and even the irritating fly, which was buzzing at his…
The jonquils, this year, are just beautiful! I’ve just come in from hanging some clothes on the line and the slight breeze wafted their scent all the way over to where I was standing. What a joy something like that can bring to such a mundane task! When we first moved to this house, I…
Discarded Characters! I often wonder what happens to those brilliant characters writers create that don’t quite fit into the novel they are writing. When I was working on Lucy Springer Gets Even, I had an amazing time because so many of the characters could be drawn from real life – mothers in the school pick-up…
It’s been pretty cold here lately! And it’s school holidays. As much as the kids like to help, sometimes our jobs involve things that they just can’t do, so when we arrived at the sheep yards at 6:15am and it was bitter and frosty, the kids took exception to being involved with our farming life! (As…
On a beautiful Sunday morning the kids had the job of shifting a mob of sheep (I always go with them but hang right back or right at the front to slow the ewes down, so I’m there if they need help.) Today they took their bikes and two dogs – Rocket, the Jack Russell, a well…
I grew up with frosts covering our front lawn, frozen pipes and it being so cold in the mornings that it was 10am before our fingers and toes warmed up, but in coastal areas it’s quite unusual to have a frost. This is what we awoke to on Saturday morning! We were on our way…
In my few travels around the country and around where I live, I am always amazed at the women who do incredible things. Most of these women don’t think they’re extraordinary, but I can assure you they are. I wanted to introduce you to some of the ones I’ve met – their stories are sometimes…
Fiona and I met about two years ago. Rachael Treasure actually put us in contact! I think Fee and I were slightly over-awed that one of our favourite authors knew enough about both of us to think that we could be a good support network to each other. And I think we have been. Being…
Anthony and I were shifting sheep from one farm to another when we came across these two foxes sitting in the middle of the road. As we all know, foxes aren’t native to Australia and cause immense amount of damage to our native fauna. They’re also a foe to new born lambs. They are instinctive…
Once again the end of the month has arrived far too quickly and the cake tin has been pulled out to find the winners of the last two month giveaways! The winner for the Reader Giveaway is Elizabeth Davey, who wanted to read The Lost Threads by Tess Evans. I’ve just started to read this…
Meet Louise Thurtell! She’s the publisher for the Arena imprint at Allen and Unwin… and that makes her my publisher! I’m really excited that she’s here today, talking about her initiative Friday Pitch and also a few things that make her… her! Food, wine and so on! I can remember my first phone with Louise, so…
It’s been such a busy time for us recently, with seeding, sheep work and all sorts of other things on the go! It will be like this until after Christmas now with hay making, shearing and later, harvest. We’ve been lucky enough to have good rains and everything seems to be on track for a good…
Every Sunday morning, on ABC radio, Macca has a segment called, ‘Why I live where I live.’ Well I think I’ve talked about this last few blogs, so I’m just going to show you some photos of last evening. There was a partial eclipse then – Saturday the 27th June – which we watched over…
This time of year is always busy with sheep work. There’s ewes to be drenched, lamb marking and so on and so on. I’ve hardly spent more than an hour inside the house these last few weeks during daylight! Thankfully, it’s not just Anthony and I doing all the work! Shaun is a bloke who…
I was up at a friend’s house this weekend and I was captivated by her garden. As everyone who visits my blog knows, I’m not a gardener, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying beautiful ones. Sue has a spectacular garden – a mixture of succulents and cottage plants, roses and bushes. She also grows…
I guess it could be said that living this close to the sea we have the best of both worlds. The farming with its freedom of the outdoors and the beaches. There is something wild and solitary about our beaches that’s hard to describe. The evening I took this photo we were the only people on the beach. The…