There is nothing like the word Haighs for giving a person away as a South Australian! ‘What is Haighs?’ as a friend asked the other day. What?! Only the best chocolate in the world! Better than Swiss, better than (sorry to all native Western Australians!) The Margs Chocolate Factory (only marginally though) and certainly better…
Today, Where the River Runs, goes to print. This book feels like it’s been a mammoth effort – I was supposed to have it finished a long time before I actually handed the manuscript in… There was a reason! On the 29th of December I was leaning down to pull up a fence so…
Hand-me-down recipes from previous generations are a wonderful heirloom. I love it when we get to Christmas time and I can open my old, tattered, food stained, hand written recipe book, and start cooking food from my Nana or Aunty. Both my Nana’s loved to cook; unfortunately neither of them are with us now. My…
You know that feeling when you head back to your childhood home, where you know every corner and bump in the road and every sight is familiar? Well that’s what I’ve been feeling while we’ve been away on holidays. Although it was a holiday, it was also a research trip for my next book…
Dear Nana P and Nana H, It’s Mother’s Day again. I always think about you today. How could I not, with the beautiful memories of Mother’s Day. I wonder, if you were here, if you’d talk about the handmade cards I used to give you when I was young. If we’d laugh about how I’d…
So you’re all back at working, feeling like you’ve never left? Wondering where that holiday feeling has gone? Yeah, me too. Maybe if you look at these photos and imagine the salty air blowing through your hair, the cry of seagulls and the sand between your toes, I can help you recapture the holiday feeling!…
In the lead up to Christmas, I’ve been trying to work out, which Christmas’s was most memorable, weird, sad, happy, so on and so forth. I thought it might make a cool little series to read. Anyway, one that I came up with was my most disastrous Christmas. I need to give you a little…
**Spoiler Alert: You are NOT to read this post if you are under 16** I remember a Christmas, many years ago, when I was about 10. I was SO excited. My family from Alice Springs were coming down, I’d get to see my cousins, whom I ADORED, my Aunty who was even better and there…
Last Christmas, I had my first Christmas back on ‘home soil’ in more than 18 years. My husband took me ‘back home’ as a thank you for caring for his mum. I guess I should explain that, for farmers in Australia, Christmas is held at the wrong time of the year! It’s really difficult for…
I was so lucky to be asked by Margie Arnold to attend and speak at The Rural Women’s Gathering, which is a yearly event that has more than 300 women from across South Australia, attending. I have been to many Rural Women’s days and I love them – the camaraderie and networking opportunities are brilliant.…
My husband (also known as ‘The Boss) is a mad keen fisherman. He will go to the beach when it’s raining, a howling southerly or when it’s a beautiful calm day. The only thing that stops him from getting a line in the water, is if there is ‘weed’ out in the holes he’s trying…
HAPPY EASTER, from the McDonald’s Farm! In my family, Easter is not only about chocolate easter eggs, hot cross buns and commercialism. It’s about Eternal Life and what happened so that we could have that gift. But the other thing which signals Easter is family. To have the whole family home, together, is now an…
I love photos. Photos are memories and I’m always snapping, where ever I go. Every time I release a new book, the call comes for new publicity photos. This is one of my least favourite things to do, because I’m much happier behind a computer screen, or out in the paddock, than I am in…
Maybe it’s good to be scared in a “sardine like” plane! It helped get Kylie Stretton her man! Here she is: The year is 1999 I’d just finished Grade 12 in Queensland. I’d applied for many governessing jobs all over Queensland and the Northern Territory, I’d been offered one at Richmond which wasn’t too far…
The world lost another amazing man this week. Neil Armstrong was an incredible explorer – how brave must he have been to accept the crazy dream of a country to put a man on the moon? To blast off into the unknown, into blackness. I’m sure his heart would have been in his mouth plenty…
I find that even though our family is close, we don’t often get to see each other as much as we should. With family members scattered from one side of the country to the other, and Esperance being slightly ‘out of the way’, it sometimes makes getting together very difficult. This Easter was a lovely…
