About Me

Who Am I ?

Born just shy of the 60’s, I grew up in what I like to think of as ‘the wonder years’, when kids ‘free-ranged’ in the neighbourhood, when doors were rarely locked (except at our house – Mum liked to believe there was good in everyone but couldn’t quite practise what she preached), most kids had a bike which practically got you everywhere you needed to go, we spent sunkissed days at the beach unaware of the UV index and wore zinc cream as a badge of honour, our shoes were worn only when going somewhere special and the dog went on most ‘Huck Finn expeditions’ with us. Mums cooked while Dads worked (although in our house, Dad cooked too), houses had incinerators , chooks, a vege garden and fruit trees all in the back ¼ of the block, Dettol in the bath at night got rid of all possible germs and hair was washed once a week on Sunday night before school on Monday. Girls weren’t allowed to play cricket or ‘boy sports’ at school or join surf lifesaving (this was very hard on me as I was quite the ‘tomboy’) and you still got the ‘cuts’ at school if you were ‘really bad’.  We knew where our food came from because we helped Dad plant it or bought the yummiest tomatoes from the Vietnamese roadside stalls for 50c a bag, picked up our olives from Dad’s Greek friends and if it wasn’t in season, we pretty much didn’t eat it.

Me aged about 4 by Dad's grapevine

 Boarding school took me away from that life, then a year on an outback station, 3 years discovering Uni life,  a dog, a few years teaching, travel, marriage, a mortgage, a year travelling around Europe with the love of my life, more teaching, two beautiful daughters born, back teaching part time, home renovations, travel, a new dog, ‘fun’ as the girls entered their teenage years, publishing an instructional art book, travel, travel and more travel, a stint living in Turkey, a new home, husband finally working in Perth after 30 something years flying offshore 6 months of the year and the much yearned for vegetable garden! I was finally able to show my Dad that life was turning full circle and once again we’d be eating home-grown! Somewhere along the road, life had got in the way and I finally realised that I’d inherited his green thumbs (only so far as vegetables go though– am still at a loss to remember flowers and tree names if I can’t eat them)!

Me now on one of our travels

So, this is me…teacher, author, mother, wife, dog owner and lover of the vege patch. Our 100 year old converted church is the home I have always wanted (well, close enough) and although we are still searching for the few undulating acres with a view of the sea in a community that resembles the villages of Mediterranean Europe (yep, not quite possible in Australia), for now, this is ‘our good life’.