Curious George is a movie that can penetrate even the most noise-cancelling of headphones. Writing a novel in the same room as a...

The pesto would have been better tossed with small snails than with the gnocchi I made. I know I have a tendency to toot my own horn on...

In the past I have been very bad at giving Valentine’s Day gifts to H, which is a great shame because he is far more romantic than I am...

May Blossom’s in Year One now, which was easy to tell at drop-off this morning because seventy-five percent of the class had a hand in...

I need to cull our belongings. This is a truth universally known. But I am also a sentimentalist at heart. I know how you’re meant to get...

Me, making a to-d0 list. Sketch by H. Attend My 20th High School Reunion This weekend I’m going my 20th high school reunion, an event...

I’m doing that thing I always do when I come back from new and wonderful, and I try to transport the lifestyle. When H and I went to...

Sample bookshelf from my parents’ attic: Just one of the many collections of books that tells you probably more than you need to know...

Dumbledore (left) and Huntsman Who Did Not Heed Me (right) Sydney’s in the middle of a plague of spiders. Summer forgot to end and for...

Garnet’s preschool curriculum focuses on how to induce guilt. The slow process of settling the kids into school and preschool continues...

I will face the truth about the Pilates DVDs. This is the year I will stop taking Pilates DVDs on holidays with me. I’ve been dragging...

Obviously this is not the beach we went to in this story. This is Waikiki beach, where I have also been grumpy in the recent past. I’m...

Three weeks out she started saying, ‘I don’t want to hear it’s anyone else’s birthday before mine.’ Now we’re down to four days and she...

When we stayed in Perth last Christmas, housesitting for friends,  I noticed a box in the laundry that had ‘Who Gives A Crap’ printed on...

For about a year we have had, shoved into the cupboard in the playroom where no-one ever goes because it houses the vacuum cleaner, a...

Of course when I made the booking I didn’t write down the time or date anywhere, so a few days ago I remembered about it, in a panic, and...

Please disregard the feature damp patch on the ceiling. We’ll deal with it one day. Probably when the bath falls onto the dining-room...

I made the cookies using an amalgamation of recipes on the internet, which I found by googling ‘cacao almond cookies’. They all contained...

Benny Hill is a cultural reference that is on its last legs, I’d say. I only recall it vaguely from my childhood, mostly because it...

When Garnet says he wants to wear a dress, he means it. Unless he is talking about a T-shirt, which I have taken to calling dresses in an...