I’m writing this from lockdown, at least I think I am. Our town is not in lockdown, but my daughter and I have found ourselves at home after a trip to neighbouring Tamworth to the orthodontist, apparently on the same day someone from Newcastle who didn’t know they had COVID made the same trip. We … Read more

Your mum’s a bad loser, I told my daughter recently. And you come from a long line of them. The Scrabble game had come out on a family holiday, and I felt my anxiety levels rising. The sight of the Monopoly box can have me near meltdown. We didn’t play many board games when I … Read more

I’m worried for Australia, where the COVID-19 rip current is starting to become very apparent. The ocean of our population contains a seething, angry, frightened element who can now find each other via social media and share and feed their anger. This erupted in Australia on the weekend when there were protests in capital cities … Read more

There is a story I feel has been left untold. It’s the story of a generation. I have reached the age of 51. I’m not expecting congratulations – I got here by being lucky enough to wake up every day. But, having been born just this side of 1970, I can give you the complete … Read more

IT’S been about 30 years since I first crept into a council meeting. I was 20 or so, had no idea what I was doing, and industriously wrote down every word. It was Brisbane City Council. In true journalism style, it didn’t take me long to go from mouse to peacock, claiming it up with … Read more

Watching the mice multiply in regional New South Wales makes you think they are not the brightest creatures. They are expanding at such a rate that, at times, they turn on each other. Discovering that I had been carrying a live one around in the toe of my boot for more than an hour also … Read more

Once upon a time in Cairns, I got out of bed and went to put my foot in a slipper. I was just in time to stop myself making contact with the back end of a giant, white-tailed rat the cat had lovingly tucked inside. He had dined on the front end. I thought my … Read more

Let’s face it, Australia is known as the land of big things and weird animals. You can’t even go to Bunnings at Ballina without being confronted by a giant prawn, and a parfait at the Big Pineapple was the pinnacle of perfection when we were kids. There are people who trek from one big thing … Read more

Can empathy training really help Liberal MP Andrew Laming? Of all the weird and wonderful potions that have come out of government, this one has the shine and shimmer of snake oil. I’m not saying there’s nothing in it. What I am saying is that my admittedly basic research shows that empathy training is all … Read more

This week I was added to a chat group of journalists I worked with 20 years ago. This was prompted by some strong public words from a former colleague who spoke at a Senate hearing into media diversity. These were women I had spent hundreds of hours with, but in just a few messages, we … Read more

As I write this, there will be Australians at every stage of IVF. There will be couples – and singles – making decisions. There will be women taking folic acid to prepare themselves for pregnancy. There will be people getting injections, having eggs harvested, embryos implanted and most of all, there will be lots of … Read more

Once upon a time, we lived in a town that had a honey man. It was a beautiful town and we lived next door to my best friend and her family. Our children called each other brother and sister. In short, it was a bit of a golden hour in our lifetime. Every now and … Read more