January 2009

Grace In Small Things 1 of 365

January 31, 2009

1) Being kissed on the back of the neck while piggybacking my daughter. 2) Taking the first sip of a glass of champagne. 3) Skimming the foam off the top of a cappuccino and licking it from the spoon. 4) Sopping up the pan juices from a cooked roast with bread. 5) Facepaint: Celebrate the minutiae [...]

Summer

January 30, 2009

Together we lie on the bed under the blast of airconditioning. It is 2.30pm. Normally a nothing time, we’re between meals, between television programs, now it his once-upon-a-napping-time. We lie there, tired from a lack of sleep the previous night. The evenings stick to our sleep like a demon’s breath – tormenting, and vile. We [...]

Announcing my profits pledge for 2009

January 29, 2009

Every year I pick a charity and pledge to donate to it a percentage of the profits I earn on this blog (here is the original explanation why). This year, I could not choose between two that are very close to my heart. Without further ado, here they are: Back in October, my father was diagnosed [...]

WW – My 30th Birthday Party, Dec 08

January 28, 2009

Keira looking at herself as a baby About to blow out the candles © Christopher Bird Reproduced here with permission

I’m calling a ‘Finish Your Stories week’

January 27, 2009

It is entirely in nature with the happenstance and at times distracted nature of this blog that sometimes I finish a year, look back and think, “Wow. I don’t think I actually said anything of worth or depth. I record then move along.” Then when I do sit down and make myself write something that [...]

Happy Australia Day!

January 26, 2009

Happy Australia Day, Aussies. I hope you’re all watching sport, or BBQing, or drinking, or all of the above! What am I doing? I will be baking… ****** Let me, if I may, take you on a flashback… It was almost the mid-1990s. Swedish pop was again dominating our airwaves. We warbled ‘I saw the [...]

Favourite links of the week #4

January 25, 2009

“A few years ago, scientists began to calculate just how much energy the Sahara holds. They were astounded at the answer. In theory, a 35,000-sq.-mi. (90,600 sq km) chunk of the Sahara — smaller than Portugal and a little over 1% of its total area — could yield the same amount of electricity as all [...]

I yearn for…

January 24, 2009

…this: Isn’t it gorgeous? Only available in Italy though, I think. Even if I could get it here, I doubt I could afford it.

Dear America

January 22, 2009

Dear America, When I awoke yesterday morning, the better part of President Obama’s inauguration was already over. I turned on the television just as he was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue with his First Lady, waving to the crowd, on what was obviously a bitterly cold day. The journalists covering the event were emotional, reporting the scene with tears [...]