December
It’s Heiligabend, the most important of the three days of Christmas in Germany. I think 900 people died yesterday and the day before and the day before that. The numbers… Continue Reading
Browsing Category: Essays
November
November. The first frost on the last leaves, the shelves full of bulbous root vegetables you can only sprinkle liberally with salt and roast, the beginning of a long time… Continue Reading
Shelter
In late summer, the hydrangeas fade, bleached by the sun. Instead of those impossible 1950s blues and purples that always remind me of my grandmothers, they look like they have… Continue Reading
Fires & Floods
When we booked our tickets for this trip, the fires had just started. As September rolled into October, family marked themselves safe on Facebook, and the Australian media began rolling… Continue Reading
Now I Climb Rocks
‘I found something rather unexpected as I peeled back the layers and peered at what pulsed beneath. I thought my foreignness was the ink in the water, but that wasn’t… Continue Reading
The Bones
I wrote this before the fires began, before the wolf came, as promised, to our door. * We will give our children the bones The bad bones, hollow, poorly formed…. Continue Reading
Strawberry Plants
Strawberry plants throw out arms, long skinny things that carry a brave little cluster of leaves, sent out to try somewhere new, to another, nearby location, where it can then… Continue Reading
Established
A few weeks after we moved into our new house, my parents came to visit. The boxes had been unpacked and the rooms set up – for now – and… Continue Reading
Eingewöhnung
I spent the first fortnight of this month in kindergarten. The first week, I was there Monday to Friday from 8.30 until around 11am, the second week until 1pm. The… Continue Reading
What If You Don’t Like the Earth?
My four-year-old daughter, after a lengthy interest in pregnancy and birth, has now turned her considerable attention to death. I thought I might have had a couple more years up… Continue Reading
Of Stories & Connections
One of my house plants – they all survived – has brand new, bright green new shoots. My kids put their tracksuit pants on, and all pairs they seem to… Continue Reading
Sharp Relief
Things I always notice when I’m back home in summer: how hot the carparks are, the sun bouncing off the asphalt and burning through the soles of your thongs. How… Continue Reading
Go for the Blankets
As the plane descended into Dubai – lights off, flight attendants strapped in and watching that no one put down a tray or reclined a chair – I reflected on… Continue Reading
On Lessons We Learn from Pets
The boy, of about nine, maybe ten, was crying. He ran around, face to the sky, searching the trees as the light faded, screaming, ‘Spikey’. His parents, flustered, hapless, helpless,… Continue Reading
Colette
I wrote this little essay for a project I created back in 2013, with long-time friend and fellow writer, Sandi. We asked a handful of really good Australian writers to… Continue Reading
One More Sleep
I thought I was very organised this year, when I started putting together little gift parcels for Australian family in November. How merrily I selected little chocolates and decorations, how… Continue Reading
German Culture, Travel: Germany
The Cast of Christmas
I was most surprised, when I spent my first Christmas with the northerner I’d eventually marry, to find out that in the glorious Schleswig-Holstein, children get visited by der Weichnachtsmann. Quite literally,… Continue Reading
Remember What Was & Who Went Before
I have never really given much thought to Totensonntag, Sunday of the Dead, which falls every year on the Sunday between the 20th and 26th of November. It seems like there are… Continue Reading
A Mother’s Country
I wrote this as part of a chapter for the non-fiction project I am writing (and will probably finish in 2025). It was the second half of something and it… Continue Reading
Apples & Acorns
We are swimming in apples. The trees in the neighbourhood are all groaning with rosy fruit, including the tree that straddles our neighbour’s garden and ours. Apparently, years ago, they… Continue Reading