It's been a good year for the biking -- so far, anyway. With the diminution of La Niña, which contrived to soak us over the span of two summers, we have finally had enough dryness to string together a decent series of rides. Your author's progress chart on Strava looks less like a close-up of …
Tag: australia
(Nearly) everyday I write the blog
Easter came with heavy tidings for Corner Cottage. Nothing life-altering, I should say, but a smart blow to the goolies of certain dearly held hopes, that’s for sure. I think hope will recover; time heals all wounds and hope springs eternal. That sort of thing. The issue was that one of my very very fave …
Peace, love and understanding
It's ANZAC Day again and with it comes the annual stew of conflicting feelings you get when you have the kind of complicated background someone like me has. On the one hand, there's the sadness and loss you feel for young people, whatever army they found themselves in, for whatever reason, who died young, possibly …
Feathery fantasy
It's been a while and this piece has been sitting on my desktop awaiting this or that embellishment. And new things keep happening to interrupt the unfettered flow of creative juices. Long story short, it's out of date, overwrought, and lacking a real point. Sold? Then read on! I had a dream the other night …
Kestrels of summer
In our recent spellbinding Raptorwatch series, where yours truly assumed an Attenborough-esque attitude toward revealing intimate details in the lives of local birds of prey, mention was made of the small but voracious Nankeen Kestrel. During winter, a bit like the protagonist in The Peregrine, I took to driving the dirt roads around Gillamatong in …
Whip it good
Out here in the boondocks, all it takes is a couple of days' sunshine and we're assailed with massed lawnmowers, whippersnippers, and hedge trimmers roaring, revving and farting in glorious surround sound. Of course, the Corner Cottage versions of these tools are all electric -- if all of Braidwood went the same way, we'd reach …
Carpe birdem
Well, yesterday was the last day of spring, not that you'd know it from the chill and damp days behind us. It's been less the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, and more the muted chesty cough of a secret TB sufferer. Thank you climate change, and thank you La Niña. Three …
Six cases of cool
Sitting here in my 'studio' on a rare sunny Friday, I've been interrupted in my critical creative pursuits by a series of cartons of wine, arriving as if by magic on the Corner Cottage doorstep. It's like Bacchus took over Santa's job for a day and hijacked his sleigh for the purposes of transporting booze. …
A little learning
All this reminiscing about weird ways to make a living has your author recalling a sure-fire narrative to spin during job interviews. It's a secret so powerful, using it will guarantee you a fast track to the C-suite in the global planet-destroying multinational corporation of your choice -- so use it wisely. And this is …
False alarm (a weird jobs tale)
You may recall my thigh-slapping account of how I was never invited back to look after my poetry professor's house after a goshawk flattened her precious seedlings, rendering her planting plans for her secret garden moot. Well, strap in readers, because that was just half of the tale. And just to add to the hilarity, …
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