Yesterday, as I was out on a run with Archie, covering part of the same hilly dirt road we follow when stalking raptors, I had one of those disconnected meditative processes running seems to induce. It was on a long uphill gradient and into the teeth of a wind gusting out of the west at …
Running has not featured much – if at all – on these pages, not because it’s unimportant, but precisely the opposite. In truth, the last few decades’ messing about with bicycles, weights, swimming and yoga have all stemmed from your correspondent's wish to be a better runner. As my old dad used to say, “if …
Today marks the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, and at Corner Cottage we are grateful that it marks the shortest day of the year. It's cold, it's overcast and dull, and the prospect of each day ahead being minutely longer is something to celebrate. There are two (2) ways to deal with the sub-zero …
Our recent meditation on the beauty of kestrels kicked off another down-the-rabbithole thought process -- this time into birds that mate for life . . . and those that don't. What does this have to do with the price of eggs? Not a lot, I'm afraid -- other than maybe distracting you from its rapid …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 Long story short, it's out of date, overwrought, and lacking a real point.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 …
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 …
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 …
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