Thanks for reading. This blog is an opportunity for me to capture some of the diversity of my writing interests. My muse tend to appear on my shoulder as I board an international flight although not all of my writing is inspired by travel and foreign places. These blogs have been the basis of a novel (Flowers of Baghdad) but there are a few other writing projects in progress besides. Please feel free to leave a comment. Or two.
Last week I sat in a lawyer’s conference room. The décor was clinic white, all the better to show off their art collection, two pieces of which caught my wandering eye (it was a lawyers conference after all and the first rule of listening to lawyers is that you don’t have to listen to lawyers,…
Follow on from Knot in Stomach It’s a natural reflex to want to hug someone in distress. I struggled with that response when dealing with the toddler a couple of days ago. His face was so banged up, bruised and bloody and impossible to touch. Yet when someone, especially a child, hurts you want to…
A postscript to “Blood in my Mouth” It’s the following day and I have walked around with a knot in my stomach, been flippant at work and not very productive in general. Sorry. In the past I have done a reasonable job of keeping my emotions in check but in this case I have decided…
The blood in my mouth is not my own. The dry steel tang of iron was coughed and spluttered into mine by a three year old with brown tousled hair as he sat in his restrainer seat. Thank goodness for those seats. His mouth was clogged with blood and he was spitting it everywhere. He…
Twenty years ago this year we moved our family back to Queensland, this time just creeping over the border to Ipswich rather than living in the far north which was almost like moving to another country altogether. A highlight for me was to be working with the F-111 bomber aircraft at 6 SQN. But an…
Sunday How disappointing it is to be doing this final run home. We are all reflective about how we feel about that, resigned to the work and study that has to be done but still riding on the magic of the last week and the intimate camaraderie that we have enjoyed. The run was straightforward…
I heard an interesting challenge propositioned to a gathering yesterday. In the movie Chariots of Fire the character playing Olympic gold medal winner Eric Liddell is trying to assure his fretting sister he remains committed to his call to China. He tells Jenny “I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also…
So you think I am writing fiction? Maybe I am. But something went pear shaped with this blogsite when I was in Africa. The more I chased the problem the worse it seemed to get. Introduce these guys who said they would check it out (even though it was not their problem) and twenty minutes…
SaturdayOur departure day last year was marked by a lashing southerly wet wind blowing out of the Antarctic fridge, forcing us to huddle our farewells to Joy before hitting the road and sliding up the greasy track out of here. No such day to day. A gorgeous sunny, mild morning greets us. Rod has sorted…
Friday The sun creeps up the wall through the pattern of the window frame shadow and I watch it for twenty minutes before getting up. Andrew has been awake the whole time but remained in his sleeping bag until my feet touched the floor at which point he launched into his new day. Last night …