I HAVE just met a bloke who reckons he sells pregnant mares’ urine for a living . . . Yes, I know . . . I thought the same thing. But also I thought, why is it Australians treat ex-Poms — even the ones who have been here years, like me — as if we are all new chums who have just stepped off the last ship.I mean, come on! Just because we wear socks and sandals at the same time, and we roll up our trousers when we go in the sea (not the ocean, mark you, the sea) does not mean we are all stupid. I remember when…

WOW! You have to hand it to the bureaucracies of the new millennium. Read the corporate mission statement… they come up with words like innovative, and visionary, to describe plans for new public lavatories. Now, with most of Queensland in the grip of a serious drought (Townsville, too, but that’s normal for us at this time of year) they are coming up with some seriously innovative and visionary answers. I am particularly impressed with the Gold Coast. Townsville could learn something from the Gold Coast – Australia’s Hollywood, its sixth largest city, tourism Mecca and the birthplace of gold chains. It is suffering a serious drought that has seen its…

I DON’T remember this! I had five children and I don’t remember any of them being like this! She’s eight months old, my granddaughter, and I was wrong about the father. It’s not the bloke who hugs trees – it must be Attila the Hun. She learned to crawl last week. Nothing is safe. The light bulbs are at risk for heaven’s sake. Is there nothing a crawling baby can’t reach! I had crawling babies. With five children I had them for years. I don’t remember living my early married life on a shelf. A very high shelf. She can reach anything. Books, CDs, cups, knives, pictures, gutters. I have…

TAKE a bow Elina, take a bow Arnold! As for the rest of, we should probably be ashamed of ourselves. Why didn’t we see it as clearly as they did. Mr Arnold Lakamanga and Ms Elina Gasethegna have not followed the common herd and named places after people – they’ve blazed a new trail; they’ve named people after places! Their twin boys are now proudly carrying the names Townsville and Thuringowa. No matter that there will be some arguments when letters arrive to Master T. Lakamanga; they can sort that out later. The point is that they have done what others should have done, but didn’t. If Townsville is such…

I FEEL terrible. I have said some awful things in the past about my stepmother-in-law. Well… she was asking for it. No one should be a stepmother and a mother-in-law at the same time. In fairytales people with both these afflictions would die terrible and agonising deaths. My stepmother-in-law escaped lightly. She just took a breath and keeled over. Yesterday. And that’s why I feel terrible. I shouldn’t. It all seems a bit of a nonsense to me. I mean, she was a miserable and manipulating old harridan when she was alive; I’m sure she hasn’t changed now she’s dead. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel sorry for her. She…