“It’s a big story from a little finger”.
Monday, January 24. In one of the Beatles’ popular songs, there is a line “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans’’, and this captures the terror of today. We are sitting in another...
View ArticleThe Cullen
They are the last three days of a dismal summer and we are in Melbourne living a lesson in style at the zany boutique hotel, The Cullen. It is one of the new Art Series hotels, strategically placed on...
View ArticleHOUSE OF STICKS
One of the great joys of life is to watch manifest all of the dreaming, planning and myriad decision-making as our new Belair home rises seemingly magically from its slab. We live at Hindmarsh Island...
View ArticleThe Art of Living Fearlessly
Happenstance is an intangible thing. However, I find our mantra for living well with cancer in the most unlikely of places – The Cullen Hotel room where a colourful card had been left as a welcome...
View ArticleBeautiful native flower bowl
Did you know that the Greek goddess of flowers is Flora? It was a recent question in SA Weekend’s Brainwaves test and I should have known it, or guessed the answer. I have been picking native flora...
View ArticleWorld Cancer Day
It’s World Cancer Day and there is really only one statistic to remember today: 11 million people worldwide are cancer survivors who will celebrate a birthday this year. This good news does not negate...
View ArticleA fruitful way
There are myriad ways to bring pleasure into our lives and it helps to know that spontaneity is one element of longevity. So, when husband Olivier suddenly suggested we take a different road home to...
View ArticleMushrooming in Kuipo Forest
Sunday, March 27: Another day of pure pleasure searching for the rare cepe mushrooms in Kuitpo Forest. Cepe is a rare mushroom in Australia, but sells for up to 100 Euros a kilogram in France because...
View ArticleOur February Christmas
My adult children from London, daughter Serena, husband Jon and my three grand-children, arrive in Adelaide in the middle of a storm in February. Poor things. They hate London’s dreary, dismal weather...
View ArticleLove survives “minefield” of marriages
Bride-to-be Philipa Charlesworth, of Goolwa, exudes all the joy of a first-time bride as she shows off the exquisite Pacific-island design of her wedding gown which she will wear in Tongo in June. Yet,...
View ArticleForever Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull must surely be feline because she has lived many lives to emerge in her later years a revered musical artist. Six years ago when I was the celebrity columnist at The Advertiser in...
View ArticleChicken Liver Pate by Chef Jean Pierre Rival
Ingredients: 500 gr cleaned chicken livers, marinated for a few hours in mix of 200ml port, garlic, 1 large onion, salt and pepper, bayleaves. Everything goes into a steamer for 20 minutes. DO NOT...
View ArticleFood fit for a chef
Renowned Adelaide French-born chef Jean-Pierre Rival knows how to throw a fabulous party and his recent 55th birthday naturally revolved around food and music. JP, as he is affectionately known, is the...
View ArticleA fairytale wedding for a thoroughly modern Kate
Wasn’t the Royal Wedding wonderful? Although I am a Republican, it would be a hard-hearted woman who did not enjoy such a rich scene and relish in the pomp and ceremony when Catherine Middleton married...
View ArticlePeta’s off to Cannes
Good news for Adelaide film producer Peta Astbury who has bought the film rights of my book From France With Love. She is taking her first, successful film, The Marrige of Figaro to Cannes. The movie...
View ArticleDarwin, a colourful chameleon city.
I was whisked away from the Darwin railway station in a shiny, red Robinson R44 Raven II helicopter. And I felt very star-like as the helicopter swooped over Darwin’s exciting new Wharf precinct, and...
View ArticleHouse of sticks
Time has passed and our future home – once a house of sticks – has become a half-finished building, clad in Hebel and capped with an iron roof. Brickwork is complete, aluminium windows and sliding...
View ArticleCepes and Citron dishes from My French kitchen
Rarely does French husband venture into my kitchen when I am at work, but this morning we are standing side by side by the hotplates making French dishes. At the big element he is sauté-ing cepe...
View ArticleOlivier’s sailing success –
Sunday, May 15: Olivier’s week has been wonderful. He has packed the three months since his diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer with a round of new projects which would exhaust a much younger man. He...
View ArticleVisit to the oncologist
Tuesday, May 17: From elation to trepidation, Olivier and I attend Tennyson Centre to visit his oncologist, Dr Francis Parnis to find out if the hormone treatment is stopping the spread of cancer in...
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