Happy New Year…Weekend Coffee Share!

Happy New Year!

Hard to know quite where to start as it has been a couple of months since I’ve posted, and I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching trying to construct my 2026. Given my passion for art, it makes sense to view the start of the new year as starting off a fresh canvas. However, is that actually the case? Or, would it be more apt to say that this canvas is already a work-in-progress? After all, the transition from one year to the next is just like starting any other ordinary day and the sun just keeps rising and setting one day after another. Nothing special! Yet, I’m fairly convinced even resolution-deniers would agree that New Year’s Day is no ordinary day and would, at the very least, consider whether they’re going to stay on the same trajectory in 2026 or change course. Being the time of our long Summer holidays here in Australia, there’s also a break in proceedings, and so many things come to a grinding halt in January starting up again in February. For me, this pregnant pause at the start of the year usually means I don’t really get stuck into my resolutions until Australia Day hits on the 26th January, which signals the start of the new school year. However, it’s been two years since I had kids at school so I have no excuse to put anything off these days. No more procrastination…except we will be going on holidays. Anything to defer knuckling down a bit longer.

After that long preamble where I actually got nothing done and made no decisions I thought I’d better work out how I am going to approach the new year. I haven’t worked in paid employment for about a decade due to my health issues. So, it’s not like I have a job to return to. However, I was actually paid to give an artist’s talk and conduct a workshop at the local art gallery and that’s got be wondering about what might be possible. I also have a few commitments which are set in stone. There’s church and Bible studies and reading my Bible. I also see an exercise physiologist three times a week for a 45 minute session particularly to look after my lungs which were in dire straits a few years ago. I also belong to an art group for people living with disabilities and that’s one afternoon a week. I am thinking about doing a basics of painting course and maybe getting into printing, although most of my art is mixed media involving textiles. I also attend jazz every Wednesday night at the Ocean Beach Hotel featuring the OB3 and visiting guests. That’s been my main social outlet each week and sometimes my husband comes along. They feature a visiting artist (usually a singer) each week, and this has included Phoebe Haselden on vocal and violin. For those of you with elephantine memories and who have been following me seemingly since before the dawn of time (i.e. pre-covid), you might recall I avidly played the violin. I wasn’t a violin super star and certainly fell well short of becoming a maestro and way too old by then to be any kind of prodigy, but I played respectably well within the context of the music school and performed at annual concerts and for a time in an ensemble, which I absolutely loved and experienced such a sense of connection with the group. There was something definitely very special about sharing the notes together which I’ve missed intensely. However, I’d fallen off the wagon pre-covid and you could say that our extensive and intensive Sydney lockdowns provided me with a face-saving exit. I don’t think I’d intended to hang up my bow for five years. I don’t think I intended to let all the hours of determined practice doing battle with an instrument which often seemed determined for me to be impaled by my bow and die. We all know this isn’t just me being melodramatic either. The violin’s reputation precedes me. Anyway, during lockdown I went and bought an Yamaha synthesizer keyboard and decided to return to my roots not only of years of piano lessons, but coming from a highly accomplished piano family. Indeed, you could well accuse me of selling my soul. Well, since then the keyboard has also been silent and has become more of a storage unit, not unlike the old piano it superseded, which was great for exhibiting photo frames.

Our daughter posing for a photo before performing at the Sydney Opera House

While all this history clearly demonstrates a lack of long term commitment to either of my instruments, after attending jazz where I’ve somehow become known as something of an artist even though I’m much more established as a writer, I’m not longer content to just being a musical bystander. I won’t be good enough to join in with the professionals there, but I am considering going back to lessons and at least getting back to where I was. First, I need to demonstrate some commitment, but even before that can develop, I need to take that very gruelling first step taking my violin off the shelf, out of it’s case and get my husband to tune it because E string is so out of tune it’s posing as A. That’s actually quite a few steps, which I have managed to tackle, by the way, and I managed to force out a couple of scales, Twinkle Twinkle, something unnamed from Suzuki Book 1 and a bit of Bach’s Minuet in G I think it is called. I’m not quite sure where I’ve stashed my violin books because the art supplies superseded the music in the activities cupboard. All of this was done with long fingernails (which have to go) and a broken chin rest and I’d sad to report that all the dogs left the room although my daughter hung round and was very proud of me and so encouraging. After about a year on violin as a kid when my brother did extensive Suzuki violin and played at the Sydney Opera House, I took the violin up again when my daughter was five and she begged me to take up violin although I was much more inclined for her to learn piano. her teacher said I could sit in on her lessons, which was great because I could help her. Geoff and I dug out his grandfather’s violin which his father had brought out from England on the boat back in 1890. From memory, the bridge had collapsed and it needed new strings, but it did me alright for a few weeks until we ordered a cheap and nasty violin out of China on eBay. Hardly an auspicious start and the screeching horrors made fingernails down a chalkboard sound pleasant, but I persevered. My daughter didn’t and I continued on with her lessons in term 2 and then kept going. She, did however, pick the violin back up when she was about 10 at school an their violin ensemble was part of the Festival of Instrumental Music at the Sydney Opera House. So, there she was in the pinnacle of Australian musicianship while I was up in the audience. Once again, she didn’t stick with it and was passionate about ballet and dance. You can’t do everything!!

So, My violin is back in business, and I’ll say I’m going to commit to at least 30 minutes of daily practice which will probably excuse a couple of days off a week, or maybe here and there if I am struggling.

I was also doing daily sketching for about three months last year and I’d like to get back to that. I was quite committed before we went to Europe in May, and once again I fell off the wagon again going cold turkey with no sketching whatsoever and rarely so much as a doodle.

What is this? Why do my passions suddenly stop. Fall off a cliff without even so much as a goodbye let alone tears, guilt, regret followed by inevitable therapy. Do I have no heart?

While I’m on this subject, I’d just like to add that each of these passions, passions I’ve invested heavily in, have their stuff. Stuff the general populace and these….do-gooders call “clutter”. However, I call it dreams…the piles of sheet music for both piano and violin, cupboards full of paint, paint brushes, canvases, bags of fabric, wool. I have a shelf full of the violins my daughter has outgrown and I’ve been meaning to sell. I also found something like three violins beside the road which were in fairly good nick and we still have my husband’s grandfather’s violin and my student Stentor and the eBay violin. I have been thinking about asking my daughter to paint the back of one with Van Gogh’s Starry Night. While all of this could inspire “The March of the Violins”, I’m still not convinced. Not quite sure how to sell them, but keeping them in the hallway cupboard isn’t helping.

Anyway, I wasn’t intending to delve so deeply into my struggles with the violin, although I did feel that mentioning it here and etching my intentions to start up again here in stone, would give me a better chance of sticking with it and progressing.

Meanwhile, the last couple of weeks have been delightfully social and I’ve started to feel like things are finally returning to a pre-covid norm where my health is also fairly good. We caught up with my Dad’s extended family before Christmas and it’s the first time I’ve seen some of them since 2019. Unfortunately, my Dad didn’t come along and my Mum is in care. So, it wasn’t the same, but it was fantastic sharing so many wonderful family stories and simply being together. We had Christmas Day at home with just the four of us, which still feels very strange when we’ve always had Christmas with Dad’s large extended family with over 30 people. This also meant I had to cook and have the house clean and make space for the Christmas tree…a big effort but we made it. Our daughter has also spent the last six months working extensively in our garden and we had lunch outside surrounded by flowers.

Since then, we’ve been to an engagement party and housewarming, a BBQ and had family park their camper in our front yard and we went bushwalking and even joined in a little when they were playing beach cricket and had a bat. While I managed to hit the ball a few times, running uphill in the dry sand was too much and I even struggled to walk. I was very grateful to gracefully get out.

MY daughter looking out across Pearl Beach into Pittwater, NSW, Australia.

So, it appears that my plans for 2026 are still a work in progress, but I am already making progress and am also having a wonderful much-needed social time…along with some rest.

How is the start of 2026 going for you? I hope it is going well so far, and if it’s not, you have plenty of time to change the script as long as things are not too serious.

This is another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer.

Best wishes,

Rowena

Artist Talk – Message On A Canvas

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Last Saturday, I was given a very special opportunity to give an Artist Talk at the opening of our art exhibition held in the Community Gallery, at the Gosford Regional Gallery. The “us” refers to Studio Gossie, an art program for artists with disabilities which meets at the gallery on Thursday mornings. The community gallery is where community art groups exhibit and it gives you a bit of an entre into being an exhibiting artist, and a forum for up and comings to share our work. I have to say, it feels supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to see my work up on the wall especially at a smaller exhibition like ours where each work has space and gravitas.

I called my talk: Message On A Canvas, because my artworks in the exhibition both relate to my disability and acute health issues.

I wanted to share my artist talk and insert a few photos which weren’t part of the original presentation. Being a strongly visual person, they really bring my journey to life.

Not a born artist, but definitely philosophical.

My artist talk addressed the fact that I’m not really an artist quite yet, along with how my disabilities and acute health issues have both hindered and advanced my art.

So here goes…

When offered the opportunity to do an artist’s talk today, as an extroverted extrovert, I enthusiastically leaped at the chance. Yet, in my typical inimitable fashion, I hadn’t thought it through. Nothing was straight forward, especially the title of “artist”.

While I might be on the road to becoming an artist, I’m currently more of a “jack-of-all trades creative” with a much stronger track record in writing and photography. Moreover, my relationship with art has been rocky, often affected by my disabilities and my ardent passion hasn’t always been reciprocated. Fortunately, I’ve learnt practice helps and you can’t just pick up a pencil and draw like Da Vinci on your first attempt.

My art journey began as a pre-schooler eagerly watching Mr Squiggle on ABC TV. Like magic, he’d transform random squiggles into amazing works of art. Of course, I had a go myself, but couldn’t pull it off. Maybe, I just didn’t have the nose for it, or perhaps my issues went deeper. When it came to colouring-in, I also had trouble. Couldn’t stay between the lines. So, despite my passion, art and I seemed incompatible… like oil and water. We didn’t mix. Yet, finally in year 7, my art teacher took me under her wing and my art flourished. While I could’ve done elective art, I was in an academic stream and left art behind.

Graduation from the University of Sydney

I ended up at Sydney University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with honours in history. While I was there, the movie Dead Poet’s Society came out and I’d found my calling. I got involved in several poetry groups and was doing poetry readings. In 1992, I self-published my anthology of poetry: Locked Inside An Inner Labyrinth and left for Europe. While in Paris, I did a solo poetry reading at the famous bookshop – Shakespeare and Company.

Reciting my poetry at the Shakespeare Bookshop in Paris in July, 1992. I had a little black book with my poems in.

However, when I returned to Australia, reality hit and it was time to get a proper job. I went into marketing mostly doing tedious database analysis and being a fish out of water.

However, my world soon received a massive shake up. Turned out my difficulties colouring-in between the lines, were part of a bigger problem, showing up again as I struggled to stay in my lane learning to drive. I’d also had a hard time at school for being clumsy or “unco” and was always the last person to be chosen in PE. Then, in my mid-twenties with my head spinning, I was referred to a neurologist and found out I’d been born with hydrocephalus, or fluid in the brain. This ticking time bomb, suddenly exploded and I rapidly deteriorated. I had brain surgery to insert a shunt. This was a bit like fixing a simple plumbing problem albeit in my head.

My road to recovery was long and traumatic. There I was an up and coming something, and now I was just a huge question mark.

The Photographer Bride: taking photos at my own wedding. Totally incorrigible.

However, a professional photographer friend got me deeper into photography, recharging my creative battery and lighting a real fire. I could also go to parties and say I was into photography, which helped bridge the gap of not being able to work…a real salvation!

Yet, I mostly recovered, and got back into marketing. Geoff entered the picture about six months later and we were married. We have two lovely young adult children and three dogs.

However, the birth of our second child brought about a debilitating auto-immune disease which attacked my muscles and has wreaked major damage on my lungs. I am currently going through pre-transplant screening at St Vincent’s Hospital, but hoping not to need it.

That’s been a long and winding road, but finally we’re arriving at Destination Art, where I am definitely a Johnny-come-lately. Much of my art is abstract expressionist with lashings of brightly coloured paint protruding from the canvas and I’m often covered in paint. I’m also into mixed-media using repurposed materials and a lot of glue.

Painting At Our Kitchen Table…I don’t think Pooh Bear knows quite what to think!

I mostly work from our kitchen table and have to be careful cooking and painting at the same time making sure the wooden spoon goes in the pot, and the paintbrush on the canvas and also stays out of my cup of tea!

At the start of 2024, I fell back into art searching for my tribe after lockdown and my kids leaving school. Our daughter was working next door to Bloomfield Fine Art Gallery in Terrigal and I started going to their openings and getting to know a few artists. I also started going to jazz at the Ocean Beach Hotel. The music really lit my fire and helped inspire my first major artwork. The big spark came with hearing about the Mental Health Artworks Exhibition.

My artwork evolved through a series of light bulb moments where I suddenly saw the same old packaging from my medication in a new light. A silver bag became a dress. The Rennie’s packet became windows and I jazzed them up with glass paint to form a colourful nightscape, and also put music in some of the windows. My empty bottle of prednisone became a person. Then, the people became a band and were healing through playing music. I ended up calling it After Dark the Music Starts. I also submitted this artwork into Willoughby Council’s disability art competition where it received a Highly Commended and $100 voucher. I was so encouraged, and went on to join Studio Gossie, where my horizons blew wide open!

Wanting to build on this, I developed the Odd Socks’ Night Out, which is in this exhibition. The back story was inspired by Radiohead’s haunting lament: Creep…

“But I’m a creep

I’m a weirdo

What the hell am I doing here?

I don’t belong here…”

and

“I don’t care if it hurts

I want to have control.

I want a perfect body.

I want a perfect soul…”

In this work, the outcast odd socks have come together at their own exuberant festival celebrating: “we all belong here”. However, they are not so accepting of outsiders and have their own list of restrictions…no smelly or holey socks, no pairs, no shoes. I felt this was a pretty true reflection of how a lot of community groups operate.

There are two types of odd sock in this work. There are the high flyers up the top, which are made out of polymer clay and egg cartons. The odd sock characters down below are made from repurposed household items, especially packaging from my medication, my husband’s odd socks, fabric, wool. I chanced across a bunch of Barbie dolls at the op shop and they provided arms, legs and hair for the creatures. There’s also “Joe” whose wheelchair was made out of two kitchen plugs, and there’s a reference to dyslexia in the title. While some of these creatures still embrace being socks, others are in self-denial and are all dressed up. On the side of the canvas it says: “With enough camouflage, you can be anyone except yourself”. Being yourself is perhaps one of life’s greatest challenges.

Moving onto my other work: Beyond Silenced, this features a stark white plaster mask of my face which is both rooted in the soil and growing flowers from its head. Significantly, my mouth has been plastered over and I have been silenced. Our daughter helped make the mask out of plaster bandages a year ago, and I decided to do something with it for our exhibition. While at Studio Gossie, I made an array of Spring flowers out of air-dried clay and decided to have them growing out the top of the head. Then I thought of the flowers having roots and being nurtured through the soil. So, there is an ecosystem at work. The side of the canvas reads: “I am more than my broken body parts”.

My husband Geoff has been a wonderful support during this artistic awakening attending openings and providing nuts and bolts advice for putting my artworks together. Geoff is also my carer and breadwinner for our family. While my disability has freed me up to pursue my creativity, he’s made considerable sacrifice, but is also grateful for how much art is helping me.

Geoff and I at the Eiffel Tower-June, 2025.

Lastly, having shared my bad luck, I wanted to share our incredible good luck. A few months ago, Geoff was sent over to Paris for a work conference. I went too and we toured Ireland, France and Germany. Naturally attracted to the galleries, we found out people with disabilities and their carers get in free in France and also by-pass the queues. That was like winning lotto! However, while queuing to see Mona Lisa, things went next level when the guard plucked me out of the crowd and escorted me to the very front of Mona Lisa. Turns out they have a special lane right under Mona Lisa’s nose for people with disabilities so people in wheelchairs can get a good view. How wonderful is that, although it should be automatic. So often people with disabilities finish last or miss out, but here in front of the most visited artwork in the world, we are given special VIP treatment… Wow!

That’s a lesson for us all. What can we personally do to make life that little bit easier or inspirational for people living with disabilities? Moreover, as a person living with disability, I also need to be loving and accepting of myself.

This is what Studio Gossie is all about. Here I am giving an artist talk and my fledgling artistic beginnings are starting to flourish. We as a collective are forging friendships and breaking through all kinds of ice. So I’d like to thank the Gallery, Anna, Lesley and my fellow artists for our wonder-filled art tribe. We are changing lives.

Rowena Curtin

PS: Had to include a few pics of painting with our son as a toddler. What fun and exuberant creativity and expressionist!

Weekend Coffee Share- 9th November, 2025.

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Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

I have spent much of the last couple of years apologizing for being absent on my blog and now my writings are very scant and a lot of the more meaningful stuff has been buried in the distant past. I am also very short of storage and upgrading is very expensive so this has also really slowed me down.

Much of this year has slowed down on the blogging front due to our trip to Europe and somehow it’s been taking me forever to write up my travel journal, sort and print up my photos. I did start up a travel blog with a view of uploading I guess an online journal, but I didn’t get past the first post. Indeed, I have been so bogged down in our first week in Ireland which I absolutely loved, that I haven’t even scratched the surface of our time in France or Germany. I have both Irish and German heritage and that’s just magnified and complicated trying to write up our travels.

Another distraction from my blogging and writing up about our trip, has been my involvement in art. While I have had passionate spurts at art in the past, it really took off at the start of last year (2024). This was part of a bigger mission to find my tribe after I felt much of my social circle had dried up following our extensive covid lockdowns here in Australia, which were also compounded for me by my acute autoimmune disease. My kids also grew up, left school and a lot of incidental contact with close friends dried up as their activities stopped. I also had a few close friends pass away. I am an extroverted extrovert and so I need a fairly extensive social circle. Well, it seems I need a fairly extensive social circle just to get a few people to turn up what with people being so busy, it usually isn’t the same ones who turn up either. Anyway, I started going to art openings and would meet people there, and then there were events at the local bookshop and what has become the main string to my bow… jazz on Wednesday nights put on by the OB3. I also joined an art program for people with disabilities at the local Gosford Regional Gallery called Studio Gossie. That provided a series of art workshops conducted by local artists in printing, oil painting, ceramics etc. Through all of this, along with our involvement at Church, I am finally starting to resurrect myself. Yes, it does feel like I am rising from the dead.

Last year’s entry…After Dark the Music Starts

Anyway, this time of year has become a busy art time for me. Last year, I entered a Mental Health Art Exhibition locally and I also sent my artwork from there down to a disability art competition in Sydney where it received a Highly Commended and a $100 voucher. I had a bit of a three month lull in my art after returning from our trip and had wondered whether I’d reached the end of the road with art, but suddenly with the competitions back in the wings, I was up and running again and working like a trojan to get complex mixed-media pieces finished in time. Then, on top of that, I was asked to give an artist talk at the opening for our Studio Gossie Exhibition yesterday. Thankfully, I started working on that a few weeks ago, because it took a lot longer than expected to glue the bits of my story together. However, I was really pleased with it and with the turn out. I might also be conducting an art workshop at the gallery in a few weeks. I am quite stunned about the opportunities which are opening up. I am not even thinking of selling any of my artworks at this stage. I am still learning, growing and experimenting and I am not willing to part with them. There is not “yet” at this stage.

Odd Socks Day Out- Rowena Curtin Sign says: “We All Belong Here” but there are restrictions…

Well, it is Spring for us here in Australia and while your leaves are changing colour and falling from the trees, everything is sprouting here and the beautiful jacarandas are out. Spring is better than ever here this year as our daughter has taken over our dreadfully neglected garden, ripping most of it out and planting thousands of seeds, tubers etc. We now have the makings of a thriving veggie patch, have eaten some of our homegrown lettuce and we’re just starting to see the first of the flowers appear. We had a few tulips, and now we have lilies, cosmos and I’m not sure what the rest of them are. This has been a wonderful project for her, as she is studying floristry and doing work experience one day a week with a local florist. As you may recall, she had tried going into ballet full time, and she’s back at the local studio.

So, now I’ll finally ask you how you’re going. Sorry, for rudely asking you at the end after chatting non-stop about my own affairs, but after being gone for so long, I thought I’d better offer an explanation.

So, I’d love to hear from you and hope you are well.

Best wishes,

Rowena

PS Here’s a photo of my feet enjoying Pearl Beach and the wonderful view!

Weekend Coffee Share – 22nd June, 2025.

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Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

How are you? I hope you’re well and had a great week, although on second thoughts with the latest developments in the Middle East, there’s a lot to think about. While I am trying to keep up to date, I must admit I’ve been going into my own world a bit lately trying to sort out the gazillions of photos from our Europe trip and try to put them in identifying folders so I don’t forget what they are. That’s the downside of digital photography and just storing them on your hard drive. I’m planning to print out some photos and probably to do a photo book.

I’ve also started working on an additional blog to write up about the trip. Although we were only gone for a month, I think I have enough fuel for this blog to last a couple of years. We really pushed ourselves to the max, especially in Ireland and Paris and probably carpe diemed too much. So, I’ll wait until next week to share it with you, when I’ve got a bit further along with it.

While we were away, I tried not to think about coming home and that awful tyranny of distance, which separates Australia from Europe, and indeed, much of the world. I’d last been to Europe in 1992, leaving a 32 year gap in between visits. That’s such a long time, and when you’re on the plane going backwards and forwards seems so easy. Indeed, some lucky souls do it quite often. However, for most mere Australian mortals going to Europe is a once or twice in a lifetime event if we’re lucky. What’s more, we also need to be grateful for the opportunities we get, and I guess not get too depressed when we return to salt mines back home not to start saving for the next trip, but to pay off the one we’ve just had. That sounds a bit depressing. So, I’ll get back to sorting out and soaking up my photos and feeling like I’m still there. Denial is a wonderful thing!

Meanwhile, my lungs have been a bit under the weather since arriving home and I’ve had a terrible cough and have ended up on antibiotics and the nebuliser, which is helping. I’ve also been taking things very slowly and resting. I am looking like quite a different being to the maniac walking around Paris and overcoming all those stairs in the Paris Metro and I’m trying not to let go of all that activity because it is so good for me. Yet, at the same time, we both need to rest and recharge.

Before I head off, I thought I’d just mention that I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of stuff in our house. I won’t use the dreaded words “declutter” because I actually like lots of little knick-knacks, especially from my travels. They’re so interesting and reveal personality and interest. The world can be too beige and sterile at times. Yjat said a bit of elbow room and breathing space doesn’t go astray either.

Anyway, I’m going to head off.

Hope you’ve had a great week.

This has been another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer.

Love and blessings,

Rowena

Weekend Coffee Share – Our European Vacation

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Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

How are you? I hope you are all well!

I don’t know how I can possibly condense a month in Europe into a single post, especially when I’m planning to set up a whole new blog to write about it. However, I love a challenge and when I’ve been catching up with friends, they’ll be asking me for the snapshot overview, not the duck’s guts inside tour. That said, I’ve been posting photos on Facebook and quite few friends enjoying quite a detailed photographic tour.

Just to recap a little, my husband was recently sent on a work conference in Paris, which covered his flight to and from Australia to Europe and accommodation in Paris. He’s a smart man and knew he’d be a dead man travelling to Paris without me. Yet, at the same time, I have serious health issues and there was a real question mark over whether I’d be well enough to travel and also whether I could get travel insurance to cover my pre-existing conditions. On top of all of this, I’d broken my foot about three months before departure and my foot was still recovering. However, I can be a determined soul, although that’s no guarantee it’s all going to pan out. However, in this case, it has and turned out spectacularly well and far beyond our wildest dreams flying into Dublin and spending almost a week in the Republic of Ireland before flying to Paris for 8 nights and then hiring a car and touring the WWI battlefields before driving into Germany and staying with friends in Oelde near Bielefeld, up to the island of Fehmarn on the Baltic Sea near Denmark and then heading down to Heidelberg where I lived for six months with a German family back in 1992.

Poetry Reading Shakespeare & Company Bookshop, Paris 1992.

By the way, I should mention that an element of this trip involved revisiting my backpacking adventures through Europe as a much younger 22 year old in 1992. I had just graduated from university and while gap years weren’t officially a thing back then, that’s what it was. Back then, my friend and I had flown KLM to Amsterdam and then trained to Cologne and then I went on to Heidelberg and met a family there and stayed with them for about 6 months and later taking their daughter to and from school while working in a plant nursery during the day. Another highlight of this trip was staying in Paris for about a month. Initially, we stayed at the Hotel Henri IV near Notre Dame , but later couch-surfing with some friends. A highlight of my stay in Paris was doing a solo poetry reading at the famous Shakespeare Bookshop when it was still owned by the infamous George Whitman. So, going back to Paris provided an opprtunity for me to revisit the Shakespeare and also to catch up with all the people I’d met in Heidelberg and revisit that former stomping ground. On top of that, we started out with almost a week in the Republic of Ireland. Geoff had been told he could fly and out of any European city, and we were tossing up between Dublin and London. We both have Irish heritage and were curious…what did we come from? I’ve always heard the Irish are very friendly and people have had a wonderful time there, but I wanted to check it out for myself. Indeed, I’ve been longing to go to Ireland for years and I didn’t have to twist Geoff’s rubber arm too much!

View of the Cliffs from Loop Head Lighthouse

When it came to planning our time in Ireland, I was trying to get some kind of idea of the size of the place and setting realistic goals. Compared to Australia, it’s obviously much smaller, but I’ve been caught out travelling to Tasmania and that seemed to be much bigger on the ground than the map. Anyway, Tassie turned out to be a good reference point for the Republic of Ireland, because they’re roughly the same size and that warned me to stick to a confined area. We were interested in the Irish people, history and culture as well as seeing important sites, but we were also being guided by seeing where our ancestors were from, but this didn’t mean we were going on a genealogy holiday scouring libraries and cemeteries. The family connections mostly gave us a sense of direction. My Curtins came from Cork City. John Curtin had married a Bridget O’Sullivan from Mallow and her mother Margaret Egan had come from Buttevant. Then I had Quealey’s from around Loop Head in County Clare not too far away from the Cliffs of Moher and McNamaras from East Clare near Ennis. Geoff had the Burkes from Thurles and the O’Mara’s from around Holy Cross, Tipperary. All these places lined up fairly well on the map and we were off.

Stopping off at the castle at Dunamase, County Laois was our first stop of the way to Cork.

There is so much that we loved about Ireland. Probably the thing we loved most was the Irish people themselves. What they say about them being friendly, is absolutely true and they reminded me of Australians 20-30 years ago when we weren’t in such a rush. They love to chat and have really cultivated the great art of storytelling. They also stop and let you cross the road, which is really lovely. We really enjoyed roaming through and photographing loads of ruins in Ireland. Our first stop was Dunamase Castle on the Rock of Dunamase in County Laois. Here you could roam unimpeded through the ruins and take fantastic photos both of the ruins and the local countryside. Needing a toilet, we drove into the nearby town of Portlaoise where we had lunch at the LemoNick Cafe where we had wonderful creamy vegetable soup and much to my delight, they had Honey cake on the menu. I’ve been following a bakery in Sydney which makes it, but hadn’t managed to get down there. So I was delighted to find it on the other side of the world in a cafe in Ireland. We loved it! Our next stop was Holy Cross Abbey near where Geoff’s O’Mara’s had witnessed a shooting and had been sent to Tasmania under witness protection back in the day- Quite a story. Unfortunately, by now we’d run out of time to tour the Rock of Cashel, but said hello to some sheep and photographed the exterior.

Next stop was our accommodation in Midleton, where my 4 x grandmother Bridget Donovan had been an inmate of the workhouse during the Irish Famine. Her luck suddenly changed when she was chosen for the Irish Famine Orphan Scheme and sent to Australia with a trunk to help her find a husband. We visited Cork City and I was able to go inside St Finbarr’s South where he was baptised in 1831. We also visited the English Markets, but then went on to Cobh,which we really loved with its magnificent cathedral and coloured houses. From there we drove up into County Clare and stayed overnight in Doonbeg as we wanted to check out Loop Head and the Cliffs of Moher and Doolin. We ran out of time, and missed the latter, but had great views of the cliffs from the Loop Head Lighthouse and watched the sunset over the cliffs at Kilkee. Before driving to Dublin, we visited the Museum of Irish Rural Life in Kilrush and saw an authentic farm kitchen from the 1850’s, timber salvaged from a bog which I think was 10,000 years old and then there was the inimitable museum man himself, Joe Whelan who also owns the tractor dealership next door and he remembers selling a tractor to the last of the Quealy’s farming in the area 50 years ago. That was priceless.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t leave much room for talking about Dublin, and that’s exactly how things panned out as well. However, we did manage a full day in Dublin where we toured the Wax Museum, wandered around the grounds of Trinity College, but didn’t have time to see the Book of Kells, which we have seen in Australia. We went to the Natural History Museum where we saw bogman and finally onto the art gallery. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any Irish music, but hope to see some back in Sydney.

Next stop Paris. I didn’t mention that we were trying to stay in bnbs so we could get a taste of living as a local. Even checking out our accommodation in Paris was fun exploring all these French apartments, but managed to get a great one in Denfert Rochereau near the conference and the Metro and we experienced true Parisian living including having to put in something like four security codes to get in, plus undo two locks on the door. This was our first insight into the high security we experienced in Paris. Probably a good thing, because the world has changed a lot since I was last there in 1992. The Eiffel Tower is now fenced in and you go through airport level security going to the tower and I think all the museums. We went to the Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, L’Orangerie and I also caught a little mini bus out to the Louis Vuitton Institute out in the Bois de Boulogne to see a magnificent exhibition of David Hockney’s works which covered 4 floors and was just extraordinary, especially that something of that magnitude would be on while I just happened to be in Paris all the way from Australia…extraordinary. We also visited Shakespeare and Company, but to be honest it didn’t feel the same as when I was back there in 1992 and it was so carefree. The poor place is now besieged with visitors and there’s a security guard at the door managing traffic flow. I also couldn’t buy many books and ship them back to Australia, which was probably the most frustrating part of all. However, I did manage to attend a book talk there by Irvine Welsh, author of Train Spotting, which gave me a lot of food for thought but again couldn’t buy any books to take home and to be fair, I’d bought the catalogue from the David Hockney Exhibition and had already broken the rules in a big way. That book weighed a ton. Before I leave off on Paris, I must mention having dinner at Les Deux Maggots, another legendary literary nook in Paris, and the desserts in particular were to die for. I’m having serious withdrawals just thinking about them. There were two things I found rather frustrating about Paris. Firstly, there was the near absence of public toilets and secondly the stairs in the Metro system. There are very few lifts or escalators in the Metro system. I could also talk about getting lost in the Metro, but I just realized I forgot to mention my visit to the Paris Opera. This place is absolutely exquisite, but it’s charm was considerably diminished by the number of women staging full-on photo shoots in very glamorous high-end outfits with their puppy-dog husbands and even young children in tow. I was starting to walk up the marble staircase with my walking stick, when one of them asked me to move out of her photo. She hadn’t bargained on running into a straight-shooting Australian and disability activist. I actually started photographing them for a bit of fun. Get over yourselves! I wonder if they noticed the building as anything more than a background for their reflection?!! One last thing about wonderful Paris, people with disabilities and their carers get free entry into museums and there is even a special lane for people with disabilities to go right in front of the Mona Lisa. This is so considerate because I really struggle with standing, and while I certainly pushed myself well beyond sensible limits in Paris, without skipping the queues, I would’ve missed out on so much.

Deary me, this post has run away from me, and I still have to get onto Germany. Yet, considering all we experienced, I really am giving you a fly by tour. Then, I just remembered that we toured the WWI Battlefields and stayed overnight in Amiens before we headed into Germany.

So we’re now driving from Amiens to the town of Oelde near Munster to catch up with the family I used to live with in Heidelberg back in 1992. That was 33 years ago and we’ve all shuffled down a few seats in the bus since then. They are now grandparents and it’s hard to believe their kids now have young kids and I guess they probably found it hard to see how much I suddenly aged when I appeared and have adult children myself. I was 22 years old when I last saw them. I can’t tell you what it was like seeing them again after all this time, and for my husband to meet them and for him to be a part of this German world of mine. It was a complete part of my life, which he knew very little about and it was hard not being able to get back and it used to be so expensive to phone and difficult to keep in touch. They cooked me some fabulous German meals including white asparagus with hollandaise sauce which I’d been seeing in the markets and wondered about. We also had fabulous German bread. Oh how I’d missed that! from Oedle, we drove up to Fehmarn, an island on the Baltic Sea just South of Denmark to meet up with another friend. After knowing her for over 30 years, it was so special to see where she was actually from and where she lives now. Unfortunately, after weeks of glorious weather, the rain caught up with us in Fehmarn, but it was so beautiful and I particularly loved the village of Burg which was like out of a fairytale, especially for an Australian. We also learned a new word in Fehmarn…Moin which is their equivalent to Guten Tag. We found a great bakery in Burg and I was able to have Mandelhörnchen biscuits, a wonderful strawberry cake and I later tried out a regional specialty Fischbrotchen. It was good, but I only managed to get through half. We stayed three nights on Fehmarn and then we were off driving to Heidelberg. Fortunately, it was a public holiday and the traffic was better on the Autobahn. However, the crowds in Heidelberg were rather overwhelming for the long weekend. The queues to take the funicular up to the castle were crazy in the morning and so we walked down to the Alte Brucke and up 198 steps up the tower of the Church of the Holy Ghost. Don’t know how I made it and it wasn’t too bad. I wasn’t so lucky the next day trying to get up the Philosopher’s Walk and had to turn back halfway. We came across Heidelberg University’s fascinating Student Prison but only managed to see the outside of the Castle as it had closed by the time we got there. We walked extensively around the Altstadt and also went on a river cruise. Next we were off to Heidelberg to stay with friends for a couple of nights. Oh! I should also add that the weather in Heidelberg was hot and balmy and we savoured every second of it knowing we’d be returning to an Australian Winter. There is an old German song “I lost my heart in Heidelberg” and I’d lost it once 33 years ago, and now I’d lost it for a second time. Why did Australia have to be so far away?

After leaving Heidelberg, we drove to Nancy France via Baden Baden and the next day spent a few hours in Rheims and absorbing the magnificent Rheims Cathedral and nearby library. We had our last dinner in Europe in Rheims in the shadows of the Cathedral before driving to our bnb on the outskirts of Paris. No parking difficulties here. We were staying opposite a wheat field and had to get the car back at 6.30am before our flight.

By the time we were on the plane, I suspect I was too exhausted and numb to dwell on all I was leaving behind. It had taken me 33 years to return to Europe. Given my health troubles, I was lucky to get back at all. Perhaps, I should just count my blessings. Be grateful for what I’ve had and not dwell on that sense of loss and missing out. My husband and I had had the trip of a lifetime, beyond our very wildest dreams. Moreover, we had so much to go home to with our kids and our three dogs and our less than perfect house which is home. Responsibilities and jobs awaited but as the plane flew into Sydney with a magnificent view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the opera House right at sunset, I knew we have it pretty good.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief overview of our trip to Europe, which I guess is really quite extensive for a single post.

Have you been travelling lately? Or, perhaps you’ve been to some of the places I’ve mentioned and have your own posts. Feel free to add a link in the comments.

This is another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer.

Weekend Coffee Share- 27th April, 2025.

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Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

How are you? I hope you’re all well.

If you were to pop by my place for coffee, you’d be in luck this week. You could have a home-made ANZAC bIscuit and if you’re really lucky you’d get one with macadamia nuts on top. They’re not authentic, but in my humble opinion, the macadamia nuts really take them up a notch. Our kids don’t like them. Can’t understand that, but each to their own. BTW it was ANZAC Day and making ANZAC Biscuits is an Australian tradition and I certainly make them every year while I’m watching the march to honour those who served, and especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Meanwhile, I have some very exciting news.

Performing My Poetry at the Shakespeare Bookshop, Paris 1992.

Geoff and I will be heading to Europe next Tuesday. We fly from Sydney to Dublin spending a week in Ireland mainly in counties Cork and Clare where my family originated many years ago. Most of my Irish ancestors came to Australia around the time of the Great Hunger, although some came later on in the 1870’s via New Zealand. Then we fly to Paris where Geoff will be attending a conference. We get in a few days early and I can’t wait to go up the Eiffel Tower. I spent a month in Paris back in 1992 when I was backpacking through Europe and my friends and I somehow managed to miss going up the Eiffel Tower. Not so this trip! Another point of personal interest in Paris is the Shakespeare & Company bookshop where I gave a solo reading back in 1992. I’m really looking forward to going back and retracing my footsteps. I’m also looking forward to going back to the Musee D’Orsay and to add something new to the mix there is an exhibition of David Hockney’s works at the Foundation Louis Vuitton. I’m not sure whether we will get to the Louvre. I am also looking forward to revisiting the Luxembourg Gardens and the patisserie in the Rue de Buci. From Paris, we will be heading into Germany to Heidelberg and visiting friends in Northern Germany. So much to look forward to, but also so much to organise, especially as his trip was only approved a few days ago.

Have you done any traveling lately?

I’ve had to cut my art back to get ready for the trip and we have school holidays and my art course is on break. However, I went to a papermaking workshop at the regional gallery yesterday and it was fabulous. The idea of this workshop was to forage for plant matter which we’d pulverise in a blender along with some shredded office paper. It reminded me very much of making a banana smoothie when we started out to produce the slurry which we mixed with water captured the particles to make our piece of paper. I also found a stunning leaf skeleton, which I embedded on top of the paper.

Anyway, I’ve been nodding off while I’ve been typing away while watching a recording of the Pop’s funeral. My heartfelt condolences to anyone touched by his death. He touched so many lives and was such an incredible yet humble man.

This has been another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer.

Best wishes,

Rowena

Weekend Coffee Share – 30th March, 2025

1 Reply

Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

How are you? I hope you are well!

Well, I was forwarned. All of you folk in the Northern Hemisphere have been getting excited about the arrival of Spring, which logically infers that it’s Autumn here and we are rapidly heading towards dreaded Winter. However, we have one week left of daylight savings and so as far as I’m concerned, it’s still Summer and I’ll just ignore any evidence to the contrary especially as there are still sunbaking and swimming at the beach, although they’d have to be mad to be out there this weekend.

Last week was a bit like A Tale of Two Cities with “the best of times, and the worst of times”. I had a Gastric Manometry test at St Vincent’s Hospital. This was a lot like an endoscopy except the tube is fed up your nose and you have to swallow it and you’re awake. No pretending here. It was awful, There was Part A with a large tube which only lasted 15 minutes and there was Part B where a much thinner tube was fed through and stayed in situ for 24 hours for them to monitor the stomach acid, but it also looked at the mechanical functioning of the esophagus. Just to compound my dramas, I had to go off my ant-acid medication…the main one 7 days beforehand, another one at 4 and then no Gaviscon for 24 hours. I actually got through that okayish but then had an extra 24 hours to survive without medication with the tube in. Needless to say, I was very grateful to get the tube out.

We have been dealing with difficult medical appointments for a long time now, and we automatically build in something to look forward to into these tough days. So, after the tube went in, we were heading back to the car when I suggested a detour into the National Art School. Given my passion for art, I was naturally busting to check it out but the buildings themselves are also riveting. Construction on the gaol began in 1822 starting with the wall which was completed in 1824. However, construction stalled for 12 years and it wasn’t until 1841 that it was open to inmates. Architecturally speaking, what immediately caught my eye was a circular building which is now the gallery but was originally the chapel. It was closed when we were there so we only managed to see it from the outside. However, we did manage to take this funny photo out the front with me parked in a no parking area in my wheelchair. I also thought the pedestrian crossing was a bit Abbey Roadish, but maybe it’s just me.

We had to go back to St Vincent’s on Wednesday to get the tube out and for once we were in and out of the hospital in a flash. Next stop was Watson’s Bay where we initially checked out the historic Macquarie Lighthouse, and next stop was meant to be Doyle’s for takeaway fish and chips, but there was no parking so we detoured to Camp Cove round the corner. I used to go swimming with my parents at Camp Cove when I was knee-high to a grasshopper and we were living in Rose Bay. I recently had some old film footage converted and and now have photos of me there. The weather was stunning and people were swimming and sunbaking like it was still Summer and it was nostalgic to also watch the famous Manly Ferry shooting past. However, lunch options were limited there and so we headed back to Watson’s Bay and managed to park and get to Doyle’s for takeaway fish and chips located at the ferry wharf. We had been here a few years ago and returned to a nearby cafe for gelato. Watson’s Bay is very atmospheric with its stunning harbour views and towering Morton Bay Fig trees.

Camp Cove looking towards the Sydney CBD.

While it sounds like we’d already had quite a full day, we still had somewhere else up our sleeve. While driving out to Watson’s Bay, I’d got quite a surprise to see a shop front full of paintings I’d been checking out on Instagram a week or so ago and to find out this is the Arthouse Gallery owned by Di and Ali Yeldum. Joshua Yeldum who is their son and brother respectively has achieved international success as an artist and is also quite a philosopher. My art teacher put me onto him and I was captivated so I was very excited to finally visit their gallery, but also to see this exhibition by Dean Bowen which was delightfully magical. There were sculptures and paintings and they were just fun. I’m not sure whether all the paintings were oils but this is the first exhibition I’d been to since I had my first go at oil painting three weeks ago and I really noticed a fresh appreciation although I still felt pretty clueless. I certainly couldn’t get myself up in the kitchen and knock up something like this although I did add an oversized heart to my long standing flying tea cup motif which was influenced by him. I also appreciated how welcoming the staff were and we felt so incredibly comfortable there even though I’m new to painting and we can’t afford to buy. Indeed, I was given a beautiful book celebrating their 30th Birthday. That’s a significant achievement for any small business but especially for an art gallery.

On Thursday, I was back to my art course at Studio Gossie. For the next three weeks we are experimenting with recording sounds and also doing something with film I think. I was intrigued to do this, but wasn’t sure I’d get into it. My son is currently studying sound engineering at JMC Academy in Ultimo and my husband also has a strong background in sound. They are both very technical, whereas I have trouble turning on our TV and am more down the expressive language end of town. However, I wanted to give it a serious go. Well, it all started off really well. We were given access to sound recorders and told to record sounds around the gallery which they’d upload to a program called Ableton where we could treat each sound like a series of notes and we could alter the sounds and also stitch a range of different sounds together. Understandably, I hadn’t given much thought to what kind of sounds we might encounter around the gallery, but we were in luck because there are quite a few trees and a wonderful array of bird calls. The gallery also has a Japanese Garden complete with waterfall, koi carp, ducks, Rainbow Lorikeets and a noisy gravel pathway which I used to record my footsteps. I was trying not to capture voices but they could also be quite interesting when fused into the mix. I have since recorded a massive flock of about 100 Sulfur-Crested Cockatoos which descended on our Norfolk Pine at home. I am very enthused about all of this and I can’t wait to see where it’s at by the end.

Aside from all of that, the rest of my week has been fairly quiet trying to play catch up. Indeed, speaking of catch up I finally managed to get myself a new journal and started catching up but still have a long way to go. BTW I use an A4 journal and try to get a fairly thick one so it doesn’t run out of space on the first sitting. Although my broken foot and health issues have been a fairly constant struggle for the last five weeks, I actually spent the first I think 12 pages just writing about my art. I’ve also done some art at home and sketched Macquarie Lighthouse and did an abstract acrylic painting last night. I wasn’t too sure about it at the start and thought it could well be painted over, but it came good.

Lastly, I thought I’d mention that our daughter invited me out for coffee yesterday. There’s a new cafe in Ettalong called Amalfi and her friend is working there. I loved the yellow and white decor and was particularly struck by a statue, which had a couple of branches of a fake lemon tree growing out of its head. I really liked the symbolism of this , especially in light of the famous quote: “If life deals you lemons, make lemonade”. What about when you have lemons growing out of your head? Well, the lemon lady of Ettalong might’ve been sour, but instead she was making lemonade inside her head and happy. Of course, this is much easier to pull off if you’re a writer writing about a statue than in real life. However, it’s important to try to keep your spirits up, especially when your mood has crashed.

While all of these exciting adventures might make it look like I’m on top of the world, I am struggling. I probably overdid it during the week and as much as I needed the exciting adventures, perhaps I should’ve taken things just a tad slower because today I was wiped out and that doesn’t happen often.

I hope you’ve had a great week and I look forward to hearing from you!

This has been another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer.

Best wishes,

Rowena

Weekend Coffee Share 9th March, 2025.

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Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share!

This week we have much to celebrate and had I been in charge, we’d be having home-made pavlova again to celebrate our son’s 21st Birthday. However, despite my baking prowess, his favourite cake is the $8.00 Caramel Mud Cake from Aldi and so we had that instead. Make that, he had it. I am, as a chef friend of mine put it, too much of a cake purist to eat that and I am also finding that cake doesn’t agree with my stomach like it used to, although you might say that’s too much information. Along with the Caramel Mud Cake, I made cupcakes with M & Ms on top, chocolate crackles, Honey Joys, and banana muffins which I also took along for a morning tea after church. These were childhood party favourites and to be really honest, I would’ve loved to remade the Train Cake from the Australian Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake Cookbook. However, given he’s now 21 and not so into trains, I thought he might shoot me. Oh yes! I almost forgot to mention that I made up some lolly bags too. So, as you can see, he had a very healthy birthday!

Jonathon’s birthday was yesterday. Celebrations were low key because our daughter had had covid for the past ten days, he picked up a virus which didn’t identify as covid, RSV or the flu and decided to remain stubbornly incognito and then there’s me of broken foot fame. With us being sick during the week, we couldn’t see my parents or brother and as I’ve mentioned before, my mum has dementia and went into care six months ago. So, that’s clearly a big change and as my daughter said, you didn’t appreciate how lively and social she was until she’s not. On top of this, my son was finding organizing a party a bit much and things dwindled down from a party, to going out with friends and having a family lunch to a quiet dinner at a local Korean-Japanese restaurant with his girlfriend coming along. I am so grateful she was with us as she made it truly special and she was really smiley and happy which was rather contagious. I became a bit reflective at times thinking back to the huge 21st I had at my parents house with about 50-80 people. I think you had about 30 people just with my Dad’s family turning up. It was an 80’s party and my mum as dressed up as Princess Diana, Dad went as Manuel from Fawlty Towers, although he actually looked a lot like actor John Cleese who played the inimitable, Basil Fawlty. I can’t remember who I went as…may be a yuppie but I wore a black dress and my cake was the Berlin Wall using violet crumble pieces to make up bricks. I have always been a larger than life character and I guess that’s why I struggle so much doing low key. It feels like a non-event and yet so many of my family and friends don’t like that, but sometimes I really have to feed my inner extrovert, although it’s been very hard to find opportunities of late to be a party animal. Oh to be 21 myself again!

Meanwhile, I have a wonderful week of art. I have been following Nicholas Wilton at Art2life over on Instagram and this week he hosted a free 5 day art workshop, which has been amazing. Along with the very informative and inspiring videos, they also have a Facebook group where you can post your work and get feedback and also check out other people’s work, which was great. I haven’t been doing a lot of painting and have been focusing on doing my daily sketching although that got blown out of the water last week what with the painting and also our son’s birthday. Anyway, I had fun experimenting with different textures and had fun converting an ice cream lid into a paint scraper. I also decided to repurpose an empty tin of cherries to store paint brushes. I’m not sure if this is a thing for artists or not, but artist Margaret Olley reused tins of baby beets in her studio and if it was good enough for her, it was good enough for me. I also made yet another note to self to keep the paint on the artwork and not to paint myself.

Thursday I was back at my art course at Studio Gossie and this week we were doing oil painting. This was the first time I’d even tried using oil paint, although I did buy a fairly basic set of oil paints which I still haven’t touched. I had been a bit intimidated by oil paint. It all seemed rather sophisticated and there’s the whole issue of needing to clean the brushes up with turps and not being bothered with it all. However, after all the painting I’d been doing in the Art2Life workshops and all my practice with sketching, I was feeling much more comfortable and didn’t feel anxious at all. In fact, I actually had a lot of fun and felt a real sense of achievement. My intructor, Richard, was really helpful. He did a quick demo for us based on a picture and I had intended to copy it and copy it close to the original. However, the colours weren’t really me and I quite liked how artist Margaret Olley used quite a lot of yellow in her work and so I painted the background yellow. Pencil markings were still showing through and while he said you could see pencil marks on a Brett Whitely, that wasn’t good enough for me and he showed me how you could cover it up with dabs of white paint. This produced lovely textured brushstrokes which I really loved and made me feel like a real artist. I could sense I could get really into oil painting. I was pretty stoked with how I went, although I created a big smudge trying to do a shadow underneath the vase, but he said we can fix it up this week. I can’t wait.

Me with my version along with blue paint on my face.

Well, that’s about all I have time for. Indeed, I ran out of time a few hours ago and should’ve been asleep. How has your week been? I hope it’s gone well!

This has been another contribution for the Weekend Coffee Share kindly hosted by Natalie the Explorer.

Best wishes,

Rowena

Weekend Coffee Share…2nd March, 2025.

5 Replies

Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

How has your week been? I hope you’ve had a good one.

Yesterday, we officially transitioned into Autumn here just North of Sydney on the Australian East Coast. No one seemed to inform the weather makers, because we’ve had a glorious weekend.

As you might recall, I broke the fifth metatarsal in my left foot last week. While this is only a small, very insignificant bone which, let’s face it, none of us even consider until trouble strikes; it has been making it’s presence felt. Fortunately, I haven’t been in a lot of pain but I’ve been in deep when it comes to inconvenience and seemingly being stuck waiting in hospital beyond the natural term of my life. Nine hours in emergency, was followed up by three hours at the fracture clinic, but good news has been compounded on good news. After initially finding out I didn’t need surgery, and being put in a plaster cast which had me confined to a wheelchair with no weight bearing. While I was taking a toll of this on the chin and feeling quite triumphant overcoming numerous hurdles, the shine was wearing off especially trying to get to the toilet during the night, inching backwards and forwards in awkward darkness. So I was overjoyed to find out I was transitioning into a moon boot. 5 weeks in that still wasn’t going to be fun, but liberating. I was celebrating. I still can’t get very far so am using the wheelchair out of the house but it’s a vast improvement.

Thanks to all this time waiting around the hospital, I have polished off Paul McCartney’s book: The Lyrics. I very, very highly recommend it. The back cover says: “this is as close as you’ll get to an autobiography” as it includes the lyrics of 161 songs plus a reflection on each of them. Yet, at the same time, McCartney repeatedly states that most of the songs aren’t autobiographical. What I would say, is that reading the book feels like sitting down with Paul and sharing a pot of tea and it’s very conversational and it’s filled with insights particularly into his relationship with John Lennon, how The Beatles came about and the absolute mystery of it all. He also offers a swag of songwriting tips both in terms of musicality and the words. So helpful and inspirational, but he’s also thrown a few life lessons in. He’s now 81 and he’s seen a long of water flow under the bridge (speaking of which, I think he could also sing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”). Anyway, to give you one little tip I found very helpful. His father’s motto was “Do it Now”, which was so pivotal, they even abbreviated it to “DIN”. He also applied this to songwriting. Paul and John would write their songs in one session and there was not though of only writing a bit and coming back to it later. IN “Do It Now”, he writes:

“Do it now, do it now
While the vision is clear
Do it now
While the feeling is here
If you leave it too late
It could all disappear
Do it now
While your vision is clear”

He goes on to explain:

“I did a lot of painting in the nineties, and nearly always I would do them in one sitting, so it would be three or four hours at the easel making that painting, because I found to come back wasn’t fun; it was like a problem to solve: What was that mood I was in? What was that vision I was having? What was that feeling that got me this far?” Whereas when doing it in just one go, you’ve solved enough of the problems and you’ve answered enough of the questions and, lo and behold, there’s your painting, or there’s your song.”

As it turned out, I had a chance to try out that advice with a poem I was working on. I usually do try to write the poem down and work on it as much as I can at the time, which isn’t always possible. At some point, I usually leave them to stew for a bit to return to them with fresh eyes. However, ideally I can almost get it polished off at the time. Well, yesterday I found myself trying to reconnect with the original vision I’d had and was struggling. Yet, at the same time, we can’t always just put life on hold to write poems. While they are important, it can feel like an indulgence. Mind you, the broken foot has let me off the hook a bit, as writing poems is something I can do.

Meanwhile, my sketching continues on an almost daily basis and I’m continuing to improve, especially just with the fact I’m seeing potential sketch subjects all around me now and I have a whole new mindset. Of particular interest this week, I dug out some photos I’d taken of the NSW goldfields town of Sofala near Bathurst. I’d grown up with a print of an iconic Australian painting Sofala by Russell Drysdale and I decided to check the place out while we were staying in Bathurst a few years ago. I’d forgotten that I’d taken quite a striking photo of a huge campervan parked in the iconic main street and decided to sketch that. I’ve had two goes at it now as I needed to work on the perspective. However, I was pretty pleased with my efforts…and that I’ve been sticking with the sketching. Here’s my version and I’m also hoping to paint it.

Lastly, I thought I’d mention Geoff took me out for a walk /wheel to local Ettalong Beach yesterday so I could get out of the house and into some sun. I generally try to work on a pre-emptive basis with my mental health and am trying to get out of the house and into a bit of sun. These efforts have been hampered by our daughter who has caught covid and while we appear to be negative so far, we don’t want to spread it so I’ve cancelled my support workers and exercise physiology sessions.

Oops, and I should’ve mentioned this earlier. Miss turned 19 on Monday and was off to the Billie Eilish concert with friends. She had a wonderful time and was right up close, but got a bit annoyed because people were pushing in. She’s also pretty sure that’s how she caught covid.

Next weekend, our son turns 21. He decided not to have a party, which is just as well now I have a broken foot and his sister has covid and we could have it by next weekend.

Well, that’s all folks. Hope you’ve had a great week and weekend.

This has been another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer.

Best wishes,

Rowena

Weekend Coffee Share -24th February, 2025.

5 Replies

Welcome to Another Weekend Coffee Share!

Well, before you even sit down, we’ve going to light the candles and sing Happy Birthday to my beautiful 19 year old daughter, who has always simply been known as “Miss” here on my blog. I made her a pavlova with fresh fruit, although I must confess this was pavlova 2.0 because somehow I managed to burn the first one. I don’t generally have too much trouble making my pavlova, which is pretty legendary within our small social circle and for you Australians, it’s Margaret Fulton’s recipe. You’ve also in luck because I’ve made chocolate cupcakes for her to take to the Billy Eilish concert today. She’s going along with her friend, who just happens to be my close friend’s son and she’s going along with them. So she’ll be spending her birthday with my friend, but I’m happy they’ll all be seeing Billy and I couldn’t manage the mosh pit alongside them.

So how has your week been? I hope you’ve had a good one.

I have to be pretty honest and say last week was pretty tough, but somehow strangely upbeat and joyful and I’m feeling okay.

Just to recap, I have been fighting a debilitating auto-immune disease, dermatomyositis, for 18 years and it’s also caused fibrosis in my lungs. This became rather acute 2 years ago and I was referred to St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney to explore the possibility of a lung transplant. I also recalled my lung specialist saying exercise, and in particular pulmonary rehab, might help when I last got into trouble ten years ago. Indeed, it reminded me of those unforgettable words of Princess Leia: “Help me, Obei-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only chance.” So I’ve been doing three sessions a week with an exercise physiologist and my lung volumes have improved from 30%-43%. Obviously, they’re still not great but it’s been a huge lifestyle change and my lung specialist thinks the exercise is helping in ways the equipment can’t measure too.

Anyway, so last Monday, I had my six monthly follow-up with St Vincent’s and they’ve decided to officially start the pre-transplant workup, which I’ve been working on for the last year. That was confronting. The next day, I had another medical specialist appointment and he was thrilled with how much better I looked. I was very happy. However, pride goeth before a fall and the next morning, I simply stepped out my front door and my ankle gave way and it turns out I’ve broken the fifth metatarsal in my foot. A bit of a nasty break too, and they were initially threatening surgery and I was sent off to emergency. We walked out of there 9 hours later. Well, I wasn’t walking because I was in the wheelchair and in a plaster cast and as if I didn’t have enough medical appointments, I now have to factor in the fracture clinic and I’m off there on Tuesday. I’m hoping and praying I can go into a boot. I’m currently not allowed to weight bear so getting around is tough. I’m largely staying home as it’s really difficult to get out of the house even with only 2 front steps. However, despite these challenges, I’ve been surprisingly upbeat and it’s felt really good to overcome various hurdles and become more proficient getting around. I have been really surprised that something quite bad could be water off a duck’s back to me. While breaking a small bone in my foot may seem very minor, it’s actually pretty major because I can’t walk and transferring from the wheelchair is really hard. This is no walk in the park and yet it somehow is and I wanted to share that with you, especially as I’ve noticed this with other people going through tough times and they’re strangely okay. They’re grateful for community support and being loved. It doesn’t add up, and it’s been a reminder that what happens to you doesn’t govern your response.

Margaret Olley’s former home was on the corner behind the massive frangipani tree.

I also wanted to share that we are quite deliberate in doing fun stuff when we have a lot going on. So after we went to St Vincent’s, we went on a detour via Paddington on the way to see my Dad on the way home. I have mentioned artist Margaret Olley a few times and how we went to see the recreation of parts of her house/studio in the Tweed River Gallery and how I’d read her biography. Well, she used to live in Duxford Street, Paddington and as it turned out my grandfather lived right across the road from her 40 years earlier when he was a boy. That was quite exciting and created a strange umbilical cord in my head. They were both avid book hoarders and he ended up marrying international concert pianist, Eunice Gardiner and Margaret Olley had a passionate love of classical music and used to listen to it while she painted. So we stopped off in Duxford Street and I noticed and photographed frangipani trees in both yards and got Geoff to photograph me out me on Margaret Olley’s back fence where the former hat factory backed onto the rear street. I spot a chair which had been put out on the street for council cleanup and I photographed it as an empty chair and posed in it. I had no doubt had Margaret Olley been alive, they she would’ve snaffled up that chair and added it to her treasures and painted it. It was also wonderful to think that my grandfather also walked and played in these streets as a young man. I could almost feel him there too.

I also managed to visit Mum and Dad last week around these medical appointments. They are now 79 and Mum is in care with advanced dementia and Dad is fit as a fiddle and still living at home and playing golf, bushwalking and sailing. Mum certainly didn’t recognise Geoff, and might’ve recognised me by the time we left. This was a new development, but although we could see it coming, it was more than just an “adjustment” like tuning my violin or rearranging some furniture. Yet, at the same time, it wasn’t the bomb I’d expected it to be either. I am strangely at peace. Before I move on from talking about my Mum, I wanted to mention that mum is still playing the piano and playing it well. Mum has her A Mus A and was a piano teacher and accompanist. It appears she’s playing quite a lot and I’m very grateful this is ongoing. Playing the piano has been such a part of her, and as the dementia has cut her off from virtually everything and everyone, the piano is the last thing standing a bit like those famous violinists onboard The Titanic who kept on playing until the ship went down. One day, it’s going to stop and there will be silence, but hopefully that will be a way off yet.

So, while all of that’s been going on, I’ve been doing my art. Continuing with almost daily sketching and I had a big day yesterday with paint. I started out with my geli plate and doing some prints of maple leaves with some rainbow colours. These morphed into some highly abstract, attractive patterns and I was rather chuffed. I also did two paintings I was pretty happy with.

With the flower, I was trying to use relaxed brushstrokes and my use of colour. The other painting started out with trying to paint a cloud and then I added the village down below and then started smearing pink paint and a bit of yellow and created mountains and I felt rather naughty because I took those colours into the cloud and it all became quite enchanted like a fairytale. So this was a great intermission from all my health and mobility challenges.

So, how has your week been? I hope it’s gone well.

This has been another contribution to the Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer.

Best wishes,

Rowena

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