Hospitality Plus

Sydney
In a prior post, ‘Moocher Madness or Houseguest Heaven?’, I wrote about the issue of visitors and how to politely say “no” if you’d rather not provide accommodation to all and sundry in your home.
There are still many ways to be welcoming and helpful. We determine how much or how little time we spend playing host/hostess [...]

Real Life and Blogging

Sometimes real life gets in the way of blogging. Both Clive’s and my mothers have been in hospital in the past 2-1/2 weeks and we have had a few personal projects taking up our off-screen time.
Thankfully our mothers are both settled back in their respective homes, in good spirits and reasonably good health.
I have [...]

Moocher Madness or House Guest Heaven?

Sydney
Anyone who lives and/or owns property in a desirable location knows the issue of house guests regularly rears its head.
I’ve spent years experiencing and considering the pros and cons of house guests. For various reasons, mostly because we’ve had too many unpleasant experiences and treasure our relatively recent empty nest privacy, Clive and I no longer [...]

Son’s Birthday, Mom’s Milestone

Sydney
There’s a first time for everything, and I know we have to let our children grow up.
Today is my son’s 24th birthday. He’ll celebrate it with his girlfriend in Washington, D.C., where he lives and works.
This time last year he was home in Sydney, and we talked then about the possibility Christmas 2008 would be the [...]

Woodstock 1969: Memories, Mud, and Martha

Sydney
It was a long time ago.
In the U.S. summer of 1969, less than four weeks after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, my friend Martha and I were in the back seat of a steamed-up Volkswagen Beetle, in the middle of the Woodstock music festival.
We weren’t old enough to drive, but Martha’s friends in the [...]

Musings about Memory in Suffolk and New Jersey

Ipswich, Suffolk and Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey
We are wrapping up our ten-week trip, the majority of which has been spent with parents in the U.S. (my mother and father, divorced for many years) and England (Clive’s father; his mother is in Australia).
As I wrote in ‘Paris, at Last,’ we struggle regularly with worry and guilt, wish we could [...]

An Alternative to Children’s Birthday Party Excess

Sydney, Thursday
Clive’s older grandson turned five on Valentine’s Day.  His party was held at home, in the downstairs rumpus (family) room.
Plans had been made to have everything outside, but pouring rain changed all that.
Clive and I wondered how everyone would survive (especially us), with twelve active five year-olds and a few younger siblings cooped up [...]

How I Met My Valentine

Sydney, Saturday
Valentine’s Day seems an appropriate time to reflect on how glad I am I met Clive, and how lucky I feel to have him in my life.
As I wrote in Living with a Brit, we met in September, 2005.  Most of our family and friends know how happy we are together, but (until now) [...]

The Peace of Wild Things

Sydney, Thursday
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who [...]

U.S. Airlines, Infrastructure, and Attitude

Sydney
Yesterday we booked flights for our next trip to Paris, England, and the U.S.  As I’ve written about in previous posts, we have a global family, and try to see them, especially our aging parents, as often as possible.
We’re not using any U.S. airlines, and a U.S. family member asked if it wouldn’t be best to do so.  [...]