December 2011 – Hitchcock Is Hot (part 1)
I’ve got a treat for you today. Some lovely clips from films by one of my fave film directors, Alfred Hitchcock. Read more…
November 2011 – I Carried a Watermelon…
Oh, horrors! Zounds! Gnashing of teeth! Wailing of whales! Weeping and hair tearing and assorted indications of distress! They’re remaking Dirty Dancing. Read more…
October 2011 – Fun in Tropical Melbourne
From 11th to 14th August, 2011, romance writers from all over the world congregated at Melbourne’s Hilton the Park for the annual Romance Writers of Australia conference. Read more…
September 2011 – Ghosts are the new Black
I could have sworn I’d already done a favorite things post on The Ghost and Mrs Muir. Clearly I’m losing my mind because I hadn’t. I hadn’t even done a blog on it. And it seems such a no-brainer as a subject when it’s one of my all-time favorite movies. Read more…
August 2011 – Jumping for Judy!
This month’s My Favorite Things is a tribute to one of my favorite actresses, the wonderful Dame Judi Dench. Read more…
July 2011 – I Wish I Had Haddon Hall
As anyone who has had any extended contact with me via the Internet or real life knows, I adore old houses. My father loved architecture – in fact he often said that if he’d had the opportunities available to people now when he was a schoolboy in the 1940s, he would have become an architect. Read more…
June 2011 – I Wish I Own Iona!
I think we’re due for a couple of travel pieces to give you a break from books and music. So this month, I’m talking about the gorgeous Isle of Iona off the west coast of Scotland… Read more…
May 2011 – I Want to Be the Next Enid Blyton
Somewhere in this house I’m living in now is a battered composition book from grade two in which I proudly penned an essay stating my ambition to be the next Enid Blyton. Read more…
April 2011 – Attenborough is THE MAN!
I’m not sure if Sir David Attenborough is quite the institution in America as he is in Australia and presumably Britain. I first became aware of him when the magnificent series Life on Earth premiered in 1979. Can it really be so long ago? Read more…
March 2011 – Speaking Frankly
When I was recently in New York (now, how’s that for a way to start a column?), I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the musical Come Fly Away. My first Broadway show (well, on Broadway!). Read more…
February 2011 – Those Long Hot Mills and Boon Summers…
I’ve been a romance reader since I was eight years old (longer if you count fairytales as romances!). My mother gave me a Mills & Boon to shut me up one evening and believe me, it worked! I’ve always remembered the book as A Touch of Silk by Aussie author Joyce Dingwell. Read more…
January 2011 – Memories of Aotearoa
Aotearoa is what the Maori call New Zealand where, as all my regular readers know, I was recently lucky enough to visit courtesy of P&O Cruises. I was the guest speaker on the ‘Pacific Dawn’ on a 14 -night cruise that called at Auckland, Rotorua, Napier, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. Read more…