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Miraculous winking, the Little Shop walks, weeding & baked potatoes

April 15, 2024

Friday 12 April Still feeling not great. Sigh. Never mind. That’s normal for me. The feeling fine-ish I had for a couple of weeks there is NOT normal. It’s okay. I manage, whatever the situation, I get through and make the best of it. Getting dressed: Old Target wide leg jeans (opshopped), an op-shopped Russell Athletic hoodie, socks and sneakers. I’m so tired I wanna be cosy today. My mum told me about a serial that’s running on BBC Radio…

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Eat Good Stuff Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life

Autumn showers, somersaults, fruit compote and tomato relish

April 12, 2024

Ward Lock Everyday Knowledge vintage book illustrated by Alain Gree - page spread

Monday 8th April Twenty-two and showers developing, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. I hope we do get some rain because the garden needs it and also because a few showers are excellent contributing factors when it comes to cosy days. I woke up early and watched the MAFS Australia reunion. I know. I’m a clown. That said, I am a clown who enjoys reality television and this episode did not disappoint. I won’t bore you with my views because…

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Eat Good Stuff Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life

Soup and snowdrops and The Secret Garden

April 8, 2024

Friday 5th April It feels like a three cup of tea morning, and just like that, the seasons have now well and truly changed. I’m thrilled, dear reader. Autumn is my birth season (I was born in March) and it’s the time of the year I feel most myself, most hopeful, most happy, most at ease. There’s something about it, like a turning of the tide, the heat swept out and the crisper days and barer gardens seeping in, bit…

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Eat Good Stuff Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life

Commonplace days …

April 5, 2024

Monday 1st April Easter Monday I woke up quite early, although everything seems early now because it’s dark in the morning for so long. I lay quietly for a while, then made myself a cup of tea and scooted back under the covers to watch the day break. I can see quite a lot of sky from my bed, and this morning’s clouds were like little puff balls, with several combining to form quite a decent sort of elephant. It’s…

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Eat Good Stuff Nice Life Reminders Op-Shopped Books Pip-Life

Weekend-y days …

April 1, 2024

Friday 29 March (Good Friday) It’s Good Friday, pals. I’m going to finish and hand in my assessment and then do some reading as well. I’ve felt so much better the last week or two. Not recovered, but able to do more than I have been doing. It’s been so strange and I admit I am ‘touching wood’ because I’m scared … no, I am terrified that my health will get worse again. In the meantime I am tip-toeing about…

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Good Stuff Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life

This week … homey and possibly boring things …

March 29, 2024

Monday 25th March It’s just after half-eight and I’ve taken the dogs out, watered the garden – paying special attention to the new garden bed – and made tea. Now I’m back at my desk, sorting through decisions about what to do and when. Tomorrow’s rental inspection is top of mind, but really study should pip that at the post. I guess that’s the power of the rental crisis, every inspection feels like you might be walking the plank and…

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Good Stuff Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life

Weekend diary …

March 25, 2024

Saturday 23 March I took an early trip into Savers this morning, stopping halfway to put fuel in the car even though I KNOW it’s a stupid day to buy petrol, that it’s pricier than during the week, that I should be more organised and more frugal-minded. Nevertheless, that’s what I did stopping at my usual place which had locked doors, locked pumps and a ‘back in five minutes’ sign on the window (even after I’d been sitting at the…

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Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life

Just Regular Days

March 22, 2024

It’s cooler in Melbourne today, the tail end of Summer has swished out of sight and Autumnal weather is shuffling in. Just one more hot day, perhaps, and then we’re fully Fall. I hope. I woke up very early but stayed snuggled down, making the most of that snug feeling that’s been absent for so many months. I listened to BBC Radio 4 for a while. They were chatting with Michael Ondaatje about his new poetry book A Year of…

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Pip-Life

Life lately … Goodbye Summer

March 3, 2024

Hello! Hi! How are you? I’m okay! I hope you’re okay! So, this week I had my first online meeting with a small group of other Honours students (I told you about Honours here) just to get acquainted and talk about our various projects. There were 3 writers and one visual artist and everyone’s ideas seemed pretty brilliant and very interesting. We all had to talk a little bit about what we were working on and why our research was…

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Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life

Life lately … Seeking comfort (and brownies!)

February 18, 2024

Tabletop with five platters of buffet-style food

It’s high summer in Melbourne and the city is absolutely effervescing with the excitement of Taylor Swift being in town. Her final of three local concerts is tonight and I wish I could say I am going but like so many others we missed out on tickets after hours and hours and hours of trying to secure them. We’ve partly made up for it by watching patchy-screamy live streams on social media (uploaded by kind fans) and watching the Eras…

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Good Stuff Nice stuff Pip-Life

Some Good Things …

January 21, 2024

A back fence covered in lush green leaves and purple flowers + a tabletop cluttered with stickers, craft supplies, illustrations and card-making items.

Maybe some good things are a good idea? For no particular reason other than that I have been collecting them in my Notes app on my phone … (life lately) 1/ A new podcast – Small Ways to Live Well – from my favourite magazine The Simple Things. It’s all about … the good small things and might be an excellent way to make your life cosier and nicer. 2/ A cute perfect-for-the-weekend playlist I found during a Pinterest deep…

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Eat Pip-Life

Recipe: Everything Barbecued Veggie & Couscous Salad

December 6, 2023

Most people are a bit broke at the moment, so it’s good to have a salad like this in your back pocket. It uses half a box of couscous (a box costs around $2) and whatever you have in your fridge. For this salad, I barbecue the veggies to get that smokey flavour, and to enjoy the meditation of grilling sizzling and colourful vegetables. You can just use an oven or frypan if you don’t have a barbecue. (Mine is this…

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Eat Pip-Life

How I Make Chicken & Potato Puttanesca

December 4, 2023

This is a favourite dinner for Max and I. If we’re particularly worn out or feeling particularly anxious, I make this and everything is magically okay again, at least for a little while. This recipe makes a big batch – enough to feed 6 or so with bread or pasta on the side. I always make that big batch – even though it’s a household of two here – because you can bung the leftovers in the fridge and everyone’s…

5 Comments

Nice Life Reminders Pip-Life

Happy Birthday to … my blog! Seventeen years old today

December 3, 2023

Hello! Hi! Hey! Today it’s my blog’s Sweet Seventeen. It’s quite hard to fathom that I’ve been blogging for 17 years, but I have and you best believe it! Because I can’t. So much has happened over all these years, I am not even sure where I’d begin summing it up … but I’ll try. Over the 17 years of this blog’s life … My kids grew up, our shop opened and closed, I wrote 8 books, I won some…

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