MAY
Packing for a trip
Packing for a trip is one of those conundrums of life. What to pack. How much to pack. What’s the weather forecast going to be? Do I take “just in case” clothes? I’m sure you can add a couple more issues on to mine!
Now when I pack, I’m quite methodical (some might say anal!) I check the weather forecast. Then I pull everything I want to take out of my wardrobe. I pack my entire outfit folded up together: shorts, t shirt, undies, bra. When I unpack and pick up the shorts, I know everything is there. I do one “folded up set” for each day and a couple of spares. Do I pack ‘just in case’ clothes? Of course I do. Who doesn’t? Do I pack something dressy? Of course I do. Just in case.
Of course, you also must remember a laptop, iPad, phone, watch, chargers, medications…the list is never ending.
The moral of this story is that you can never have enough clothes on a trip. If in doubt – pack it!
Why I love to go places?
Going places. Two words that conjure up the romantic notion of travel. I know, you’re thinking about a couple of hours on a plane to somewhere nice and sunny. Well, for me, 75% of the year is that nice and sunny weather without the need to go anywhere. I’m one of the lucky ones. It’s not called the Sunshine Coast for nothing.
Now, I love to go places but the irony with me is that I am just as happy going twenty minutes down the road to sit in a coffee shop by the beach as I am driving five hours to a holiday let. I’m what is technically known as ‘easily pleased’ or so my dad tells me. Going places does not have to mean packing for weeks and driving for thousands of kilometres. Going places can mean simplicity. Going places can be taking an enjoyable book and having a coffee. Going places can be lunch for one.
Don’t start shouting at me for being boring! I love going on longer trips. Since living in Australia, I’ve been back to the UK twice, over to Perth, Cairns twice, Melbourne once, Sydney a few times and one of my all-time favourite trips – the Red Centre. So, the big question – why do I love to go places?
I like to go places because staying still has never taught me anything worth remembering. Movement sharpens my senses. Even the most ordinary destination—another suburb, a different café, a road I haven’t taken before—has a way of nudging my thinking sideways, making me rethink even the most average and everyday things. When I go somewhere new, I notice more. I listen differently. I pay attention to details that routine usually dulls into background noise.
Going places gives me perspective. Distance, even a small amount of it, loosens the grip of whatever feels heavy or fixed at home. Problems shrink when you carry them into a different landscape; joys stretch when you let them echo somewhere unfamiliar. There’s something quietly reassuring about realising the world continues perfectly well beyond your own bubble, and that you are allowed to step outside it.
I also like the stories that travel creates. Not the polished, postcard moments, but the in-between ones: wrong turns, awkward conversations, unexpected kindness, the realisation that you packed the wrong shoes. These moments remind me that life is not meant to be seamless. It’s meant to be lived, slightly scuffed around the edges.
Most of all, going places reminds me who I am when no one knows me. Away from labels, expectations, and habits, I get to meet myself again—curious, observant, quietly brave. Each journey leaves a residue: a thought, a sentence, a feeling I didn’t have before. And that’s why I go. Not to escape life, but to feel more fully inside it.
APRIL
My hobbies, my personality
I am told that I am quiet. I am told I am introverted. In life, I have been told I’m withdrawn and anti-social. I could share a story or two from my nursing training about how I never went out with the girls to the nightclubs.
I could tell you that birthday parties fill me with dread and being forced to have one for my 40th was my worst nightmare. There is nothing quite like being socially obligated to celebrate yourself in front of a room full of people while wanting to retreat to your bedroom with an enjoyable book and a glass of wine.
For reasons known only to extroverts, quiet people are misunderstood. Quiet is viewed as suspicious. Introverted is code for “she needs fixing.” Withdrawn implies that I have wandered off mid-conversation and may or may not return. Anti-social suggests I dislike people, when I just dislike the noise, crowds, and conversations that begin with, “So… what do you do?” You know what I mean, the small talk.
My hobbies, however, tell a far more accurate story about me.
I write. Constantly. Writing is where my personality goes when it does not want to make eye contact or the proverbial small talk. Writing is how I make sense of the world without having to interrupt anyone or be interrupted myself. Some people talk things through. I write them through. It’s cheaper than therapy and doesn’t involve a waiting room or judgement.
I read. A lot. When I say a lot, I’m talking quite literally a book every few days. Books are the friends who never cancel, never ask why you’re quiet, and never insist you “come out of your shell.” They also don’t mind if you ignore them for a week and then return as if no time has passed. Try doing that with actual humans. Reading is my idea of socialising — just with better dialogue and fewer awkward silences.
I watch films and television in a way that alarms people who think watching TV is a passive activity. I analyse. I overthink. I emotionally invest in fictional characters while keeping polite distance from real ones. Give me a well-written character arc and I’m hooked. Give me small talk and I’m already looking for an exit.
And this is where the misunderstanding comes in. People assume hobbies like mine mean I’m hiding from life. In reality, I’m deeply engaged with it — just not loudly. I don’t need a packed calendar to feel fulfilled. I need time. Space. A bit of quiet. A cup of coffee every now and then.
This is also why parties drain me. It’s not the people; it’s the expectation. The standing. The talking. The smiling. The pretending you’re having fun while silently calculating how long you need to stay before leaving without looking rude. Birthday parties are particularly traumatic. There is an unspoken rule that milestones must be celebrated publicly. I must have missed that memo. My idea of a perfect birthday involves cake, comfort, and not being sung at.
My hobbies don’t make me anti-social. They make me selectively social. I can have a deeply meaningful conversation with one person for hours — provided it does not involve a dance floor, a DJ, or shouting over music I don’t like.
So yes, I am quiet. I am introverted. I am the person who will skip the nightclub but stay up all night writing, reading, thinking, creating. My hobbies didn’t shape my personality; they reveal it.
And honestly? They suit me just fine.
How my hobbies keep me sane.
There’s a quiet unraveling that happens when life becomes too full. I am not talking a full life in an enjoyable way, but one that is cluttered with expectations, responsibilities, grief, and the kind of thoughts that refuse to switch off. It’s not dramatic or obvious; it’s subtle, creeping in during sleepless nights and overlong days. When that happens, reading and writing are what pull me back into myself. They don’t fix everything—but they go a long way towards bringing me back to a sense of normalcy.
Writing has always been my anchor. Long before it became something formal or public, it was simply how I made sense of the world. Writing does not demand clarity; it simply creates clarity as I work. When my mind feels crowded, the act of putting words onto a page is like opening a window. Thoughts that were tangled loosen. Feelings that did not yet have names suddenly do. Writing takes what is shapeless and gives it edge and focus.
There’s also an honesty in writing that I don’t allow myself elsewhere. On the page, I don’t have to be composed or optimistic or resilient. I can be tired, uncertain, sharp-edged, or even broken. Writing absorbs all of it without judgment. Some days it results in a polished piece; other days it’s just a paragraph written to stop my thoughts from circling the same questions repeatedly. Either way, it serves its purpose. It is something that I hold on to in order to steady myself in life.
Reading works differently, but just as powerfully. Reading allows me to step outside my own head when being inside it becomes too much. It offers escape, yes—but it also offers connection. Through books, I meet minds that articulate comments that I may never have heard. Through reading, I meet lives entirely unlike my own and discover unexpected familiarity within them. Reading reminds me that whatever I’m thinking or feeling, someone else has stood in a similar place before.
There is comfort in that recognition. Books have a way of whispering; You’re not alone in this. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, essays, or memoirs, reading reassures me that complexity, contradiction, and vulnerability are part of the human experience—not personal failures. That reassurance matters more than people realise.
Reading also slows time. In a world that encourages constant consumption and instant reaction, sitting with a book is an act of resistance. You can’t rush it without losing something essential. Reading asks for attention, patience, and presence. When I’m reading, my thoughts stop leaping ahead to what needs doing next. They settle. The noise dims. That quiet is restorative.
Together, reading and writing form a kind of conversation. Reading fills the well, writing draws from it. One nourishes the other. When I stop reading, my writing feels thinner, more strained. When I stop writing, the words I read have nowhere to land. The balance between the two keeps me mentally and emotionally steady.
These hobbies also give me permission to exist outside productivity. Not everything has to be useful or measurable. Sometimes reading is just reading. Sometimes writing is just words on a page that never need to be shared. There’s sanity in doing something purely because it feeds you, not because it earns approval or ticks a box.
Most importantly, reading and writing remind me of who I am beyond circumstance. They don’t disappear when life shifts or fractures. They stay. They wait. They offer continuity when everything else feels uncertain. Through them, I keep a sense of self that is not dependent on roles or outcomes. Sanity, I have learned, is not about eliminating struggle. It’s about having somewhere safe to put it. Reading gives me perspective; writing gives me release. One opens my mind, the other clears it. Between the two, I find balance.
In the end, reading and writing do not just fill my time—they hold me together. And some days, that quiet holding together is all that I need.
MARCH
Family Love Isn’t Always Loud
We’re taught to recognise love by its volume. Big gestures. Constant reassurance. Effort that announces itself. But family love—real family love—is often much quieter than that.
It doesn’t always say I love you.
Sometimes it says, “Have you eaten?”
Family love shows up in small, practical ways. A text that simply says, “Home?” Someone remembering how you take your tea. A relative who doesn’t ask questions but leaves the door open anyway. It’s not dramatic, and it rarely photographs well.
It’s easy to miss if you’re expecting fireworks.
Some families aren’t demonstrative. They don’t hug easily or talk about feelings without clearing their throats first. Love arrives disguised as routine, as habit, as showing up even when no one is especially good at talking about why.
And yet—it’s there.
Quiet love is the sibling who fixes things without being asked.
The parent who worries silently rather than intrusively.
The family member who sits beside you in grief and doesn’t try to fill the space with words.
There’s a steadiness to this kind of love. It doesn’t demand applause or recognition. It just keeps turning up, day after day, in unremarkable but reliable ways.
Of course, quiet love can also be misunderstood.
It can feel like distance. Like indifference. Like emotional withholding—especially if you grew up believing love should be loud, obvious, and constantly affirmed. It takes time, and often maturity, to recognise that restraint isn’t the absence of feeling.
Some people love deeply but carefully.
Loss has a way of teaching us to notice this. When someone is gone, you realise how much of their love lived in the background—in the things they did, not the things they said. The routines you never thanked them for. The constancy you assumed would always be there.
Quiet love doesn’t announce itself when it leaves.
You only hear the silence afterward.
As we get older, many of us begin to value this kind of love more. The dependable kind. The kind that doesn’t need managing or performing. The love that allows you to be tired, imperfect, and occasionally difficult—and stays anyway.
Family love isn’t always loud.
But when it’s real, it’s persistent.
And in the long run, that’s the love that holds.
If I said family, who/what comes to mind?
If I said family, who or what comes to mind? The answer is never just a list of names. It is faces. Faces that are synonymous with moments of life, memories. Family can be described as voices. Family could be described as more of a feeling than a definition. We all have a favourite person in life that may not be family but is called, “uncle” or “aunty.”
But when you take it back to basics, family teach you the ways of the world. Thanks to your family you learn what is safe and what’s not. You learn what is allowed and what’s not. You learn language and how your words and tone matter. Family teaches you forgiveness and through that you learn how to apologise, also what sorry means. Family becomes your earliest mirror, reflecting back who you are before you even know you are being shaped.
Often, specific images rise to the surface. A parent’s tired hands after a long day. A sibling’s laugh echoing down a hallway. A grandparent’s stories that begin the same way every time and somehow never grow old. Family can be noisy or quiet, chaotic, or carefully ordered. It can smell like coffee in the morning, like laundry detergent, like a favorite meal cooked on special days. These sensory details linger long after people move away or pass on, proving that family imprints itself on memory as much as on the heart.
But family is not always warm. For some, the word brings tension before tenderness. I am incredibly lucky in that my immediate family are incredible. My parents raised me well and blessed me with a brother that I feel remarkably close to. I was lucky enough to know and spend time with both sets of grandparents, my dad’s parents I knew well into my 30s. I have many memories scattered through my family that I will never forget. My in-laws are not bad either! I have a wonderful mother-in-law who I am proud to call mum and I also have two “brothers from another mother!”
As life expands, so does the meaning of family. Friends begin to earn the title, not through blood but through consistency. The ones who show up when it is inconvenient, who sit with you in silence when words fail, who celebrate your growth even when it creates distance. These chosen families remind us that connection is not only inherited; it is built. I’ve got a few of those too.
With time, family becomes history. You notice patterns passed down like heirlooms: the same tempers, the same kindnesses, the same dreams deferred or pursued. You realise that some of what you carry is not entirely yours. Family explains parts of you that once felt unexplainable—why certain words sting, why certain traditions matter, why you fear loss the way you do. Understanding family becomes a way of understanding yourself.
And eventually, family turns toward the future. It becomes who you choose to protect, nurture, and guide. It may be children, partners, friends, or even communities you feel responsible for. Family becomes an act, not just a noun—something you do through care, patience, and presence. It is built in everyday moments: shared meals, honest conversations, forgiveness offered repeatedly.
So, if I said family, what comes to mind is not perfection or permanence. It is connection. It is the people and places that shape us, challenge us, and hold pieces of our story. Family is where we begin, often where we return, and always something we carry—complex, imperfect, and deeply human.
FEBRUARY
How I was shown love
I was married to my soulmate from 1994 until his passing in 2019. He got to our 25th wedding anniversary which was one of his goals when he was sick. He dropped a valentine’s card to me the first year we were together. Actually, it was a folded envelope (yes, I still have it) and it said something like ‘make the most of this – there won’t be any more!’
Now for all of you who are jumping up and down and yelling, he knew what he was doing. Apart from birthdays and anniversaries, he was never one to be told when to celebrate something. I’m the same. I even do Mother’s Day and Father’s Day on a different day meaning my parents haven’t a clue what is coming or when. It is more meaningful that way. Anyway, I digress.
My husband always said this. He would say, “I do not need to be told when to say I love you. I will tell you when I want to.” He was right and he said it every day. But how did he physically show love? I will share some of those moments for you. My favourite was that he could not fall asleep without having his hand on my back, moreso after he got sick. I would come home from work on a Friday to be told I had an hour to get ready. Why? He had tickets for a show, and we were heading up to London. I could come home from work knowing I had the next 2 days off. He would have done the housework and the food shopping so that my days were mine and not filled with chores. Those are just three moments. There were many more.
I guess what I am trying to say in Valentine’s month, is that love is not expensive gifts. Love is not flowers. Love is not romantic dinners. Love is not chocolates. Love is life. Love is being with the person you love and having no expectations. Love is amazingly simple.
What is love?
That question has travelled through philosophy seminars, song lyrics, kitchen-table arguments, and more awkward first dates than humanity would care to admit. But the truth is this: love is not the grand cinematic event we pretend it is. It is not always fireworks, orchestral crescendos, or people running through airports. More often, it is quiet, persistent, stubborn even. It is holding your ground when everything in you wants to retreat. It is showing up—not just once, but again, and again, and again.
Love, in many ways, resembles a speaker standing before a crowded room. It steps onto the stage, clears its throat, and tries to deliver something meaningful—only to find the audience divided. Some applaud passionately. Others cross their arms. A few whisper criticisms to their neighbour. And somewhere in the back is at least one person thinking, “I didn’t even want to come; my friend dragged me here.” Love never quite gets universal approval. But it keeps speaking anyway.
Why? It must. Because love is not merely an emotion; it is a responsibility. It asks more of us than we expect—patience when we are tired, grace when we feel wronged, and generosity when we would prefer to fold our arms and pout like toddlers denied dessert. And yet, people talk about love like it is effortless, as though it should glide into our lives, rearrange our flaws, and require absolutely nothing of us. If love were a real person listening to such expectations, it would likely roll its eyes.
But who, exactly, is this thing we keep trying to define? Love is the founder of movements within us. It launches revolutions in the heart, the way Charlie Kirk launched Turning Point USA—boldly, controversially, and with the full understanding that not everyone will appreciate what it is trying to do. Love mobilises people. It builds platforms for voices that might otherwise go unheard. And yes, just like any influential force, it attracts critics who misunderstand it, fear it, or simply don’t like the way it challenges their worldview.
Love is often provocative. Not because it intends to offend, but because honesty often does. Love tells us things we don’t want to hear—about our pride, our impatience, our tendency to take others for granted. It pushes us to grow when all we want is to stay comfortably flawed. Its messages are rarely simple; they often demand humility, sacrifice, and—most terrifying of all—self-reflection.
Still, when love goes wrong, people respond with performative outrage. They post quotes. They rage. They offer 280-character condolences to their broken expectations. But I cannot help wondering—are internet declarations enough? Do we truly believe that a caption can patch over the deeper issues: the fear of vulnerability, the misunderstanding of commitment, the impatience that cracks relationships like dry earth?
We must ask harder questions. Why is loving someone—or allowing someone to love us—so frightening? Why do we treat affection like a battlefield? Why is it easier to criticise, withdraw, or sabotage than to speak plainly about what we want? The answers will not come from cynical detachment, emotional cowardice, or pretending feelings don’t exist. They will come from drawing boundaries, communicating honestly, and accepting that love is not a passive visitor; it is an active participant.
Love is persuasion, dialogue, compromise, and mutual effort. It is choosing to build instead of destroy. It is the discipline of showing up with integrity, even when the world encourages shortcuts—ghosting, avoidance, silence, or whatever the newest form of modern emotional dysfunction might be.
If love had a manifesto, it would state clearly: use your words, not your weapons; your honesty, not your avoidance; your compassion, not your ego. It would remind us of those relationships, like politics, ought to be shaped by conversation rather than conflict. And perhaps above all, love would insist that humour—gentle, humanising humour—be part of its survival strategy. Because sometimes love is simply laughing together at the absurdity of trying to navigate life with another imperfect human being.
So, what is love? It is the courage to care, the effort to understand, the willingness to stay, and the humanity to laugh—even when nothing is perfect. It is not easy. It is not tidy. But it is, undoubtedly, worth the work.
JANUARY
The dinners that raised me
Picture the scene. I’m young, about the age of four onwards. Every weekend I would stay at my mum’s parents’ house. I loved staying there. The odd thing is I don’t remember ‘doing things’ there such as going out to the park or to the shops, but I do remember the meals. It is almost like they were written in stone.
Every Friday was a fish day. That is an English thing – fish on Friday. For me, who had not yet graduated onto liking big fillets of fish, I had a dinner of fish fingers, chips, and beans.
Every Saturday was the same menu. It was always boiled bacon, chips, and peas. This meal was so nice. I always remember the saltiness of the bacon joint. Of course, being a young child, I had some ketchup on the side!
Sundays were traditional. Sundays were roast dinner days. It was always roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, never chicken, lamb, or pork. I remember the beef; there was always Yorkshire puddings (were they preparing me for my married life to a Yorkshireman???) and we had roast potatoes with peas and carrots. The funny thing I can’t remember whether they were fresh veg or tinned veg. Back in the 70s, they’d more likely be tinned!!!
But the best part of all the dinners, was that they were TV dinners. Me, a fold up table, the TV, and my meal. Now before you all jump on me saying that it was lazy and I should have been sat at the table, let me explain.
My nan was disabled and slept on a bed in the lounge. My grandad slept on a fold up bed beside her. He did this for years. Life revolved around that living room, and those meals. We all ate together in that living room. But you know what? I have the best memories of that. Fun meals and watching tv together. Talking together. The living room was life.
New House, New Year, New Everything.
Walt Disney once said, “if you can dream, you can do it.” Little did I know that I could. Whether that was from lack of confidence or from something else entirely, I never thought after the loss of Mark, that I would be able to pick myself up again, to do anything. You know what? I did. It’s hard but what choice do you have? Life must go on. I picked myself up and cared for my mum until her passing. I continued renting the house until the sale of it in 2025, but my biggest achievement was buying a house. My house.
As we tick over into 2026, here I am sitting in my lounge room in my house in Nirimba. Dad and I have been here almost 8 months, and I feel that we have achieved a lot. The media room has been revamped to our needs. We have had fans put up and lights that suit our lifestyle. Some plumbing has been done to make some subtle changes that make our life easier. Blind on the front door, some new furniture, and more. It’s looking more and more like home.
This new year sees me feeling more settled than I have for some time. Don’t get me wrong, I have always been happy with my lot but there is a real contentment now, a calm. 2026 brings plenty to the table. There will be new trips. Already, there are four shows on the cards with the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, an acoustic guitar spectacular, the Travelling Wilburys Collection, and Rockaria. 2026 will also see the Brisbane Broncos start the year as reigning premiers.
But what about me personally? I look forward to 2026 knowing I will be making memories with my dad. I look forward to catching up with friends. Most of all, I look forward to continually making my house a home.
