I write. I travel. I read. I learn. I dream and I live my dream.
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Fresh From the Mind
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Insights gained on a Trafalgar Tour of Christmas Markets
It isn’t safe to visit Bethlehem in December, so the next most Christmassy experience on Earth has to be the Christmas Markets in Germanic Europe. I took a week-long tour with Trafalgar and was hooked. The hotels were all of good quality and I stayed for several nights before the tour at The Hilton Vienna…
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Slaughterhouse-Five
—Kurt Vonnegut When I first read this novel, back when I didn’t have grey hair, it was marketed as ‘a classic of Science Fiction’. I read it because I liked science fiction, without really understanding the context of the novella, and was bitterly disappointed. Stephen King, I will point out, was also marketed as ‘Science…
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Over the Sea to Skye
It’s November and late autumn in Scotland. My brother and I are on a ‘Family Heritage Tour’ —a kind of pilgrimage— to the stomping ground of some of our ancestors—the Macleods of Dunvegan and Talisker on the Hebridean island of Skye, a popular holiday and tourist destination in summer. The tempestuous Atlantic crashes against Skye’s…
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A Sacred Sanctuary in the Mountains: The Essence of Real Japan
It is early spring in Japan. We are to the west of Mount Fuji,…
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The Cusp between the years in Tuscany
After Rome, the most bucket-listed part of Italy is probably Tuscany. I spent New…
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Lenses on Lilac: Jacarandas in Ipswich
Where I live, in South East Queensland, there’s a saying that when the Jacarandas…
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THE WHITE GIRL By Tony Birch
The story revolves around Aboriginal Odette Brown, a resident of the fictitious town of…
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Ten To-See-or-not-to-See Destinations in Paris
Every first-time traveller to Paris hears about the same bucket-list places: the Eiffel Tower,…
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A Bavarian Fairytale: Castle Neuschwanstein
Sometimes, I wish I was an artist. I’d specialise in train-window vistas. We’ve just…
Margaret R Kelly 