This year feels like a very long escape room session, filled with problems that constantly need to be solved. The latest one: it seems the surge protector on my computer was blown by a recent storm, so it wasn’t protected when my faulty washing machine blacked out the house. Bottom line: I need a new... Continue Reading →

Everyone keeps telling me how busy they are this week. They have too many Christmas events on - dinners, parties, drinks. I’m starting to feel a bit weird about it because I don't have ANYTHING in my calendar. Well, other than getting my roots done tomorrow night. Oh, and the owner of my local cafe... Continue Reading →

So, it turns out both my children are changing high schools next year. The youngest and I met with the deputy principal of her new school on Friday. She has been hassling me for months to let her switch to a selective sport high school. I suspect her eagerness to leave her current school wasn’t... Continue Reading →

I may have been imbibing spirits over the past few weeks, but my festive spirit is missing. I haven't even ... gasp ... put my Christmas tree up. And I'm not ... gasp ... going to ... I checked with the kids and they’re fine with it. The youngest reckons she's probably allergic to the... Continue Reading →

I'm a bit knackered this morning as I was a dirty stop-out until 11.30pm last night. Tia Maria is hosting pop-up espresso martini bars at Moonlight Cinemas across Australia over summer and I was invited to try the Centennial Park one out. Even better, there was a screening of Love Actually too ... and my... Continue Reading →

I live in a suburb that's a hop and a skip from the Sydney CBD, so the last thing I would expect to find trotting down my driveway is a lamb. But that's what happened to a woman in my neighbourhood yesterday. She posted a pic on our local Facebook group page with the caption:... Continue Reading →

That's tartly not tartily. I went to the inaugural Bel Air ‘Party Tartly’ Cocktail Cup ... as you do on a Monday night when you write about booze for a living. What the flipping heck is a Party Tartly Cocktail Cup you ask? Throughout October, bartenders across NSW and Victoria were invited to flex their... Continue Reading →

It's been a crazy few days ... as per usual. The frenetic whirl kicked off with my office Christmas lunch on Friday at an uber cool Surry Hills restaurant called Chin Chin. We enjoyed a banquet of South-East Asian deliciousness, including stir-fried rice noodle rolls with meltingly tender beef and perfectly roasted pork belly. A... Continue Reading →

The real world is hot and smoky and filled with dirty dishes. Oh, and the moon is bushfire red. It's a bit of a shock to the system after the flooding rain and waterfalls and fresh mountain air in New Zealand. I arrived home from the airport around 8pm on Wednesday night and immediately started... Continue Reading →

Our trip to New Zealand ended with a little luxury and a lot of terror. But let's start with the fun stuff ... DD has some Hilton hotel points that were about to expire, so he used them to book us a room at the Hilton Queenstown to celebrate our last night away together. The... Continue Reading →