A few weeks ago I was driving home from work listening to American journalist Krista Tippet (On Being podcast) interview the poet philosopher David Whyte. A friend had introduced me to his poetry readings a while back when I’d needed some centring and his words had had the desired effect. That night the drive home […]
cherish the small moments…
The cicadas have turned it on tonight. The bitumen has cooled off with the rain but that won’t last long. It’s Day Three of the Yggdrasil Riding Intensive with back-to-back tack and sweaty ponies and dust and chats long after the lessons have ended. Most of today was spent at Rose Hill, a friend’s horse […]
farewell to foal
I read somewhere this week that grief is like moving towards a big lake and you skirt around its edges not knowing (but having a fair idea) how deep and cold and dark it’s going to be, so you don’t want to get in. Then you realise the lake is not a lake but an […]
Distractions from editing the novel – the night I sat in a bar in Bali.
It’s Tuesday night. I’m meant to be editing the current draft of The Boathouse. I’ve got a date with my editor at the end of the month, but fuck it, I’ve worked the last three days, I’m one beer in and I’m itching to just have a chat and reflect on the words I’ve written […]
How a horse taught me to be a better nurse
“If your nerve deny you, go above your nerve,” said Emily Dickinson. Only today I didn’t. But I did learn something. From a horse. On how to be a better nurse. It’s mid-afternoon and the sun moves across the ranges like it already has someplace else to be and that winter will soon be here. […]
this floating world: Ishiguro and the perfect (pony) outline
Last month I sat in a cafe in Yackandandah and read Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nobel Prize speech. He talked about certain moments in his life when his own work needed to grow and how certain works influenced his own. In bed, feverish with flu, he read Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. Ishiguro loved the telling of […]
between a woolf and a pones
“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own. I’ve transported Virginia Woolf from the courts and quadrangles and canals of Oxbridge to gum trees and dams and ducklings. She sits on the small wooden bench overlooking the arena, hand […]
