From Jackie (April 2009)
Last Saturday afternoon, while mixing an apple cake and listening to the radio, I suddenly realised I was seeing all the politicians mentioned in terms of biscuits, or in a few cases, cakes.
         Which isn’t as silly as it sounds. If we call someone a pig, a savage beast, a peacock, or a noble lion it says a lot about their character. So why not think about politicians in terms of cakes and biscuits?
         The first one was obvious. Kevin Rudd is a sure fire lamington. Sort of warm and fuzzy and just a bit dry in the middle. Both come from Queensland too. A good lamington is delicious… but sometimes both the world and your appetite need something just a bit less traditional.
         Julia Gillard has to be a ginger nut. Not that either of them are the least nutty, just crisp and a bit spicy and with a good helping of ginger.          Malcolm Turnbull? I’d go for rocky road, heavy on the marshmallow. Julie Bishop is a 9 grain cracker with cheese, tomato and black pepper. John Howard . . . read on

From Jackie (March 2009)
The Perils of Emily
Emily likes to bounce, mostly over the daises in the lawn or through the dahlias. She likes to play with shadows, too. She isn’t fond of grass. She loves apples, as long as they aren’t too big for her paws to hold, and when the wind blows hot or cold she sprints across the lawn and dives headfirst back into Rosie’s pouch. Mostly she still likes milk, so after ten minutes dedicated bouncing she sticks her head into the pouch again for a drink.
         We’ve been watching Emily since she looked like a hopping mouse, her fur like grey velvet, darting across the grass behind the bathroom while Rosie picked the early apples and at them delicately, wiping her paws on her fur.  Joeys grow fast. Rosie has to stand taller these days, so her pouch doesn’t drag along the ground, and even then Emily doesn’t quite fit inside. Most times it’s her feet that are sticking out- giant ones, almost as long as she is . . . read on

From Jackie (February 2009)
I’m writing this as it’s 39C outside, and soon to get hotter. The valley is full of smoke from the bushfire about 20k away, and the world smells like someone is cooking hamburgers. I’ve just had an email from a friend in Victoria- she’s been without power for two days as the power stations are overwhelmed, the trams aren’t running and neither are most trains.
The cities can’t cope.
Once upon a time we created cities to shelter us. Cities still shelter us- but only while the power still runs. Take away the power and the lights go out, the lifts stall, the water no longer flows, people in high rises and even hospitals start to die- you need air conditioning to survive in them.
Okay, many places have had their hottest day in 70 years...but it’s not much hotter than other years. If we’ve had weeks like this 70 years ago we’ll have them again. To put it bluntly, our power stations can’t cope with peak energy demands now- and yet our population is still rising. Most of our towns and cities don’t have enough water either...and nor do most of our farming areas, not just in the Murray Darling systems . . . read on

From Jackie (January 2009)
Today is a diamond day, too bright to shatter. It’s a day when I am simply happy, with every wish fulfilled and no clouds on the horizon, either symbolically or literally. The sky is a hard tight blue, the cicadas are singing, and the peaches hang heavy on the trees so full of juice that the bees are clustered about sipping from the stems.
Even the lyrebirds are singing, which they shouldn’t, as it’s 32ºC and lyrebirds shouldn’t sing till autumn. I suspect that the mulch and good living in our garden has bred a colony of big dumb birds, who assume they can sit in the avocado branches and imitate currawongs, whip birds, chooks and the telephone all year round.
The last six months have been hard – family illnesses, other crises. But by December it seemed that miracles do happen. This Christmas and the family wedding that followed have been perfect. Simply, gloriously perfect. . . . read on

December 2008 - early edition.
WARNING: this newsletter contains cake
The Ghosts of Christmas Past
For some reason- an email from my sister in law, I think, remembering times past- I’ve been remembering a Christmas almost a quarter of a century ago. Santa rode up that year on a horse that had eaten dust and blackberries for four years. It was white once. Now it was the colour of the paddocks.
         The kids ran to meet him- drought kids, who’d never seen a flood or swum in the creek. But there were presents for all of them in the sack- St Vinnies gave us a whole sackful for only $20. None of the kids worried that the dolls lacked a bit of hair, or the rabbit’s ears were frayed. That was just the way toys came.
         It was a good Christmas that year, despite the drought. We lived in bits of houses, poured washing up water on the tomatoes. (My son didn’t have any new clothing till he was seven, except for his nappies.) That Christmas we had all brought plates to share, wholemeal pikelets with apricot jam (the trees bore all through that drought then went on strike. They didn’t fruit again for 15 years) white Christmas, spinach and cheese triangles, brown rice salad, zucchini pickles. A skinny sheep turned on a spit by the dry creek. The grownups sat on the veranda drinking orange wine and watched the moon come up while the kids slept on cushions under borrowed blankets inside ..
         It’ll be different this Christmas. Our houses are comfortable now, home made houses that have grown with the decades. The seedlings we planted are trees, most laden this Christmas- it hasn’t been a great season, but there’s been just enough rain to swell the fruit. But the memories are still there, in every wall that we helped each other put up. The kids who danced under the willow trees will wander back, even if they don’t get here by Christmas day.
We’ll have a vegan Christmas this year, partly because Fabia is bringing her vegan boyfriend from the Netherlands, but also because Christmas is a chance to cook all the things that Bryan doesn’t like, eggplant with golden yoghurt and potato salad with peanut sauce an cashew and mango salad with chickpeas and coriander, though there’ll be a ham (which I don’t eat) in the fridge for various meat starving males to dip into . . . read on

From Jackie (November 2008)
We have a Bunyip hole.
I’m serious. I am not superstitious- black cats can walk in front of me and I’ll just give them a polite ‘goo morning.’ I’ll walk under any ladder that doesn’t have a can of paint on top and if row 13 is the exit row with lots of wing room I’ll sit there happily, only occasionally wondering if the plane’s wings are going to fall off- but I do that in whichever seat I sit in.       But we still have a Bunyip Hole.
The Bunyip Hole is in the creek, with bare cliff on one side, and treed cliff on the other. The light is always shadowed near the Bunyip Hole. The air is cold, too, even if it’s 50C five metres away. And nothing ever drinks from the Bunyip Hole, even when the creek dries up and it’s a Bunyip Puddle. Wallabies, wombats, even red bellied black snakes avoid it.
I don’t believe in Bunyips. But I still walk fast, okay run, if I’m walking past it by myself at night . . . read on

From Jackie (October 2008)
Spring came suddenly this year- or maybe I was just too preoccupied to notice. One morning it was winter- long Johns, fire lit in the kitchen, wood brought down from the shed. By afternoon it was summer and the flies were bumbling at the windows.
That was three weeks ago, and today the air is saying summer, though the trees are still yelling 'spring'. More blossom every time I turn around.
It’s a good day for growing things. The soil is warm, even if the early morning air freezes my fingers till I’m half way up the mountain, and I meet the line of sunlight coming down as the sun rises over the mountains. . . . read on

From Jackie (September 2008)
Once upon a time (in other words I can't be bothered looking up the date) King Edward I decided to give his Queen a present – the sort of ‘Hey, darling, I’m supremely rich and powerful’ present that only a king could give.
Silver plate? A ruby ring? Brocade? No, it was a lemon –  a shiny perfumed lemon, with a few bitter oranges as well. Back then lemons were more precious than a ruby ring… and to be honest, even these days I’d prefer the lemons to the rubies. (Admittedly I rarely wear rings – even my platypus wedding ring i.e. a ring shaped like a platypus a friend made when Bryan and I were married, not the ring I wore when I married a platypus) . . . read on

From Jackie (August 2008)
It’s good to be home again. Wombats scratching under the floor at 2 a.m., possums dancing in gumboots on the roof while we’re watching a DVD – but mostly just seeing the valley’s changes in the week I’ve been away (and the feeling of loss every time – like a mum who’s missed her baby’s first smile and knows there’ll never be that moment again).
         The first tiny white plum blossoms bloomed while I was away in Byron, and the double daffs have grown fat and yellow and the tangelos, those deep orange luscious things, have grown soft and sweeter in the frost that also left the banana grove looking like a fashionably tattered brown and green skirt.. . . read on

From Jackie (July 2008)
The air is full of flying chokoes (that wind is fierce) and I’ve been shovelling gravel on to our road.
         I’ve shovelled a lot of gravel in the past 40 years. Roughly a 100 tonnes? 1,000? Enough to build the stone bits of this house, large parts of a friend’s house, plus repair our entrance road... 100 times?  More?
         When people think about living in the bush they mostly think about a garden (I‘ve spent many years declaring that you really can plant a garden to feed and delight you that needs only a day’s work or less a year). But I’ve just realised that what I don’t say is that there’ll be a heck of a lot of other heavy work you’ve never thought of. Deep furrows in the driveway that get bigger so gradually you don’t notice them till you hit your sump - or more likely a friend hits their sump… or even more likely, tells you tactfully that they’d rather come for lunch not dinner so they can see the potholes…Trees that fall over the driveway just as you’re heading to the airport (never travel after a high wind without a chainsaw). Bogged tourists who don’t know how to drive out of the mud trap. Potholes . . . read on

From Jackie (June 2008)
A Wombat Weather Forecast
         The wombats say it’s going to rain – a damp winter and good spring too. So do the black-tailed wallabies. (Just about every pouch in the valley has a joey in it, and the wallabies are mating yet again).  The gully gums have decided it’s going to be a good spring too – I’ve never seen so many buds. And the indigophera and black wattles have assumed it won’t be a bad fire season this summer, thank goodness. They have hardly any seed pods at all.
           Wombat weather forecasts are pretty accurate – or they have been for the past ten years, since I learned how to understand a bit of wombat.  The only problem is that they are very, very local (i.e. for the northern end of the Araluen Valley). Wombats don’t worry much about what’s happening over the mountain.  So there’s going to be good grass till Christmas at least here, and unless some twit does something dumb down at the camp ground on a hot dry day, we won’t have a bad bushfire either.
         But weather is often a very local thing. Most of our local district is in drought, with drying dams, brown paddocks and dusty ground.  And I can’t very well pick up a wombat and take it thirty kilometres away and ask it what the weather’s going to do. It wouldn’t like it . . . read on

From Jackie (May 2008)
It’s a short newsletter this month because

1. I’m brain dead
2. The trees have turned gold, there isn’t a cloud in the sky, and the shadows are going to turn cold and purple in an hour and a half and I want to get away from the computer and out in it all before the sun sinks behind the ridges; and
3. I’m brain dead
   I’m brain dead mostly because I’ve just been to Brisbane, which was wonderful, especially watching the moon rise along the river with Dad, and the schools I visited, each one wonderful and an inspiration, and the CBC Book launch of A Rose for the Anzac Boys by Lyn Linning, (which made me cry), and Dad having his first Japanese food at lunch and liking it so much that we went back there for dinner. (I didn’t tell him he’d eaten raw fish and seaweed till after the waitress fussed over him and he’d told her how much he’d liked it) . . . read on

From Jackie (April 2008)
World’s Largest Potato
I think I may just have eaten the world’s largest potato. Well, part of the world’s biggest potato, anyhow. Bryan and I had part of it for dinner last night- his was mashed, mine was baked. Then I added most of the rest to a giant pot of leek and potato soup, and baked the last piece to have with a tomato and vegie sauce.
It was only as I swallowed the last mouthful (which was delicious, thank you) that I realised that if I’d had any sense I’d have weighed the spud before we ate it, or photographed it, or at least Googled ‘giant spuds’ to see how big potatoes can grow... read on

From Jackie (March 2008)
Wombats are noisy eaters. Somehow a black tailed wallaby can munch of a whole giant apple without a single slurp (some of the cooking apples ripe at the moment weigh more than 500gm each). But a wombat can’t eat anything without crunching, even the soft overripe pears.
 The wallabies hold the fruit in their paws. They’re messy eaters- the juice dribbles down their fur. And they look very very happy. This season has been paradise for wallabies, far more fruit than they can eat. 
Wallabies are gourmets- they only eat grass if there’s nothing more interesting around. And at the moment they have a choice of seven varieties of apple and two varieties of pears. There are also lemons, which they only eat if they’re bored with grass or very hungry, mandarins (ditto) a few late navel oranges which I’ve never seen a wallaby even taste, and various nuts which they’re not interested in at all. There were eight wallabies around the apple trees below the house when I went on my walk this morning. They gazed up at me as though to say ‘Go away. We are having breakfast and do not want to be disturbed ... read on

From Jackie (February 2008)
I discovered two new authors this month.
Okay, the rest of the world- well, some of it- discovered them years ago. But it’s a bit like my invention of a hunk of fresh bread covered with chopped up fresh tomato and a drizzle of fruity olive oil. The Italians may have been calling it ‘bruschetta’ ever since the tomato was hauled back from South America a few hundred years back, when someone said ‘Hey, Antonio, try a bit of this on bread.’ But I still invented it independently a quarter of a century ago, when there was nothing in the house but half sack of flour, some elderly yeast and olive oil, plus a well stocked vegie garden.
Finding two new writers is even better than finding the well boiled (in case of botulism) and plastic wrapped (in case of choking and heavy metal pollution) coin in the plum pudding, which is supposed to ensure wealth for the next 12 months, unless of course you swallow it.
Twelve months of wealth is all very nice, but two new writers last longer; at least they do when they’ve been writing books for a decade or two. Two whole booklists to order and read . . . read on

From Jackie (January 2008)
Why Australia Needs Half Hour Showers
I came face to face with a wallaby this morning. I suddenly looked up and there it was, it’s whiskers about 10cm from my nose.
It gave one short bound then ignored me. I kept on walking up the mountain.
No, it wasn’t a tame wallaby- I don’t think we’ve even met before. It wasn’t scared of me partly because of the way I was walking, steadily and evenly, not pausing as though to think ‘aha! Who are you and can I eat you for breakfast.
But mostly it was because of my hat.
It’s a big floppy hat with a wide brim. Which means that when I’m walking with my head down animals can’t see my face.
I have a predator’s face.. . . read on

From Jackie (December 2007)
The wombats were right!
Way back at the beginning of the year the wombats started mating, the full yelling growling wombat way. It was the first time we’d heard shrieks in the night like that for six years ... or was it seven?
Those shrieks meant - rain.
And it has rained. Lovely gentle steady rain for months. And thanks to the wombats we ordered trees and flowers last winter to plant in spring (which we hadn’t, mostly for years). And now they are growing and everything is green. Not just green, but THICK green. I’d forgotten what really lush trees and grass looked like. It’s a wonderful summer. Well, okay, some of the apricots have brown rot. And Fishtail the dopey lyrebird that we trapped and took three gullies away has finally found his way home again- he was back shrieking defiance at the dining room windows this morning, which will be a nice surprise for Bryan . . . read on

From Jackie (November 2007)
I think one of the deepest pleasures in my world is being ignored by animals. Not dogs and cats, of course- it is an honour when a friend’s cat decides it’s your lap she wants to sit on during the dinner party, or their dog dribbles on your knee as they watch the last bit of dinner travelling from plate to mouth.
       But wallabies who keep grazing as I walk by the in the morning; wombats who sniff suspiciously then go back to scratching; a wedgetail who gazes down contemptuously from the tree above the house as though to say: it’s going to take more than you to interrupt my hunting - it is the greatest compliment of all to be regarded as just another animal in the bush, not a predator to run away from.
    There are times, I must admit, when I’m not quite so delighted. When the lyrebirds refuse to stop scratching up the carrot seedlings even if I run at them yelling; when the King parrots in the blood orange trees just yell back when I shout at them. Just occasionally it would be nice to be thought of as at the  head the of animal kingdom.
      There was one other time too. It was two seasons back, when the largest brown snake I have ever seen slithered across the grass by the house and wound its way up the pergola, winding across the hanging baskets till it came to my study window.. . . . read on

From Jackie (October 2007)
5.37 am Woken by strange screech from up on the roof.
5.38 am Realise it’s not a nightmare from too many mangoes after dinner. Sit up in panic.
5.39 am Screeching noise comes again, this time accompanied by huge black claw scrabbling at the window.
5.40 Sound of claws slowly slipping down the tin roof.
5.41 Realise we’re not in a horror movie, it is just Peabrain the lyrebird attacking his refection in the window above the bed.
5.42 Try to go back to sleep.
5.43 Peabrain makes it back onto the roof. Sound of his claws slipping and sliding as he tries to attack again.
We are under siege! In the last two months Peabrain has attacked the bathroom window, the spare room window, the dining room windows, the kitchen window (balancing on the mop bucket to reach it). He’s clawed a doormat to shreds, dug up all my primulas, ripped up a giant zucchini left on the grass since last autumn, and left white streaks on windows, car, washing, gum boots and all the outdoor furniture. . . . read on

From Jackie (September 2007)
    Spring creeps up on you. One minute I’m hunting for a clean pair of thermal underwear in the cupboard (It gets coooollld in the garden here in winter.) The next we’re leaving the doors open for all the scents to flood in...early daffodils and the first plum blossom, scented camellias and sages, plus that almost indescribable scent of grass which has decided to start growing, instead of just sitting there being chomped by hungry wombats. The first sign of spring here is usually dirty fingernails . . . read on

From Jackie (August 2007)
    Just down the hill from my study is the Library Rock.
It’s not a human type library, of course- it’s a big flat rock covered in wombat droppings. Every night at least six wombats trudge up to the rock and…well, you can imagine the rest.
Wombats tell each other stories with their droppings. I don’t know what the stories say, of course, as I can’t read wombat. But most of the time I’m very very glad that humans read their books instead of smelling them.
(The rest of the time? Well, let’s just say that just sometimes- say the first three days of trying to get a book working- I feel there has to be some easier way of getting the themes in my head onto paper . . . read on

From Jackie (July 2007)
    Do kids still share their iceblocks? Or their lamingtons at morning tea?
It’s funny how memories leap out at you. I was eating one of the best scones I’ve ever tasted at Wellington High School last week, served by the students who  were catering for  the SLANZA Conference, and suddenly the memory came flooding back of sharing one of Grandma’s  date scones with friends at school.
No one in our group ever brought a treat from home without sharing it around...a  bite of the slice of apple pie for every one of us, or a nibble of moon cake. And if you bought an iceblock every one in the group was offered a chunk, so you became expert in biting off exactly the same amount as everyone else. . . . . read on

From Jackie (June 2007)
    I’ve just come back from the Sydney Writer’s Festival, ideas spreading everywhere like honey on toast, except I didn’t get to hear most of it (or for that matter get time to eat honey on toast, or anything other than a gulped bowl of porridge at the hotel) as I was one of three authors dashing to Wollongong, Parramatta and Newcastle for the Kid’s Big Night Out.  Which was fun, exhausting (for the kids too I think- it’s a BIG night out for the under five’s) and magically organised, with every microphone working, every chair in place, every event on time...trust me, for kids’ events, that’s a miracle. . . . read on

From Jackie (May 2007)
     I always forget how much I love autumn. Pomegranates weighing down the branches, avocadoes, the first chilacayote melons- giant vines that bloom as the days cool and produce small zucchini like gourds- quite delicious if you can get them on day one. After that they start to grow into whoppers that can only be cut with an axe or a machete, but good for melon and ginger jam or in stir fries or fruit salads i.e. they don’t taste of much, but the texture is good and they take on the flavours of whatever they are cooked with. Make a reasonable curry, too.
It’s magic looking out my study window now. Every time I look up another tree has changed colour. It’s been such a gentle season that the leaves are clinging to the trees, too, instead of falling prematurely. I don’t think I have ever seen as autumn as beautiful. Yellow poplars and apple trees, flagrant orange persimmon, flaming red maples, chokos dripping from the lemon trees, limes ripe and great velvet spikes of blue and purple, red and yellow salvias.. It’s a pity we can’t slow earth’s orbit to give us four months of autumn and four months of spring, and just a glimpse of the other seasons to make us appreciate the gentle times. . . . read on
From Jackie (April 2007)
Bryan is digging, and so are the wombats. As a matter of fact I’m digging too.
    Not that Bryan and I are digging a wombat hole. (Though sometimes- say in bushfire season- the idea of an underground house that’s fireproof and stays the same temperature all year round is appealing.)
     Bryan is making a new rock garden. Every so often he gets carried away by rocks, or rather the rocks get carried away by him and a new garden bed emerges somewhere at the edge of the garden.
     I’m not so much digging as moving dirt- pulling out  ‘farmers friends’, so called because they stick to you, those big smelly weeds with cobblers pegs on the top that work their way into your clothes and start digging into you when you least expect it, like on the plane half way to Sydney and suddenly there’s one in your underwear.
      We don’t do much weeding here, but with all the bare ground in the dry and last month’s rain suddenly what was the lower vegie garden is now the lower cobbler’s peg garden, or was till I pull them out.
      Actually there are still a surprising lot of veg under the cobbler’s pegs, all growing happily now the soil is damp again. They’re the sorts of veg you just plant and pick, and throw a handful of mulch to every year or so- perennial leeks and perennial beans, perennial leeks, spring onions, Italian chicory, mizuna and mitsuba, burdock, kale, chokos, warrigal spinach and maybe a dozen others . . . read on

From Jackie (March 2007)
      It’s rained. And rained.
     The first rain sent a flash flood down the gorge, all mud and logs and froth, a wall of water higher than I am and a roar like 1,000 helicopters. The flood went down 10 minutes later ... and the ground was still dry, baked so hard that almost no moisture penetrated.
     But then it rained again... and again... thunderstorm after thunderstorm.
     I watched a puzzled echidna trying to dig for ants under 3 cm of water, and the lyrebirds dance along the fences.  Rosie wallaby has even stopped eating roses, and is just munching grass- lovely soft green stuff that even tempts a blacktail wallaby who likes variety in her diet. And Mothball has given up biting any other creature- including me- that comes onto HER patch of grass, and just emerges from her hole to munch for a few hours then goes back to bed.
     Since I last write here I’ve been to WA, mildly terrifying for someone who hates flying, and when the last plane I was in suddenly lost pressure, dived groundwards and limped along just above the trees . . . read on

From Jackie (February 2007)
The Wombat Wars have begun again. (As opposed to the Wars of the Roses, which don’t happen, because all the roses around here belong to Rosie Wallaby.  All the other wallabies are either Rosie’s sons or daughters, and all have very nicely decided that ‘Mum Gets First Go at the Roses.’)
Wombats, however, don’t do etiquette. Not when there’s a good patch of grass around.
The Wombat Wars are over the only bit of green grass in the district, except where bores or pumps are draining the last bit of the water table to keep their owners lawns lush, weird little private oases in a world of brown and hungry animals.
Anyhow, the Wombat Wars grass is between the water tank and the house. I suspect gets a bit of seepage from our roof pipe to the tank, which is why it’s always green. It’s also kikuyu so it grows fast, and is sheltered so it doesn’t brown off. I go to sleep most nights listening to Mothball Wombat munch away at it, and she’s munching away there when I wake up.I don’t think she stays there all night.
Well, I know she doesn’t . . . read on

From Jackie (January 2007)
It’s hot. I’m hot. The garden is hot. The wombats aren’t hot, as they’re sensibly deep down their holes where the temperature doesn’t change much all year round. (The next house I build is going to be partly underground. Seriously. Except I profoundly hope I never will have to build another house. I’m glad I did it once. But once is enough.)
It hasn’t been a bad Christmas. Well, Christmas itself was lovely, a slow trickle of friends calling in over the past three weeks. But the weather was about as good as it could be…okay, 100 mm of rain would have been better. Let’s just say it was as good as one can expect in a drought. The southerlies blew nicely from the alps and the arctic, the days were cool, the nights even cooler, and even better, there were a few days of drizzle, enough to leave the grass green and growing even if the soil below was dust, and give us all- humans, wombats, wallabies etc- a feeling that we might all survive the summer.
Even the garden perked up. Somehow the beans are producing with less than 20 mm of rain since I planted them- and absolutely no watering either.  I mulched them deeply as soon as they came up; the wallabies munched them about a week alter. And then I forgot about them in the dry and heat, till just before Christmas I noticed the beans.
Wacko. And lovely tender things they are too, full of flavour . . . read on

From Jackie (December 2006)
It's dry. Not desperate dry- there's still grass from spring showers, the leaves are limp, not brown, and there were raindrops on them this morning from the mist over night. I felt like licking them, as I did when I was a kid and Grandma told me dew tastes sweet.
She was right.
There are still too many flowers for it to feel desperate. Bright orange pomegranate flowers- come the next wet year I'm going to plant at least six more pomegranates just for the flowers, though the fruit is good too, great fat red and yellow things when ripe, and sweet and crunchy in salads when green. The autumn leaves are butter coloured too- there's may six weeks a year when the tree isn't stunning.
The salvias are blooming now too, so many that the eastern spinebills out my study window don't know which to stick their bills into first, short blue, rich purple, brick red, flagrant pink, all glowing and drought hardy, so the poor birds are just fluttering around confused . . . read on

From Jackie (November 2006)
Once upon a time there was a kangaroo. Her name wasn't Josephine. It was Fuchsia. Her mother had been shot but Fuchsia, her joey, had survived, and in a round about way she ended up with us.
This was long before I ever wrote a book... well, no, actually, I'd written lots and sent a couple away, but neither had been published yet. My marriage had broken up and I lived on the few dollars from the odd article or story, and by cooking at a local restaurant on Saturday nights, while Edward and his baby sitter watched TV upstairs, and ate garlic bread and mushroom steak and great bowls of salad, which I think has remained Edward's idea of a grand meal ever since.
Down in the valley we still lived in what was basically a machinery shed . . . read on

From Jackie (October 2006)
Woken up by a dog barking yesterday morning. Looked, but no dog. (We're a wildlife refuge, and with baby wombats and baby wallabies around at the moment I was a bit worried).
More barking at breakfast. No dog.
Then just as I was walking home at dusk I heard the dog again. Or rather two dogs, kelpie by the sound of them. Woof woof, arf arf woof! But this time they were barking 10 metres up a pittosporum tree.
The lyrebirds are busy. Busy being kelpies, currawongs, wonga pigeons, kookaburras . . . read on

From Jackie (September 2006)
It's been a strange sort of a month. Started with a trip to Adelaide for Books Alive, which was fun, except for the usual culture shock after a month of seeing no one except a few friends and the wombats to suddenly be in the middle of city/ audiences/ traffic. But it was all so impeccably organised- always forget how much I like Adelaide.
Then Sydney for book week. Thought that would be a doddle but ended up locked alone in a bare hotel foyer late at night for three quarters of an hour (I'm sorry madam, said the girl at the after hours number, but the automatic unlocking mechanism doesn't seem to be working. No madam, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about it till the manager arrives at 8 am tomorrow.)
Finished the month with Melbourne Writer's Festival, which was wonderful except for the 2 seconds in which I tore a tendon in my hand (the right one, naturally) while brushing my teeth on night one. (No doctor, it wasn't a wild night last night. No, I didn't have lots to drink. Well, only water. Am quite sure he didn't believe me... heck, I wouldn't have believed me . . . read on

From Jackie (August 2006)
Many years ago I decided that I'd never feel broke if I had bunches of flowers to give away, as well as fill every vase in the house. (At the moment our vases are filled with branches of camellias, old fashioned pink ones that don't drop off for weeks.) Flowers don't cost anything if they're grown from seed gathered last season, or cuttings from a neighbour down the road.
Good tea was a necessary luxury too. The difference between really expensive tea and cheap stuff isn't much . . . . read on

From Jackie (July 2006)
Have just come back from Fremantle (which was wonderful - the Fremantle Children's Literature Centre is extraordinary, one of those magic ideas that makes you think, 'Why doesn't every town have something this fantastic?')
But getting to Fremantle means flying (would rather have gone by camel but always suspect camels haven't really accepted domestication. They just can't be bothered getting rid of their riders. Yet.)
Anyhow flying also means eating food at 20,000 metres, which in my case meant white sludge with red topping. The hostess said it was pasta with tomato sauce.
Pasta with tomato sauce is one of the world's glorious dishes. Peasant eating at its very best: pasta made by mum and grandma, left to dry over the back of the kitchen chair, the tomatoes growing out on the hillside, boiled and crushed with a dash of olive oil maybe, a touch of garlic hanging by the stove, a scatter of fresh basil leaves . . . . read on

From Jackie (June 2006)
It's rained!
And rained and rained and rained ... Three lovely days' worth - and proper rain too, not the mingy 'showers clearing about the ranges' stuff which is all we've had for years, or the thunderstorm that drenches the world but it's all dry again ten hours later.
This was a band of clouds that just sat there and let it all down. Result: the ground is more saturated than any time in the past, well, six years I think. Not that the drought is over. We've had about three inches (75 mls) and we need about ten (250 mls) more to even start replenishing the watertable. But the grass is growing, the wilted leaves have all perked up and the wombats are royally annoyed . . . . read on

From Jackie (May 2006)
I passed a treasure on my walk this morning. Actually it was just a tatty orange golf ball. But to a bowerbird that's REAL treasure.
Bowerbirds love anything bright, or blue, to decorate their bower. They'd love diamonds and pearls, of course, because they're bright too. But to a bowerbird an orange golf ball is just as good. Better actually- when did you last see a diamond as big as a golf ball?
I've no idea where the golf ball came from. Or why it was orange, come to think of it. (I don't play golf). It's 40 minutes drive to the nearest golf course, up in town, and I don't suppose the bower bird pinched it from there, as town is surrounded by bare paddocks and no bower birds. And a golf ball is a big treasure for a bowerbird to carry off.
But bowerbirds do happily steal from cars, laundries, kitchens . . . . read on

From Jackie (April 2006)
I'm sitting here at my desk looking out the window at a possibly insane lyrebird jump from potted plant to hanging basket, then up the curves in the kiwi fruit stem up onto the pergola, then down again.
I don't know if the silly thing thinks it's going to nest above the front door. Or maybe it's just exploring or feeling autumn-ish.
Autumn comes suddenly here in the valley. One moment the wind is like the breath of hell and the sun is sucking all the moisture from the world. The next, the sun sits lower in the sky, the light is gentle, the creek is trickling from pool to pool where there were only dry rocks before. And the lyrebirds are prancing through the garden and the wombats are leaving droppings every couple of metres. . . . read on

From Jackie (March 2006)
Woke up this morning to 1642 currawongs, singing about a metre from my ear. There are worse things to wake up to (pneumatic drills, a helicopter accidentally spraying herbicide here instead of next door, or a small voice saying 'Mum! I didn't mean to do it ...) But it would have been nice if the currawongs had perched just a little way down the orchard before they launched into the Hallelujah Chorus.
Currawongs mean it's autum . . . read on

From Jackie (February 2006)
Yesterday was 44 C and everything was wilting, including me. Then Araluen Billy arrived ... Araluen Billy is the local sea mist. I don't know why it's called Billy. It does look a bit like an old man's beard as it drifts over the mountains between us and the coast, so it might be that.
The mist was snaking through the trees as I drove down the mountain from home, and by the time I was down in the valley it was cool and mizzling and the lyrebirds were singing.
It was still misty this morning. Showered with a small black tailed wallaby peering through the bathroom window . . . read on

From Jackie (January 2006)
Happy New Year! And the rest of the year too for that matter.
It was a lovely Christmas here. Family, friends, wombats, no bushfires nearby, water in the creek and a possibly insane lyrebird who hopped up onto the hanging basket to yell 'pok pok pok' at all arriving visitors because they were disturbing the peace of his garden.
The creek has dried up now- the last six months have seemed wet, but that's only because the last four years have been so dry. We didn't even get our 'average' fall. So everything dried up again as soon as we got three hot weeks.
But there's water in the tanks and flowers in the garden and so much fruit on the trees that the parrots are just sitting there, stuffed. And the wombats are so fat with all the grass that they only come out at 2 am, munch a bit, and go back to bed . . . read on

From Jackie (December 2005)
Someone has attacked my umbrella. I'm not mentioning any names, mind you, but suspect they were brown, furry and with long whiskers.
The umbrella has been living just outside the front door ready to be grabbed when anyone heads outside. This is because it's been raining ... and raining ... and raining. Which after four years of drought has been glorious. (Drought gets very boring after a while.)
The wombats have been too fat to worry about us lately. Mothball just rolls out of her hole about 1.00 a.m., munches for a couple of hours then goes back to bed. Wombats are energy conservative, mostly. If they don't need to eat they'll sleep instead . . . read on

From Jackie (October 2005)
Written with grubby fingers - I've scrubbed them but they're still grubby - and a big bowl of asparagus and three blood oranges on my desk, excuse the dribbles.)
Woke up this morning to the sound of a thousand small birds cheeping - the silvereyes are in the avocado trees, eating.
Spring down here mean so much blossom you could almost float on the scent and the thunk of falling limes and avocadoes. The avocadoes are 'overripe now' - still firm because avocados don't ripen on the tree unless they've been pecked by birds, but splitting at the bottom. Which means there's easy access for silver eye beaks. . . . read on

From Jackie (September 2005)
Interesting day so far ... have just got in from my usual morning walk, down through the orchards then up the mountain to Mary's Pinch. (Not sure who Mary was- Edward thinks she must have been a bushranger, but I suspect her buggy just overturned there- it's a pretty awesome hairpin turn.)
Anyhow, ... I was just opening the gate past the avocado trees when I noticed my hand felt cold and wet.
I looked down. Bright red blood dripping off my palm . . . read on

From Jackie (August 2005)
I think I've worked out why kids don't eat fruit and vegies. Because they taste yuk.
We've been buying some of our veg this year, partly because of four years drought and partly after my illness. And blimey Charlie .. there's no flavour in most of them!
They all look great- nice big shiny green apples that tasted like canned mush and perfectly shaped oranges that tasted of nothing in particular and tomatoes that had forgotten to taste at all . . . read on

From Jackie (July 2005)
The wind is howling, the rain splattering and I've just missed being hit by a flying choko, which would have been a terrible epitaph, felled by a flying choko.
It's wonderful weather. Well, it is after you've had four boring years of drought and blue skies. The creek is all mud and froth and we can hear the rocks grinding as the water races around them. Blast it, this is what winter should be like! Grey skies and wet ground and sleet and gales . . . read on

From Jackie (June 2005)
It's cold. The wombat droppings have white furry whiskers every morning, there's frost on the grass, the shadows are dark purple and I'm up to two hot water bottles a night - much nicer than an electric blanket as you don't get dehydrated and they're still warm under the doonas in the morning.
It's been a lovely month of pottering: making cumquat marmalade, lots of reading, a bit of writing, much lunching with friends, walking every afternoon. I'm officially still recovering, but part of the time I feel a heck of a lot more energetic than I have for years . . . read on

From Jackie (May 2005) [and out soon The Secret World of Wombats]
I've just come in from listening to the lyrebirds down the orchard- which sounds all sweet and romantic till you realise it was actually a lyrebird battle, the two of them yelling at each other and leaping claws out, which can be fearsome as lyrebird claws are BIG. And every time they leap they leave a long white dropping on the ground.
The two of them are arguing about who owns the giant pittosporum tree. It's growing on a bank and a lyrebird can climb up branch by branch . . . read on

From Jackie (April 2005)
I woke up this morning to find two small furry wallaby faces about a metre away from me, peering through the bedroom window. They were was a mum and her baby, just old enough to clamber out of the pouch and still looking more rat like than wallaby like. They were having breakfast ... a bite of apple, a munch of apple leaves, a chomp of grass then back to the apples again.
The apples are Lady Williams, which don't ripen here till July. There are plenty of other apples ripe now . . . read on

From Jackie (March 2005)
Still no wombats about till late at night, but lots of snarls shrieks and back scratching at 2 am under the bedroom. They're not mating type shrieks and snarls, just 'that is my bit of grass IF you don't mind thank you very much' type snarls. Mothball does not like sharing her territory. Trouble is, none of the other wombats take any notice unless she bites them. This February has been the Month of the Brown Snake- the biggest and most aggressive I've ever seen. It is at least 2 metres long but thicker than my arm- and yes, I'm sure it's a brown snake . . . read on

From Jackie (February 2005)
My brain is marshmallow, and thunder is shaking the house and the grass growing so fast it's about to sneak in the window and strangle my computer, or maybe that's just wishful thinking.
I've spent the last fortnight on Phredde and the Runaway Ghost Train. She has finally flown off to Harper Collins, to be edited, illustrated, bounced off to the printers and then hopefully to kids next November, while I write this and hope my brain returns by tomorrow, so I can get into more research for a book of a quite different kind . . . read on

From Jackie (January 2005)
Just occasionally, looking out the window as I write, it's total paradise: the Leeuwin honeyeater who has built a nest 10 cm from my desk feeding a long and still wriggling worm to the small head peering out from the passionfruit leaves; fruit trees almost breaking under the fruit, flowers dripping everywhere, friends about to arrive for lunch that is almost all home grown(salad, chook, potato cakes, fruit jellies in case you are curious)
A mooch is just a mooch ... read on

From Jackie (December 2004)
I've been mooching. Mooching means wandering without any set purpose- it's not walking TO anywhere in particular, though my mooches usually end up sitting down at the swimming hole watching the wind on the water. They're not meant to Do anything either, though I mostly end up with a skirt full of fallen avocadoes (The currawongs knock them off the top of the trees) and a few late limes and maybe a blood orange or two, and quite a lot of asparagus.
A mooch is just a mooch . . . read on

From Jackie (November 2004)
I know it's spring when I throw the last mouldy kiwi fruit out of the fridge, and slice the last shrivelled Sturmer Pippin apple into a salad. (The apple may look shrivelled but it is stunningly delicious- Sturmer Pippins get better as they get wrinkly, unlike kiwi fruit, who just turn squishy.)
Spring is the time you feel like counting every tiny apricot on the tree, but don't, mostly because there isn't time and anyone who saw you would think you were bonkers. But it's such a promising time... the blossom turning to fruit, roses dripping from the trees . . . read on

From Jackie (October 2004)
It's raining!!!!!
Real genuine soaking WET rain. We haven't had rain like this since the 14th of December last year, not that I am counting . . .
It is totally absolutely glorious. Clouds hanging so low down the mountain you can't see the end of the orchard, wet rosellas who have probably never even SEEN rain like this before and don't know they need to shelter. And the sound...not just rain on the roof, which is the best thing to sleep with in the world, but that steady drip drip sound of everything wet and even the creek is muttering plus that deep soaking sound, too low to really hear it but you can feel it in your bones.
And it's still raining . . . read on

From Jackie (September 2004)
Mothball has a baby!
We thought she had a baby in her pouch two months ago..but then there was no sign of it. But suddenly today, after I fed Mothball her oats, she disappeared .. and came back with a small bouncing wombat! Maybe Mothball learnt her lesson with her last baby, Hark...he refused to come out of her pouch till he was so big the pouch dragged on the ground. . . . read on

From Jackie (August 2004)
The End of a Garden
What is brown and grey, looks like a sumo wrestler and sits on the doormat chewing splinters off the doorstep?
Answer: one angry wombat.
Mothball is on the rampage again. The world is cold and dry . . . read on

From Jackie (July 2004)
On the day that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon I went to school as usual. But today at school assembly the headmaster didn't give us the usual time table changes and detentions. He just smiled, as though he was excited too, and said, 'The moon walk has been brought forward to twelve o'clock. Anyone who wishes to go home to see it can leave immediately. Those who don't have a TV at home can stay and watch it in the music room . . . read on

From Jackie (May 2004)
The wind is howling, the air is thick with yellow leaves, the fire is glowing in the kitchen and there is a brown blob outside slowly vacuuming up the grass. I'm pretty sure the blob is Grunter (Mothball wombat's son and once called Hark, but renamed because he burps all the time- from both ends. Though come to think of it Grunter's digestion has improved since he stopped guzzling all the fallen pears and apples. . . . read on

From Jackie (April 2004)
What eats grapes, apples, pomegranates, pears, nashis, strawberries and grass, and leaves giant droppings on the front steps?
I THINK the answer is a wombat, but I'm not sure. But they are the most colourful droppings I've ever seen, all made of bits of squished up fruit like a health bar, except hopefully no one will pick that one up and try to eat it.
Or it might be a fox's dropping. Foxes eat mostly fruit around here at this time of year- they climb trees too . . . read on

From Jackie (March 2004)
Would anyone like some apples? LOTS of apples? Figs? Tamarillos? Lemons? Pears?
Okay, some are a bit wombat chewed or bird pecked, and you might have to wrestle a black tailed wallaby to get at the pears. She is very fond of pears, and so is her joey.
It's a very cute joey. We get to watch it through the dining room window every breakfast. We eat stewed pears and they eat fresh pears, mum wallaby with a pear in her hands going munch munch munch, and baby in the pouch with a pear in it's hands too, going nibble nibble nibble . . . read on

From Jackie (February 2004)
A Letter to Our Wildlife
Dear Wildlife.....
Hi, it's me. The human in the gum boots who pinches your apples just as you are about to peck them, munch them, or tear them off branch and all. In case you haven't noticed- well, I'm sure you all HAVEN'T noticed- we humans are supposed to boss the planet. This means that I am supposed to be boss of the garden too.
I know some of you may dispute that. Okay, ALL of you would dispute that, especially Mothball wombat and Lacy goanna. So I just thought we might have a little friendly word or two . . . read on

From Jackie (January 2004)
New Year Resolutions
I, Jackie French, do hereby make the following new year resolutions:
1. I will stop lecturing. If someone asks me how my salad is I won't give them a short history of the tomato, a story about lettuce growing in ancient Egypt and a dissertation on why 'basil loves tomatoes' is a myth.
2. I will not plant any more apple trees. Bryan is right. 109 apple trees are quite enough and we DO NOT NEED ANY MORE! (Except for the nine I ordered last year and I haven't told Bryan about yet.) read on

From Jackie (December 2003)
Intro...the queens have arrived!
Mothball News
Book News
Awards
Schedule for next Year
Wombat Jokes!
Some Recipes (including a home made weed killer plus others that won't poison you)
Last minute Christmas presents- including what to give blokes
Home Made Christmas Crackers
Two Hour Garden Makeover for Christmas
How to Mow the Lawn
Barbecue Alternatives
(ie when you can't face another dry charred sausage all oozing fat and crave some veg)
We have just had a visit from royalty! Three queens arrived last Sunday. We felt like blowing trombones . . . read on

From Jackie (November 2003)
It's rained. And rained. And rained.
Actually it hasn't been a lot of rain - just three or four showers every day, and cold grey days in between. I don't suppose much has soaked into the soil.
But it is all GREEN - and weedy. We have the Open Garden workshops this weekend . . . read on

From Jackie (October 2003)
Intro
Mothball News
Book News
Awards
Schedule for this Year
A Solitary Wombat Joke
Some Recipes
Surviving Drought- again
Gourmet Chokoes and other Easy to Grow veg

It must be spring. We've just seen the first red bellied black snake. It was asleep by the back doormat, and we both got a terrible fright when I bent down and tried to pick it up . . . read on

From Jackie (September 2003)
It's definitely springish. For the last three nights Mothball wombat has been extending her hole- the one under our bedroom. Every night at 2 am there's been great bangings as rock fly up and hit the floor, and every morning another heap of dirt for Bryan to wheelbarrow away ... read on

From Jackie (August 2003)
Contents:

Intro
Help!!!!!
Mothball Wombat
New books
Schedule
Writing Tips: How to get published
Two recipes
How to Grow Citrus

From Jackie (July 2003)
Contents:

So far This Morning....
New Books
Schedule So Far For the Year
Some Winter Recipes
July in the Garden
Yabbies

From Jackie (June 2003)
How did the lyrebirds know it's winter? First day of winter, there they were, ripping up my vegetable garden again, their great feet scratching out all the potted catci, and the wire covers Bryan put on the pots last winter to keep them out. I wish I could put up a sign that says. . . read on

From Jackie (May 2003)
What a month! Absolutely no doors broken down by furious wombats; no doormats chewed by enraged marsupials, no garbage bins bashed by a hungry Mothball...it's been raining every second day for the past two months, and the garden looks like a giant has tromped through scattering flowers, . . . read on

From Jackie (April 2003)
It's difficult to believe this place was in drought two months ago. It's the perfect time of year now - cold green grass that must be the wombat equivelent of icecream, all soft and sweet, dahlias as big as footballs.
Actually football would be a lot more interesting if they used dahlias. . . read on

From Jackie (March 2003)
This is a confession. Mothball wombat is no longer AT ALL like the sweet cheeky wombat in Diary of a Wombat. Mothball is now the size of a dwarf hippopotomous, with shoulders like a sumo wrestlers and a bite like an angry tyranosaurus rex. She had a go at me last nigh. . . read on

From Jackie (February 2003)
Oh, for a boring day.... we spent this morning helping a naked, bloody, disoriented man who wandered out of the gorge and past our house. The police and helicopter had been searching for him for days. . . . read on

From Jackie (January 2003)
What a lousy start to the day! First of all a small bent winged bat crawled into my shoe when I was in the shower. I discovered it when I tried to put my shoe on again and felt something soft and wriggling. I'd met the bat last night too- something was rustling in the box of lemons and when I looked inside the bat flew out. I shut the bedroom door at once as I don't like bats flying over my nose when I'm asleep- their breeze wakes me up. . . read on

From Jackie (December 2002)
Merry Christmas! And a green and fruitful Christmas too. We've just had half an inch - about 14 mm - of rain, the first we've had since the start of March. It has been desperately dry and still is ... but at least we know it still CAN rain! And today at least the winds are down and not screaming through the valley, and even though the bushfires are still burning at least today with no gales they can be fought. Wombat news. . . read on

From Jackie (November 2002)
10.00pm Bryan and I go to sleep
10.10pm Something screams out the window. Wake up again. No, it's not someone being murdered. It's the 'screaming woman bird' or barking owl. The dopey bird is only supposed to scream in autumn, but it's decided to do it now.
10.12pm Go back to sleep again.
10.20pm A bulldozer starts work under our bed. On second thoughts it's not a bulldozer, it's a wombat enlarging the hole under our bedroom floor . . . read on

From Jackie (October 2002)
Phredde and the Leopardskin Librarian is out and there are tiny wombat droppings on the back steps! To deal with the most important news first- it looks like Mothball must have had a baby in her pouch- the droppings are real baby wombat scats, all brown and tiny. There's no sign of either Mothball or her baby though- Mothball moved down to the hole under the giant avocado tree a few months ago- I think the hammering above her hole for our new room disturbed her sleep . . . . read on

From Jackie (September 2002)
It's official. Mothball has a baby. Or maybe she hasn't..... Her pouch LOOKS as though there might be a baby there. But by now it should be a largish baby, and maybe poking its head out too. I'd love another baby wombat about the place, but it isn't a good time for one. We haven't had rain for nearly six months now. The creek is going to dry up as soon as we have hot weather, and the only grass is around the house . . . . read on

From Jackie (August 2002)
I sometimes get the feeling that the animals around here just don't realise that humans are supposed to be the superior species and that they should be scared of us. A golden whistler - really pretty little bird with a voice three times as big as it is - started bellowing away last week when we were trying to film a segment for 'Burke's Backyard'. Mitch, the cameraman, went to shoo it away but it refused to budge . . . read on

From Jackie (July 2002)
PS 'New' Phredde story at the end of the newsletter.

It's cold, it's cold, it's cold, the wombat droppings have frozen white whiskers out the back door, and the garden is filled with king parrots and currawongs down from the high country where it's even colder than here, all munching bird seed and paddling in the fountain and yelling at each other. Yelling at us too, sometimes, if Bryan doesn't put out the bird seed RIGHT NOW every morning. . . . read on

From Jackie (June 2002)
Okay, Mothball has won! For those who didn't read last month's newsletter, we have been having a minor battle with Mothball wombat. Well, she's been battling us actually- we've just been sitting inside listening to all the bangs and gnawing during the night and assessing the damage in the morning. Anyway, the battle began when . . . read on

From Jackie (May 2002)
If I was ever in any doubt, we now have proof that Mothball wombat is an animal of extreme intelligence and initiative. As I mentioned last month she was a bit miffed at first that we built our extension over her hole in the bank behind my study. (A bit miffed means she chewed up the washing line. We now have a new washing line). But then she realised: . . . read on

From Jackie (April 2002)
This is the stunningly perfect time of year: blue sky all day and then it rains at night, fruit dripping off the trees- apples and pears and quinces and pomegranates and tamarilloes and lemons and passionfruit and grapes and the first new season avocadoes are nearly ripe and  we've picked the first few limes too . . . read on

From Jackie (February 2002)
It's rained! A whole week of mist sifting down the gullies and steady drops galloping on the roof, which means no more smoke through the valley, grass ankle high, mildrewed beetroot tops . . . read on

From Jackie (October 2001)
Suddenly the garden has turned into paradise. Each gust brings down another shower of apple blossom, and the scent of early roses and late jonquils and a hundred other flowers is almost thick enough to slice. Even the hills behind us are a blaze of indigophera, and wonga vine and wild clematis are dripping off the thorn bushes. . . . read on

From Jackie (September 2001)
The daffodils are daffodillying, the lyrebirds are digging up the carrots and sneaking from tree to tree (anyone who thinks a lyrebird is stately and elegant has never lived with lyrebirds) and there are now three wombats in the . . . read on

From Jackie (June 2001)
It's damp as I write this...not wet...I think the sky has forgotten how to rain. We really need about three weeks of good steady wet stuff.
But the mist is sagging over the ridges and there's a soggy wallaby looking longingly through the fence at the rose bushes . . . read on

From Jackie (May 2001)
Help!!!!! I'm getting a whole host of mail with no return addresses!!! (If anyone knows Bridget Mattingly or Katherine Nicholson of Adelaide in particular, please ask them to send me their address!). I receive anywhere from 5- 50 letters a day (34 to answer in today's mail)- my fingers are just about falling off as it is...which means I don't keep all the letters I answer (there wouldn't be room for us in the house if i did) and I don't keep a note of addresses either- . . . read on

From Jackie (April 2001)
Autumn is perfect. This is the sort of month I'd like to live over and over again, gentle sunlight all blue and gold and deep purple shadows and the fruit contentedly sitting on the trees, not ripening and falling and rotting as it does in mid summer, so you're frantic to catch up with it. April is a civilised month, when crops. . . . read on

From Jackie (March 2001)
No one mention tomatoes! We are eating tomato soup, tomato relish, tomato and passonfruit jam, tomato salad, tomato gravy with just about everything..it's times like these I wish we had a freezer, but we don't, basically because we don't have room to put it anywhere, and after all, there's fruit and veg gluts of just about something all year, and there's a limit to what two people can eat. . . . read on

From Jackie (February 2001)
Arrrrk! I'm writing this with my head full of Mongol armies feasting on roast meat, and ancient Roman armies throwing out their apple cores as they pass and US servicemen in Sydney in 1944 demanding hamburgers ....and have suddenly realised it's nearly February and it's time I wrote this, plus did a few other things that involve moving away from my desk for more than 10 minutes at a time . . . read on

From Jackie (January 2001)
Hi! Christmas is behind us, the geese have come back from hiding up the creek (they are far too tough for Christmas dinner but it's hard to explain that to geese) . . . read on