December 2025

There is a dragon, roaring outside. Or possibly I have been reading too many fantasy novels, and it’s the 110km gale blowing up on the ridges while scarcely a leaf moves down here.

I hope the wind doesn’t change direction. We’re sheltered from most winds, but when it funnels down our valley, we know it.

It’s the time of year for dragons in the valley. There’s a two metre long goanna prowling our garden, hoping for birds eggs - the small birds twitter above it, warning the others, and - I think - calling the human for help, as if they tap at my study window, or where Bryan is reading, we head outside to see what the fuss is about, and the dragon vanishes.

A 'dragon' looking for eggs.

We do have many tiny birds’ nests around the house. The fledglings should begin chirping soon, then there’ll be the fun of seeing them learn to fly. Flutter, flutter, PLONK! Until finally they manage it.

The rainforest dragons hold up traffic down at the cliff. The road is only one car wide there, with no room to go around a sunbaking red and green water dragon. There is one massive one - well, about 40cm long, which is massive for a water dragon - and many small ones.

They don’t move for cars. You need to stop, hop out and say ‘shoo’, possibly with the help of your toes, before they splash into the creek below, or drop onto the hot rocks, if the creek has dried up.

These dragons do not move for cars.

One of the joyous glimpses of the last two weeks was a large goanna, lifting its head as high as possible to stay in the sunlight, as the shadow line slowly moved up the valley as the sun sank below the ridges. The goanna’s head and neck shone gold in the last of the light; its body was dull grey.

There is always some magic moment on my afternoon walks. As E.E. Cummings wrote ‘A world of made is not a world of born’. You could live in the most glorious of palaces, but it would never change. Our world here changes in millions of ways every moment.

I have reached an age when people say, ‘When will you move into town’ or even ‘When will you come to your senses and move into town?’ I don’t know any person who has, who hasn’t regretted it.

There is infinite variety here, just from looking out the window. A world of made is not a world of born.

This valley is part of who we are. It is why we’re married: I watched Bryan walk up the steps to the house nearly 40 years ago now, and he looked like he belonged here. And he did. He never really left.

We accept Indigenous attachment to Country. How many generations does it take to become part of the land?

Though who knows what’s in my DNA. My skin is slightly darker than ‘white’. Mum’s was darker still, though it looked like tan, and Grandma’s even darker, though that too was taken for a deep tan.

I probably will never have a DNA test. I was brought up with all the privileges of being ‘white’, when being ‘black’ was very hard indeed - even to survive.

And I know who I am: I am part of this valley, wholly human, and wholly something else, broader and deeper and beyond words. When I am away from the valley I am slightly less, until I pass through the ridges again, and am home.

Thankfully the younger generations understand, as they feel the same way.

And Bryan is happy here, despite advancing Alzheimer’s. He knows who he is, and where he is, and on extra cold or hot days can spend most of his time simply sitting on the sofa, watching the birds and animals from three sides of the house.

There is always something happening: the wonga pigeon waddling down the track through the orchard and past the house - they are too fat to fly, especially after drinking. If you chase them, they waddle faster. Just now the hydrangeas are beginning to bloom, and the cumquats are ripe, and Possum x has eaten every leaf on the Jonathan apple tree and one of the calamondins - and ignored the other. So far. He used to love mostly on loquat blossom, new leaves and fruit, but they are finally dying of old age at 55.

 Possum X has discovered the joys of a more varied diet, like parsley and, lettuce nibbled to the ground.

Leave paradise - even with the serpents, and occasional bushfire? Never. Or not for long, even if we are burnt out. I’ve lived in a tent then shed before, and can again, while a small bushfire proof house is built. But I hope I never have to.

wombat news

There is no wombat news. It’s hot. It’s dry. The wombats, sensibly, come out at midnight, eat and go to bed at dawn. There are no baby wombats here this year. The wombats know when it will be dry.

the books of 2025

(That still seems like the title of a sci-fi film. I will always be a woman of the twentieth century)

The Whisperer's War

Adult

Historical fiction for adults, as Lady Dee uncovers the (true) plot to instal the Duke of Windsor back on the throne.

It’s a love story: why does British intelligence warn her to stay away from a heroic Aussie pilot?

It’s a mystery: is the man who staggers up the smugglers tunnel really the lost duke? Why do the three evacuee children refuse to give Dee their names? 

It’s an expose of secrets, where men die just to save the royal family from embarrassment. It’s glorious escapism, and just sometimes profound.

The Mushroom In The Sky

Ages 12+

1942

Japan has bombed Sydney Harbour. Sixteen-year-old orphan Ossie lies about his age to fight imminent invasion in New Guinea, but must leave his only family, one eyed dog, Lucky. Kind-hearted Mrs Plum is already caring for 46 dogs for far away soldiers. It is almost impossible to even feed them. There are no rations for dogs. Enter 13-year-old Kat Murphy, evacuated from harbourside Sydney to a new school and an aunt she hardly knows. Kat and Mrs Plum will forge a partnership, gathering support for all the animals. Ossie will see first-hand, the mushroom cloud rise above Nagasaki and its aftermath, and Kat will see it too, in a strange telepathic like connection between her, Ossie and the dog they both love.

This book is not just an adventure story: it is an important history of a time that had been hidden, when the Japanese Military Government planned to kill 10 million Japanese civilians, and even kidnapped the emperor for three days, to prevent the surrender.

As we remember the 80^th anniversary of the first atomic bombing, this knowledge is vital to our understanding of what can happen in a war, and the first step to prevent it, too. But most readers will simply love the story of Kat, Ossie, and Mrs Plum. This is a book of unexpected kindness and generosity and many kinds of love.

Tigg and the Bandicoot Bush Ranger

Ages 12+

Published in 2024 but mentioned now because it was shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Awards. It’s glorious fun and also lets kids relive and understand the gold rush era, particularly the treks by Chinese miners, so often neglected and almost always misunderstood in the history books.

The Drought Kangaroo

Ages 3+

With the glorious Danny Snell, this is the true story of the young kangaroo who travelled possibly 100 kilometres to find water here, in the drought of 2019, and who is now ‘Big Boss’ of the kangaroos around our house.

Jackie French's Guide to Companion Planting

Reissued by CSIRO. There are many myths about companion planting. This book is what works.

LITERARY AWARDS

There were half a dozen shortlistings, including the CBCA’s wonderful shortlisting on Tigg and the Bandicoot Bushranger, as well as naming another of the Ming Qong The Girls Who Saved The World ‘time travel’ adventure series a notable, as Herstory sends Ming into the past to find the hidden or history of the very real girls who changed the world.

The Sea Captain’s Wife won the ACT Book of the year: it is adult historical fiction about an island where women hunt for a shipwrecked husband on the shore, and one finds the heir to a shipping fortune. But this island of castaways has learned to survive by kindness: making others happy increasing general happiness for all. Can two people from such different backgrounds make a life together?

Many, many thanks to CBCA, the kids’ choice KOALA awards, the BookLinks Historical Fiction Awards, and the ACT literary community for all the shortlistings and long listings. You add so much richness to Australian life.

the December garden

It is hot. It is dry. It is going to be hotter and drier except for rip-roaring thunderstorms. No gum tree has bothered to bloom this spring or early summer. Take their advice and grow as little as possible.

I have the essentials: herbs, the kinds of lettuce you pick and more leaves grow, masses of curly leaf and Italian parsley, coriander, celery (I mostly use the tender leaves, not stems), chives, zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes and a few melons.

I’m not bothering with beans, as neither Bryan nor I eat them often, or snow peas: the bower birds love them as much as the grandkids. Bower birds can fly. My grandkids can’t - yet. (They amaze me every visit so I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if one day they do learn to fly).

But so far with snow peas it’s bower birds 2,364 and grandkids ‘nil’.

I’m not growing corn, as Troy Harrison grows the most magnificent sweet corn and he has more land and more water than we do, and his melons are the world’s best - he trialled each type before he chose the ones to grow.

Nor am I growing pumpkins, as everyone - including me - was trying to give away pumpkins this year. Which means probably next autumn no one will have any, as we expect to be loaded up by friends.

But if you do plant:

• Keep up successive plantings of beans and corn if you live mostly from your garden.

• Don’t bother weeding: bury them under mulch.

• Otherwise wait till Christmas and holiday planning are over and you get a chance to breathe.

• Harvest new potatoes planted in August; Tom Thumb tomatoes in warm areas or where they are pot grown; peas, silver beet, baby carrots, lettuce, tiny beetroot, celery tops, zucchini in warm areas, dandelions, bush pumpkins in warm areas or where they live have been started in pots; asparagus and artichokes in cool areas. I’ve stopped picking our asparagus now: it will be hard enough for it to survive a hot dry summer, without me pinching its new shoots, no matter how delicious.

• Harvest cherries, plums, peaches, apricots, early apples, nectarines, passionfruit, banana passionfruit, gooseberries, cape gooseberries, Valencia oranges left on the tree, lemons, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, loganberries, Capulin cherries, lillypillies, and sometimes early figs.

• If you’re going away on holidays place containers of water, topped with oil, under ripe fruit trees to catch fallen fruit and stop the spread of fruit fly. Fill bottles with water and upend them in the soil to keep your young plants damp, and mulch heavily to keep moisture in.

• Many pests - not just fruit fly - are attracted by the scent of overripe fruit, so keep harvesting: pick everything as soon as it’s ripe, or a bit before. Fruit fly or codling moth fruit often do fall earlier. Never leave fallen fruit on the ground: call in the geese or chooks or do it yourself. Use fruit fly nets.

Zucchinis can be harvested now in warm areas.

Christmas disasters...and how to avoid them

As an antidote to every shopping mall belting out good cheer, here are some Christmas disasters…

Problem: The garden looks drab, and you don’t have time to grow two-metre-high shrubs and a bed of annuals by the 25^th.

Solution: Entertain at night. Everything looks best when softly lit - humans as well as gardens. Ground-level floodlights shone up into the trees or strings of tiny lights give enough light to eat, drink and make merry - but not enough to see the weeds or bare spots.

Problem: Mozzies who love humans entertaining at night and arrive as soon as dusk falls and bare ankles are exposed. 

Solution: A fan or several fans. Fans are stronger than mozzie’s wings. In fact, humans are smarter than mozzies. When faced with Christmas fruit fly, pear and cherry slug or mozzies, repeat three times: “I am homo sapiens. I can outwit fruit fly, foil possums, and blow mozzies down the Murrumbidgee River.”

But do wear long sleeves and cover legs and ankles, too. It only needs one mozzie carrying Barmah River fever and other nasties.

Problem: The barbecue catches alight on Christmas Day.

Solution: Clean it. Now. If in doubt, call the shop and ask them how to do it.

Problem: Gum tree branches fall on the house/car. (They can also ooze sap).

Solution: Move the car; as you can’t move the house, cut down any branches that will fall… one day.

Problem: Whole tree falls on your house.

Solution: Do not grow specimen trees in the middle of the lawn where they’ll get the same water and tucker as the grass. You’ll end up with shallow roots and a top-heavy tree waiting to choose the most inconvenient time to topple. Call an arborist. Now. They may thin out the treetop to lessen the weight or possibly tell you get rid of the tree and check your insurance policy.

Problem: Reindeer nibbling your mossy rocks.

Solution: Scatter wolf droppings (or synthetic coyote urine, bought online) or put out carrots as decoys. Also works for possums. In the absence of wolf droppings or synthetic coyote urine, spritz with diluted fish sauce (test it doesn’t burn foliage first) or place slit plastic soft drink bottles or commercial metal ‘possum stoppers’ around pergola posts or trees so possums can’t get a foothold.

Problem: Christmas tree needles clog up the vacuum cleaner.   

Solution: Think of your Christmas trees as a giant bunch of roses, i.e. it needs water. Refill the bucket every day - the Pinus radiata are thirsty - and keep the tree in a cool corner. Or have a living Christmas tree, like a dwarf lillypilly, or NSW Christmas Bush.

Problem: Aunt Maud gives you a lovely potato vine covered in white blossom for Christmas, and even plants it for you on the back fence. 

Solution: We are still digging out the descendants of a Christmas potato vine. Thank Aunt Maud kindly then put it in a pot on the patio where it can twine around the railings for a few months, then dispose of, well wrapped.

And may Christmas Day be happy and disaster free; may the rain fall in 15mm showers every second night all through 2026, and peace and happiness for humans, wombats and us all be found in every Christmas stocking. 

some summer recipes

The Best Lemon Cordial

Ingredients

6 cups white sugar

6 cups water

3 cups lemon juice

3 tsp citric acid

3 tsp tartaric acid (not cream of tartar, though if you can’t get tartaric acid, use cream of tartar cautiously. It’s not as strong as tartaric acid so you’ll need to use more, or more citric acid. Add a little more cautiously, then do a taste test. You may need to do half a dozen taste tests. It usually works out as just under double the amount of tartaric acid, but as lemons vary in acidity, this can also be far too much).

Method

Boil for ten minutes. Bottle in CLEAN bottles while hot. Keep in a cool dark place for up to a month. Throw out if it ferments or looks cloudy. It also makes a very good ice block.

PS - I use the empty whisky and rum bottles left over from making lots of cake and puddings. They are attractive, well-made bottles but do remove the label. I’ve shocked a few visitors by handing kids what look like a hefty dose of alcohol.

Red Red Red Blueberry Summer Cordial

Add a punnet of fresh or frozen blueberries to the above recipe. Mash the cooked berries then strain out the pulp before bottling. It looks and tastes superb.

Nibbles

Our family Christmas breakfast is a collection of ‘nibbles’ as gifts are opened: pistachios, cashews, smoked salmon on crackers covered with cream cheese, tiny bocconcini, dishes of cherries, sometimes homemade croissants, pikelets with maple syrup or tiny muffins, and always the stuffed eggs below. This year it will be the stuffed spuds below, too. I usually add something new to the mix.

Baked Kipfler Potatoes with Cornichons (tiny pickled cucumbers)

Method

Wash and dry the potatoes- others can be used, like Tasmanian Pink Eye or and purple or red spud. Lightly smear with olive oil.

Bake till crisp.

Half, scoop out some on the innards and mix with sour cream or mayonnaise with finely chopped cornichons.

Eat the same day and keep in a cool place.

Variations

Leave out the cornichons and add a little curry powder and apricot jam.

Use thickened cream or Greek yoghurt instead of sour cream.

Leave out the cornichons (or not) and add grated cheese of choice to the mix.

Stuffed Eggs

Ingredients

1 dozen eggs

Half a cup commercial mayonnaise: home-made is fabulous, but if the eggs lie in the heat for a few hours - and they probably will - you risk food poisoning.  

1 tsp each ground cumin, coriander seed, turmeric and cardamom fried for three minutes in 1 tbsp oil OR good curry paste or curry powder to taste. I add very little for kids

Paprika

Method

Simmer the eggs for 15 minutes, stirring now and then so the yolks set in the centre of the egg.

Take off the stove, run cold water into the saucepan till the eggs feel cool. This helps stop the black ring around the yolks.

Peel the eggs (if they won't peel easily, they may be too fresh - not a problem with supermarket eggs, but if you have your own chooks try to use week old eggs).

Cut them in half long ways, remove the yolks and throw away a third of them.

Mash yolks, mayonnaise and curry. Replace in the eggs using a teaspoon, then sprinkle with paprika.

These eggs will keep for a few hours covered in the fridge but eat them withing two hours of taking out of the fridge. Don’t keep them overnight.

Variations

Stuffed Eggs on Toast. Mash with a fork. Pile up on hot buttered toast. Or even unbuttered toast, or white sour dough. 

Stuffed Egg in Lettuce Cups. Take ‘cups’ of iceberg lettuce, several thickness deep- you need lots of crunch. Fill with mashed stuffed egg.

Stuffed eggs.

Jackie's Christmas Biscuits

These are delicious - an Aussie biscuit crunch with the colour and tradition of old-fashioned Christmas goodies.

Ingredients

125 gm butter

1 ½ cups brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup SR flour

1/4 cup rolled oats

Half cup dark or white choc chips

Half cup of your favourite nuts (sliced almonds are good, or macadamias)

3 cups finely chopped glace fruit, or just glace cherries if you prefer, or glace ginger

Optional: 3 tb candied peel

Optional: 2 tsp. ground ginger or mixed spice

Method

Cream butter and sugar. mix in egg, then flour, then everything else.

Preheat oven to 200C. Place on nonstick trays or grease them first. Place teaspoons of mix on the trays - they'll spread. Bake about 10 minutes. They should be pale brown and still softish- they'll crisp as they cool.

Store in a sealed container.

Serves: about 30 biscuits

Ease of making: moderate...easy enough for kids to make as long as you watch to make sure they don't burn their fingers on the trays.

For gluten free I'd add a little more butter, as they may otherwise be a bit dry, or rather reduce the gluten free flour by about 2 heaped tb. Add more of the chopped apricots instead of the oats.

A selection of biscuits.

Not Christmas Cake (for those who don’t like fruit cake)

Ingredients

6 cups glace fruit, not necessarily chopped

3 eggs

2 cups flour

1 cup castor sugar

½ tsp bitter almond paste or 2 tsp vanilla paste (I use the almond)

Optional: 1 cup of your favourite nuts

Method

Beat egg and sugar till creamy; add the flour gently then even more gently add the glace fruit.

Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Shape the mix into two long rolls.

Bake 20 minutes at 200C or until pale brown and firm. Cool.

Slice thinly with a serrated knife. It’s often easier to turn them upside down to slice at the top but it may crumble. Bake at 150C one side for 10 minutes, then turn and bake the other. NB. They won’t be crisp until they cool. If you bake until they feel crisp, they will become jaw breakers.

Potato Cakes

Ingredients

For every cup of grated potato add one dessertspoon of chopped parsley, two chopped cloves of garlic, one dessertspoon of chopped onion, one egg and one tablespoon of plain flour. 

Method

Mix well. 

Drop a spoonful on a hot pan with plenty of olive oil or butter. 

Cook till brown on one side then turn.

If the cake sticks the pan wasn't hot enough or clean enough. If the potatoes are very liquid, you may need to add a little more flour.

Potato Bread

This is lighter and moister than ordinary bread. Pumpkin can be used in place of potato - and surprisingly, mashed parsnip bread is also delicious. 

Ingredients

1 kg potatoes (or pumpkin or parsnip)

Half a cup hot milk

1/3 of a cup hot water

1 sachet dried yeast

1.5 kg flour

1 teaspoon salt

Method

Cook the spuds, mash them with the hot milk.

Dissolve the yeast in the hot water and leave till frothy.

Mix all ingredients to a smooth batter. Knead well and leave to rise in greased and floured tins for six hours.

Cook in a preheated oven at 400 C for 45 minutes, or till browned on top and sounding hollow when tapped or when a skewer comes out clean.

Note:  Add one cup of chopped onion and substitute one cup rye flour for one cup plain flour in the above recipe, and you get a very good potato and onion bread. One tablespoon of molasses and one tablespoon of caraway seeds added to the mixture is also good.

Home-made Falafel

Ingredients

5 garlic cloves, divided

¾ cup packed fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, divided

¾ cup packed fresh coriander leaves, divided (optional)

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

½ onion, coarsely chopped (about ½ cup)

3 tsp ground coriander

1½ tsp ground cumin

½ tsp cayenne pepper

¼ cup packed fresh mint leaves

1 cup raw whole almonds

2 cups drained canned chickpeas, rinsed

⅓ cup plain flour

1½ tsp baking powder

Olive oil, for frying

Sauce

½ cup tahini

½ cup Greek yoghurt

1 tsp finely chopped mint

Method

Pulse everything in the blender, but not to a puree - leave it a bit chunky. Roll into small flat rounds; fry or bake on one side at 200C for 15 minutes, then turn them over and bake till light brown on top.

Serve hot, tepid or cool- but not fridge cold.

Something Sweet

Gluten Free ‘Good for You’ Not Quite Christmas Spice Cake

Ingredients

2 small oranges

4 eggs

250g sugar

150g almond meal/finely ground almonds, with or without skin

150g plain flour (or gluten-free flour)

1 tbsp baking powder

150ml olive oil

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice or 1 tb powdered ginger and 1 tsp cinnamon for ginger lovers

Method

Place the oranges in a saucepan and cover with water. Simmer for an hour. Drain, cool, then cut the oranges in half and remove the seeds. Blend till smooth.

Beat the eggs and sugar together until cream and foamy.

Gently add the almond meal, flour, baking powder and orange puree and spices.

Combine the egg mixture and orange puree. Using a spatula, fold the flour mixture into the wet mixture, then fold in the olive oil.

Bake for one hour, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow the cake to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before removing to cool completely.

Christmas Spice Biscuits

Ingredients

250 g butter

250 g brown sugar

4 tb golden syrup

500 g plain flour

3 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground allspice

1 tsp baking powder

1 cup flaked almonds

Method

Melt the butter in a saucepan or microwave. Beat in the sugar. Add the other ingredients. It will now be a solid dough.

Divide into two and make two long rounds, about as thick as a 20-cent piece. If you have time - or need time - place in the fridge for a few hours or even a couple of days. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough into thin slices - the thinner the better.

Place the slices on an oven tray lined with baking paper.

Bake the cookies at C200 for about 8-12 minutes. They will crisp as they cool.

Let the cookies cool off. Keep them in an air-tight box or jar.

Adults Only Alcoholic Fruit Cake (Very rich and very good)

A good Christmas cake should still be moist and delicious in mid-winter. It is a most excellent thing to have in the larder; you only need small pieces, and you always have something extremely good to serve to guests. Even better, Christmas cakes leave a very nice crumby detritus every time you cut them; this of course is the prerogative of the cook. (It is a well-known fact that only intact slices of Christmas cake contain calories; crumbs and left-overs are calorie free.)

Ingredients

About 2 cups rum and 2 cups Scotch whisky

4 cups sultanas

2 cups chopped crystallised cherries

3 cups chopped glacé or dried apricots

Juice of two lemons

1 cup brown sugar (can be left out - the taste is actually better without it

250 gm butter

5 eggs

3 tb golden syrup

2 cups of plain flour, but you may need a cup more, depending on how much alcohol the fruit has absorbed.

1 tb mixed spice

1 tb cinnamon

Method

Place the dried fruit in a large saucepan and cover with rum and whisky. You may need a bit more or less. The fruit should be just covered.

Leave for 48 hours to absorb the liquid. If there’s more than a cup of liquid left, keep the rest to pour on the cake/cakes after cooking

Add the butter and put all on a low heat, stirring now and then till the butter melts.

Cool to tepid.

Add everything else. You can do without the cooling if you mix everything else very fast indeed so the eggs don’t cook, but this needs practise.

Place in a deep cake tin, or several smaller ones or even coffee mugs, to give as gifts. I line the edges with baking paper. I sometimes arrange glace cherries or glace pineapple or whole blanched almonds on top as decoration. Other years I don’t bother or ice the cake with thin lemon icing: icing sugar mixed with just enough lemon juice to spread. 

Bake the cake at about 150 C for four hours. If the cake seems to be browning too fast turn the heat down or cover it with a baking tray.

Dribble on a little more whisky as soon as it comes out of the oven.

Cool in tin before turning out.

Wrap in aluminium foil and keep till Christmas.

Variations

 Family Fruit Cake - use orange juice to marinate the fruit - not navel orange juice as it will be bitter.

Christmas Biscuits (Crisp and very good)

Ingredients

125 butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 tsp rum, rum essence or vanilla

1 large egg

1 and three quarters of a cup of SR flour

Half a cup chopped macadamias or pecans

Half a cup chopped crystallised cherries

Half a cup choc chips

I also add half a cup chopped crystallised apricots, but that's because I'm stuck on preserved apricots at the moment - it's good but you can leave it out!

Method

Cream butter and sugar.

Beat the egg in till smooth.

Gently fold in the rest.

Bake lumps as big as a macadamia nut, pressed down with a fork, at 200C for about 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. They will crisp as they cool.

Christmas fruit jelly (Looks stunning; wonderfully wobbly)

A light alternative to Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

1 packet frozen blueberries or raspberries, or 2 cups of each fresh

1 cup fresh strawberries, sliced

1 cup fresh peaches, sliced

1 cup white wine

1 cup caster sugar

Juice of two lemons

Half cup water

2 sachets gelatine

Method

Use a no stick cake tin or line a cake tin with plastic wrap. Place sliced strawberries in the bottom and empty in the blueberries.

Heat all other ingredients except the gelatine till nearly boiling, take off the heat and add gelatine. (Mix a little with some of the liquid first so you don't get lumps.)

Pour liquid into the cake tin. Leave until set - it will take several hours.

Turn it out onto a plate. If it won't come out easily dip the base of the tin in hot water in the sink for about 30 seconds - make sure no liquid gets into the tin though! This will loosen the jelly enough for it to slide out.

Serve slices with cream or ice-cream.

Note: if that amount of gelatine doesn't form a well-set jelly, the whole thing can be slightly warmed and more gelatine (mixed with a little of the warmed liquid first) can be added. For some reason sometimes more is needed - possibly this depends on the ripeness and juiciness of the berries.

Totally Secret Frozen Fruit Salad

This was possibly the first recipe I ever invented on my own; I was about seven, I think, and I'd been bunging mulberries and strawberries and bananas in the freezer for years.

In those days ice-cream was a definite treat. The local shop didn't sell it, except in small cups. But the ice cream man used to drive round in his ute on Sunday afternoons, with great canvas bags of dry ice and in the centre were either Have-a-hearts - ice-cream with a choc coating, or rectangular cardboard wrapped 'family blocks' - and that's what Mum bought. Towards the end of their life, before plastic tubs were introduced and suddenly supermarkets had swallowed corner shops and had great freezers full of them, the cardboard rectangles had zippers down the side; you pulled the zipper and, behold, your cardboard container was open. The ice-cream used to cling in a particularly delicious way to the cardboard and Mum used to rip it into four pieces so each kid could get one to lick. I think Fred used to chew his too, but then he liked odd things like handfuls of butter and the suds off the washing up.

Anyway, back to the ice-cream...to begin with it was vanilla or neapolitan - stripes of white, pink (I suppose it was supposed to be strawberry) and chocolate (which didn't much taste like chocolate either). But then came fruit salad ice-cream, with little bits of fruit in it and it was this I tried to imitate.

Well, I didn't make it then - I did manage about 20 years later. But I got this instead. I still love it.

Ingredients

2 cups fresh pineapple, chopped

2 cups fresh rockmelon, chopped

2 fresh mangoes, chopped (optional)

1 cup fresh paw paw, chopped (also optional)

1 banana, peeled and chopped (not optional)

1 cup sugar

Half a cup water

Juice of 1 lemon

Cream

You'll also need:

Plastic cups or ice block moulds

Ice block sticks (from newsagents - you don't need to hog a dozen Paddlepops to make these, or stick a teaspoon in each one, rounded end in the mix).

Method

Boil the sugar water and lemon juice for ten minutes,

Add to the fruit.

Pour a little cream into the top of plastic cups or ice block moulds – anything freezable.

Top up with the fruit mixture. Poke in an ice block stick or teaspoon. Freeze.

Leftover Fruity Salad

Ingredients

4 cups leftover turkey, ham, lamb, goat or firm tofu marinated in soy sauce for an hour

4 cups  of chopped fruit: mango, paw paw, apricots, peaches, nectarine, cherries, apple, grapes

Optional: whole pistachios, macadamias or cashews

4 cups of crisp lettuce, roughly chopped

4 tb chopped chives, optional

4 tb finely chopped parsley, optional

1 cup chopped leftover roast potatoes or sweet potato, also optional

1 cup cherry tomatoes, whole or halved, optional

8 tb olive oil

Juice of two  lemons

½ tsp salt, optional

1 finely chopped chilli or 1 tb sweet chilli sauce, very optional

Method

Mix. Eat within three hours or all will be soggy. It’s best combined then eaten straight away.

Leftover Turkey (or chook) and Tropical Fruit Curry

Ingredients

4 cups cold white meat

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup thickened cream

1 tsp curry powder

6 tb apricot jam

Method

Mix all ingredients.

Serve covered in chopped chives or parsley.

Six things to do with Reindeer Droppings

A few little mementoes on the lawn?

. Use reindeer droppings to fertilise your roses

. Mix them with water, to lure the polar bears out of the freezer

. Paste them in the photo album, for a genuine scratch and sniff Christmas memory

. Bundle them into a pillow for the dog, so they can dream of big game hunting next year

. Make GENUINE Christmas earrings - the dingle dangle sort...

. Place them on a flowered plate and tell Aunt Ethel they're date and walnut...no, sorry kids. Forget I ever mentioned that one...