I don’t drink it any more, the brown bitter stuff, but I do love sticking my nose right into a bag of freshly ground coffee. It’s almost as fresh as stepping outside on a mid autumn morning and feeling those cold tendrils snapping at the nasal passages. Ben used to have one of those Italian coffee [...]

The San Remo bridge arcs over the estauary like a great boomerang. We walk along the beach barefoot while the tide is at its furthest ebb, the secrets of the deep are revealed. The sand sculpted into a series of glowing fluid ridges that sqelches between our toes. S slightly cool,  our imprints being gobbled [...]

Empty streets, quiet roads, the arteries of the city pulse a little slower. Families and friends down the beach or down the coast, letting their hair down. Sleeping in, warm covers  like a furnace stopping winter’s hands shaking yours. Walks in the bush, filtered light coming through a canopy above. The smell of fresh vegetation, [...]

Oh the joy of emptying the kitty litter tray, picking it up and leaving it at arms length on the way to the outdoor bin. The odour of cat poo neatly embalmed in sweet smelling granules. The prayer of thanks as it slides out of sight in the hopper. The refill is much more pleasant. [...]

That sort of hair you get as you go grey, a little bit of light , a little bit of shade. Grains of hair, whispers in coloured variance.  Sharp tang of a pepper corn not quite ground. The sea side taste of a sprinkle of slat, out of a grinder, sea salt white rocks, crystals [...]

It was always just a little too high, he felt like a third grader, looking up to an impossible task. Not his fault, he was just a kid, just a rolling lump of impressionism. Somehow the expectation that he perceived from his parents – wrongly or rightly – was making him want to cry, helpless [...]

A million shower curtain sopranos sing into their shampoo bottles as rain streams down from the silvered head. Rivers of water drowning out their gargled song, the song that sounds so wrong. With the radio it’s covered, the tinny 20 dollar job on the shelf near the window yeah it covers it up, but the [...]

Chaos, out of control. Beyond ordinary circumstances, natural disasters, the unforseen. Nothing where it should be, no ducks lined up in a pond, using  your Nouse to get by. Swimming against the current, picking up handfuls of  slithering shiny snakes. Trying to  find a door handle, smelling a forest fire on the breeeze, panic, escape, [...]

Immediately  a memory is conjured of my first real leather belt, made by Joan’s husband. One of those boffin types with glasses that hang off the end of his nose. I imagine he patiently weedled away in the back shed preparing this long tongue of cow hide for me. It was tan and he had [...]

Those yellow lumps, those pills of bitterness, lurking in the fruit bowl waiting to explode like a grenade, plastic skin  and soft insides, I slice one down the centre, with a well sharpened knife. I like well sharpened knives, taking out the sharpener from the second draw, its white bony handle smooth and worn, its [...]