It took me ages to see what was not quite right in this snap of a Melbourne suburban garden, but once I did, it was impossible to ‘unsee’ it. The sender urged me to ‘seek and you shall find’ and eventually I did find it. Now when I look at the photo it is the… Read more

I recently bought a new pair of shoes. There was a brochure in the box telling me how to look after them to keep them looking good for as long as possible. Along with these tips was the following point, ‘We strongly recommend buying several pairs of shoes, so you don’t wear out one pair… Read more

Our back gate is iron, similar in appearance to a pool safety fence with a 20 cm gap underneath. The other day I saw a family of ducks come under the gate into our backyard to have some breakfast. There was a mother and father and eight ducklings. It was very cute but there was… Read more

Shapely Topiary is ‘the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes.’ I was recently walking around Ascot Vale in Melbourne; my heart was already happy as I was with our two daughters and our new granddaughter, when we… Read more

I opened the washing machine ready to get the clothes out to peg on the line and to my dismay saw white tissue confetti over everything. Someone (oops) had left a tissue in a pocket. 🙁 A single tissue mixed with water, an agitator and a spin dryer —> many tiny bits of tissue that… Read more

Earlier this year we were in the USA and seemed to spend the duration ‘tipping’ people who served us in cafes and the like. The waiters and waitresses were very service oriented and attentive and seemed to be genuinely interested in us (and our ‘British’ accents) and what we were doing on our trip. I… Read more

I have a new steam iron that has a brilliant quality called ‘OptimalTEMP’. The feature almost instantaneously works out how much heat is required for the material you are ironing, there is no need to make any selection re temperature. It is a great iron, works particularly well on stubborn creases and there is no… Read more

A friend bought her husband an expensive watch for his 60th birthday. He has had no end of trouble with that watch and it is now out of warranty and will cost a lot to have it repaired. On the other hand (but ironically the same arm), her husband bought a very cheap watch from… Read more

When we were in San Francisco earlier this year we went on a tour of the city which included a stop at the visitors centre near the Golden Gate Bridge. I popped into the gift shop and saw a souvenir I really liked but decided against buying it there; after all I was bound to… Read more

The other day I bought a new saucepan and was somewhat amused to see that it came with a 6-page user guide. I had a look through the guide and found there were a few interesting bits and pieces bit essentially what was written would be regarded by most people as common sense. For example,… Read more