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Friendship
For our Ancient Greek philosopher friends, once you had your food, water and shelter sorted, friendship was the very next necessary thing. Well, healthy and independent friendships anyway. I think you can be friends with creatures, and even the planet. I think the planet might really need friends right now.
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Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Dinner Party
I’m not sure if you know (or care) that since acceding to the throne on June 2 1953 Queen Elizabeth the Second (QEII), by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith became…
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How Wardrobe Reviews Make You Happy and Boost Personal Power
I recently watched a video where women talked about the life-changing nature of KonMari-ing their closets. How their wardrobe reviews boosted their personal power, and made them happy.
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How to Identify a Marriageable Man
This led me to wonder whether there was a time when men were mercilessly judged by women, and actually there was; as a marriageable man. It was about their suitability as husbands so perhaps more realistically the scrutiny came from girl’s fathers, but girls were given advice about what they should consider and this is what I am presenting to you today.
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Titanic First Class (Advanced) Dinner Party
Following on from the Beginners and Intermediate Titanic Dinners, it’s time to tackle a Stress Free Titanic First Class (Advanced) Dinner Party.
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Marie Lloyd Queen of the Music Hall
I followed a link from here to there to somewhere else entirely and found myself in the land of the Victorian English Music Hall, hot on the heels of larger than life Marie Lloyd, the “Queen of the Music Hall” (1870 – 1922).
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The Grim Side of Garden Grooming
Another quick one today, as I am still down with the cold and cursing my lack of foresight in NOT buying eucalyptus body wash for just this occasion. If you are at all squeamish about faeces you might want to skip this post. The sun was out today, and after three days chock full of napping, I…
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Dinner Party to Comfort a Friend with a Cold
If you’re the kind of person who likes to look after your sick friends, here’s our cold/flu care recipes for your Dinner Party to Comfort a Friend with a Cold.
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Ruminations on Rodents
Wild rodents can carry disease (and other pests like fleas and mites), they are NOT diseased because they are rodents.
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Ramadan Dinner Party
I’m running a little late for a Ramadan Dinner Party, but there is still have time to give you a hand entertaining any practising Muslim friends you may have. If you are a practising Muslim, please feel free to send me your suggestions and corrections.
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Happy Life
Given our recent trip back to Perth, you may have guessed that the happy life, or worthwhile life has been back on my mind.
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How to Protect Yourself from buying counterfeit goods
Recently I had the misfortune to purchase counterfeit goods online. Owning counterfeit goods in Australia is illegal, let alone selling them. I found it very shocking – I thought I had been really careful, but once you click the buy button it’s too late!
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Dealing with Aging Parents
We just got home from a mad dash back to the town we grew up in, to visit our respective aging parents who have assorted medical problems, and are approaching the time when we don’t know when/if will be the last time we see them.
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Silence in the Garden
I noticed silence in the garden is lost too, with unwanted noise in the form of car alarms, leaf blowers, and “doof-doof” music.
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Titanic Second Class (Intermediate) Dinner Party
After the beginners dinner, today I’m looking at people more comfortable cooking and hosting dinners. It’s a Titanic Second Class (intermediate) Dinner Party.
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Misfortunate Life
Today has been one of those misfortunate life days that never really got off the ground, where everything went a little wrong and took a hundred times more time and effort than it was really worth to fix it. One of those days where you would just have been better off if you took yourself…
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The Beauty and Pleasure of Potted Plants
This may sound bizarre, but Katy showed me this and some other pictures of her newly potted plants and I was surprised that she had different kinds of plants in the same pot.
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5 Ways to Show Your Sick Friend You Care
I have some experience as a sick friend, so here are five things to help you show your sick friend you care.
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What is the inherent nature of waste?
They’re buying new comfortable things and discarding old uncomfortable things – piles of stuff waiting to be collected by the council’s hard waste removal contractors.
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Titanic Third Class (Beginners) Dinner Party
My book makes mention of a Titanic-themed dinner party, and with the anniversary of its sinking being today (15 April 1912), I’ll start with a Titanic Third Class Dinner Party for beginners.
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Discover Your Perfectly Comfortable Heel Height
Once, a very long time ago, I had a pair of heels with the perfectly comfortable heel height. Not only could I wear them all day, but then all night as well and hardly notice I was wearing them.
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Observations on Easter
While I was christened an Anglican, my family wasn’t deeply religious so I don’t know much about Easter, but I know for a lot of people it’s a significant event
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Appropriating the Spaciousness of Silence
I’ve always spent a lot of time alone inside my head, and the silence of my alone time is where my creative ideas come from.
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My version of string theory
In previous posts I have referred to my life as being like a tangled ball of string – I wasn’t specific at the time, but I imagine it as the kind you get when you give a cat a ball of wool to play with. When you try to unravel it, you pull one strand and all the…
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On International Women’s Day
I just found out that March 8 is (was) International Women’s Day. I only found out because I’m catching up on my reading (now that Stress Free Dinner Parties is on the market), and one of the services I subscribe to commented on a political party’s choice to have their formal “celebratory” dinner in a men’s club…
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Young Spirit v Older Body
I received a not-for-profit solicitation in the mail the other day. It’s an organisation that I believe does worthwhile work in the local and international communities. I have supported it for many years with donations of money, and more recently with my time and services. But, the solicitation really disturbed me – it made me very uncomfortable on a number…
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Perfidy of Modern Life
I am exercised today by the perfidy of modern life. That whole “We can get a man on the moon, but we can’t do x.” kind of thing.
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Ten Ways to Make Guests Turn Up for Your Dinner Parties
Most people want to know how to make guests turn up. They are a great deal more interested in this than making them leave at the end of the party.
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Me and Melbourne are Friends Again
As you know, I was quite sad to lose my feeling of kinship with the city. So I am really very happy to tell you that me and Melbourne are back on! Perhaps it was just been that kind of melancholic can’t find a thing to buy feeling – do you get that too? Sometimes having a firm…
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When Shopping in Melbourne
So today I went into Melbourne to do a bit of shopping and meet Katy for lunch. That sounds very grand doesn’t it?
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Today, on Rabbie Burns Night…
For those who aren’t Scottish and don’t know, today (January 25) is Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759 – 1796) birthday. Or Rabbie Burns night if you are.
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How to Make the Perfect Pizza
One of the rare pleasures of unemployment is the time you can spare to make “real” food. Today, it’s the perfect pizza.
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Amazingly Unlikely Birth and Death
As you know, I’m working in the garden. Observing birth and death, but mainly just weeding the last few days… Which led to the appalling discovery that I can’t see well enough to weed properly without my “reading” glasses. Might need to get some prescription sunglasses made up for just that purpose… Anyway, I found a pansy…
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My kidney transplant
I received a kidney transplant in 2011. I was so sick for so long I wanted to stop treatment and let the end come. There was nothing more to do…
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Who are the Home Grown Heroes of My Beautiful Garden?
When I first laid out my garden vision, I mentioned a need to develop habitats for native species – my home grown heroes.
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Virtue of Friendship; Contribution
I’m now proposing it’s possible to be friends with people we don’t know, by making contributions toward their wellbeing.
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Virtue of Friendship; Family
At one end fo the continuum, a family is held together by duty, and the other by love. For one Christmas is rules and obligations, the other a good fun catch up. The child serves the parents, or the parents the child.
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Virtue of Friendship; Friends
You can have a lot of friends, (some might be animals or relatives, and some not), but only about 10% off them will be special enough to be besties.
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Virtue of Friendship; Creatures
I believe you can have friendships with two different kinds of creatures; your companion animals and wild animals.
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Virtue of Friendship
I realised I had to talk about the Virtue of Friendship before I could get into planning for friendship with creatures in the next post. Mainly because we need to know about friendship before we can talk about how that relates to things that aren’t people (as shown in the revised virtues table shown below.)
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Eek! There’s a Spider in the Bathtub
A little off topic, but I had to share this. I recently watched BBC4’s Spider House, and it was absolutely fascinating!
