Sunday 1 November 2009

Life Matters


Welcome. Old and new visitors. I had the opportunity of speaking to Richard Aide on the Life Matters program on ABC Radio on Tuesday.

I was their "Meet the Listener" guest for this week. It's a great concept. Everyone has a story to tell and by profiling ordinary listeners they unearth the hidden stories of people's lives which are every bit as rich and often more authentic in their simplicity than the celebrity list that gets done to death.

And thus here we are on my blog: "My Missing Life'. Quite apt really as the inspiration for this blog has been to capture simple stories from the present and the past and tell them in a story format rather than as a journal.

Why? I like writing and it's a challenge to take an ordinary memory or incident and try to capture its essence. I reckon sometimes I do it well and other times I miss the mark. But that's the risk and the excitement. When it works its mesmerising and surprising and even when it doesn't I learn something. So what might you find on this blog?

Family stories -
1. "Journey" (March - June 2009) - The amusing and touching tale of taking my father's ashes back to his home village as the final homage to a simple man.

2. "That Ordinary House" (December 2008 - February 2009) - the saga of my brother and my attempt to sell our family home which unearthed a pile of poignant and funny stories associated with that tiny two bedroom war-service home in the suburbs of Brisbane. (More rooms yet to explore)

Travel stories -
Two stories from a recent trip to the Kimberley in Western Australia.
1. "Hummer Envy" (July/August 2009) - the tale of four people in a black Hummer travelling the dusty roads of NW Australia in anything but anonymity.

2. "Kimberley" (August to October 2009) - lost luggage; camp stretchers that don't fit into tents, camping gear that doesn't fit into hire cars, and bold faced bullshit artists.


Two stories from a trip to Europe last year.
1. "Haircut from Hell" (November 2008) - my attempt to connect with the locals at a hair dressing salon in a remote French village in Brittany.

2. "Beware of Breeding Swans" (October 2008) - a hapless swimmers story. The men's bathing pond on Hamstead Heath in London as experienced by an outsider.
PLUS:
Poetry
Photos
Two Barcelona stories (October 2008)
Tell tale signs of an obsession with water (Stradbroke Island Feb 2009 etc)
Even a piece about tea cosies (October 2008)

I hope you enjoy browsing. I certainly enjoy writing.

Let me know what you think.
Click on the photo to link to my Facebook page

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