I opened a book…..

Nothing to do with anything but……

Adverts on New Zealand TV are sometimes better than the programmes they interrupt.  And there have been some real crackers over the years, like the ‘bugger dog’ ad and the Mitre10 boys in the playground. So, for no good reason,…

Marytown Messenger, the first edition

Newspapers were very popular in New Zealand in the late 1800s.  It was a way to keep up to date with news from the homelands (albeit 3 months old by the time it reached our shores), and for more local…

Waitangi Day

Today is Waitangi Day here in New Zealand. Our national day, commemorating the signing on 6 February 1840 of the Treaty of Waitangi. There are official ceremonies at Waitangi and around the country, but for most of us it is…

Sagas of Inspiration.

I’ve been thinking about inspiration today. I know exactly who inspired me to finally put pen to paper but I could have gone for a fantasy, a crime story, something dystopian or a murder mystery. Actually, maybe I’d sell more…

Family tree

The trouble with writing about the Victorian era is that they had so many babies!! Sometimes it helps to have a diagram, and even I lose track of all those names, even though I have invented all the characters and…

Christmas at Hither House

Christmas 1861 – an excerpt from “Shepherd’s Delight” :- The throng of guests mingled and mixed in the entrance hall of Hither House, although the room was somewhat restricted by the huge fir tree taking up a large piece of…