Portfolio

“I’m a cruise ship virgin,” I whisper to the tall man behind the bar, as I struggle to understand the card-swipe and signature process.

“Well there’s no better way to pop your cherry,” he replies, passing me a glass of pink champagne as the ship sounds two blasts from its horn and slips away from the dock.

When 81-year-old Cliff said a final goodbye to his wife Mary Patricia (Pat) he planned every aspect of the event himself with meticulous attention to detail.

On New Year’s Eve a fellow reveller asked “why do you write?” and the answer eluded me. It’s been a few days since the party, but I’d like another shot at the title.

If you’re reading this with a chardonnay in your hand or a nip of scotch doing duty before dinner then you’re a typical Baby Boomer. You love a drink and you have one nearly every day, a legacy of how you grew up in the booze-soaked 1960s and ’70s.

There’s a clipped pooch standing guard on a Brisbane verandah in the fading winter light.
Actually the dog is sitting down on the job, performing its security duties from a comfortable chair.

Visitors to Brisbane’s St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital might have noticed a quiet transformation over the past five years, as drab corridors have come alive with an evolving contemporary art display.

The collection’s unlikely curator is gynecologist Dr Philip Hall who started practising there five years ago.

There’s a tight group huddled around an art work at the Queensland Art Gallery on a mid-week morning.
Ten or so people sit on small camp chairs, listening intently as a guide tells them about a painting, using it to spark memories and start a conversation.

In a cruel twist of fate, family fortunes, earned through graft and sacrifice, are being whittled away by warring children and scheming hangers-on.

Jenny Bonney-Millett, a slight woman with long brown hair coiled into a bun, jogs around the Yeronga Sports Centre before stopping to stretch.