With a little (a very little help) from Orange France, a wi-fi extender (not at all like seafood extender) and the National Australia Bank, your intrepid correspondent has prevailed over the technology that’s been out to get her from Day One. Not that she’s paranoid: she’s just very, very tired. Continue reading
There are no road maps to tell us how to manage our grief (both public and private) and our feelings of guilt as we start the slow and painful journey towards ‘recovery’ from the acute and unsustainable feelings of devastation that Tom’s untimely passing has raised.
Here are 10 things she’s learned about French culture so far:
In rural France you can buy local wine at the hardware place which is a marriage made in heaven for your average DIY Woman.
And here is my absolute most brilliant bit of DIY ever. 
It happened just this afternoon in Seuilly. Yes that’s Seuilly. France. Two days ago I moved from one slice of French paradise to another just five minutes down the road. My current abode is a light-filled self-contained apartment off the beaten track with a view to die for and a cute little bakery van that drops in twice a week with a fresh baguette.It is the perfect setting for a runaway writer except for just one thing: no wifi…
Is it the latest slimline, impossibly light i-notebook? Is it the hard-drive that stores the words for posterity?
Non, non et non.
For this écrivain, it’s her fountain pen. Continue reading
1.Don’t be fooled into thinking the crazy luggage labels your workmates gave you will be enough to identify your luggage.
2. A loud and lairy luggage belt can be seen from 50 paces, as can a burnt orange suitcase – the choice is yours. Continue reading
Remember the days of the old schoolyard
We used to laugh a lot…. My oldest friend Lindy and I were always best friends at school, and little has changed. We still act like 17 year olds in each other’s company and have a language that no one else in the world understands. With a word or a look we can set each other off – into gales of laughter or on a trip down our own long memory lane. Continue reading
Transfixed, I listened to her sing the praises of her car parking goddess Asphaltia, who never failed to provide her with a parking spot whenever called upon to do so.
The only proviso was that the Benefactress must be thanked. And that the lucky recipient of Her bounty must attribute the procurement of the parking space to Her, and not to Luck. To do otherwise would be considered ungrateful, and the driver an unworthy candidate for future good parking deeds.
Graeme Simsion and his wife Anne Buist (author of recently-released psychological thriller Medea’s Curse) are currently on the literary festival circuit from Dubai all the way to UK and beyond, but he still found time for a chinwag with DIY Woman:
Legend has it that your original intention was to write a screenplay and you were advised to first write a best-seller, which you did. Damn it Graeme, is it really that simple?
It was in my early teens that I discovered Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, and began my love affair with all things tap. After seeing Singin’ in the Rain, I dreamed of tap dancing over furniture and up walls with my two leading men, leaving behind a bewildered Debbie Reynolds in my wake.