At this point in our Old Lady Books Club, we are all reading or soon to start reading. It’s a very loose sort of club. Drop any chatter re Rosamunde, the book, grandmother ‘nicknames’ like Dondie, fiction snobbery, having 100s & 100s of boyfriends etc. at meetmeatmikes.com/old-lady-boo... #PipsOLBC

I’m running a book club, pals. We’re reading one book every two months in 2025. It’s called the Old Lady Books Club because all the books will feature older ladies. Those are the rules. Yep. You can find out more on my blog (meetmeatmikes.com) if this sounds like a you thing. #PipsOLBC

“The phone eats first.” - my niece Luci

In a new book, 40 First Nations writers and thinkers share their favourite, or significant words from their own languages: words of belonging and connection.

Just me over here. Picking flowers in the rain. Snipping stems on the dining room table. Tidying up stray leaves and raindrops. Returning kidnapped ladybugs to the garden again. Slowing things down. 🐞🍃✂️🌻

Someone called this mass exodus from Twitter ‘the fall of the Broman Empire’ and I died laughing. 💀

Dinner was … a grainy Matthew McConaughey-inspired tuna salad sandwich with potato salad and roasted zucchini/tomato on the side. So pleasing. Picky dinners are the vibe at the moment!

I’m honestly finding the trend of social media broadcast medical trauma -> personal brand development -> ongoing content strategy to be such a cynical and awful phenomenon. And the performance of empathy in response has become a competition sport. Just horrendous and dystopian the lot of it.

Ladybug of the day! What should we name it?

Potato salad on toast is too a perfect breakfast.

So much silverbeet/Swiss chard in the garden. The lady at the greengrocer told me she cuts hers back often and treats it like a perennial, eating from the same plants year ‘round, so I’m going to see if mine works like that.

In Friday’s Nature Briefing, we note that some scientists are rebuilding community in a little place called Bluesky… 🦋 eepurl.com/i4LHFQ

I wish the big food/garden sites had “search by season” or something similar in their nav because guess what? There’s a Southern Hemisphere!!

Good morning from these guys and also the 9372 ladybugs in my garden.

These are some of my closest friends.

Up early watering the garden (and the bees) ahead of this scorching Melbourne day.

Took 18 months for my kids to receive their dad’s death payment. And lots and lots of phone calls, emails, social media queries. It’s an industry-wide issue. It’s the business model.

It’s snowing in Paris! And parts of England! According to Blue Sky!! The snowed-on seem delighted! So nice to catch a real time glimpse of other lives and places.

I love being on the editorial advisory board for the beautiful Headland Literary Journal. Very excitingly, their submissions are now open until 23 January 2025! headland.org.nz/submissions/

Just trod in a dead rat. Hope your evening is going better than mine. And Ratty’s.

Jesus.

The prolific wallpaper designer reinvented herself many times and embroidered her biography. But years after her death, her murderer is still unknown.

The Allanah/Harris Family allegations are just horrendous.

Kaitlyn Dever is disgraced Aussie wellness guru Belle Gibson in the first trailer for #AppleCiderVinegar, Netflix's six-part take on the true story of an influencer who built a social media empire by faking brain cancer. WATCH IT HERE: www.empireonline.com/tv/news/kait...

whenever a man says “childless women contribute nothing to society,” the ghost of the famously unmarried Jane Austen rises and says, “you are such a disagreeable man that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by you.”

Sorry to hear about the door.

A wee Scottish knitter and friend. 1939. photos.shetlandmuseumandarchives.org.uk/index.php?a=...

There's one in every crowd. Galahs near Balaklava, South Australia. Another photo from my back catalogue. #birds

Is that Tasmania splinter-boat-air ad shot at Franklin? Or somewhere else?

My garden is being so cute lately!

Elon Musk just called the COVID-19 pandemic that killed at least 1.4 million Americans a “scamdemic.” My dad died during the pandemic; we weren't able to visit him in the hospital because of it. Every aspect of that horrible tragedy was real. And exacerbated by Musk’s co-POTUS. I’m seeing red. 😡

Writers & artists, I've decided to remove the paywall on my eight essays on the creative process, written between January and September this year. My newsletter is called SUBTRACTION and you can find it here.

Calling all TTPD fans! What are your top 5 songs off the album (including the anthology)? 1/ Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me 2/ My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys 3/ The Alchemy 4/ So High School 5/ How Did It End 🫶💎🐍💋🧚✍️🎼

Here is a nice mushroom

We strongly suggest that academic publishers and other platforms that host research rapidly implement a Share to Bluesky button for their articles. Here's how: docs.bsky.app/docs/advance... #AcademicSky #HigherEd #Altmetrics

I still need to plant the last of my narcissus bulbs. Let's go back to 1614 and see some of the most coveted European varieties of the day. My eye goes to the little white narcissus moschatus, which unusually likes damp conditions, and which I have not yet grown.

Tonight’s din was a variation on last night’s. Leftover roasted veg (mushrooms, peppers, asparagus & tomatoes) plus some sliced ham and a few wodges of Camembert. Toast on the side & a slosh of lemony Dijon/kewpie dressing on the main event. Hit the spot!

#wildlife #nature #photography #fujifilm

Gobbled up the Micki Pistorius based drama on SBS on Demand. Adore adore adore Charlotte Hope. Also how good was The Spanish Princess?!

The first people on Tasmania brought fire and forever changed the land. www.science.org/content/arti...

Shout-out to ABC national regional affairs reporter Lucy Barbour for revealing how two regional hospitals - Orange and Queanbeyan – have been trying to introduce #abortion bans by stealth. Both bans have since been reversed. This is why #journalism matters. www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11...

Honestly so brat. 💚

Reminder: just a few weeks left for applications for my Bali retreat, Nine Experiments for Enriching Your Creativity, in March 2025. Don't wait, do apply bc it's going to be great. I've run this retreat a few times now; participants often say they've found it transformative. Suits all writing forms.

My lovely uncle Terry died last week after a long illness. Here he is in his heyday, taking care of a tiger snake in the wood pile at our Tinderbox shack. (That’s what they did back then … because there were lots of us cousins running about.) He’s with my dad now in the after place. ❤️

Backyard shenanigans ❤️ honestly the bees are having a total bender among the poppies.

Period

Pssst. Are we over here again now? 🕵️

Roasted veggies, dijon & mayo dressing, half price very ripe Camembert and toast = such a nice summer dinner. Watching All Creatures Great and Small. Sipping lemon squash with lots of ice. 🍋🧊🍅🧀🍄‍🟫🍞🧠🥖🐾