tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47814497310739237352012-01-24T09:57:11.567+11:00What 'home' means to us todayGermaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.comBlogger1211100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-54581875927659714282012-01-23T11:33:00.007+11:002012-01-23T11:45:23.084+11:00

This year seems to have started with many friends around me suffering the loss of someone close. A constant reminder of the fragility of life and a sense of fear about how any of us will make it through to old age. Chances seem slim when you hear so many different stories.Since my father died, I have always found the new year particularly poignant. Another year that he will never know. Another

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-10483203069353341062012-01-16T13:57:00.005+11:002012-01-16T14:13:10.837+11:00

I’ve mentioned earlier my love of Penny Vincenzi novels so you can imagine my excitement when, just before Christmas, I noticed she had a new book out. My idea of escapist reading has always been a 700-odd page saga with a cast of more than 20 characters that explores the huge, messy themes of life. My perfect holiday read.To be honest, it’s my perfect-any-time-of-year read as her stories are so

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-28227465083351166562012-01-03T08:36:00.007+11:002012-01-03T09:00:18.356+11:00

The 18th century architect William Kent once said that ‘a garden is a world unto itself, it had better make room for the darker shades of feeling as well as the sunny ones.’ This quote eloquently sums up my struggle with gardening my entire adult life – the emotional struggle. I couldn’t see past the ‘darker shades’, so much so that I stayed well away from getting my hands dirty lest nothing grew

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-80165591285082163672011-12-27T09:44:00.008+11:002011-12-27T10:11:30.922+11:00

Ah, the break between Christmas and New Year. A perfect time to sit down - regularly - with a good book. For this book it would make sense to enjoy it with a good wine... and a good meal to follow.What’s it like to inhabit the home of another person? A person you have never met and has already died? This is the parallel universe biographers have to absorb themselves into, but what happens when

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-79290804297005631942011-12-22T07:52:00.003+11:002011-12-22T08:15:02.708+11:00

One recent midweek night, while making spinach pie for dinner and compiling boring lists in my head – check if there are clean school uniforms; don’t forget to put the bins out – I mindlessly started cracking eggs into a bowl. And suddenly, not so mindlessly, I noticed a double yolker. Not one double yolker but three. Three double yolkers in a row. I stupidly decided to Google what such a

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-35689296334183889152011-12-07T12:11:00.002+11:002011-12-07T12:17:01.982+11:00

Have you ordered the turkey yet? Written the Christmas cards? Bought the presents? I haven’t. It just doesn’t feel Christmassy yet. Perhaps that is due to the unseasonably cold weather in Sydney at the moment but then I look at the calendar and realise we are hurtling towards the middle of December! School breaks up next week!Instead of writing lists, ordering the turkey, braving the shops or

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-54218411660564888742011-11-23T16:00:00.004+11:002011-11-23T16:11:12.401+11:00

Ah, it seems Matthew Evans and my chicken & sage casserole has finally broken the curse of the infamous duck risotto. Not only did my sister's date love it, he asked her for the recipe. I like the sound of him even more.

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-17375304621940249962011-11-21T21:44:00.006+11:002011-11-21T22:00:22.775+11:00

My sister has been single for a couple of years now and a whole new world of dating has opened up for her (and me, vicariously). At different times she has met very different men, gone on a few dates, cooked a meal for them and – despite how different these men have been from each other – all dates have ended after this meal. The same meal she has cooked each time – once her signature dish, one

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-63966844139573797802011-11-08T21:34:00.003+11:002011-11-08T21:44:02.736+11:00

Before we went away I was busy reading. Reading some of the best books I’ve read this year and two were the work of first-time authors. Their stories filled my creative needs and I realised a pattern – when reading takes over I just don’t feel like writing. Does this make me a fair-weather writer? Sometimes I wonder.On previous family holidays I stole time away from everyone to write and think;

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-57047192310445136822011-10-26T16:46:00.004+11:002011-10-26T16:54:04.322+11:00

Home. Is it a house, suburb, city or country? Or is it a state of mind? Such thoughts have occurred to me many times during and since we returned from travelling as a family of five for five weeks.For someone for whom the physical home is so important, I expected to miss my bed, my kitchen, my bath quite a bit. I hardly thought about them the whole time we were away.Of course, there was the

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-21164034391345163432011-08-17T12:05:00.004+10:002011-08-17T12:20:53.355+10:00

Do you find you often take the everyday appliances in your home for granted? I do. And when something goes wrong I panic. Then I realise how little I actually understand about how these machines actually work. And then I feel guilty that the thought of living without a dishwasher is so depressing. Really, I scold myself, we’re lucky we have running water. During my lifetime, particularly my

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-76558830686418862692011-07-29T12:41:00.009+10:002011-08-25T18:39:44.727+10:00

It’s Sunday morning, you’re about to face the weekly grocery shop but you are 10 weeks pregnant, feeling sick and tired. You love cooking and food but you can’t bear the thought of meat or standing over the stove for hours preparing meals. You barely have the energy to make it through a week of work, let alone a week of cooking dinner. Or, it’s Sunday morning and you have to somehow squeeze in

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-58697442246493143592011-07-20T18:57:00.003+10:002011-07-20T19:05:14.703+10:00

I’ve been busy writing book reviews for Good Reading magazine lately. It is always fun to dwell in the world of fiction for ‘work’ when the books are ones I would choose to read for pleasure anyway.So was the case with the following two books. Both, appropriately, are about what ‘home’ means to the characters. Very different – one literary, one mass-market –both explore the ideas of what we need

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-33954624097386825302011-07-11T08:03:00.008+10:002011-07-11T08:22:57.171+10:00

I think I have reached my favourite moment of motherhood so far... Lily and I reading the same book and both of us loving it. After reading at bedtime, Lily has started bringing the book downstairs so I can continue reading it while she’s asleep.‘But don’t go past Chapter 29,’ Lily cautions, ‘because I don’t want you to find out what happens before me.’Secretly I do read past Chapter 29, not out

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-18192239066458569632011-07-04T14:58:00.008+10:002011-07-04T15:12:04.268+10:00

When Paula Cowan first started buying the Solution Living brand (environmentally-friendly household, personal care and baby products) four years ago, it wasn’t just about helping the environment.‘I did like the fact I was buying an environmentally-friendly choice that worked, but more than that I liked the way the products looked and smelled!’After her daughter arrived nearly two years ago, Paula

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-19480599831057502802011-06-29T18:38:00.003+10:002011-06-29T19:17:19.199+10:00

I spent half-an-hour fighting with a piece of furniture this morning. I never thought I could feel so angry with an inanimate object but when I stood with the intention of going to get a hammer to smash open the stuck drawer I realised the battle was over and I had to walk away.This desk has been with Stuart and me throughout our entire relationship. It was his childhood desk and before that

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-88517592050695077332011-06-21T18:30:00.009+10:002011-06-21T21:35:55.899+10:00

It started when we dug up a broken piece of a plate in the back garden late last year. The pale blue floral pattern captivated me and I couldn’t help but wonder which owner it belonged to. It looked old, the pattern delicate, but surely it wasn’t a plate of John and Elizabeth Liddell’s? Or was it? After all, they had seven children back in the 1890s so I imagine there were many broken plates over

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-51802462857407230272011-06-14T11:38:00.008+10:002011-06-15T21:42:56.700+10:00

Have you ever reflected on your life thus far and not been surprised, as though there was a predestined plan you have actually known all along?I know there are many times in life when you don’t want to be where you’re at – whether it’s your physical or emotional home – but there are other moments in life when everything just seems to fall into place; when you feel content and know that everything

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-80494611655391068442011-06-07T11:15:00.005+10:002011-06-07T16:23:59.470+10:00

Or should this title be ‘mindfulness housework’? I have always struggled with housework. I think my teenage arguments with my mother were always about the state of my bedroom and more specifically making my bed. I have the bed making under control these days but my mother still can’t help but sweep my kitchen floor whenever she visits. I have no problem dealing with filling the pantry or washing

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-77956260957787168422011-05-20T19:13:00.003+10:002011-05-20T19:24:57.994+10:00

Not long ago I interviewed Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan about her kitchen. As the founding editor of the great USA site, The Kitchn, it was exciting for me to hear about Sara Kate's views on the kitchen as the heart of her own home. Not long after, the managing editor of The Kitchn contacted me and asked to see some pictures of my own kitchen, the heart of my home. So it was with great excitement,

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-87625059641972316252011-04-27T14:12:00.004+10:002011-04-27T21:22:18.366+10:00

I know we’ve talked about revisiting childhood homes and fantasy homes but we haven’t talked about revisiting a home you once lived in as an adult. This thought struck me yesterday as we accidentally revisited one such home and I was surprised by the emotions it conjured. Well, actually I was surprised by the lack of any emotions.We took the kids to the Museum – a good rainy day solution for the

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-52372700136706799712011-04-19T09:11:00.004+10:002011-04-19T09:22:11.181+10:00

This happens every year. The bookshelves are filled and no more books can be stacked sideways on top of others. It’s time to be ruthless and work out which are worthy to stay and which are on the way to Vinnies or the School Fete. Usually I do this job alone and it doesn’t take too long to pick a pile of paperback fiction that I can live without but this year something different happened...

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-37739128453781436242011-04-12T21:14:00.006+10:002011-04-12T21:27:00.008+10:00

How is it already April, the end of first term, the start of Autumn and the first quarter of the year already gone? And how is it that we will be heading off to the other side of the world before the year is out without having had any thoughts of booking flights or accommodation? For all these reasons, the last couple of weeks have seen me think very little of ‘home’ here in Sydney and panic

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-5622704507553214982011-03-31T09:47:00.010+11:002011-03-31T10:11:18.269+11:00

With Mother’s Day just around the corner many of us will be planning to spend time with our families; sharing a meal with our mothers at some point that weekend. But really, how often do we talk to our mothers – and if we’re lucky enough our grandmothers – about their lives and our families stories? There may well be a favourite family dessert we have been enjoying all our lives but how many of

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-41557896378004337092011-03-29T17:33:00.011+11:002011-03-29T17:45:41.924+11:00

Recently I went to an open house with a friend; a grand old house out of both our price ranges. It was grand for many reasons – hugely proportioned rooms, wrap around veranda, a butler’s pantry – but it was perhaps the dining room with its table for 12that made the house feel most grown-up. People don’t really dine in ‘dining rooms’ anymore, do they? Formal rooms are rarely a selling point these

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-60179103460003937572011-03-22T13:43:00.006+11:002011-03-22T14:01:52.878+11:00

It’s been a week between posts. Sadly the quietness hasn’t been due to an inundation of freelance work, a book offer or a busy social life. Instead it’s due to very little time alone and a very moody toddler who thinks he doesn’t need to sleep during the day anymore.My predictable time off in the middle of each school day is no more and it has reminded me of how I felt a few years ago when I was

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-53679010030157319552011-03-14T14:16:00.003+11:002011-03-14T14:24:34.609+11:00

Darcy Ezekiel Duggan was a bank robber and according to the Sydney Morning Herald, New South Wales’ most notorious prison escape artist.In 1946, he escaped from a prison tram by cutting a hole through the roof with a kitchen knife and climbing out. Today that tram is on display at the Sydney Tramway Museum. Wikipedia details another time when he reportedly escaped from prison, leaving a note on

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-34287037732694297512011-03-09T13:59:00.004+11:002011-03-09T15:26:37.685+11:00

John and Elizabeth Liddell, the couple who bought our house in 1883, lived in a time when the average number of children per family in NSW was seven. I always wondered how many children Elizabeth gave birth to but was unsure of how to find out. Some nights, in the very early hours, when my youngest was a few months old, I'd sit on the stairs listening to him cry despite a tummy full of milk, and

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-1670152498450147442011-03-03T15:40:00.006+11:002011-03-03T16:53:12.299+11:00

First, apologies for making the article about our house history so hard to read! The pages are now posted here as J-Pegs.But the subject of today's post is about someone else's house history; of something left behind. This is the story about an Edwardian terrace, on Sydney’s Lower North Shore, facing out to the harbour. It’s about a photo that was found behind an old fireplace in one of the

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-19571589211380301352011-03-01T07:56:00.005+11:002011-03-03T18:56:16.407+11:00

Do you know any stories about the people who lived in your house before you did?I always felt that researching the history of the people who lived in our house would be more interesting than researching my family tree. It's hard not to feel an affinity with people who also chose to make your house their home. You instantly have something in common.Here's my result, published in the (sydney)

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-64773205271622876142011-02-25T13:52:00.009+11:002011-02-25T14:04:37.241+11:00

We’re home. And it’s not a building site; it’s home again.Only a better version now: with a pristine bathroom and a glorious bay window. A window seat none of us can stop sitting on. We’ve hardly sat on the lounge since returning. Everyone is drawn to the window and table. It’s been an interesting week to return, coinciding with the publication of an article I wrote about the history of this

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-7142356904758478842011-02-22T10:06:00.008+11:002011-02-22T10:36:10.371+11:00

For Jules Clancy, food scientist, self-published cookbook author and creator of the minimalist home cooking blog Stonesoup, cooking has been a passion since childhood.Little has changed during the intervening years; ‘It's how I relax and unwind but also how I earn my living these days. The thing is I never get sick of it. There are always so many new things to explore and perfect. Food and family

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-31067503813384279662011-02-17T12:22:00.005+11:002011-02-17T13:26:59.634+11:00

How is it that treehouses inspire the imagination of adults and children alike? Why do they seem otherworldly? I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of living in a treehouse, which is actually quite surprising given I’ve always been afraid of heights. And I was too scared to climb trees.Since having my own children though, it seems a fear of heights really does disappear when you have the

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-76650506987910132202011-02-14T11:53:00.014+11:002011-02-14T12:42:46.406+11:00

How do you get a Barossa girl, who at the age of 17 declared ‘I will never move back to the Barossa’, do just that? For Cherie Hausler, it was thanks to a rickety 160 year old cottage ‘looking for the love it deserved.’‘It’s funny how a place makes its way into your heart and quietly keeps growing there as you go about the business of life experience,’ says Cherie about the decision to move

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-28043550107187754532011-02-10T21:23:00.003+11:002011-02-10T21:35:00.982+11:00

These past few weeks, while we have been living back in my childhood suburb, I have found myself spending a lot of time stuck in the past. We lived in three different houses here – the first house when I was seven and the third house I left when I was 19.My entire family left at the same time, actually, and when my father died five years ago my parents had spent 11 years away from this suburb. So

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-46764382988494412862011-02-07T16:25:00.014+11:002011-02-07T16:47:30.644+11:00

“No afternoon tea party is complete without a gorgeous teapot... I pounced on this divine silver-plated teapot in Venice and lugged it around for three months, much to my husband’s dismay...”And so begins Alexandra Nea Graham’s personal journey into the world of afternoon tea. With her exquisite drawings, she captures a world that revisits the old tradition of taking the time over simple

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-54989678686962214912011-02-04T12:57:00.002+11:002011-02-04T13:11:28.765+11:00

It’s that time of the year again over here... when home for little people stops being the backyard and becomes the school playground. When the kindy teachers represent maternal figures, their classrooms become second homes and their classmates family.It’s Ned’s first week of school and my second time as a kindy mum. You would think it would be easier this time around – for me – yet it feels just

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-20676741160029437502011-02-01T20:03:00.019+11:002011-02-01T21:57:45.601+11:00

Do you wear an apron these days? Occasionally I remember to when I’m cooking but that’s usually after I’ve ended up with tomatoes splattering onto my white top or flour over a black top. It’s a bit like my reading glasses. They don’t help when I don’t use them.There are quite a few elderly European women who live in my street and whenever I see them outside their houses – sweeping, chatting,

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-30194473621172933472011-01-28T14:09:00.006+11:002011-01-28T14:28:44.390+11:00

Six-and-a-half years ago, Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan’s husband Maxwell started a blog called Apartment Therapy. His mission is ‘helping people make their homes more beautiful, organised and healthy by connecting them to a wealth of resources, ideas and community online’.When the blog began, Sara Kate was a food writer. She says, ‘We both believe that if you talk about the health and vitality and

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-39983711865734596582011-01-25T12:37:00.004+11:002011-01-25T12:45:11.433+11:00

Installing a bay window as part of our mini-renovation has led me back to my childhood suburb. While we can’t stay in our home while our bathroom is replaced – yes, I know others have and used the builders’ site toilet, showered with a camp shower and all that but I chose not to be so adventurous – we are staying in my grandfather’s home. After he died, it was decided that the house should stay

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-50767980410411233572011-01-21T14:28:00.010+11:002011-01-21T17:39:19.364+11:00

It was the bay window that did it. At the end of the year, after a variety of builders all came back to us with pretty much the same – huge – quote to add a bathroom and bedroom upstairs, we realised our renovation dream (or nightmare) would stay just that.Instead we decided to redo the bathroom and repaint. The house is now in need of some general maintenance and there were no more excuses to

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-70491495843826607112011-01-15T19:46:00.014+11:002011-01-15T20:13:22.938+11:00

Australian author Kylie Ladd published her first novel, After The Fall, two years ago. Focussed on the impact of an affair for two couples, her novel explores much of what ‘home’ means in the context of a marriage and how ‘homeless’ these characters feel once they are all, in their own way, betrayed. When I approached Kylie to discuss her thoughts about home and relationships, she and her family

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-65912777499108584762011-01-13T12:57:00.004+11:002011-01-13T13:30:26.907+11:00

It's amazing how the physicality of 'home' in day-to-day life is so encompassing. We feel defined by our homes; they are the foundations of our personal worlds and represent so much more than just bricks and mortar.Yet, when disaster strikes as it is at the moment in Queensland, homes really do just become bricks and mortar. Home becomes the family that is still altogether with perhaps just the

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-28508322514006834012011-01-10T22:10:00.007+11:002011-01-10T22:27:46.288+11:00

“To Sybil & Geoff, With best wishes for future happiness. From Tom & Claire”I’ve been thinking a lot about Sybil & Geoff as well as Tom & Claire for the last couple of months. It’s a bit odd really as I don’t know either couple at all. All I do know is that Tom & Claire gave Sybil & Geoff a 1954 edition of the book The American woman’s new encyclopedia of home decorating and somehow it turned up

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-89911862899778309142011-01-05T13:51:00.005+11:002011-01-05T14:03:04.819+11:00

Have you ever walked into an old house and felt uncomfortable? Have the hairs on the back of your neck tingled as you have stood in a room? Or have you noticed cold spots in a room no matter how heated it is?Conversely, have you walked into rooms of houses that feel happy and welcoming? How many times have you talked to others about a house having a ‘lovely feeling’ but being unable to explain

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-5158814625139078242010-12-29T09:44:00.004+11:002010-12-29T09:50:47.894+11:00

What was a favourite present under the tree for you this year? One of mine would have to be the book by UK Grand Design’s presenter, Kevin McCloud’s 43 Principles of Home. In his introduction he calls this book ‘something of a manifesto for how we can live’. There is a lot in here on eco-living and elements of modern living but the principle I relate to the most would have to be the one that is

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-72149598830055198322010-12-18T09:58:00.005+11:002010-12-18T18:10:45.896+11:00

It’s been a busy month at my home – like all homes at this time of year. There have been preschool nativity plays, ballet concerts, school parties, final assemblies, and for me, a commission to write a piece about the history of our house for a magazine... all of this coinciding around the same time.But now school and preschool are over, my article is with sub-editors, presents are – nearly – all

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-40759239179361792342010-12-09T13:08:00.021+11:002010-12-09T13:52:31.169+11:00

Eleven years ago, Heather Cameron was a florist living in Vancouver watching organic farming shows on television and dreaming of becoming a ‘country girl with a veggie garden even though I only had one plant out on the deck.’Today she is a magazine stylist who, along with her husband, runs an organic blueberry farm 40 minutes outside of Vancouver and sells her own line of jams.Heather’s story is

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-13917763909121505422010-12-03T12:51:00.004+11:002010-12-03T12:59:48.363+11:00

What do you get when you mix rain and snow? Mud, apparently. In parts of America they even refer to this as ‘mud season’. This same season obviously applies to anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere and therefore houses on this side of the world often have an extra room to deal with such messy weather: a Mud Room.Given the weather in Sydney at the moment I could really do with a Mud Room. Defined on

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-20631140501904308222010-11-30T08:32:00.005+11:002010-11-30T08:39:18.195+11:00

When Isabel Gillies gave up an acting career in New York to move her family to Oberlin, Ohio she felt her life was close to perfect. Her husband had a teaching job at the University and they could give their two little boys a more carefree childhood in the country.When they bought an 1877 redbrick house, built by a mason, Isabel felt all her dreams had been realised. The perfect house for the

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-51645909311695076112010-11-24T13:18:00.004+11:002010-11-24T13:30:18.113+11:00

In our last house we found a letter in the ceiling. When my parents ripped up carpet in their Mountains cottage, they found newspapers from the 1940s. Kate Morton recently talked about finding ‘to-do’ lists in the back of a cupboard in her childhood home. And yesterday my five-year-old dug up a piece of broken crockery in our garden.It’s white porcelain and was obviously a plate or saucer as you

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-7247670441041021532010-11-19T08:01:00.007+11:002010-11-19T08:20:14.727+11:00

"Have you ever wondered what the stretch of time smells like? I can’t say I had, not before I set foot inside Milderhurst Castle, but I certainly know now. Mould and ammonia, a pinch of lavender and a fair wack of dust, the mass disintegration of very old sheets of paper. And there’s something else, too, something underlying it all, something verging on rotten or stewed but not. It took me a

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-89462363756342360492010-11-16T10:59:00.007+11:002010-11-16T11:19:55.198+11:00

You can’t miss the child’s red shoes that adorn the cover of Tessa Kiros’ cookbook Apples for Jam. Her book stands out amongst the hundreds of other cookbooks appearing on the shelves in bookshops because those slightly scuffed, well-worn shoes suggest that behind this cover lies something more than lists of ingredients and cooking methods.I recently showed a friend of mine who is an amazing cook

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-63820132153323537582010-11-14T09:16:00.006+11:002010-11-14T09:37:00.432+11:00

Why does it seem wrong to have your normal weekly breakfast on a Sunday? On those Sundays when I do just throw a couple of slices of bread in the toaster and pour a mug of tea while pulling out the boring Weet-bix carton from the pantry for the kids, I find the day feels distinctly un-weekend-ish.On a Sunday when one of us does pull the carton of eggs out of the fridge or finds a packet of bacon

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-86274116534635575422010-11-10T10:26:00.007+11:002010-11-10T10:39:58.860+11:00

‘That’s what we do here, my mum does storage’, Fiona Chandler recently overheard her six-year-old daughter tell a friend who had asked why there were so many boxes in Fiona’s home office.‘Oh,’ answered her friend, ‘We have stuff everywhere at our house.’‘So do we,’ her daughter sympathised, ‘My mum just works out ways to hide it.’Indeed her mother has worked out many ‘ways to hide it’ and three

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-14660848786841971712010-11-08T13:50:00.012+11:002010-11-08T14:09:42.048+11:00

What happens when you move overseas only to feel more ‘at home’ than you do in the country of your birth?Louise Craig moved to England at the age of 26 and from the moment she stepped off the plane, felt she was home. Here she writes about the experience of falling in love with another country...‘It’s nearly 12 years since I left the place where I was born; six years since I left the country

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-44803462854440242022010-11-06T10:42:00.002+11:002010-11-06T10:46:38.384+11:00

After talking to owner of Armchair, Pip Robb, about the personalities of her many armchairs it made me think more about furniture and how strongly it can relate to home. Is there a piece of furniture you would rush to save in a fire? Or if you were moving overseas would there be a piece of furniture that would have to go with you to make you feel at home?Have you inherited special pieces from

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-56575412556217988352010-11-03T12:17:00.014+11:002010-11-03T12:56:45.202+11:00

If you had to give a piece of furniture in your home a name or personality, what would you choose? What piece of furniture is imposing enough to be singled out?For Pip Robb, owner of Armchair store, it would – obviously – be an armchair. In her life as an interior designer she found herself constantly searching for armchairs for clients; a statement piece for their homes.Never able to find the

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-72392575656590410702010-11-01T12:12:00.008+11:002010-11-01T12:28:43.117+11:00

A month or so ago, we suddenly got cold feet about renovating. The reality of three to four (or six?) months of living through it seemed a little overwhelming. One of the mothers at my daughter’s school told me that they used a camping shower in the backyard when their bathroom was renovated (for four whole weeks...), another told me that if we didn’t move out we would be lucky to finish the

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-15320645203061828692010-10-27T12:33:00.011+11:002010-10-27T12:49:22.395+11:00

It was a rambling, old wooden cottage with a huge established garden filled with rhododendrons over 100 years old, daffodils and jonquils in Spring, bushes of hydrangeas, climbing roses and a row of waratahs surrounding a fishpond filled with waterlilies. It was also our family home.Today, it is still all those things except it no longer belongs to us.Nearly a year ago, I drove out of the gates

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-6382267849046004832010-10-24T18:54:00.003+11:002010-10-24T19:03:11.702+11:00

What’s the chore you least enjoy? For me it would have to be the ironing. It was a rainy, cold Sunday in Sydney today. Perfect weather to get through the stack of ironing that slowly grows in this house week by week. Only I didn’t do it. Instead I just folded the clothes willing the creases to disappear in the wardrobes.They never do, of course, but it doesn’t stop me from hoping.So, instead of

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-12057707383042202552010-10-20T13:56:00.003+11:002010-10-20T14:04:58.220+11:00

I’m finally reading Bernhard Schlink’s novel The Reader. I know, I know, where was I 10 years ago?! Anyway, as we’re on a bit of a book theme this week I thought it was a good opportunity to discuss a paragraph that really struck me (obviously there were lots of paragraphs in this book that struck me but this one pays particular reference to the idea of ‘home’ and growing up).‘I felt as if we

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-17222527802933134142010-10-18T12:46:00.009+11:002010-10-18T13:03:54.147+11:00

Have you ever read a novel so absorbing that its fictional world feels more ‘real’ to you than your real world? And when you are forced to put that book down only because real life demands it, do you feel a desperate need to get back to that other world, your ‘new’ home and your ‘new’ fictional friends?I have always felt this is the greatest, addictive pleasure of reading, which recently made me

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-31475519331073711832010-10-14T09:55:00.009+11:002010-10-14T10:08:43.753+11:00

Have you ever considered swapping city living for a rural life? I know I have and I often wonder what the reality of such a lifestyle change would be like. Writer Hilary Burden made this move five years ago when she left an apartment in London for an old weatherboard house in Tasmania. For Hilary it was more than just a physical change of space; this move has also changed her sense of ‘home’.‘

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-73512626781006821912010-10-11T13:25:00.005+11:002010-10-11T13:37:07.494+11:00

Recently I was at my mother’s house for dinner along with my sister and my sister’s godparents from interstate. Mum had made a roast – albeit with mash potato rather than roast which was my first shock of the evening – and just as the meat was ready my mother asked my sister to help with the gravy.My initial reaction was to wonder why she asked my sister when surely she knew as little about

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-55434736723509271522010-10-07T17:32:00.006+11:002010-10-07T17:43:51.812+11:00

Only recently I was writing about my love of bacon and the smell of it sizzling in the frypan but what I didn’t mention was not really loving the smell that lingers in the house well after breakfast has ended.Just the other week we cooked sausages for dinner (well to be honest we have sausages every week thanks to certain limited palates in our house) and one of us – perhaps it was me – forgot to

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-68513175983340570772010-10-04T18:53:00.005+11:002010-10-04T19:02:17.973+11:00

Are campers born or made?I find myself asking this question more and more the older I get. My family were not campers. It was never a question when I was younger. We had friends who camped and friends who didn’t. I never wondered whether we would become a camping family; after a few bad experiences with school camps I was really glad we weren’t one.My husband did come from a camping family yet

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-43075225683893682952010-10-01T13:12:00.008+10:002010-10-01T13:26:39.554+10:00

In my experience guestbooks left inside holiday houses, B&Bs and guesthouses have held little appeal. The majority only leave enough space for one sentence, which for most entries is usually about the weather. You glean little information about the people who had visited before you, what their lives are like and what brought them to the same holiday house you happen to have chosen.So, when we

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-73798352345194234112010-09-28T11:44:00.012+10:002010-09-28T13:13:57.555+10:00

Back in the 1930s, the American author on etiquette Emily Post wrote in her book Personality of a House that ‘if the house expresses the architect or the decorator and not the owner, then its personality is a song out of tune.’ For Natalie Walton, deputy editor of Real Living magazine (and author of the Daily Imprint blog and the new Frontliners website) the best thing about her job is

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-15309750580892417022010-09-23T13:16:00.004+10:002010-09-23T13:26:17.065+10:00

How do you write your shopping lists? On the back of an envelope, just a few key words to remind you of the most necessary ingredients; or on a sheet of paper with products listed in order of the aisles? I have always enjoyed people-watching at the supermarket. Every Friday morning I see an elderly man at Coles, his walking stick in the trolley, always wearing a shirt and tie. He attaches a

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-78462905970872332652010-09-20T12:36:00.014+10:002010-09-20T22:02:55.342+10:00

Magazine editor, writer and cookbook author Jenny Rosenstrach’s definition of home hasn’t changed since she was a child: ‘It's the place you go "where they have to take you in." And I realize I'm butchering Robert Frost there, but it's the place I can be my worst self, my best self (hopefully more of the latter) and I'll still be loved unconditionally.’Jenny had been editing food and features on

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-91763628108923103402010-09-17T16:53:00.004+10:002010-09-17T17:06:33.546+10:00

How do you feel about your bedroom?On days like this when I’m tired (two nights out in a row does that to me now...) I definitely feel my bedroom is a ‘refuge within the refuge of the home’ as Winifred Gallagher describes it in her fascinating book House Thinking.‘Set apart from the “public” home by a flight of stairs or a hallway, the bedroom is much more than just a place to sleep. It’s a snug

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-82929230924353236972010-09-15T07:46:00.013+10:002010-09-15T08:10:16.287+10:00

“What do you get when you cross some vintage upholstery fabric, a pre-loved skirt, an unloved shirt and some recycled buttons? The blooming beautiful Betty Bloom of course! She's part vintage chic and part urban street wear - does it get any hipper than that?"Handbag designer Jennie Smith has always loved objects with a history; they perhaps give her the strongest sense of home. ‘Home is so

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-81034135987011080712010-09-12T14:25:00.004+10:002010-09-12T14:35:02.661+10:00

My mother and sister came over for breakfast this morning and while I thought about cooking something ‘special’, I couldn’t help but return to a family favourite: bacon. Weekend breakfasts for me have always been about bacon. The smell of it sizzling away takes me straight back to lazy mornings spent in pyjamas cocooned at home. And so it was, bacon sandwiches for our family on this Sunday

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-86132015537717448392010-09-08T21:29:00.005+10:002010-09-08T21:42:21.479+10:00

This past week I have come across a couple of references to the early 1900s American author of etiquette, Emily Post, in disparate books: Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and Marjorie Garber’s Sex and Real Estate. I had never heard of her before and it got me thinking. Who was Emily Post and what was her house like?Well, thanks to Google, she was a leading authority on socially correct

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-31849413895974500422010-09-06T14:10:00.002+10:002010-09-06T14:17:38.813+10:00

I was up late last night, reading about a new form of porn: ‘yuppie pornography’. As Harvard English Professor Marjorie Garber writes, in the introduction of her book Sex and Real Estate, ‘What do college students talk about with their roommates? Sex. Twenty years later, what do they talk about with their friends and associates? Real estate. And with the same gleam in their eyes.’Her book is

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-27515308611743434992010-09-03T09:48:00.011+10:002010-09-03T10:16:12.900+10:00

I have very few interior decorating books. I have flipped through many but find they end up being more about styling or architecture rather than stories about making a home. Magazines have long-filled my need for stories. I love looking at pictures of houses but love it more when I can also read about the people who live there.Recently, thanks to Anita Kaushal, I have changed my mind. With 15

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-45733262754875750112010-09-01T14:37:00.006+10:002010-09-01T14:52:47.571+10:00

Everyone seems to have a strong aversion to at least one uninvited wildlife guest in their homes. For some it’s cockroaches, for others it’s spiders (particularly huntsmen who seem to appear magically on walls after it rains). What’s it for you?For me it is definitely rodents.I’m not sure when or why this aversion began but I do remember never wanting a mouse as a pet when I was younger, despite

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-77781242746305310562010-08-30T13:25:00.005+10:002010-08-30T13:43:56.542+10:00

Two of my friends are heavily pregnant at the moment with their second children. One lives interstate and has suffered awful rib pain this time around; the other is on crutches due to pelvic pain. Thinking about them brings back the more unpleasant memories of late pregnancy but also the more pleasant ones of friends arriving with food parcels during that time.Gifts of food are a bit like flowers

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-50463018372555016762010-08-25T13:28:00.011+10:002010-08-25T13:46:43.767+10:00

At Home with Marnie Goding of Elk Accessories Marnie Goding and her husband Adam are the couple behind the Elk accessories label. Running their own successful business also means working long hours – most weeks six days – and travelling to source new materials and emerging trends regularly.The result of all this time away from home is that their home has become a refuge: their ‘Sunday House’.‘

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-27393698482434417722010-08-23T16:29:00.005+10:002010-08-23T16:42:13.535+10:00

Are you the type of reader who likes to imagine their favourite author typing away their favourite books? I am. I find that if I really love a book I feel a connection to the person who wrote it. And when you feel a connection to someone you want to know what their house looks like, don’t you? I have loved British author Maggie O’Farrell’s writing since she published her first book, After You’d

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-39197543877936522342010-08-20T13:01:00.005+10:002010-08-20T13:10:06.341+10:00

An engineer came to our house last weekend to draw up construction plans for our renovation. He talked about taking down walls and digging through floors to get support posts in the ground then patching it all up so no one would know the room had been touched. It got me thinking about all the other walls and floors in our home that have ‘been touched’ during the 130 years it has stood here. I

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-72812847136497338632010-08-18T12:19:00.008+10:002010-08-18T12:37:50.675+10:00

Since reading the 1997 Government Report on the Stolen Generation, titled ‘Bringing them Home’, Carmel Bird has been intrigued by the concept of ‘home’. As she says in the Introduction of Home Truth, the newly published collection of essays she has edited, ‘this is a most striking example of the powerful use of the word ‘home’, a word which is used so frequently in speech and writing without

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-71563581211031003152010-08-16T13:06:00.005+10:002010-08-16T13:23:17.990+10:00

‘A workshop is the foundation for home improvements’, a March 1956 copy of Australian House & Garden tells me. Yes, it’s the same magazine that talked about expanding living areas into garage spaces and such articles make me realise that back in the 50s it would have been hard to get a job as a handyman. It seems that DIY really did stand for ‘Do-It-Yourself’ back then.And it feels like everyone

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-56443241658155889032010-08-13T13:15:00.010+10:002010-08-13T13:38:23.617+10:00

Is there any one object in your home that encapsulates all the emotions of home for you? For me it would perhaps be my collection of old silver cutlery, which I slowly bought during a number of trips to the UK when I was in my 20s.I remember walking into those antique shops in tiny little villages and feeling so excited matching up odd bits of cutlery for my future home. I imagined my future

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-10275658952766450452010-08-10T13:52:00.003+10:002010-08-10T14:01:38.962+10:00

Last week, while rushing out the door to pick up kids’ from school Louis – in a way that only a two-year-old can – knocked a photo album out of the bookshelf. It was one I hadn’t looked at in years and it happened to fall open on a page of photos of us renovating our first flat. As I picked up the album I noticed a folded piece of paper shoved behind one of the pictures. ‘A letter for you’ it

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-52448225999846294222010-08-06T12:33:00.014+10:002010-08-08T09:44:30.248+10:00

A few months ago I was looking for a card for my cousin’s 40th birthday. She is one of those innately stylish people and I expected to find her a very sophisticated, ‘grown-up’ card. Then I saw a child’s birthday card illustrated by Belle and Boo creator Mandy Sutcliffe and I no longer wanted to be thinking like a grown-up.The card was an illustration of a little girl with long brown hair sitting

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-3373683011205791102010-08-04T12:08:00.003+10:002010-08-04T12:20:22.923+10:00

Like so many families with growing children, we’re renovating to get more living space. It’s ironic, isn’t it. When you have toddlers and preschoolers, all you want is an open plan house. In fact one HUGE room would be plenty. No doors to squash little fingers, no stairs to fall down, a view from the kitchen or laundry (where parents of young children seem to spend an obscene amount of time) to

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-39206839401515201762010-08-02T13:24:00.008+10:002010-08-02T13:44:19.770+10:00

As a passionate reader I have always been surrounded by books. Their presence on my shelves makes me feel at home and even when renting flats and moving every six months, my books were the last boxes packed and first unpacked each time.There was a quote, originally penned by Ancient Roman Statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero, posted in the front window of my local bookstore recently: ‘A room without

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-7873293757154351492010-07-31T14:55:00.007+10:002010-07-31T15:09:17.961+10:00

We had an unusual visitor at 7.15am on Wednesday. A farmer with a truck full of apples and citrus saw my husband leaving for work and decided to stop ‘in case we needed any fruit’.Well yes, we always need fruit but I had a feeling that he didn’t mean three apples here, 2 oranges there.‘It’s just a box’ said my husband excitedly adding in words such as ‘organic’, ‘pesticide-free’, ‘never frozen’

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-70578370305572178842010-07-28T12:30:00.008+10:002010-07-28T12:53:47.302+10:00

Virginia Lloyd was just 34-years-old when she lost her husband John to cancer; they had been married only a year. In the tumultuous months that followed, their old Victorian double-fronted home badly affected by rising damp, appeared to grieve alongside her. As she was forced to watch her house dry from the inside out, its walls rendered, painted and transformed, she also watched herself move

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-72054976927964236552010-07-26T13:11:00.012+10:002010-07-26T13:56:04.804+10:00

After admitting to coveting a ‘fantasy’ house and fairytale lifestyle as a teenager recently, I thought it was perhaps time to come clean about my fantasy house of today. It also seems fitting as last week we received a letter from the Council approving our plans. Perhaps fantasies will become realities?!But, stepping away from reality (which is also very time-consuming and expensive) let’s go

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-50061745638128158702010-07-23T09:36:00.003+10:002010-07-23T10:00:14.933+10:00

When you are an actor, a singer or an entertainer you tend to live a very itinerant lifestyle following work all over the world. John Waters knows this life well; not entirely due to his own 40 year long career (both as an actor and singer) but because he also grew up with a father who was an actor.‘It’s not an ideal way of life for small children and I am keenly aware of that with my own

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-83823071422983873252010-07-21T10:21:00.004+10:002010-07-23T12:57:22.391+10:00

Patricia Fisken hasn’t lived in Scotland for a number of years but she still takes comfort in cooking the dishes handed down through the generations of her family. ‘My family love food and any get together always and still involves food. My Grannies and Great Aunts all had their signature dishes, which were brought out on every family occasion. My mum has continued this tradition and I hope to do

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-76385733507480587062010-07-19T17:35:00.005+10:002010-07-23T12:48:57.945+10:00

One upon a time, in a land not so far away, there were two 18-year-old girls. On the cusp of adulthood, in their first year at university, these two best friends had bonded over a shared reading of Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room. Enjoying their Women’s Studies option in their Sociology course, they were ready to take on the world. For university was opening their eyes, just as it had for Mira,

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-46146370149266614342010-07-15T21:10:00.009+10:002010-07-15T21:40:37.408+10:00

Home can have a powerful effect on our lives and for Shannon Fricke her feelings about a particular house changed the direction of her career.I was in my early 20s when I first encountered Shannon’s house. It was a fisherman’s cottage near the harbour in the Sydney suburb of Watson’s Bay and she had written an article for a magazine about renovating this beautiful old home. It was an article I

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-45044163748449471762010-07-14T08:43:00.005+10:002010-07-22T16:10:21.049+10:00

I am reading an interesting memoir at the moment: The Last Supper, by Rachel Cusk. A successful writer living in Bristol with her family, Rachel becomes frightened by the monotonous routine of life so they decide to sell up and head to Italy for a summer. I fantasise about this kind of adventure regularly; the need for new experiences and perspectives wrestling with the lure of home and ‘its

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-87488170081440877382010-07-12T11:32:00.010+10:002010-07-12T11:50:25.405+10:00

We recently stayed in a lighthouse. Well, an Assistant Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage to be exact. And it was like no where we have ever stayed before: perched on a cliff top with views of immense ocean in every direction made us feel a million miles away from Sydney, work and school.And did I mention the whales? One morning we counted eight stretching out to sea.The cottage was, like all lighthouse

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-91398716029575253522010-07-09T07:41:00.004+10:002010-07-09T08:00:23.251+10:00

My last post about ‘home’ as a state of mind has me intrigued about exploring the philosophy of home and how our own philosophies of what home symbolises shape our lives completely. And, what better way to start this exploration of philosophy than with a philosopher.Damon Young holds a PhD in philosophy and is a writer and commentator. He is the author of the book, Distraction, about how to

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4781449731073923735.post-72486629686540461782010-07-07T18:47:00.004+10:002010-07-07T18:55:59.321+10:00

The last few days I have overheard or been a part of conversations where ‘home’ is mentioned. It’s funny how when you’re focused on a subject you suddenly start hearing or seeing it everywhere. A bit like when you’re pregnant or trying to get pregnant and the world seems full of pregnant bellies, babies and prams in a way it never was before. Anyway, what has been interesting about these

Germaine Leecehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08753423876539588308noreply@blogger.com2