Just now Australia seems to be cursed with natural disasters. A few weeks ago there was a massive fire in Mount Kaputar National Park. A friend showed us this extraordinary picture, taken by a local photographer near their farm in northern NSW. Australia is burning. This image belongs to Joshua J Smith Photography The photo…
Calm has returned with a new day. Yesterday was awful. Hot, violent winds buffeted our house all day, the air was filled with dust, and white caps chopped up the usually placid waters of Lake Macquarie. We retreated to the air conditioned indoors, as the climatic assault continued throughout the day. No day for gardening,…
My mum, Gwenneth Muriel Holford, 1937-1999 “The Lord cares deeply when his loved ones die.”Psalms 116:15 NLT Twenty years ago today, in the early hours of what would be a sunny, but chilly, late winter day, the 28th of August, 1999, my dear mother passed away. She was 62 and died of pneumonia complicated by…
Mountains Me with Carrauntoohil behind, August 2019 Last week I was in County Kerry, in Ireland, with my old walking companion of university days, Simon. For the first few days his wife Michelle was with us, and then for a few days more it was just the two of us. It is many years since…
Carl Larsson gården Carl Larsson and his daughter Brita A few weeks back Maria and I spent the weekend in Dalarna, wandering around the haunts of one of our favourite Swedish artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Carl Larsson. This year of 2019 marks the hundredth anniversary of his death, and we knew…
Midsummer maypole Last weekend Maria and I headed north from Örebro, which is our Swedish “home,” to Dalarna county, where we lodged a few nights in an old timber cottage in a village halfway between Borlänge and Falun. I say “village," but Olsbacka is little more than a scattering of houses and cottages nestled between…
"Smultron" - wild strawberries We decide to walk in the evening to Olsbacka gård (farm), barely a kilometre from our little cottage among the trees. The road is lined with summer flowers - white and blue and yellow and purple splashes amidst the overwhelming green. There are dark clouds above, heavy with rain, though there…
Years ago when we lived in chilly northern climes, I kept a blog called holfies: postcards from Sweden. It’s still there on the internet and can be read for any that chance on it. Then, because we kept moving from one side of the world to the other, I started a new blog called holfies:…
Several thousand people gathered today in Speers Point Park for the Anzac Day dawn service. Traditionally the service has been held at the Anzac Cenotaph at one end of the park, next to the Esplanade, but this year for the first time it was moved to the bandstand in the middle of the park, apparently…
A week ago we returned from a 4 day break in Port Macquarie, a town on the mid north coast of NSW which has been the location of many family holidays since my childhood. I’m looking at a few of the “snapshots” from that mini break and thinking about the joys and struggles of the…
holfies... snapshots and ramblings 