News & Blog by Susan Duncan
Read the latest news and bulletins, essays, features, opinions from our bestselling authors. Find out what's being said, debated, and discussed in the world of books and ideas.
My mother survived the dentist although she emerged after one hour of root canal treatment, looking as though a large brandy might be in order. She didn’t whinge, though. Not once. “They kept telling me to open my mouth,” she said. “I told them you always tell me to close it and old habits die hard!” “You were brave,” I said. “For some reason, the worse the pressure, the harder I laugh. I...
Not so long ago, I took Esther to lunch at our local Waterfront Café. It was a sparkling day and she’d been a little unwell. The seafood pizza didn’t liven her up as much as I’d hoped so I decided she should stay with us for a few days until she felt better. “I’ll go and get your clothes. You stay here. I’ll be back in a flash.” I paused at the door of the café, returned to my mother. “I do mean...
Last night, the moon was round and full. The water shivered with silver. A magical, spectral light. It was so still, I could hear cutlery clinking on the other side of Lovett Bay. The sound of our neighbour’s daughter practising her clarinet carried up the hill. “Heavenly,” I thought, unashamedly sentimental. It is our habit each night, when we sit down to dinner, to run through our plans for...
The nights are suddenly colder and our hens have gone off the lay. They too, are slowing down with the changing seasons. We are getting two or three eggs at best, when eight to ten is the summer tally. The hens are known as Bob’s girls and have names and distinct personalities. The four glossy black ones (Obamiana, Martina, Lucia and Queenie) are full-chested and their fire engine red cockscombs...
We call autumn the quiet time on Pittwater. It’s not that life slows down – although it does a little. It’s simply that there is less cacophony. The cicadas disappear, the white cockatoos rise late and retire early. The kookaburras laugh with less hilarity, the leopard moths fade away along with the golden orb spiders. The snakes – all but a few and those still hanging around are sluggish, retire...
Whenever there is any news, Brigitte from Frog Hollow, assembles and sends it via email to the community so we are all, always, informed. Her message this morning was a reminder – menu attached - that the Elvina Bay Fireshed Christmas Dinner is on this weekend. Salmon Tarator – lightly cured and slowly baked with a rough pesto of herbs, yoghurt and spices Big fat prawns with cocktail sauce Leafy...
Tonight we meet for the last book club of 2009. Once a month for years now, we women from the Bays have gathered to talk books, food, art and of course, life as we live it on the boat-access-only shores of Pittwater. To me, winter is the best time. Darkness closes in early, we putt-putt slowly around the honeycomb shoreline, the cold nipping our cheeks. Guided only by moonlight. And a final welcoming...
On Pittwater, summer officially rolls in when the Wednesday Woody Point Yacht Club twilight series begins. Anything that floats can race! At around 5.00 p.m. we all emerge from our houses as though to some silent bugle call, crews meeting on docks and then taking tinnies out to where the boats swing on their moorings. Some of us are rusty at the beginning of each season. Our sea legs unsteady....
Christmas choir rehearsal tonight. Our second. Although ‘choir’ is a bit of a stretch. We are simply a motley group of enthusiasts from The Bays and The Island – some of us with just three good notes apiece. We all have a ‘nice manner’, though, as one chorister said on her C.V. Our choir master, much-acclaimed Welshman John Lloyd, wasn’t critical although he must have winced a bit. Here’s an...
The weekend already seems like a dream. Was it only on Friday that we danced, sang? Let the evening breeze dry our sweat on the deck at the community hall. Before we went back to dance again to the rock and roll of the Scotland Island musicians. Then Saturday… clear blue skies and a sea still choppy from the winds earlier in the week. The Woody Point Yacht Club Christmas party at Portuguese...
