BOOK REVIEW: What’s keeping you awake at night?

What’s keeping you awake at night? At the moment for me it’s the fact just as I’m starting to sleep a mosquito starts to buzz near my ear. But at other times it’s been financial worries, relationship issues and of course as a mother- my kids. David Bogan has written a great book on the [...]

Look at all the lonely people…

I found an article on the TVNZ website today saying that loneliness is contagious. I found it so interesting because the truth of loneliness isn’t about whether you’ve got a great social life, you’re being invited to parties, have friends and fun everywhere, or you’re stuck at home every night with only the tv and [...]

A New Zealand Christmas Story: The Christmas Gecko

I wrote this for a course I was running to demonstrate how you can create stories that fit into our New Zealand Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!
The Christmas Gecko
Georgie the gecko lived in the top corner of the Thompson’s living room. She hid up behind the curtains, where she could keep an eye on any delicious [...]

Words of Wisdom: Is Anyone Listening?

My daughter gave me this picture today and I actually cried. She’s been working on it at school, and it’s a picture of me surrounded by all the words of wisdom she feels I’m passing onto her, things that I say that she’s taking on board and trying to live by.
To see my words to [...]

LOVELY BONES: Fighting for Control

I’m going to write about how awesome the whole NZ premiere was in a separate post, but I wanted to talk about the movie itself first.
It took me a year of the book on my shelf before I could drum up the courage to read it. In part because its chief protagonist, shares the same [...]

Shopping for the right man

Oh I do like to go shopping. Not that I’ve had much chance this year- my secret love has been farmers markets as I can do my grocery shopping and feel like I’m still splashing out.
I’ve been thinking about how much we can want in our lives- but how if you really really want something [...]

How do I leave my violent partner?

Im 21 and I’m stuck in a relationship that I’m too weak to leave. I have
been with my partner for two years now, this has been the first serious
relationship i’ve been in and I’m in far too deep. We argue almost four
times a week with him saying really horrible things [...]

TVNZ BREAKFAST 26th November: Why You Need To Make Your Children Work

I talked on Breakfast this morning about how important it is for parents to teach children how to help around the house
You can click on the link above to watch me speak with Paul Henry about this, or read the information below:
For many of us we focus on giving our children the childhood we never [...]

Life isn’t fair dammit

How often do you think life isn’t fair? That you deserve to be married, or not married, have children or no longer have them at all, get invited to something that others have, or just be left alone?
Just over nine years ago I committed to myself that I’d be grateful for every day of life [...]

A sample story from my CD Traditional Tales

Someone asked me for a link to my traditonal tales CD- and I thought it might be nice to give a sample- it’s not really relationships- but I rewrote these stories as part of a programme I developed for Early childhood teachers, to help them develop literacy for young learners.
I’m a big believer in using [...]

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