Alphons is on the loose

Australia is jam-packed full of spectacular native birds. My wife and I have identified and largely photographed over 130 species, just in our little corner of the island continent.

So why, oh why, would I bother writing about the Common Blackbird – a stowaway from the Northern Hemisphere? An avian anomaly? An incongruous interloper?

Perhaps out of fellow feeling. I too come from a northern land of damp weather and leaf mould, of burgeoning hedgerows and dewy lawns. I too sometimes wonder how I got here.

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A Permaculture Adventure

When I was a kid, growing up in the 1970s on the outskirts of London, there was a TV sit-com that I adored. A quirky, optimistic show with wit and warmth, in the best tradition of British comedy. It was called The Good Life, with Felicity Kendal and Richard Briers.

It was the story of an irrepressibly resourceful couple in a snooty middle-class suburb of London, who absconded from the rat race in pursuit of self-sufficiency. How I loved that show, and the curiously romantic idea of ploughing up one’s lawn to grow potatoes and keep a brace of pigs …

Australia-bound for the Good Life

When my wife and I moved to Australia in 2001, we finally had the space to pursue our own Good Life (sans porcine companions). We were keen to grow a significant proportion of our own fruit and veg.

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Category: gardening

Immigrant Song

Alphons is on the loose

The Patch

A Permaculture Adventure

Australia-bound for the Good Life