Art and Abart

Rossini's Il Viaggio a Reims i s not your usual opera with a plot (however absurd) and beginning, middle and end. Instead it is a spoof ...

Teapot, little jug and Clivia flowers My teapot painting is finished. The teapot is a design called Amapola from the German porcelain fi...

I have hardly posted here over the last two months because my energies have been directed toward finding somewhere permanent to live. More o...

Next time I move I hope it is with a bit more warning. In July I moved rather suddenly, taking all sorts of things you would normally discar...

Whoops, foot stomping and whistles echoed through the Angel Place concert hall last night. It is not really the sort of response Haydn and...

Ayse Goknur Shanal singing at the Sydney Opera House Two and a half hours of exquisitely sung German Lieder in the Sydney Opera House Ut...

Australia is a long way from Europe so the three lead singers in this concert performance of the opera Andrea Chenier, Jonas Kaufmann, Eva-M...

What is it about pears that makes them so captivating to paint? Pears and more pears

My ticket for Donizetti's opera Anna Bolena was accidental, a swap for one earlier in the year that I couldn't attend. I had no expe...

My new home space is slowly becoming more orderly. The music equipment was the first thing that was set up and now most of the big boxes hav...

I am not a saleswoman by inclination, so when I was forced to become one while selling my house, I had to have a stress mitigation strategy....

I've moved, moved in a whirl from the NSW Central Coast back to Sydney. Perhaps that explains the lack of blog posts recently. I was t...

It is surprising how many people don't like trees. They find them a nuisance,  cut them down in their own gardens and complain about tho...

Warm. Wool. Walkable. Wonderful. Wearable. Wacky. Winter fashion statement

Gladioli from the garden, orange as orange can be. The very last of the orange, very orange, Gladioli are in a vase and Sydney is sudden...

Mother's Day dawned clear, bright and chilly and the sulphur-crested Cockatoos were out in force. This group of 15 had a black crow badg...

Gladioli are hard to captute in photos as they are so long The  orange Gladioli in my garden started appearing several years after I mov...

Sunrise in May 2019 Some sunrises are so stunning the photos look fake. Would you think this was a true representation of a sunrise if...

Is it possible to buy cakes from yesteryear anywhere? The type that are exquisitely delicious but not too sweet? The entire cake industry in...

Lilies are white, Roses are pink, Both lilies and roses, Fade in a blink Watercolour paintings that didn't make the cut land in my ...