Now...
I live in Cairns, North Queensland with my three Boys, two Beagles and
a Bloke (my husband). Most of the time those three B's add up to
Bedlam! When I'm not picking up toys and clothes and dog poo I write
children's stories.
Guess which one I enjoy the most!
To learn a bit more about me, read on...
In the
beginning...
Way back in June 1964, a gorgeous
and highly intelligent baby girl came into the world.
A few days later I was born!
I grew up the eldest of three children on a
farm near Mundulla, in South Australia, and for a girl who loved
animals it was a wonderful place to live. My brother and sister and I
were never short of pets to play with. I'll test my memory -
There was Nola, the old milking cow who used to plod around with us on
her back. Sweetie the kangaroo was a favourite, three sheepdogs plus a
beagle and a labrador, two budgies, three horses, many rescued pets - lots of
orphaned lambs (all called Mary, I was obviously not very creative
early in my life!), Bazza the one legged
cockatoo, Gough the galah, an owl,
some
possums, and a wild pregnant farm cat with a crooked leg called
Mummy-cat (there's that creative streak again!) who had four kittens
and left them at our doorstep, and those kittens had kittens, and they
had kittens, and we were never without kittens again!
My love of writing began when, with the help of a
rickety old typewriter, my brother and I published the weekly
'Thornton Park Times' (Thornton Park was the name of our farm). We
covered hard-hitting stories like 'Did we really eat Mary for tea last
night?' and 'Tank the hero cat kills two snakes'.
I enjoyed creative writing during my school
years, but when I left school I got a job in the bank and all my jobs
from then on were working with numbers instead of words. Eight years
after I finished school I went on a holiday to Cairns and fell in love
with the tropics. I've been here ever since.
I married a wonderful man and had three beautiful,
noisy, messy and funny boys. That's when I decided I wanted a career
change. My first choice was Astronaut, but it's really hard to pack
school lunches in space - the food floats all over the place! And the
boys' school doesn't have a launch pad. (And so far NASA have ignored
my job applications) Then I thought 'Gee, I'd love to be a Wimbledon
champion', but I have a
problem with the net. No net, no problem. I checked with the Wimbledon
people and they insisted that the net was an important part of tennis.
Cross that off the list. OK, what about Olympic swimmer, I thought.
But the Olympic committee won't let bombing be an olympic sport. Spoil
sports!
So that's when I came back to writing, and since the boys loved the
stories I made up for them I decided to give children's writing a go.
And I'm glad I did, it turns out it's the best job for me after all.
So there you go, that's my life so far. It may
not be the most extraordinary life ever lived, but I have done some
things that were pretty exciting. Check out the photos below.
Of
course you can't live right next to the Great Barrier Reef without
seeing it up close. I was keeping an eye out for sharks.
I
went white water rafting with my sister and one of our cousins while
they were visiting me in Cairns. Our cousin got knocked out of the
raft
by a stray paddle, she wasn't hurt but it was funny, mainly because it
didn't happen to me!
If this photo was bigger you would
be able to see the look of terror on my face! The greatest thing
about bungy jumping - possibly the only great thing about bungy
jumping - is finishing.
And even though I don't have a
photo of it, I did also take some flying lessons. Not enough to get my
pilot's licence, but if I was ever on a plane and the pilot suffered a
heart attack, I'm confident I could jump into the pilot's seat, quickly
scan the instruments, then scream just as hysterically as the rest of the
passengers!
Click
on the wardrobe to discover my deepest secrets!
