Birthdays are beautiful ways to celebrate life and love. This year was my first Facebook birthday, which added an exciting new dimension to the many “joyeux anniversaire’’ cards, telephone calls, flowers, kisses, hugs and les cadeaux (the gifts) I received. There in my email box was a long string of more than 30 […]
birthdays are beautiful
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The Cancer odds of 1 in 2 hits our home
Life has dumped a heap of dirt on us again with Olivier spending another 10 days in hospital with unmanageable pain. The hormone treatment has failed to hold his advanced prostate cancer, which has now moved into his bone marrow and blood. It is a terrifying time as his oncologist delivers this grave news on […]
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Julie’s cancer Journey
By Julie House July 2011 When I was diagnosed with bowel cancer in January this year, I was 53 years old and terrified. Insulted too. I had been practising yoga for years and considered myself fit and healthy. Why did I have cancer? My diet hadn’t always been optimal, stress levels had been difficult for […]
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Philipa’s Dream Wedding in Tonga
Philipa Charlesworth had been married too many times beforehand to ever be a Bridezilla when she married her fifth husband Bruce Pattullo on an idyllic beach in Tonga. “Because I have had many weddings I had an enlightening moment on the day of my wedding when I thought “This is wonderful…I have never married when […]
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Suzanne shines at her first art show
Much-travelled emerging artist, Suzanne Tilley selected a fitting venue for her first solo Art Exhibition within the SALA festival, which opened Friday, August 19. Suzy has travelled far and wide with her husband John over past years through Hoffmanns Travel, so naturally the Glenelg agency was happy to allow her exhibition space at their offices. […]
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Family bearing food creates fun times
Food, glorious food is fundamental to the French people’s expression of family life and never was this expressed more warmly than when husband Olivier’s adult children and their partners visited bearing gifts of food. French-born Patricia brought her own home-made Les Recettes beef soup as well as a renowned French dessert – Clafouti, a baked […]
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Gracious hosts, glorious food & Grange:
Surprises are such fun and doubly so when an outstanding event is planned and orchestrated by your children to show their love and to say “thankyou’’ for being good parents. Such was our joy when we dined on a superb five-course dinner with our children in their home and drank together the best Australian wine […]
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Sweet Peas, Pearls, Stories and Style
Congratulations to the indominable Maria Kenda, AM, who gathered together an impressive group of renowned women to relaunch the Adelaide Ladies Lunch Club at the Naval, Military &Air Force Club of South Australia (Inc.) this week. Maria launched the club in the 1980s and due to the success of her jewellery design business, Kendacraft, it […]
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Frilly flower symbolises hope for cancer cure
They have elegant fluted blooms and are known for their vibrant yellow colour, although daffodils come in many shapes and shades of yellow and cream. I am thinking, though, of Daffodil Day and how it focuses our thoughts on cancer and our universal hope for a cure. Cancer is indeed the scourge of contemporary society […]
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Moving Home
Packing boxes are scattered around our island home once more as we begin to pull up roots after living on Hindmarsh Island for a year. It has been such an exciting sojourn living the sea-change leisure lifestyle on the River Murray, so close to the laconic historic River Port of Goolwa. But like migratory birds […]
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Sweet memories are made of this…
We have escaped to delightful Stanley Cottage for the weekend in Stanley Street North Adelaide to celebrate the pivotal moment when Olivier first invited me to Belair for dinner eight years ago. In my memoir From France with Love I described that night, the first Saturday in December, 2003. Olivier was a new widower, having […]
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joyful xmas
What a wonderful, peaceful, joyful Christmas we have shared with our two families in our new home. Love flowed around our celebrations like sparkling rose and we have survived the mayhem of three generations together with good cheer and red wine. However, the “peace” of Christmas is yet to befall me because I have cooked […]
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Rillettes De Porc
Method Olivier’s claim to fame in the kitchen is home-made pork rillettes, which is easy to make, keeps well and can be made in big quantities for a crowd. For 1 kg of boneless pork belly (with plenty of fat) you will need ½ kg of back pork fat. Most butchers will remove the rind […]
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Meryl is magnificent as Margaret
There are a few good reasons to brace oneself for the reality of old age by viewing The Iron Lady, about the life of Margaret Thatcher, one of the greatest women leaders of the 20th century. Firstly, the film is a toast to feminism as the headline from The Spectator in London says “Truth is, […]
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Enter Giulia, Exit Loulou
The year in France had its moment of joy with the birth of Giulia Sarkozy, daughter of one-time supermodel Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, 43, and the French president, Nicholas Sarkozy. (Hands up those who thought the marriage wouldn’t last). Mr Sarkozy didn’t make the birth because of an urgent meeting in Frankfurt to try to stitch up […]
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A French Favourite Starter – pork
Rillettes De Porc Method Olivier’s claim to fame in the kitchen is home-made pork rillettes, which is easy to make, keeps well and can be made in big quantities for a crowd. For 1 kg of boneless pork belly (with plenty of fat) you will need ½ kg of back pork fat. Most butchers […]
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On Interior Style
On Style: A new home is like a blank canvas waiting for the first brush of the artist’s stroke – it’s a unique opportunity to express one’s personal interior style. I have never been minimalist – a nice way of saying I have always lived with clutter and Olivier has been the same, so creating […]
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November Heralds Dramatic News
Three months absent from my website signifies some dramatic events in our lives. That short space of time, though, has ensured that things for husband Olivier and myself are going to be vastly different from how we imagined our retirement life together would be. There’s a good reason for the adage that moving is as […]
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Snippet from Sweden
Thought I would share an email we received for New Year from former Adelaide celeb, Heather Caddick, now living in Sweden. She had a travel article on her first Swedish Christmas published in The Australian last weekend, and she is happy for me to share her wonderful email. “Dear Nadine and Oliver, Sending you best […]
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Home Grown Glory
Anyone who has visited French artist Monet’s garden in Giverny will know its beauty and why the great master considered his garden his greatest creative art and painted it so much. Our new garden is also a living work of art and is beginning to flower to create a soft delicate space. The gerberas, lilium, […]
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