Sunday Blog 253 – 4th October 2026 A quote from my latest read. I thought of my neighbour whose beloved husband was snatched away within months of a pancreatic cancer diagnosis. I read it out today as we gathered to farewell him at one of his favourite places to bush walk at one of the …
Author Archives: pipbrennan
Collective effervescence and heartbreak
Sunday Blog 252 – 27th September 2026 I had thought collective effervescence was a term coined by Brene Brown, mais non. It was the French sociologist Émile Durkheim who created the expression to articulate the shared experience of religious worshop. Brene has enlarged its use to encompass the feeling we get in a crowd, say …
10,000 Joys, 10,000 Sorrows
Sunday Blog 251 – 20 September 2026 After Saturday morning yoga, I sat having a coffee with my teacher and we got to talking about cancer, and the concept of the “cancer personality” Gabor Mate explores in his book When The Body Says No. In extreme summary, his research revealed that cancer can often afflict …
All Aboard the Memory Train
Sunday Blog 250 – 13th September 2026 This week, my four sisters went up to Kalgoorlie on a reminiscence tour. We lived there from 1965 to 1968. I had planned to go as well, but a last-minute change in work commitments meant I had to stay home, Cinderella-like, sweeping up the workplace hearth cinders while …
Unlikely outdoor type
Sunday Blog 249 – 6th September 2026 Hidden in last week’s Sunday Blog where I dramatised my Kitty’s Gorge walk was another kernel of a blog that I started but didn’t finish. It was about my own long Road to Damascus style conversion to becoming someone who not only does exercise, but enjoys it. I’m …
The Dear School of Experience
Sunday Blog 248 – 30th August 2026 “It’ll seem much quicker on the way back,” darling husband reassured me. Here I was again, hoisted on my own petard of faulty memory, thinking that this time I could add in a new activity for us to do together. Having regular beach walks, going to the movies, …
Reflections on travel
Sunday Blog 247 – 23 August 2026 For a while, a week at least, my body still imagines how I’ll walk through my sixth-floor Paris apartment for my nightly toilet stop; return to my low-slung bed with its blackout screen on the dormer window in the attic roof. How in the morning, I’ll slip a …
The Mill France
Sunday Blog 246 – 16th August 2026 And now to the meat of my French trip; the writing retreat. You may perhaps recall my unsuccessful French writing retreat experience in September 2025, when I bolted 48 hours into a nine night stay. With bare-faced lies about an invented family emergency, I managed to get a …
Paris (again) and Rouen
Sunday Blog 245 – 9th August 2026 I’ve been back in Perth since Wednesday 5th August. But I will continue to wallow in photos, and plunge myself back into the sights, sounds and smells of my French Extravaganza. Sunday Blog-wise, I’m still only up to Saturday 18th July on the trip, when I boarded the …
Bordeaux Love Note
Sunday Blog 244 – 2nd August 2026 As I cling to the last days of my fabulous five weeks in France, I’m eking out the travel blogs, still several weeks behind reality. You can expect more after my return to wintry Perth, as I savour holiday moments like macaroons. On Friday 10th July when I …