Jamie Olivers Place?

Dear Keithie

One of the things I LOVE about London is that it’s groaning with the rich and famous.

After our recent sighting of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in the Selfridges café Annabel and I decided to do a recce of the fancy parts of London to see who else we could spot (for the record Keithie the Wests are boring; they just sat there looking ordinary and talking like your lot at the RSL on a Friday night. I say: if you’re a celebrity and you’re out and about the least you could do is stage an argument, don’t you reckon?)

We went to Primrose Hill because we heard that Jamie Oliver lived there. The place was overrun with wannabes but one of the locals said he lived in the yellow terrace in this picture. We went right up to the gate and someone who looked like Jools Oliver came to the window and, blow me down, she waved at us. Then we were told that we had the wrong yellow house so we went to another one in the next block and the same thing happened – you can’t say the locals don’t make you feel welcome!

We wandered back up to Regents Park Rd and warmed up with a steaming hot chocolate (it was four degrees) at Sweet Things then we hiked into town to see to Buck Palace (that’s how the locals refer to Her Majesty’s residence Keithie) in case bad boy Harry was in the mood to make an appearance but we couldn’t get near the joint. There were bloody tourists everywhere and a giant wall with barbed wire all the way round.

We called into Waitrose (like Coles but snootier) on the way home to get some supplies for tea and that’s where I discovered Prince Charlie’s organic food brand: Duchy Originals. I decided to test out his ingredients using your mother’s shepherd’s pie recipe and I tell you Keithie: it wasn’t half bad. His carrots taste like they’ve just been pulled from your garden; his potatoes mash smooth and full and crisp up in the oven like our Tassie Pink Eyes and his spicy onion encourages the natural flavours in the lamb mince. Now there’s a toff you can respect; every cent I spent on his produce goes to charity.

Speaking of lamb’s Keithie, how’s our brat? I heard she broke into your neighbours and devoured their rose bushes – I hope that wasn’t your fault…you know how naughty she is when she doesn’t get her treats!

More next week. 

Love Dyranda

PS. The shepherd’s pie made me miss you…but only for a minute!

Dear Keithie

Remember when I was in New York and that idiot Abbott told the Americans “shit happens” as they were mourning the loss of their troops in Afghanistan? And remember all the shit my classmates dumped on me week after week just because I was Australian? Well, it’s Groundhog Day. The bastard did it again only this time he insulted British royalty knighting one of their most recognised princes for contributing to Australia – whatever that means! And now Aussies are the laughing stock in the UK.

Anyhow, Annabel suggested I lie low in France, which is a pretty amazing place even without Charlie Hebdo (by the way, did you get my message to spray paint our lamb: “Je suis Charlie” on the day all the world leaders marched in the anti terror rally?)

We flew into Paris and went straight to the stunning River Seine. You can easily spend a week traversing the left then the right banks of the river and still you won’t have seen all the museums (don’t worry Keithie none of them come close to our Mona), art galleries, world class couture or ubiquitous cafes where they provide ashtrays for smokers and, I kid you not, let diners perch their dogs on their laps while they eat! Annabel and I thought it was a scream but the guy next to the pet in this photo, an American, was unimpressed.

We took a cab to Sorbonne to visit an old pal of Annabel’s who went from Hobart to Paris for a gander 34-years ago, met the love of his life (an adorable florist…not your type Keithie) and now works at the uni translating Australian texts into French – nice life eh?

Anyway, Annabel warned me that Jezza only cooks one dish so I wasn’t surprised when he dished up leek and potato quiche, which was nice but the kicker was desert: a traditional French Xmas galette de rois usually served at the Epiphany (bit late but we didn’t care). What I loved Keithie is the tradition around the galette, which is prepared and cooked with a figurine embedded in the sticky almond sauce. The youngest person in the room (in this case me) has to crawl under the table (we never found out why this is but I did us proud dropping to my hands and knees like a robust Tassie gal) weave through the sets of legs to the other side and allocate a slice to each diner. The one who crunches down on the figurine is pronounced King or Queen for that day. The French take it very seriously and I felt strangely relived that the thing didn’t turn up in either my or Annabel’s slice.

By the way Keithie, the galette isn’t a patch on your mothers mulberry pie.  

More next week.

Love Dyranda

Calling Keithie in Hanover Square

Dear Keithie

Sheesh! It’s cold in London. And they reckon they’re having a mild winter. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about my once in a lifetime opportunity to see Europe but you can’t ignore the English weather: its shit! Every morning after the ‘sun comes up’ (English code for: ‘…when it gets light’.) I check my weather app to see if there is actually going to be any sun. You have to scroll through most of the day to get to the little sunshine icon, which fills your heart with joy until you come to the next icon: dusk! I kid you not Keithie this time of year it’s normal to get just one hour of sun, if that, each day.

This photo of me calling you from a cute London phone box in Hanover Square, was taken at 4pm yesterday – no sun! But a great shopping day Keithie! In the UK sale means sale. You get seriously good deals and each day of the sale the prices come down a little ore until all the stock is gone.  

I got some stunning deals on some amazing brands although not without a little pain. The bloody English have got weird names for things. Pants are pants, right Keithie? Not here they’re not. They call pants trousers and if you ask for a pair of pants in your size the shop assistant goes beetroot red and looks the other way. Why? Because pants in London is undies! Luckily I had our friend Annabel with me who translated: flip flops are thongs; a lolly is an ice block; a sweetie is lollie and a jolly is a junket – the latter is meaningless to Aussies Keithie since Abbott has taken away any incentives to entice the average hard working Aussie to help the country get ahead.

But let’s not go there Keithie cos the sun just came out and Annabel is taking me and my new walking boots (with a thick enough sole to keep the ice from freezing my toes off) to Kenwood House one of the many stately homes in the mother country!

More next week. For now, give that lamb a head rub for me and tell her she was lucky to be born with a warm, insulated merino coat.

Love Dyranda 

PS. Happy New Year!

Dear Keithie

These American writing teachers, they expect a lot from a little ole gal from Swansea! I’m on to my 10^th draft of Louie’s children’s story and still its not good enough.

The problem is these highfalutin lessons we have about how to write well; which I thought I already did cos, if you recall, I had to turn in samples of my stories to get in to the course. So, if I couldn’t already write well, why did they offer me a place? Anyway, or anyways as they say over here, yesterdays class was all about…wait for it: the physicality of the sequence – are you bored Keithie? Spare a thought for me I had to sit through two hours of it.

What it means is that when you write a sentence like: “He collapsed to the floor and dropped his chalk.” You have to make sure that in real life that’s how the event would happen. In this case the sequence in the sentence doesn’t work because ‘he’ would have to collapse to the ground and then, after he was splayed out, presumably unconscious, he would have to lift his hand and drop his chalk. So to be correct the sentence has to go: “He dropped his chalk and collapsed to the ground.” Personally, Keithie, I’m good with either sentence…I mean, I get it, and so would everyone in Swansea. Right? But over here they get all bent out of shape if you don’t get all the words in the right order and since I want to get Louie’s book published I’ve decided to do it their way. I know you’ll agree.

So, my head was swimming but that Sandra, Keithie, she turned everything around. She’s such a gem…the kind of friend every girl needs. I don’t have to make any decisions or lift a finger. Sandra scouts about while I’m in class, finding out what’s going on in New York. Then she figures out how to get from A to B, organises the tickets and, in this case, packed a picnic for and evening of Symphony in Central Park.

It was really cool Keithie and not unlike the Symphony in the Domain I went to with Kel and Jimmy and the girls last January in Sydney. But the difference is the people. In this picture Sandra and I had just arrived and we’d found this spot in between those people sitting behind Sandra (that’s downtown New York in the background by the way) and we set out our rug and got out our picnic – I got us French champagne cos is soooo cheap over here; everything is – and two hours later, when the show began there wasn’t a patch of grass in sight. These New Yorkers are expert at packing themselves in like sardines. But nobody seemed bothered about the lack of personal space. So Sandra and I decided that when you’re in Rome you should do as the Romans do and neither of us stared a fight. You would have been proud, Keithie. We were serenity personified…so was the New York Philharmonic especially when they played Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet – you would have loved it you old softie.

By the way, Brucie wrote and told me you’d been laid up with the flu. I wrote back and said there was nothing wrong with you; it was just an excuse to see Dr Camilla…you can’t pull the wool over my eyes old boy! But I hope you’re feeling better.

Until next week. 

Love Dyranda

Sandra at the Mets home ground.

Dear Keithie

Sandra got us the most amazing seats at the New York Met’s home ground where we ate hot dogs with ketchup and mustard and drank Buds (not as good as Boags but at least the beer was cold) while the home team wiped the floor with the Miami Marlins: 1-9.

Ball games in America are quite a spectacle. And much more fun than the pie with sauce and stubbie affair at a regular Aussie footie match – although, if I had to choose between the Sydney Swans and the New York Yankees I think I’d have to go the Swanies if I wanted to avoid a lynching for being unpatriotic.

But seriously Keithie, this game was over the fence, as you would say. There’s so much going on during play that you could be forgiven for forgetting a match was in progress. For example: the game starts and Sandra and I get right into it; neither of us knows much about baseball but we’re seriously impressed by the speed of the ball and the way the fielders catch every single strike, and the cat and mouse game the guy on first base (where you MUST keep a foot on the base at all times) plays with the pitcher who twists his torso, lifts his leg ready to roll forward into the pitch then in a split second backs up and hurls the ball at first base as the player, who was edging toward second base, scrambles back to safety. Then, while all this action is taking place on the pitch, there’s suddenly a kerfuffle among the spectators. No one’s watching the game anymore everyone’s drooling over “Pin Man” who has just showed up. Who’s Pin Man? Good question. It turns out he’s just a regular guy who comes to all the Met’s matches wearing his Met’s shirt all covered in souvenir Met’s pins. Wow! Big deal…well, it is to American Met’s fans.

As we turn back to the game, the teams are swapping sides and in the 90-seconds it takes for the Marlin’s to come in and the Met’s to go out, and the pitcher to toss a few warm-up throws to the catcher, and the batter to approach the diamond, commercial America lets rip: on the big screen TV presenters, who are embedded amongst the huge crowd, expose those ‘special’ folk hiding high up in bleachers waiting for their 15 minutes (or in this case, seconds) of fame. Our favourite was the 95 year old war veteran who could barely lift his hand to wave and nearly suffocated when the Met’s mascot, cartoon character Mrs Met, kissed then presented him with some free game tickets as the crowd cheered madly – at least they didn’t give him a free set of steak knives.

Meanwhile on the pitch the batters seemed to be hitting fouls let right and centre but mostly straight into the crowd, which went ballistic trying to catch the ball that could, in 100 years time, be worth millions especially if the Met who slugged it winds up infamous, at a later date, on account of his involvement in some sordid crime involving prostitutes, Russian gangsters, drugs and corrupt judges. I mean, lets face it Keithie; life throws us curve balls and we might as well catch ‘em cause you just never know where they might lead. Sandra got into a yarn with one of the attendants who said her cousin takes his boat out onto the water every San Francisco Giant’s game and makes his dog swim for the home run balls. I think he’s got a room full of balls – the dog that is!

Anyway Keithie, I thought of you when the big screen cut to live images of unsuspecting couples and framed them in a red heart shape. You have to be watching the screen and if you see yourselves you have to kiss to get a prize and a cheer from the crowd. If you had’ve been there Keithie, and they put our picture up I would have slapped you across the face; show ‘em how Aussies do romance. But Sandra says she would have kissed you. Lucky you!

I got you a New York Mets shirt. Sandra said she’d post it to you when she gets back to Sydney…don’t look too hard for the kisses or you’ll be dealing with Sandra’s husband!

Until next week.

Dyranda

Sandra, a speck, and Liberty!

Dear Keithie

This weekend, all across America, everyone wishes you a happy Independence Day – especially the guy at the bottle shop when I bought half a dozen bottles of French chardie for a party on Saturday night. No idea if it was any good but they don’t stock Julian’s wine over here (you need to get on to him about that Keithie cause American wines are shite) so I picked the next best thing: French.

My friend Sandra arrived the day before yesterday – you remember Sandra Keithie? She lives with her hubby in Canberra and you met her when we went to Parliament House to see Juilia. Sandra brought me a jar of Vegemite, which I was deliriously happy about. “What kind of unpatriotic Aussie leaves her vegemite behind?” I hear you say…fair enough too. It’s been great having Sandra here because I’ve finally got someone to do tourist stuff with, which I can’t do with my classmates cause they’re either Chinese or Korean and killing themselves studying, or European and don’t think American has anything they can’t upstage, or American and they’ve seen it all before.

We took the subway downtown to Battery Park and rode the ferry across to Liberty Island where the Statue has welcomed America’s immigrants since 1886. But Keithie, she is something to behold. As the boat got nearer and nearer she got bigger and bigger and more and more majestic. When we docked they gave us an audio tour: a digital recording so you can learn all but Liberty as you walk. Sandra and I went inside the statute and walked up hundreds of stairs to the pedestal, a seriously narrow balcony that circles the base of Liberty: basically when you look up, you’re looking up her skirt!

What’s really amazing is that from the outside she looks like a lump of solid steel but she’s hollow inside: a mesh shell with squares of copper glued on; but it must be seriously strong glue cause she survived Hurricane Sandy which ripped apart most of New York in 2012. On the way back to Manhattan Island we called in at the Ellis Island Immigration Centre – we call them detention centres in Australia because we punish people who come by boat whereas America built this place to welcome immigrants. They still had to be processed and the news wasn’t always good for every new arrival - America didn’t want folk who couldn’t work (which I don’t have a problem with, we’ve all got to make our way in this world) – so some got sent back but most folk stayed and made America what it is today. In the audio tour many immigrants tell of arriving in New York Harbour after a gruelling time at sea and never forgetting the symbol of hope that the Statue of Liberty instilled in their hearts as they sailed into freedom.

The last thing we did was visit Ground Zero. Keithie, the memorial is something else. The news media did not do it justice by reporting all the controversy when, in fact, it is nothing more than deeply moving piece of art that keeps the memories of those who died on 9/11 alive with an appropriate balance of respect and dignity. I found the name of the Australian woman, Yvonne Kennedy, who had died on flight 77, the one that ploughed into the Pentagon. She’d dedicated her life to the Australian Red Cross so it seemed fitting in a funny sort of way, that she should end her days in an event that would signal a turning point in the world.

Until next week

Love Dyranda

Brooklyn Markets

Dear Keithie

Brooklyn is seriously cool! Yesterday me and few of my friends from school took the subway to the flea market: Smorgasburg, on the Williamsburg waterfront at East River State Park in Brooklyn. The entire market features the best of New York foods and includes everything from lobster to buffalo wings to hot dogs to iced tea and ice cream…there’s literally hundreds of stores where you can sample pretty much anything your taste buds desire.

The subway ride took about an hour and 15 minutes: we rode the number 1 train from West 110^th to 96^th Street, then switched to the number 3 train and got off at Times Square, where we took the Q train to Coney Island and then switched to the J train which took us to Brooklyn. The whole trip was underground and there was a fair bit of walking through different tunnels to get from platform to platform. But, like Sydney’s Central Station there’s masses of people and loads of buskers and, unlike Central, everything is well sign posted.

The real reason we’d all decided to visit Brooklyn was because the whole of New York is raving about the Ramen Burger. And when we arrived at the market the whole of New York was in the queue for a Ramen Burger. But we joined the line and 45 minutes later had our burgers. I know it must be hard for you to imagine me, Dyranda, patiently queuing up but its part of the culture here and everyone does it. Think of it like this Keithie: the equivalent of the entire population of Australia is squished on to this one little island which makes patience less a virtue and more a survival mechanism – I like lining up! 

Ramen is noodles and for the burger the noodles have been compacted in the shape of a hamburger bun, then grilled both sides. In between is a regular beef patty, a slice of cheese, some shallots, arugula and the “secret shoyu” sauce, which tastes a bit like the sauce on Teriyaki chicken wings. It was definitely worth the visit: the creators of this little morsel got all the flavours balanced just right. We were all in heaven…but Keithie, just between you and me; my homemade burgers are better!

I’m staying in today and trying to do some study. You know? The thing I came here to do? My story is coming along nicely but its massively different to the one I wrote about Louie a few years ago. First off, your character has been dropped and so has mine! It’s all about the sheep and the kid now. Cutting my story was hard Keithie; I don’t think those teachers have any idea how long it took me to write it but we had a lesson about killing your darlings (darlings being the bits of your story you are most attached to) and I could see how my favourite bits might not be the thing the reader is after. So, I killed the bastards off!

I see Tony Abbot’s still the Prime Minister. After his visit here a few weeks back all the ex pat Aussies developed American accents overnight – he so embarrassed us! See what you can do to get rid of him before I come home. OK?

Love Dyranda

Central Park NYC

Dear Keithie

Do you remember when we watched Die Hard with a Vengeance, with Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson? It was when Louie was still a baby; we had to keep stopping the movie because she’d yell her head off every time Bruce Willis yelled his head off which, in this movie, was a lot. But remember the scene when Bruce Willis drove the yellow cab through Central Park? Well I reckon they did drive straight through Central Park, as opposed to filming the scene in some Hollywood backlot, because everything about the place is true to the movie. Not like our Freycinet National Park, which is sometimes hard to recognise for all  the post production touching up of its natural beauty.

Central Park New York is a like a world within a world and within that there’s a bucket load of other worlds as well. On the face of it though there’s the joggers, the cyclists the walkers, the rollerbladers, the sunbakers, the buskers, the vendors and then all those weirdos doing stuff that I dunno how to describe. You couldn’t say that everyone got along but they’ve reached some kind of silent agreement that seems to work. The main pathway is Central Park Drive – they must have been up all night thinking up that one – which is where most of the action takes place.

I walked down from Broadway at 110^th and entered the park uptown, as they say, at Douglas Circle. You have to navigate onto Central Park Drive with great skill because no one stops or slows down for you: wheelchairs, prams, folk with walking canes, they’re all over you if you can’t get your shit together and keep step with the human flow. I was glad to have mastered the everyday traffic culture before I visited Central park. In NYC traffic and pedestrians have an interesting relationship, kind of like those couples we know who fight all the time and turn on you if you suggest they may be happier apart. Anyway, the traffic lights and pedestrian crossings are synchronized, so the “walk” signal flashes whether anyone’s waiting to cross or not. But regardless, pedestrians routinely wander into the traffic and agitate to get across the street: they step out, then back up, then step out again and sometimes keep walking into to oncoming traffic where upon the vehicle sounds its horn and slows down, going out of its way to keep a healthy distance, but still honking its horn. At first I thought all the horn honking was road rage, like in Australia. But it’s not. It’s because almost everyone is wearing headphones, or texting or reading as they walk and the fact that they might die enjoying these pastimes seems to have no bearing on their behaviour.

Anyway Keithie, you know what they say: if you can’t beat em, join em. Every day now, when I leave my building, I stand on the bottom step and glance right then left then right again all the while calculating the possibility of collision and deciding who will come off best. When the equation is in my favour I step onto the sidewalk and fall in with the flow. One thing you never do, once committed, is change your mind…you’ll get dissed to hell!

Culture aside, Central Park is stunning Keithie. It really is a wonderland. As I did the circuit I kept seeing scenes from all those movies you and I used to watch after dinner on Swansea’s chilly, winter evenings. It really is quite magical. It made me miss you and Louie…but not enough to come home!

Love Dyranda

Apple’s 24/7 store, Fifth Ave

Dear Keithie

I couldn’t help thinking of you today when I went to Westside Markets on 112^th and found “Wallaby” yoghurt imported all the way from Australia! I cracked up Keithie…fell about laughing there and then, which you’d think twice about doing in Swansea since the town would have you committed on the spot. Like I said in my last letter, in New York anything goes: I could’ve gone into cardiac arrest and nobody would have paid me the slightest heed. Anyhow, at Westside Wallaby yoghurt comes in vanilla, banana, black cherry, key lime, lemon, maple, blueberry, orange, passion fruit, peach, raspberry and strawberry and its got a picture of a wallaby on the carton! I got the vanilla and a huge bag of fresh blueberries for $4.

After breakfast I conquered the subway, which is easy, you just have to read the prompts on the ticket vending machines and that’s entirely doable if you don’t have queues of hurried New Yorkers dissing you under their breath. I got really flustered and in the end this dude with baggy pants, Nike runners, a Yankees cap and some tattoos took pity on me showed me how to top up my Metro Card and get through the turnstile.

On the platform I almost took the train to the Bronx on account of entering the subway from the uptown side of Broadway rather than the downtown side. The trouble with uptown and downtown is that everything is flat so it’s not like you go up the hill or down the hill. Sometimes living in New York is like math: you just have to learn it. At least in Swansea you’re never in the dark: you’re either in town with the shops, cafes and restaurants or out of town with the the pastures and sheep.

The subway ride was something else. They’re shocking bloody drivers Keithie! I wondered why, when a mother with a stroller or pregnant woman or an oldie climbed aboard, people fell over themselves to offer up their seats. But when the driver hits the gas you better be holding on brother! It’s the same when approaching the station; instead of slowing to a gentle halt the driver slams on the anchors and the tourists go flying while the locals sit pretty! I think it’s a secret NY sport?

Anyway, my train screamed through 103^rd St, then 96^th St, then 86^th St, 72^nd and then at 66^th there was a sign saying Lincoln Centre and I got really excited because my stop, Columbus Circle, was next. That app we downloaded into my phone, HopStop (you can’t get around NY without it), said to exit at Central Park West but I just went with everyone else and outside I found myself in a massive roundabout: biggest I’ve ever seen, which is probably why I should’ve looked for the Central Park West exit. Anyway, I circled it twice – I didn’t mind, there was plenty to see – before I found West 59^th Street. About 10-minutes along I hit Fifth Avenue: Woo hoo! This is where it’s at Keithie

I was worried I wouldn’t find my destination but blind Freddy couldn’t miss the Apple Store, not because of the giant apple out front but all the tourists photographing the thing. Inside, there were throngs of people, crawling like ants over the products and as many Apple sales reps eager to help you stay connected. The trouble was, I only needed a new cover for my iPhone. My classmates thought I was nuts traipsing all the way downtown and thrashing through the mass of humanity when I could’ve picked up one from any of the hundreds of drug stores on the Upper West Side at a fraction of the price. But just between you and me Keithie: I was desperate for an excuse to say I’d bought something from the world famous Fifth Ave Apple Store. I’ve got no regrets.

How’s that lamb? Is she behaving herself? Remember to keep an eye on that arthritic leg of hers…with the winter setting in she’ll need to slow down…unless you want to be driving her, kicking and screaming, back down to Dr Crook!

Love Dyranda

My Lamb Louie

Dear Keithie

You need to congratulate me for surviving my first week of class. Why? Because being back at school is hard bloody yakka mate!

First off, New Yorkers are full on into this workshop method of learning where everyone writes a story and emails it to everyone else in the class to read before the next class. Then in class, you, the author, have to sit in a cone of silence while the whole damn class tells you what’s wrong with your story.

Where’s the teacher you ask? Egging them on is where Keithie! It’s over the fence, as you’d say. But that’s not all: you know that children’s story I wrote about how we saved Louie’s life and built her a house? Well, I have to rewrite the entire thing! It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it but by the end of the week I couldn’t see much right with it either.

Have I got you all fired up? Well you can unload your rifle and put it back in the gun safe. Believe it or not, I think my comrades have got a point.

The teacher says (and he should know he’s published tonnes of books): if you write a story for children you have to understand that kids are powerless and everything that happens in the story has to come down to getting recognition for the kid. You can’t preach or teach, they get that all day everyday from their parents. But get this Keithie: scaring kids is OK. They crave the dark side.

So, I’ve been thinking about a new plot. Do you recall when we asked our friends and their friends to read my book to their kids and tell us how they reacted? And remember that three-year-old, Rupert, whose grandmother said that if Louie had an Uzi submachine gun, rather than a cubby house, he might have stayed with the story? Well, I think the kid might have been on to something, I just can’t figure out how to use the gun to scare kids; its more likely to get the parents all bent out of shape, with guns being so evil and all. And then there’s the problem of Swansea kids, who’ve grown up with guns on their properties, being completely bored at the prospect. But I’ll think on it, I’m sure I can come up with something.

The weather gets warmer every day and I can’t believe I packed a windcheater and four pullovers! What the hell was I thinking? I found a pool near my apartment block in the next suburb, Morningside Heights. I plunged into the cool clean water and I pounded up the lane and wondered why the dude I was sharing it with glared at me. I put it down to how uptight New Yorkers are until I pounded back down the lane and almost smacked into him. Turns out I was ‘driving on the wrong side’, so to speak! They do everything opposite here, Keithie. Anyway, I said sorry and he said: “That’s OK since you’re from England I’ll let you off.”

The thing is Keithie, Australia just isn’t on New York’s radar – our politicians carry on about how we punch above our weight but I’m not so sure. Anyhow, I was feeling a bit invisible and I turned on the telly and there in prime time is our very own Tony Abbott getting done over by the Yanks. I tell you Keithe, it made my day. So I decided that as long as we insist on letting an idiot run our country I couldn’t be happier being an Englishwoman!

Love Dyranda 

PS. Give Louie a head scratch for me and tell her she’ll still be the star of the book even if the kid gets all the recognition.