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Versatile Blogger Award

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 versatileblogger113I am honoured to have received a nomination for the Versatile Blogger Award from the generous Lisa Rieter.  Thank you, Lisa. Variety, novelty and learning are my passions, so this award is very special. I’m excited to pass it onto some fantastic bloggers who have posts to suit my mood whenever I browse their blogs. I was delighted to find WordPress actually run a site for this award, to provide a central locale for the winners and maintain the rules.

The rules are:
  1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.versatile-blogger
  2. Include a link to their blog.
  3. Next, select 15 excellent blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly.
  4. Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award – include a link to this site.
  5. Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.

When you consider nominating a fellow blogger for the Versatile Blogger Award, consider the quality of the writing, the uniqueness of the subjects covered, the level of love displayed in the words on the virtual page. Or, of course, the quality of the photographs and the level of love.

 

Please take some time to visit these great blogs read around them – I promise you there’s something for everyone on all of them!

versatile-blogger-award-trophy[1]

Louise Allan – ‘Life from the attic’ at louise-allan.com

Dawn Barker at authordawnbarker.com

Andrew Burke  at hispirits.blogspot.com

Emma Chapman at emmajchapman.blogspot.com.au

Amanda Curtin at amandacurtin.comI

Iris Lavell at booklengthproject.blogspot.com

Natasha Lester

Glennys Marsdon at theponderroom.com

Angela Myer at literaryminded.com.au

Annabel Smith at annabelsmith.tumblr.com

Dianne Touchell at diannetouchell.blogspot.com.au

Irene Waters at irenewaters19.com

Marisa Wikramanayake at marisa.com.au

Charlotte Woods at howtoshuckanoyster.com

 

FINALLY, HERE ARE SEVEN THINGS ABOUT ME:

  1. I always wanted to be a writer, but my first book, Other People’s Country, was not published until I was 70 years old.
  2. My husband and I eloped the year before my book was published. Eloping saved the hassles of explaining to our combined children (nine of them) and deciding which of our granddaughters would be flower girls.
  3. My first trip to Europe was to France for our honeymoon, and I’ve been back three more times. I can’t get enough of the country and the culture.
  4.  This week I’m in Dowerin, a tiny country town in the Eastern Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, where I’m ‘minding’ the Dowerin Bed and Breakfast for my sister while she’s in Bali. Today, I cooked and served breakfast for five people by 6.15 a.m.
  5. I started my blog six months ago, and after a few weeks of not knowing what I was doing, now love the process. I am delighted to have been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award.
  6. My garden occupies much of my attention. I’m passionate about my orchids, and slightly in love with my Pierre du Ronsard rose.
  7. I expect the phone will ring any moment and my daughter will tell me that my second great grandchild has been born; then I will drive to Perth to greet him or her.

 

Welcome!

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Limoges - off to the shop - CopyCelebrating age

In recent years, I’ve enjoyed my first ride in a helicopter, learned to sail a yacht and spent a weekend helping in the sheep yards on a farm during shearing. At sixty-five,  I went back to university as a full-time student; another year, I published my first book, a memoir, Other People’s Country. At seventy, my best friend and I escaped from our respective families. We married in secret in a very lovely ceremony, and then honeymooned in Paris – my first trip to Europe.

This year, after a shaky start, I’m blogging.

A search for blogs about ‘ageing’, ‘old age’ and ‘growing older’ turned up sites devoted to residential aged care, dementia, incontinence and depression. It also found sites devoted to research into some of the more dismal aspects of old age. I know a bit about all of those through my work as a nurse in aged care facilities. As well as that, before my retirement from full-time work, I was the chief executive officer in a non-government agency that advocates for people who live in residential aged care, as well as those in danger from elder abuse.

There is another, better narrative about growing older. People in their late sixties and seventies are often still in the workforce. We travel; contribute generously to our families and communities; attend the theatre, concerts and festivals; vote; exercise our bodies and minds; learn and grow. We are indignant about the poor treatment sometimes meted out to older people, and not afraid to speak our minds.

Stories about ageing gracefully (and disgracefully) are the ones I hope to celebrate in my blog.

Thank you for visiting!

 

 

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