Home is more than a place—it’s routine, responsibility, and the quiet spaces where life settles. These posts explore domestic realities tied to the author’s experience, where maintenance, environment, and everyday decisions shape comfort, tension, and the rhythm of living.
We turned our garage into a sewing studio for Margo, reusing windows from the house and adding insulation, lighting and ventilation. The work brought challenges: summer heat, natural light, storage and reclaiming the garage for our cars. Now, at last, her machines and fabrics have a room of their own.
Converting Our Garage For Our In-House Seamstress Read More »
At our coastal home, writing dark fiction shares space with beehives, visiting birds and backyard chickens. Using leftover renovation materials, Margo and I built a secure chook pen and welcomed our new laying hens. Now we’re waiting for their first small, richly flavoured homegrown eggs to arrive for breakfast soon.
Backyard Chickens and Fresh Eggs: A Simple Step Towards Sustainable Living Read More »
A new book trailer? Not quite. This time, the trailer is for my boat. After years of registration limbo, missing paperwork and delicate family politics, I finally replaced the old beast with something new. Now the nonsense can stay ashore while Margo and I get back to fishing together again.
My New Trailer Is Finished Read More »
Our DIY bathroom renovation moves from concrete and framing to plumbing, windows and interior work. While the new space slowly takes shape, we keep an ageing shower alive, test the bath’s extra-wide sill with a wine glass, and discover that home improvements rarely follow the neat sequence shown online.
Bathroom Progress: DIY Plumbing, Concreting and Building Renovation Read More »
Why choose an adult cat over a kitten? For me, personality matters more than cuteness. Sharkey and Levi arrived as shelter cats, became family, and quietly accompanied the writing of SEETHINGS—sleeping on my desk, squeezing behind me on my chair, and softening the darker places explored in my fiction.
Choosing Aged Cats Over Kittens Read More »
Margo has collected feathers since childhood, rescuing each one she finds and carrying it home for safekeeping. Watching her reveals how much a simple habit can tell us about someone. Writers collect things too: gestures, expressions and peculiar behaviours that may one day give fictional characters their own convincing lives.
Orphaned Feathers. A Strange Collection Obsession of 60+ Years (or Healthy Hobby?) Read More »
Back to the renovation dust, tools, timber and half-finished kitchen plans. After a brief break, the house project resumes with wiring, wall removal, ceiling work, sink hunting and a visit from Alex, whose wooden sword briefly steals attention from the chaos of rebuilding a home one messy stage at a time.
Back To Work After A Brief Break Read More »
What does a writer do when he isn’t plotting fictional crimes and moral collapses? Sometimes he grabs a microphone. This light-hearted reflection explores the strange social ecosystem of karaoke—where dreamers, performers, veterans, and spectators collide beneath coloured lights, each chasing something a little different from the night.
Michael, What’s Happening, Dude? Read More »
Some cats arrive with confidence. Others arrive carrying fear, silence, and the scars of whatever came before. Levi was one of those cats. A rescue with haunted eyes and strange reactions, he slowly transformed a quiet house into a home — proving that sometimes the animals we rescue end up rescuing us too.
My Cat Is a Rescue Cat Read More »
