One of my very favourite places in Melbourne is Sandridge Bridge, home to the Travellers sculptural installation. Enormous steel figures fan out along the bridge (they used to move out at sunrise and in at sunset) representing the indigenous people, and then nine successive waves of migrants. The bridge also hosts 128 panels for Melbourne residents’ […]
On New Yearâs Eve, 2014, our daughter Hazel was born at Wellington Hospital, by emergency caesarean section. Gosh, we were lucky. âYou must be disappointed,â a healthcare assistant commiserated with me the next day, assuming I would be sad that what started as a straightforward, natural labour had ended in the most dramatic of all […]
How can something as (potentially) shallow as Christmas gift shopping be a great way to make a difference in the world? Easy đ If we aspire to living a life where our actions reflect our values, then how we spend our time and money on Christmas gifts can make a real impact on people beyond […]
Just a little post prompted by a quote: Cry, the Beloved Country is one of my favourite and most formative books. I read this quote from it today at the beginning of a collection of photographs and stories, Displaced Reflections, by Oddny Gumaer, cofounder of Partners Relief & Development. You can see more on this book here, her second […]
The last fortnight has been a mix of hope and horror as I’ve been learning more about the work of the friends we’re visiting in Thailand. They are part of Partners Relief & Development, a small international charity that does strategic work in health, education, poverty uplift and human rights advocacy for the (very many) […]
A warm welcome today to my good friend Rob Kilpatrick, who wrote this reflection on Facebook yesterday and let me filch it for the blog. You’ll be glad you read it.  I’m incredibly lucky to be granddad to 11 wonderful kids. I don’t deserve to be but there you have it, grace upon grace. I […]