• Daily Life

    Breaking The Banksia

    It’s becoming increasingly obvious that we’re finally going to get a banksia flower in the garden. We’ve had a banksia in the garden from the outset, but yet to get a flower some three years down the track. And we’ve had plenty of troubles along the way. In addition to the coastal banksia we started with, we also bought a hairpin banksia last year. It was a ripper and we grew it in a pot. It withstood the blistering heat of the summer of 2023, but I planted it too early into the autumn and it withered and died. We…

  • Daily Life

    Not Getting Cocky

    Some years ago, I got too far ahead of myself and lost my humility with the upshot being daily humiliation now. Over the past 14 years or so, I’ve attended a 12-step group pretty much daily to make myself a better person, and to be more decent to others. As my character improved, I gained a little more self-confidence. But it turns out that I also lost a lot of humility and didn’t show enough respect for others. One of the things I learned in my early days of going to AA was the importance of being respectful to every…