• Cats!,  Miscellany

    Why is curiosity so important?

    In this month’s newsletter I wrote about curiosity and cats… here’s a sneak peek… We are born curious, have you ever witnessed a baby stare in wonder as they discover they have fingers and toes? Or a toddler taste things, stick their fingers in things or ask interminable questions? Kids are curious! The problem is that throughout our school careers answers are more acceptable than questions, so curiosity is slowly but surely drummed out of us. Big businesses tell us to stop thinking and focus on revenue. Not very inspiring is it? Curiosity is chaotic and unpredictable, and this is not at all welcome in a world that likes order…

  • Cats!,  Military Life

    The story of Welly the Combat cat

    This year’s Remembrance Day post takes us on a journey to Ukraine and the story of Welly who features in my recently completed mixed media piece pictured below.  A person I am close to was in Ukraine recently doing some consulting work and travelling around with a group to get a picture of what was happening on the ground.   They were touring a bombed residential area on the outskirts of Kyiv when a little furball came wandering out of the rubble of a recently destroyed building. The little mite meowed piteously and walked straight up to one of the soldiers who promptly picked it up. He figured out it was a…

  • Cats!

    7 things I’ve learned from having cats in the first 7 weeks

    It took more than four decades of desperate wanting, and now I finally have cats in the house! Let me tell you a little story about how that came to be before I dive into what I have learned about myself and cats in the short time we’ve had them.  I was seven years old when I found out that I was horribly allergic to cats. My family was travelling and visiting friends on dad’s long service leave trip. One family we visited had some kind of fluffy cats that I immediately fell in love with, and equally rapidly started having severe asthma attacks, hives, and eyes that itched and…