Every situation I faced in my life…happy, sad, bored, angry, socialising, being alone, celebrating, feeling uncomfortable…I reacted to it by drinking.
In my last blog (click here to read it), I described how on a visit to see family in the UK, I hit my personal rock-bottom with my drinking. In this blog, I outline how I got sober. Continue reading “Getting sober (2) – “If it looks like a tomaayto…””
My powerlessness over alcohol had been sneaking up on me for years as my binges got more voluminous and my drunken behaviour more erratic.
I was trying to walk straight, I really was, but my legs had other ideas and all of a sudden I was bouncing off a wall and the pavement was rearing up fast to kiss my forehead. Continue reading “Getting sober (1) – hitting my rock bottom”
Their sound, their look, their energy and for being the indefatigable and endlessly interesting bastards they are – makes them my passion and their followers my tribe.
So I’m on my way to Melbourne to see one of the great loves of my life, the Stranglers, and I’m as excited as a teenager on his first date. Continue reading “How I fell in love with the Stranglers”
…liquid light, massive motion and cacophonous sound – it’s epic and spiritual…
As well as a fishing paradise, the South West coastal terrain leaves the eye and heart aching at its unadorned beauty. Continue reading “Down (the) South 2 – place of love”
There can be few places where serenity and the sublime can be found so readily as in WA’s South West
The key in your back begins to unwind as you make the turn off Bussel Highway towards Caves Road – but the excitement and anticipation is palpable too as the warm memories of holidays past come coursing back. Continue reading “Down (the) South 1 – Geographe joy”
We may talk the same language, but we speak with very different accents.
“Don’t be a c**t all your life!” one of Western Australia’s most respected wine writers rasped into my ear as I performed a particularly vigorous set of push-ups at the gym. Continue reading “Straddling the language barrier”
Most of the time, I feel like my sleeping and waking hours are spent in the dreamtime.
Moving from inner-city Manchester in the winter to suburban Perth in high summer was like staggering out of a dark, dank cave into dazzling sunlight – both figuratively and literally.
