MANNERS AND OTHER MATTERS

The autumn tonings are showing in my trees and the wisteria vines... My two favourite seasons here in Western Australia are autumn and spring, and somehow they affect me the same way...positively...despite that metaphorically autumn is aligned with the coming of the end of…life, relationships, and more;  while spring signifies new life, new beginnings. For me autumn is a time of gentle beauty;   and reflection.   Because the climate here is not overly distinctive between the seasons,  as it is in the east of Australia, having mild temperatures in autumn and spring,   mild to hot summers and mild to cold winters, with never a snow flurry, the leaves on the trees are often the first indicator that the season is about to change. The autumn sky is a vibrant blue but the pool water is too chilly for me to swim... I planted, in front of my house, five deciduous trees 25 years ago and every year when their first leaves begin to either fall or tur...

Teenagers in the early 1970s...(Google Images) I am going to celebrate a milestone birthday later this year and unfortunately it doesn't commence with the number "5"!  The year is going to be filled with adventure.  I am returning to France for a month to immerse myself again in a course at the Institut de Français in Villefranche-sur-Mer; I will be visiting my beautiful grandson on the other side of my continent;  and hopefully visiting Far North Queensland with my partner as well.  And in between, indulging myself with the contracts I will choose and enjoy with  The Percy Institute of International Protocol. Recently I have been trying to place myself in this "age" in which I find myself;  perhaps the easiest way to do this is to revert to remembering the people my parents and their friends were in their 60's? In the early 1970's I was still at high school, looking very similar to the girls in the photo above...somewhat awkward.  I al...

My little prince. .. I have had an extraordinary experience in the last few days...I have become a grandmother for the first time.  While some of my friends had tried to explain the emotion I would most likely encounter when I first saw the tiny baby with my daughter, nothing I had been told prepared me for the overwhelming emotion of maternal protection I felt for my daughter and her four hour old son. It was a powerful memory of maternal intensity I had not felt since my daughter was born almost 32 years ago and then my son a few years later. My mind has wandered over the last few days to the morning when my mother first visited me and my new daughter.I remember clearly her emotion...a mixture of happiness and concern about my labour, my daughter's health, and inclusion as a woman in the maternal experience. We shared tears of joy when she first held her granddaughter.  I clearly remember her looking into the baby's eyes,and then up at me,  with an expres...

Forget standing when women enter the room or calling all men ‘sir’- that’s behaviour from a forgotten time.  But what are the modern manners every child should have? The past century, particularly since WWII, has seen Western society move away from the highly stratified and rule-ridden days of the past.  Rules of etiquette which previously defined social status were largely abandoned and are now often regarded as unnecessary, old-fashioned or even snobbish.  We have increasingly embraced the notion of the free-thinking individual, unfettered by rules.  We emphasise the importance of good self-esteem and encourage children to express themselves freely.  We try to be open-minded and non-judgemental about different cultures and backgrounds. We mostly live in crowded urban environments.  Adults push in front of you to get on the bus, shout loudly into their mobile phones and act like it is a sign of weakness to let you into merging traffic. In g...