There’s no doubt the hot topic this March was ‘when will the tomatoes be ready?’ Families across the state, including ours, had been anxiously keeping an eye out throughout February, in eager anticipation of ripe tomatoes, with texts and calls making the rounds each week: Are they ready? The excitement of ripe tomatoes centre around our annual Basile & Co Passata-Making day, when the Basiles, with extended family and friends, gather to make sauce.

I recently spent five days alone at a friend’s home on a small bush block located just outside the quaint seaside town of Port Fairy on the south-west coast of Victoria. I say ‘alone’, but, in fact, I had the company of three alpacas, four chickens, one cat, and a large fruit and vegetable patch, which was bursting with organic life, and ready-to-eat produce.

To be in the presence of David Whyte, poet, and philosopher, is to allow yourself to be open to an invitation; many invitations, in fact. An invitation to leave behind all preconceived ideas and expectations, an invitation to revisit the deep well that resides within each of us, and to find replenishment and a way forward from a grounded, and expanded place.

Florence, capital of Italy’s Tuscan region, is well regarded for its historic buildings and churches, its overflowing galleries of art and sculpture, food, wine, rollings hills dotted with rustic villas and rows of vineyards. For me, it also became the location for a five-day Art of Writing workshop with Australian author, and long-time Florentine, Lisa Clifford.

Australian entertainment legend Bert Newton was farewelled on Friday 12 November at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne. Bert was 83 and had suffered ill health for some time.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve loved creating cards and writing letters. I’d experiment with different styles of writing, including calligraphy and cursive, and would apply these lettering skills to the cards I’d create for family and friends.