Autumn 2026: (A few more than) 10 good things

May 31, 2026 By in Family, Tasmania 2 Comments

view of kunanyi in autumn

I’ve been having an internal debate about whether to give myself a few days grace before writing this end-of-autumn blog post. Last week was a really frustrating one on multiple levels – we were all ready for it to be over before we’d even made it to Tuesday lunchtime – and I worried my grumpiness might be too tricky to hide.

But the whole reason for starting these quarterly posts was to focus on the positives and put the daily frustrations in perspective. And so, on we go, with a celebration of what John Keats called the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’.

We have certainly had a season of mists here, with a Bridgewater Jerry thundering down the River Derwent on a good number of mornings. We’ve also had beautifully warm and bright t-shirt days, howling gales, torrential rain, snow on kunanyi, and that sweet, soft, perfect light that defines autumn in Lutruwita/Tasmania.

I’m looking at the notes app on my phone, where I jot down things that have sparked joy, and I have quite a few more than 10 this time round. I’ll include them all, because only a very silly goose would rank their joys and drop the bottom ones off the list.

But I will also try and keep my descriptions shorter, so we’re not here all day. You’re generous readers, but I know that I push my luck with the 2000 word posts that pop up every so often.

Enough preamble.

Continue reading →

Summer 2025-2026: 10 Good Things

March 1, 2026 By in Family Leave a comment

A blue sky on a sunny day with lots of pretty white clouds

I’m really enjoying this newly established tradition of a seasonal blog post celebrating some of the joyful things that have happened over the previous three months.

Goodness knows the world is throwing enough distressing and difficult news at us all – not just seasonally, but on a near-daily basis at the moment – so actively taking a little bit of time to look at the brighter side of life feels like a really important way of resisting the descent into doom.

Summer always seems to arrive quite late in Lutruwita/Tasmania. December and even January were still a bit miserable weather-wise, and it’s only now that schools are back (of course) that we’ve had a really consistent run of warmer, brighter days.

However, summer officially ends and autumn officially begins today, so without further ado here are my moments of joy from Summer 2025-2026.

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A Summer Holiday in Aotearoa New Zealand

February 16, 2026 By in Family, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Image of an artwork in Christchurch Art Gallery with the text Maori Sovereignty Never Ceded to the Crown

There comes a moment towards the end of every holiday when, no matter how much fun you’re still having, it becomes clear that it’s time for you to go home.

Mine came on our final evening at Millbrook – a beautiful and slightly swanky golf resort where we spent the last three nights of our recent trip to Aotearoa New Zealand. Walking back from dinner in the evening sun, toenails twinkling red, linen trousers rippling in the gentlest of breezes, stomach full of delicious food… I was feeling relaxed. Perhaps a little too relaxed.

Thinking we were alone, I stopped on the path back to our suite, turned to my family, and bust out a spectacular, head-banging, full-body rendition of the drum solo from Phil Collins ‘In the Air Tonight’.

But it turns out we weren’t alone at all, and the group of elderly women coming towards us on the path were not, in fact, a very enthusiastic audience. I think it may have taken them a moment to recover.

“Oh my God,” I heard my husband and son muttering behind me. “Definitely time to go home.” Continue reading →

Spring 2025: 10 Good Things

December 7, 2025 By in Family Tags: , , , , 11 Comments

Hobart in spring. A person with an umbrella walks under pink blossom covered treesBack in August, I wrote a post setting out my plan for how to use this blog over the next year or two. In the absence of other things to write about, I’ll aim for a seasonal post celebrating ten good things that have happened in our lives.

Spring has been very busy for all of us, with some lows as well as some highs – but the point of this series is to focus on the highs, so let’s do that.

1. Visitors from Scotland: in September my dad and stepmum made the long, long journey over from Scotland to visit us. They’d visited once before just after we moved, and honestly, I wasn’t expecting a repeat trip knowing how big the undertaking is. So it was a lovely surprise when they said they were coming again!

Determined to make the most of it, we packed more into 18 days than we’d usually do in a year – meals out, walks, museums, vineyards, beaches, wildlife, and of course every kind of weather – often in the space of a few hours. Continue reading →

Winter 2025: 10 Joyful Things

August 14, 2025 By in Blogging, Family 7 Comments

This poor old blog.

When I first started writing DorkyMum back in 2011, I posted on it three or four times a week. Then, as life became busier, that became three or four times a month, Now, a decade and a half on, it’s lucky if it sees some action three times a year.

Blogging in the early days had a real sense of community. There are children all over the UK who I feel like I know, even though I’ve never met them. Us ‘mum bloggers’ commented regularly on each other’s posts. We subscribed, we shared, we compiled blog rolls and linkys, and then once or twice a year we gathered for champagne and selfies at conferences and award ceremonies.

There is very little of that left now. A few people have hung on and worked hard on their post-parenting niche – vegan recipes, kids counselling and life coaching, photography, arts and crafts – but most folk have abandoned their blogs entirely. There are certainly not many of us still sharing the mundane, everyday stories of our lives.

For me – as for all of those other bloggers – there are good reasons for that. Many of us wrote as a creative outlet when our kids were very young. We churned out 800 words in nap time, or wrote on our phones in the café at soft play. Now we now have full or part-time jobs, less time to spare, and kids who are teens not toddlers. Quite understandably, not many of those teens are comfortable with every detail of their lives being shared.

There’s also the fact that social media has nibbled away at many of the things I used to post here. Before it became ‘Stories from an Island Home’ my tagline used to be ‘parenting, politics, photography… and anything else that takes my fancy’.

These days, most of my parenting and family news goes on Facebook, my photos go on Instagram, and my political grumbles go on Bluesky (or across the dinner table at DorkyDad). That doesn’t leave much for the blog, which is why over the last few years it has mainly been about holidays and medical emergencies.

Like my paper desk diary, my handwritten to-do lists, and my clunky old iPhone that still has a home button, I’m not yet willing to give it up. Having an online space that is only mine – with no deadlines or word counts, is a precious thing.

But I would like to make better use of it, and I’ve been thinking about how to do that. Continue reading →