From Bad to Worse

When the boys arrived from Cairns in January we all crammed into our small flat for a few days before moving into our new home to start work on doing the place up and getting it ready to open. It was a nineteen-thirties house with intricate plaster ceilings. One side...

My Son from Another Planet

Do you believe in space people?  What would you do if your 11-year-old son tells you in all sincerity that he came here from another planet?   This is the dilemma I was confronted with.  “Mum, I can remember choosing you to be my mother and coming into you...

The Instant my Life was Transformed

I had hit rock bottom. No fight left. All will to live gone. The next step was to end it all. “Who am I? I’m nothing, no good to anyone. My boys will be better off without me. Their father can do what he likes with them without me around. The constant bickering...

New Home, New Ways

Our priority was to find a place for long-term rental and I also had to endeavour to build a clientele in a hurry. We had very little money to get by on and three teenage boys and a dog are not cheap to keep. Harry would not be sending us any help. He had complained...

Clash of Good and Evil

We were your ‘everyday family’ with a Mother, Father and three young sons and Major, a big black dog with the longest slobbery pink tongue and soft brown eyes you could wish to find. He was defiantly one of the family. Jim, being the eldest slept in the sleep out,...

Trip of a Lifetime

December saw a private sale for the shop, perfect timing I thought. My boys booked a flight on the nineteenth December to New Zealand for a surprise Christmas with their father. However the financing of the purchase dragged on. Christmas bore down on us. Finally, I...