It’s been a little while since I’ve written here, and I have been doing a few things in the background.
I spent a a little less than four weeks travelling in Europe in late August and early September. It’s been a long time since I last had a proper holiday, and while I had a lovely time, I may need to schedule a bit more rest time for the next trip.
I started off by visiting a friend I’ve known since I was in high school who now lives in the Netherlands. We had some wonderful food together and played a couple of board games, though my jet lag brain did not help with that! We also bought a number of snacks, including stroopwafels and freeze-dried chocolate raspberries which we then left at my friend’s place… oops!
After the Netherlands, we spend a day or two in Brussels. I really loved the Atomium, then we moved on to Paris, where we spent most of a day at Versailles among other things.
From Paris we joined a tour group of eleven people (including myself and my travel companion) most of whom were from Australia. What followed was a whirlwind tour of parts of France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and ending in Türkiye. A couple of sample pics are below:
I would have liked a few more days at the end to recover, and possibly a day in Jakarta on the way back through, but I had to be back in Melbourne for the inaugural Secrets in the Pages event in Bendigo.
I have to thank the Secrets folks for the amazing event they put on – it was one of the smoothest and best managed events, they looked after their vendors, and the attendees were warm and friendly. I look forward to returning for the event next year! Thanks to Golden Wings Press for the great photos–I hardly look jet-lagged at all!
The other big news I have since coming home is that I have finished up at my day job, and don’t yet have another day job to go to. I was offered a redundancy as part of a restructure and I will be taking the opportunity to look at the sort of work I do in my day job, as well as other opportunities to support myself. It was a surprise to me, but it might be for the best; I’m hopeful about what the next chapter will bring.
Keep an eye out here for updates on book signings and other events where I will be appearing. My next event is speaking at a panel, ‘Not Your Grandma’s Romance’, at the Dandenong Ranges Literary Festival on 11 October 2026. Tickets are still available (at the time of writing) so come along and see me if you’re local.
Leave a comment