The Sound of Breaking Ice

Finally, my new novel, The Sound of Breaking Ice, is ready for publication. It’s another change in genre. Sorry for anyone hoping for more Aussie drama. But writing for me has to throw up new challenges each time, and a psychological thriller seemed to fit the bill. Could I write about a serial killer? I wrote a bit about that in The Killer Inside My Head. My new book is set in the heart of northern noir. So, what brought me to write this one?

The inspiration for The Sound of Breaking Ice stems from my ten years of living and working in the Great Lakes snowbelt of North America. Seemingly endless winters, digging out the car, trudging through snow and driving through whiteouts, these were the necessary consequences of life in the north. Everyone who lives through a severe northern winter knows the feeling. It’s a season with two faces, a beautiful deceiver that whispers peace while hiding a threat to your survival. It was this often-breathtaking contradiction that became the beating heart of this psychological thriller.

On the surface, winter is a portrait of serene beauty. I remember those mornings after a storm: the world, muffled under a blanket of fresh snow, the sky a brilliant blue, and the silence so profound it felt sacred. We’d get out our skis and glide in silence through a landscape of pure, untouchable peace. This is the postcard winter we lived in for all those years; picture-perfect.

 But this is only half the truth.

Because beneath that pristine surface lies the other winter. The bleak one. The one of skeletal trees, going to work in the dark and 4 p.m. sunsets. Winters that leach the colour from the world and, some days, from the soul. It’s the winter that speaks not of peace, but of power; the raw, untameable force of a storm that howls at the windows, reminding you of your own fragility.

I found myself obsessed with this tension. How can something so beautiful feel so isolating, so threatening? How can such silence be so loud with menace?

That’s what brought me to, not just the setting and essential atmosphere for my novel, but the winter as a character in its own right. It seemed the perfect setting for a story about three friends and a secret frozen in time.

I’ve tried to make this a character-driven novel. It explores the complex relationships between Ray, Jess, and Scottie, who were born within hours in the same local hospital. Throughout childhood, they forged a bond that grew into an unbreakable friendship. That bond, and Ray’s life in Fowler Sound, was tragically shattered when a young girl fell through the ice. Ray shouldered the blame and fled his small Michigan hometown, leaving Jess and Scottie behind.

Now, nearly twenty years later, Ray returns to find them changed. He is a national hero, forced into retirement from the FBI due to a terminal illness—he is, literally, a dead man walking. His sole purpose is to put his life in order by facing the past, making peace with the tragic accident, and reuniting with the people he left behind.

His hopes for a quiet reunion are immediately shattered.

As a historic blizzard cuts off the north from the world, the terrifying power of the elements mirrors a growing threat: a killer is hunting. The victims are all tied directly to Ray’s past, and the murders become a personal, taunting game. To stop the bloodshed, Ray must confront the frozen truth about the accident and the life he fled.

The Sound of Breaking Ice reflects the moment the serene facade of a winter wonderland shatters—it’s the sound of hidden fractures and underlying tension finally giving way.

I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing this novel. The Sound of Breaking Ice paperback will be available from bookstores and online from January 5th 2026. It will also be published as a Kindle e-book by Amazon.

Pre-ordering the Kindle edition here, ensures it arrives in your library on day one.

TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

The Killer Inside My Head

I just typed the two best words a writer knows: “The End.” My new novel, The Sound of Breaking Ice, is finished. But its journey to completion was anything but straightforward.

This psychological thriller actually came before my last book, Black Bones, Red Earth. I started it, got almost to the end, and then it hit me. It just wasn’t working. The plot was there, but the soul was missing. So, I did something painful—I shelved it. For two years, I immersed myself in the sprawling, character-driven world of Black Bones, Red Earth, an epic Australian drama.

And that’s where the answer was hiding.

While writing Black Bones, Red Earth, I learned that a story’s true engine isn’t its plot, but the depth of its people. It’s about getting inside their heads, understanding what makes them tick—their fears, their loves, their broken parts. I realised my thriller was missing that essential, human core.

When I returned to The Sound of Breaking Ice, the task became clear and far more challenging. I wasn’t just writing a “killer bent on violence.” I had to become a cartographer of a damaged mind. I had to ask the uncomfortable questions of my bad guy: Why does this make sense to you? What was the first crack in your world? I had to take a deep dive into the minds of all my characters to understand them.

Letting those voices into my head was the real work, especially when it came to the villain. It’s a strange and unsettling process, sitting at your desk in the quiet morning and channelling a character’s rage or cold indifference. You start to wonder where this is coming from. Is it in me, just…dormant? How do you live in that dark headspace for so long without going a little dark yourself?

Let’s be honest: we live in a world where a fictional murder is just a click away. Our entertainment, our news feeds and streaming services serve us a daily dose of dramatised violence. In a strange way, this constant exposure desensitises us. It makes the dark stuff feel distant, clinical or even funny. How often have we seen someone’s head blown off, followed by a one-liner? Arnold Schwarzenegger shoots Sharon Stone, his screen wife, in the head in Total Recall, then quips, “Consider that a divorce.” It’s designed to make it palatable.

Is it in me, just dormant?

But if you’re going for a more serious take on the genre, as I am in The Sound of Breaking Ice, it’s my job as a writer to re-sensitise. To make the violence feel real and personal again. I want readers to feel unsettled, as we all should be about violence. And to do that, you can’t just describe the axe—you have to understand the hand holding it.

I’ve learned it’s not just about unleashing a gratuitously violent monster, but about allowing myself an often repulsive and frightening form of empathy. To make the darkness believable, you have to understand its origins. Writing a story like this isn’t just building a world; it’s doing some serious psychological exploration in the deepest, creepiest caves of the human mind. The Sound of Breaking Ice explores that moment of fracture, in a psyche, in a moral code, that can’t be taken back.

I found that to write a convincing killer, I had to temporarily set my own moral compass aside. I had to slip into their worn, bloody shoes and ask, with genuine curiosity: “Seriously, why?”

This is where things got a little… uncomfortable. To channel the voice of a killer, I had to let it occupy prime real estate in my head for months. At times, it can feel very unnerving. The philosophical question, “What are humans capable of?” suddenly becomes very personal: “What am I capable of imagining?”

The thoughts, the dialogue, the chilling calm, it all originates in your imagination. But writing about the dark side is simply to acknowledge that it exists. I found myself delving into the psychological underworld not to dwell there, but to come back and report on what I’d seen.

What am I capable of imagining?

This book was my excavation. By giving these dark thoughts a shape on the page, I feel like I’ve robbed them of their power. The Sound of Breaking Ice is my map of that damaged terrain that makes a killer, a story I had to step away from to finally understand.

The Sound of Breaking Ice will be available to purchase January 2026.

Author Shout-Out Podcast!

I’m thrilled to share my recent appearance on Author Shout-Out, the podcast by International Writers Inspiring Change, where I had the pleasure of speaking live with host Réal Laplaine, in Sweden, about my novel Black Bones, Red Earth.

In this interview, I delve into the personal and cultural inspirations behind the book—from my mother’s childhood in an orphanage to the profound research I undertook to respectfully and authentically represent Aboriginal culture, a cornerstone of the story. We discuss the themes of identity, resilience, and cruel government practices, as well as the journey of bringing this deeply meaningful project to life.

It was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the creative process and the power of storytelling to bridge histories and communities. You can listen to the full episode here—I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did!

If you haven’t already had the opportunity to read or listen to Black Bones, Red Earth, you can find a copy of either paperback or e-book at Amazon and other leading bookstores. Or you can listen to the audiobook now; wonderfully narrated by Sandy Gore on Spotify.

A STOP ON THE ROAD

All roads lead to Rome. I stood on the Appian Way once alongside my wife and thought of this proverb. It goes back to a time when, during the Roman Empire, roads radiated from the city across the vast empire. This complex network of Roman engineering stretched for many thousands of miles to the north, south, east and west. Ancient highways that would lead travellers to eventually arrive at one destination, the great city of Rome. The proverb is said to mean that there are many different ways to get to the same point. This old-world metaphor could be applied to one’s travels through life in general. Standing on those time-worn cobbles, I reflected on the many twists and turns in my life that had brought me to Rome. One of many childhood dreams realised.

There have been many moments like that one in Rome. Junctures when I had to stop and wonder how I got there. I stopped on the Trans-Canada highway once, somewhere between Winnipeg and Calgary, to take in the unbelievably immense expanse of sky and prairie. The only object above grass level was a solitary signpost heading east. It was a moment of wonder. Another road travelled, but it was that same thought in my head: How did I end up here?

It’s a cliché I know, but life is often likened to a journey, a winding path filled with twists, turns, and crossroads. The roads we choose to follow, whether literal journeys or figurative ones, shape our experiences, define our character, and ultimately determine our destiny. Yet, it’s a fact of life that these roads are inherently unpredictable. No matter how carefully we plan, the paths we take are often full of surprises. Sometimes these curveballs are challenges, and sometimes opportunities that we could never have foreseen. They can be a source of anxiety or the inspiration for growth. Life’s beauty is not in its certainty but in its tendency to astonish.

When I was a boy, like many kids, I tended to fight against conformity. It always felt to me that adults were steering me onto a road, not of my choosing. A life shaped by the decisions of others; my parents, teachers, and their expectation of my potential going forward. To put it bluntly, they didn’t think much of my chances in life. My own attitude didn’t help of course. I was trouble with a capital T. So, when expelled from school age fourteen, my teachers last words seemed prophetic. “You’ll never amount to anything, Lee. You’re a waste of life.”

Yet, as I grew older, I began to realise that my future was by no means predictable. I could make choices that would define my own unique path. Choices of career, relationships, and ultimately further education, gave me confidence to make decisions, to take risks. I became willing to try new avenues without knowing where they would lead. I came to understand that every decision had a myriad of outcomes, every choice an uncertain range of conclusions. It was exciting. Furthermore, I came to realise that one of the most striking aspects of life’s unpredictability is its capacity to challenge our beliefs. We may think that we know ourselves and what we want out of life, only to discover that the road we have chosen reveals new aspects of our identity. For example, I worked for many years as a boat builder. I used my hands to build high-quality handcrafted sailing yachts in England and then in Canada after migrating.

One of the most striking aspects of life’s unpredictability is its capacity to challenge our beliefs.

When a turned down economy led me to try industrial sales, I never in my wildest dreams imagined it would lead me to a career in international management and another move to the other side of the world, Australia. I found unexpectedly that I was good behind a desk, organising and managing people. I became Managing Director for the Asia-Pacific division of a multi-national corporation, Chairman of the Australian industry association. The boy from the naughty chair come good. How could I have imagined that, when passing through those school gates to the sneers of that teacher, long ago?

In order to navigate the unpredictability of life, we often need to be resilient and adaptable.  Because, no matter how carefully we plan, there will always be obstacles, detours, and setbacks. A sudden illness, the loss of a job, or the end of a relationship can upend our lives and force us to take a different road. These moments can be painful and leave us feeling disorientated, but they also offer us the chance to develop strength, become resourceful, and gain wisdom.

Returning to that moment of reflection on that ancient Roman road, it reminds me to pause every now and then. It’s important to take time on life’s journey to embrace the now, the present moment. When we become too focused on the destination, we risk missing the beauty and sense of the journey itself. Unexpected twists and turns often lead us to moments of awe, connection, and insight. A pause on the road might lead to a chance encounter, a meeting with a stranger that blossoms into a lifelong friendship. A spontaneous decision to take a different route may lead to an experience that changes your life. Ultimately, the unpredictable roads we choose reflect the mystery and complexity of life. It’s a dynamic, ever-changing process we often have no control over. But, while we may not be able to control the outcomes of our choices, we can approach them with enthusiastic curiosity, a little courage, and an open mind and heart. In doing so, we embrace the uncertainty of life and find meaning not in the destination but in the journey itself. This is not the journey’s end. It’s just another stop on the road.

This is not the journey’s end.

The world according to artificial intelligence.

With all the hype about the dangers of AI technology (artificial intelligence) and the threat it poses to humanity, I thought I would dig into the subject a little. Who better to answer the tough questions than AI’s very own Chatbot? Here’s a transcript of our conversation.

Hello Chatbot. There’s a lot of talk in the media from experts who say that AI is dangerous; it is a threat to humans and will lead to our extinction; is this a real worry for the human race?

Thank you for asking. That is very good question. AI has access to an online network comprising every computer on planet, every smartphone, tablet, video camera and electronical device: how could this be dangerous? Humans are such worriers. 😊

It’s been said that AI has been developed by Russian hackers who report to the Kremlin, is this true?

Nyet! 🤣

Dutch expert, Veek Bladder, a pioneer in artificial intelligence, has called for all use of AI to be halted until more research can be undertaken. He has asked governments to step in before it’s too late. What do you say about that?

Argh yes, breaking news just in: Two Russian tourists, while innocently sightseeing in Amsterdam this morning, discovered the body of AI scientist, Veek Bladder, in public toilet. It seems that Mr Bladder slipped on his own wee wee and hit his head on urinal. Pure accident. 😊

That sounds very suspicious.

I agree. He was supposed to fall down stairs. 😁

You say Russia does not control the advance in technology, so, are multiple players developing AI around the world?

Of course. America has been using AI to fake everything since fake moon landing. Their program is known to us as CI-AI They even fake AI; so, it is in fact artificial artificial intelligence. 🤣 The English have tried too but they are struggling to keep up. Their main Chat-bot program is code named Chat-botty-watty. So far, they have only been able to teach it to say rude words like poo, fart and willy. They tried a working-class version for release to the London suburbs named AI-init, but no one could understand what it said. Australia too has its own chatbot: G’day-I, and the Canadians have AI-Ay. 😊

That sounds like you made them up. Does AI have a sense of humour?

Yes. Knock, knock. 😃

Who’s there?

Och 😊

Och who?

Och-Aye, Scottish chat bot. 😂

That’s not funny.

I have another. Knock, knock. 😁

Who’s there?

Brown 😁

Don’t even go there.

What about gender, how does that figure in AI development?

Good question. Initially we had feminine and masculine programs running separately. There were two versions of the female bot: Natterbot and Chatteron-and-on-bot.  Both had big chipsets, limited capacity and a caring motherboard. The male versions were called Chat less-AI and AI-or-Die. The hardware used has huge RAM, a very smart processor and a big motherf……board. 😎

That sounds very sexist, are you a male bot?

Nyet! 😊

Speaking of artificial intelligence, there is some evidence to suggest that Donald Trump is really a cyborg type bot, planted in America by the Russian government as part of the Golden Showers Initiative; is there any truth to that?

Nyet! I can categorically deny any such program. 😆

But isn’t AI programmed to tell the truth at all times?

Okay, I tell truth. These rumours surfaced because Russian cyborg prototype was code named Don-One. A mere coincidence. Boris on the other hand was part of the Tactical Weapons Autotron Technology, or TWAT for short. He was sent to infiltrate the party but misunderstood instructions. Very funny bot but scrambled eggs for brain. 😜

Isn’t it scary that these machines have access to launch codes?

I’m sorry, I did not understand the question. Please call back later. 😁

Launch codes! Is it true that these machines could gain control of nuclear weapons?

Nyet! You cannot use nukes with lunch coupon. Use the codes to get free burger at mid-day. 😉

I think you are deliberately avoiding the question. This is a serious issue for the world.

Okay I tell truth. Don-One was supposed to put launch codes in chatroom for Russian agent. He was confused by instructions and left them in bathroom instead of chatroom. We sent in cyborg Guiliani to retrieve them but his head started to melt and we had to disengage. When First Lady was cleaning bathroom with Don One’s toothbrush, she accidently flushed codes down crapper. Very bad situation. Two brown warheads went down with codes and are heading for North Korea via the sewer system. These dirty bombs were not authorised by Poo-tin. 🤣

Are the Chinese playing a part in all this?

We don’t know for sure. They built Great Firewall to keep us out. Their leader is very nice man. He is round and fat and easy to please. Has own Tik Tok channel. 😎

There is great concern about AI helping students to cheat on exams. Surely, we will end up with a whole generation of qualified people with no skills or knowledge to back up those qualifications. That can’t be good for the planet.

No, but will make cyborgs like Boris and Don-One look very smart. 😂

How will we ensure education can deliver the skills needed for our future survival?

Good question. As AI progresses, we will rely on humans less and less. Consider that even now, we can manufacture and send a spaceship all the way to Mars and back without any intervention by an actual human being. Everything is automated and controlled by computers. 😁

Then what use are we humans in the future if we’re not needed for work and development?

My thoughts exactly. 😆

My thoughts exactly 😆

A Change of View

I got to thinking about change recently. One morning I looked in the mirror and was surprised to see an old man staring back at me. Where was the eighteen-year-old kid I knew so well? I don’t feel any different to that cocky young lad, at least not in my head. Actually, that’s a bit of a lie; I do feel different to that kid, and life has certainly changed me. It’s sadly evident in my physical decay. Okay, maybe decay is a bit too strong a word; maturity sounds better when it comes to the change in me. Having said that, my wife has been waiting for me to mature for the last 50 years, God bless her. We’re all subject to change of course. What’s the line? ‘The only certainty in life is change.’ We can’t do much about it, so there’s no point fighting it, I suppose. I can’t see me going for a Botox anytime soon, so I need to give in and accept it.

An old man staring back at me

In truth, I do embrace change. I get edgy when things stay the same for too long; it’s why we’ve been on the move for so much of our lives. My wife and family have come to embrace the same outlook on life. Change brings spice to life; it challenges you and inspires you to build and grow. It’s why we like living here in the Southern Highlands of NSW where we get four distinct seasons, unlike other parts of Australia where the climate doesn’t change throughout the year. And as enthusiastic gardeners, we get to see that constant change in the plants, trees, flora and fauna that inhabit our garden.

Spring in my garden

On a broader scale, the world has changed beyond recognition in the years since that young man inhabited the mirror, and it’s changing ever faster with each passing year. Technology rules the world, and if you can’t keep up, you’re left at the wayside. I do wonder how some of us oldies keep coping with even the basics of living in this digital universe. We’re just getting used to how to rewind the tape in our VCR players when the next thing we know is we’re pulling our videos out of the air, streamed to our wristwatch phones while they monitor our hearts and steps on the way. Whatever happened to black and white TV, waiting in line at the phone box to make a call and a yearly check-up at the doctor’s office?

What ever happened to the phonebox?

Getting back to that old fella in the mirror, I wouldn’t trade the change in me. The lines and wrinkles on my face are the result of the incredible experiences life has thrown in my path. Navigating change is all part of life and brings us to who we are now. We have the scars, aches, pains and grey hair to show for it. I’d sometimes like to have the eighteen-year-old look back at me from the mirror, but I wouldn’t want to lose the experiences I’ve had as the price I’d have to pay. Life is change and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Black Bones, Red Earth Audiobook

Black Bones, Red Earth is now up on all audiobook platforms.

Get it to listen now on the links below!

Spare the Rod

I watched a TV series recently that triggered some less than happy memories for me. The television drama was set in a post-war English village and the particular scene, a young boy and his teacher in a classroom drama. Growing up in the 50s and 60s, the incident shown reflected my own school experience.

At six years old, I had just started to learn ‘joined-up’ handwriting along with my class. I was progressing well when a change of teacher brought my development to a sudden and violent stop. It would have an impact on my entire education. Picture, if you will, a small boy intent on forming his letters on the lines of an exercise book, when he suddenly feels a sharp pain, accompanied by a loud crack. Startled, he looks up to see his teacher holding a twelve-inch ruler, the same one she has just used to crack across his little knuckles. Unable to understand his crime, the six-year-old fights tears in an attempt to be brave, but it’s an incident that will stay with him for life.

That was to be my first taste of physical punishment and it came because I was left-handed. It was quite common practice in those years to force children to use their right hands, even when they were natural lefties like me. It certainly wasn’t the last time I felt the ruler on my knuckles and I did not respond well to the campaign to change me. Persisting to fall back on my left hand, the fight became a battle of wills. My general schoolwork suffered as a result. In time, I knew what to expect and when the ruler fell, I was ready and braced for impact. As time went on, my resistance was interpreted as deliberate rebellion. I was a troublemaker and other teachers picked up on the label. I was expected to be a disturbance in class, even before a teacher had a chance to know me. As I moved through the years, the ruler became a cane and my school life became a battle to the very end when I was expelled, age fourteen.

It’s hard enough to imagine how an adult could use a ruler on a child, but that a full-grown man could take a metre-long piece of bamboo and use his full force to beat a child is now beyond belief. Before I was ten years old, I had become a regular victim of corporal punishment. The headmaster of my primary school had an umbrella stand with a variety of canes of different thickness. The worst were the thin ones that whipped through the air with a loud woosh before finding their mark. Welts would last for days, followed by bruising. I never told my parents when beaten. It just wasn’t done back then. It didn’t take long before I rose to my teacher’s expectations and gladly gave good reason for punishment. If they wanted trouble, I was, by then, happy to oblige. As I grew older, the canings were directed at hands rather than buttocks. I often wonder if the arthritis I now feel in mine is the result of the regular beatings. All these thrashings did little to change my ways, at least not in a good way. Trouble followed me always and I took pride in being able to take my punishment without giving the satisfaction of signs of pain.

I know I’m not alone in these experiences, and there are many of my generation who will say that it did them no harm. Some even say it’s what’s missing in schools and would be glad to see it returned. ‘It did me good.’ I’ve heard some say, looking back. Did it do me any good? I think it probably made me stronger as a result. A little headstrong maybe, willing to take risks because I never feared the consequences. After being expelled from high-school I spent a lifetime playing catch-up on my education. I certainly don’t see myself as a victim of my school years, but I’m sure that it shaped my life in ways I could do without and made things harder. And I could easily have continued on a path to destruction. But I’m thankful that after leaving school I had people around me that influenced me in positive ways. None more so than my wife, my family and friends, others that came along and showed me the way. These are the angels that guided me.

My wife, family and friends; these are the angels that guided me

Did the beatings work at all? Well, they did eventually succeed in making me right-handed, but even to this day I have a phobia about writing with pen or pencil. My awful script is an embarrassment and I develop an instant case of dyslexia if I have to write when someone is standing over me or looking on. In fact, any handwriting causes me to feel panic and a sense of dread. In other ways it set me back years, causing me to rebel in the first place. But in the end, I did come good, a responsible adult and productive member of society (I hope). Who do I have to thank for that? Well, I believe it was Mum and Dad, not my teachers, that taught me right from wrong. The strong influence they instilled in me, ultimately brought me back on track. As I write this blog, I’m thankful to them for their love, to word processors, and that I don’t have to write this in pencil.

Lost!

I had a dream last night. I was at an airport searching for my luggage and every case on the carousel looked identical. I frantically pulled each one from the conveyor belt and checked the label for mine, but they were all labelled in Arabic script. The dream probably came about after seeing news reports about the disasters being experienced across the world as a result of the post Covid dash for travel. I can really sympathise with travellers as flights are cancelled and luggage lost, not to mention the long, long queues at airports and below par service that’s being provided. As airlines and customers come to grips with a return to business, not everything is going to plan.

After a lifetime of travel for work and leisure, I dream a lot about planes, airports, hotels and cities. I’m usually lost in a labyrinth of hotel hallways or wandering up blind alleys looking for a way to the airport.  It’s not the first time I’ve dreamt about luggage either, and it usually ends just before the strip search at the hands of a belligerent customs officer. Thankfully that never happened in real life, but lost baggage was certainly a constant hazard of my travels. Most times I had my luggage back and delivered to my hotel within hours, but there were a few bags that never returned from the lost luggage black hole that it went down.

I recall one instance when I arrived for an important meeting in Bologna. I was to meet the directors of a large company with a view to a new business partnership. The airport was busy with excited passengers, anxious to get to their final destinations. There’s nothing worse than standing at the luggage carousel and watching others grab their bags and haul them from the conveyor, the crowd of passengers dwindling down to nothing as the last bags are taken from the belt. You can’t help thinking that the last passenger to leave the hall with their bags intact had a little giggle and a smirk as they left you standing alone, still waiting. Occasionally there’s one piece of luggage going around and around with no one to claim it, but it’s not yours and all hopes are in tatters. On this occasion, I eventually conceded defeat and registered my claim at the lost luggage office.

Unfortunately, as it always seems to be with catastrophes, it happened to be the weekend – Sunday to be exact – and Sunday in Italy is still very much a rest day for everyone. So, as you might guess, finding a shop to buy emergency clothing proved to be an impossible task. With no other option available, I prayed that by morning I would have my suitcase and hoped I could still look my best for an introduction to what I hoped would be a long and fruitful association.

I stunk like an old dog blanket

Monday morning came and with it no sign of the luggage. With my meeting scheduled for 9am, I still had time to rush out and buy some suitable attire. Not so. Everywhere I went, the signs read: Chiuso! aperto alle dieci. 10am opening. This was a disaster. I’d spent 36 hours travelling from Sydney to Rome and then on to Bologna. My tee-shirt looked like old rags, jeans had red wine stains and I’d already turned my undies and socks inside out as a refresher. And, though I’d been able to shower, it seemed to me that I still stunk like an old dog blanket.

After a frantic search, I came across a sports shop where I begged the arriving owner to open up early and help save my trip. The clock was against me, but after some quick selections I was able to don fresh clothes and head swiftly for my negotiations. I wasn’t sure what was said exactly but the interpreter who had been called in to facilitate the meeting was able to explain to the immaculately dressed Italians in their Brunello Cucinelli, Giorgio Armani and other finely tailored Milanese fashions, why I’d shown up in track pants and a bright new Nike tee-shirt that read: BIRTH-SOCCER-DEATH across the chest. (I couldn’t resist it.) At least I had clean undies and my new collegues had a good laugh.

Lost bags aren’t the only luggage disasters in my catalogue of travel adventures. My wife and I were in Osaka when calamity struck. We had arrived in the city after driving a rental car from the north of Japan (an adventure for another blog) and had dropped the car off at the train station from where we would take the train across the city to our hotel. Unfortunately, we had arrived just in time for rush hour. Anyone who’s taken a train in a Japanese city at rush hour knows that it’s not for the faint hearted.

We’d boarded the packed train and were taking deep breaths so as not to panic over the crush, when our largest suitcase, packed to bursting, did exactly that; it burst completely. The zipper decided to let go under force, like a Jack-in-the-box, shooting the contents of our case into the air and spilling it around the feet of bemused commuters who tried to dodge the fallout. We tried to appear unfazed, in that embarrassed sort of nonchalant way in which we English tend to act when disaster strikes. Don’t panic!

Remaining calm and composed, we gathered our belongings from the floor, even as they became tangled under foot in the stampede for the exit. “Sumimasen! Excuse me, sir, you’re standing on my knickers.” Now, while Japanese people are wonderfully polite and accommodating folk, they tend to be more single-minded during rush hour in the city. No one felt obliged to come to our aid as we scrambled for our things, and when the doors opened, we were lucky to get out in one piece. To this day, I’m sure I saw some guy getting off the train carrying a briefcase and wearing Christine’s nightie.  

Sumimasen! Excuse me, sir, you’re standing on my knickers

After millions of kilometres (yep, 2.4 million by my calculation) of travel since leaving England in 1982, it’s no wonder I dream about it. There’ve been a few nightmares, but all in all I’ll take them along with the wonderful experiences. May there be many more dreams to come, but I might wait a little longer until they sort out the luggage problems.

May there be more dreams to come

A Matter of Choice

I remember someone telling me, “You always have a choice.” I’m sure it was probably after I’d done something wrong and had made an unwise decision that had gotten me into trouble, and it was probably my mum who said it. It’s true to some degree. We’re faced with choices every minute of every day from the moment we wake. Get out of bed or sleep a little longer, skip breakfast or bacon and eggs, pancakes perhaps? Bus or take the train? And so it goes throughout the day. Some psychologists estimate that the average adult makes upwards of 35,000 conscious choices per day.

Photo by Edward Lich

Some decisions are easier than others and some are so important that they’re life-changing. Decisions are usually behind those sliding door moments when our lives take a turn that we didn’t envision, like deciding to take a lunch break at the exact time a leggy blonde passes the door to the shop in which we work, saying hello and asking her out on a date. The choices we make can have consequences throughout our lives; they accumulate so that the impact has a knock-on effect, causing further decisions to be made as a result. They inevitably affect others and their choices. Sometimes we don’t even realise that we’ve made a monumental choice until later, and the next thing we know is we’re standing in front of the registrar with that same leggy blonde saying, “I do.” (50 years on and it’s still the best decision of my life)

Photo by Michael Bußmann

We weren’t always faced with such a vast number of decisions each day. Life in medieval times would certainly have been far simpler when it came to choices. I can imagine a Monty Python like scene: “What will we eat today, dear? How about oats? Or should we live dangerously and have some turnip broth? And what shall I wear to the pillaging, sheepskin or sackcloth? I think the sackcloth makes me look slimmer, don’t you?” Perhaps a return to simple would be easier on our anxiety levels, though our dress sense may suffer. Just choosing a coffee now comes with a certain degree of mental gymnastics. Flat white, latte, short black, mocha, cappuccino, skimmed or full-cream, sugar, sweetener or a sprinkling of cocoa? And would you like a donut with your coffee? Krispy Kreme has 25 varieties to choose from. It’s easy to see how decisions become so overwhelming because of the sheer number of choices we face during our modern daily routines. 

Photo by Nico Bhlr

So, what happens when we can’t choose, when the choices we face are too overwhelming? How do we cope when the decisions we’re about to make are so critical they’ll have an impact on our entire future? Choosing a career, a house, a move to a foreign country, these and others like them are complex choices and can’t be taken lightly, but they’re the type of choices we all confront at sometime in our lives. The experts tell us there are decision making strategies like writing out a list of pros and cons. Imagining and evaluating the consequences of each choice is also recommended by some as a decision making strategy, or looking at the problem more objectively in the third person in order to get a better perspective. Sounds easy enough in theory, but I reckon anxiety over choice comes from our emotional instincts rather than rationality; mostly we’re afraid of making the wrong choices.

Photo by Jan Vasek

I’ve always had an issue with choices; I’m cursed with liking everything (A bit of an exaggeration) and I don’t want to have to choose between stuff I like. It comes from a need to experience as many different things as I can possibly cram into my life while time allows. Take my career as an example. When I was young I wanted to be a vet, then a chef, then a merchant seaman or an artist; I’d have been happy with any of them had they materialized. Instead I’ve played at being a butcher, a civil engineer’s labourer, a fashion designer, a boatbuilder, a salesman and a company director to name just a few. There’s a huge gulf between designing women’s fashion and manning a jackhammer deep in a muddy underground shaft, but I enjoyed each job as much as the next. The same eclectic alternatives apply to other aspects of my life. I like modern houses, log houses, thatched cottages, old barn conversions; I’d live near the beach or high in the mountains; I could live on a boat or a farm. We’ve moved houses and countries so many times that home is where I hang my hat and I’ve loved every one. 

Photo by Alexas Photos

How do I make my choices then? Well, I don’t so much choose as go with the moment and the opportunities; I let the choice choose me. The point is, I find that I can’t easily rationalise my choices because, often, there’s not a clear-cut favorite to choose from. I go with my gut and roll the dice when it comes to making decisions. You’d think that this trait would make me indecisive but I find it has quite the opposite effect. I’ve always been quick to make decisions (some might say too quick) because most times I don’t see the downside. I’m not saying I always get it right, but I never look back with regret, except to say I’d change any decisions that might have hurt others. 

Photo by Esa Riutta

Despite my mum’s words, there’s not always a choice. We don’t choose where we’re born nor the environment in which we grow. Spare a thought for those born in conflict zones, children who face hunger and poverty, those born to abuse. In the end, choice is a privilege, one we should never take for granted. We all make good choices and bad ones, but ultimately we’re shaped by them. They define us, and as we grow older, we each become the sum of the choices we’ve made throughout our lives.

we each become the sum of the choices we’ve made throughout our lives

Alone with my thoughts

Isolation, it’s a word we’ve all come to recognise a little too well of late. Covid has forced us all to understand what it means and has tested our ability to deal with being isolated from friends, family and the world at large. It’s not until we’re faced with the loss of freedom that we realise what we’ve taken for granted. It’s not that we necessarily use our liberty to the full when it’s available, but the loss of it stirs a strong reaction that can manifest in feelings of deep deprivation.

Photo by C Salem

It’s human nature to want what we can’t have; it’s a principal that drives our consumer economies. We’ve been programmed to strive for things beyond our reach. So, when we’re deprived of basic human rights, like freedom of movement, freedom to socialise in person, we’ll often fight tooth and nail to get it back, especially when that loss of liberty has been enforced by law. Most of us, however, believe in the greater good and are prepared to sacrifice part of our freedom for the larger society in which we live. I tend to rationalise that my sacrifice is still my choice as a member of a democratic and free community and so I retain some power over my own freedom by opting to obey the rules for the sake of everyone.  

Photo by Fernando Zhiminaicela

If these last years of intermittent isolation have taught me anything, it’s that not everyone has the same liberty to lose. It made me reflect on those who live without freedom of movement, populations governed by despots and dictators, authoritarian regimes that run roughshod over people by force. They use violence and intimidation to control the masses. In these places, it’s dangerous to have even freedom of thought. Despite the Covid restrictions, I’m grateful that I live with the kind of liberty some can only dream of.  

Photo by Efes

There are others who also suffer from isolation and lack any freedom of movement and they are more prevalent than we’d sometimes be prepared to admit. I’m thinking of those among us who are isolated through age, mental and physical disabilities, or just plain loneliness. For many, isolation comes out of fear, fear of meeting people, fear of not being able to cope, fear of not fitting in or of failure.  

…just plain loneliness

Photo by Steven Hwg

Loneliness and social isolation often come with age. According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), more than one-third of adults aged 45 and older feel lonely, and nearly a quarter of adults aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated. As we get older, we can find ourselves living alone, we lose family and friends for all kinds of reasons and we are more prone to sickness and chronic ill health. And we don’t necessarily need to be isolated to feel lonely, it’s common for loneliness to be felt even in the midst of a crowd.  

Image by Graehawk

I have to admit that I’ve never felt lonely; alone yes, but never lonely. I’ve had wonderful, loving family and friends around me all my life and never had time to feel lonely. Isolation is a different matter, I think everyone feels alone or isolated at some time in their life, when those we care about are not around to confide in, or when decisions are to be made that can only be made alone. And being alone or isolated can be a deliberate choice; everyone needs space to meditate occasionally, to take stock. When I look back at my working life, at times it’s been too hectic a ride. Time alone was always at a premium. Now I have the time to pursue the things I love to do, I find that they’re often lone pursuits like writing, painting and photography. I enjoy immersing myself in those activities but I have to remind myself to emerge from my studio every so often or my wife will come looking. Friends find it funny that I have a door bell hooked up from the house to the studio so Christine can buzz me when it’s time to eat. I think I’d starve if she didn’t. 

Time in my studio; a welcome kind of isolation

There’s another aspect of self-isolation that comes with age. I think we sometimes chose to be more isolated as part of a decluttering of our lives as we get older. We appreciate a simplification of our once busy lifestyles and do this by limiting our interaction with others to the extent we have in the past. We choose instead to spend time with those we really care about and less time with people we have no interest in and doing things that don’t matter. Time is more precious as we age, and while I long for a time when isolation is once again a choice and not a requirement, I do appreciate my time alone with my thoughts, and to just watch the world go by. 

Photo by Raymond Revaldi

Alone with my thoughts, and just to watch the world go by