Are strawberries really strawberries? Or is strawberry simply a ‘barry’?

Ciao Team Dusty!

Here in Melbourne, we are in the last days of autumn which is turning on some beautiful sunny days - albeit after chilly mornings. I am taking advantage of the weather to do lots of walking as well as all the usual exercises I do regularly: yoga postures, yoga breathing, balance and concentration exercises and (occasionally) Zumba for seniors. It was also a glorious autumn day (in March) when, after a great many years, I caught up with my good friend Graeme over lunch by the Yarra River. Melbourne was at her best that day.

Read the Gazette

What do Cyclone Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh & Prime Minister Albanese all have in common? 

Find out in the March edition of Team Dusty Gazette. Click on the link below.

                                                         Ciao Team Dusty!

This morning I woke up to 16 degrees. Finally the weather is starting to warm up. The forecasters got it right when they predicted September 2024 would be the coldest in years. In fact, here in Orbost we suffered the coldest spring day in 41 years with a (so-called) high of 9.6° Celsius.

Today, being the first Tuesday in November, is Melbourne Cup Day.  The Cup is a handicap horserace which means each horse is allocated a different weight depending on its age and previous form. This adds a frisson of excitement because  the punters need to try guess which horse will overcome its handicap.  Read More

If someone outside family and friends dares to patronise you by addressing you with an inappropriate term of endearment like 'love', don't let them get away with it. At best it is disrespectful; at worst it is bullying.

People who attempt to belittle others in this way are usually insecure. They want to get a feeling of power and reassure themselves they are worthier than others by deflecting their feelings of inferiority.

This offensive use of endearments is done with the aim, subconscious or otherwise, of diminishing the person being addressed.

Make no mistake about it, speaking to people in this way is a put down. The underlying message is: You are less than I am. We ought not allow these acts of microaggression to go unchallenged.

Often, the perpetrators do not realise they are belittling the person being addressed. THAT is no excuse. The message is the same whether it is at the subconscious level, or the conscious level. If you call it out, you’ll do them a service by raising their self-awareness.

Reject the ‘endearment’ – politely and respectfully — but firmly. For example, you could say in a courteous tone: Please don’t call me love. (Being firm is important. The offender won’t take you seriously otherwise.)

If you find doing this confronting, practise saying it in your head and out loud in the privacy of your home. That way, it will slip off your tongue more easily when the occasion arises.
Be brave!

There may be times when something about the circumstances or the offender may send you a ‘let it go’ vibe. At such times you may choose to exercise your power to be lenient and allow the discourtesy to pass without comment.

Here is a link to my whimsical ditty called Don’t Call Me Love. 

                                              Ciao Team Dusty!

Many of you would have celebrated Mother’s Day this month. My mum was the mother of ten children. Three of them were kept secret from me and my six siblings.  It was not until my mother died that we found her secret and I took up the task of writing a book about how my mother was separated from her first three children. It was a confronting story to write and, as it was my first full length novel, I did not feel confident I was up to the task. In fact, I had to enlist the help of hypnosis to find that confidence. The end result, as most of you know, was Whisper My Secret  which has been an Amazon best seller in several categories, several times over. Go Mum!

When my mother met my father during the second World War, he took her back to his hometown Orbost in East Gippsland, which also became my hometown. Last time I told you about my relocation back to Orbost, which is now my home base until I am able to return to Melbourne to live.

At present I am taking a break in Aireys Inlet, a small coastal town located on the Great Ocean Road southwest of Melbourne. This spectacular seaside hamlet attracts tourists, surfers, filmmakers and, of course, writers. Australian crime writer Arthur Upfield lived at Aireys in the 1950s and wrote a murder mystery set in the lighthouse. Split Point Lighthouse is still a working lighthouse playing a vital role in helping vessels navigate the treacherous waters of Bass Strait. The lighthouse keeper, however, has been replaced by an automated system which still operates every night.

The romance of the lighthouse is only one of the delightful elements of this area. I also encounter lots of beautiful birds here, as I do in Orbost. However, I have not come across a sheep here in Aireys as yet. In Orbost one day while I was enjoying a cappuccino at a café in the main street I was serenaded by a bleating sheep in the background. I later found out the sheep (a ram I think), which looked like a sheep in cow’s clothing cos it had the colouring similar to a Holstein cow, was a much-loved pet. This delightful encounter remined me of the days when, as kids, my brothers and I used to ride on the back of a big old ram from the sheep farm next door. He was as big as a Shetland pony - at least he seemed to be to the child me - a gentle giant who didn’t mind having us kids on his back.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Lugubrious brown eyes stared at me from behind great wide nostrils that resembled portals to secret caves. This dromedary didn’t like me. Tooting Moon

DID YOU KNOW?
Sheep have rectangular pupils which allows them to almost everything around them except what is directly behind then - without turning their heads. Even if a sheep has its head down grazing on luscious grass it can see what’s happening around it.

And did you know there was once a sheep called Sugar living on a farm in Melbourne who answered the call of adventure from the wild. Sugar escaped from the farm and ventured out into the big wide world to see what she could see. Eventually she was taken in by a mob of kangaroos who treated her as family. She lived contentedly with the kangas for five years -  until a human spoilt her fun. This human spotted Sugar with her bush family and thought Sugar looked a little worse for wear and badly overdue for a haircut. And wouldn’t ‘ewe’ know it, she organised a rescue mission which took six months of plotting and planning.

Rescue? Sugar, in the care of her Skippy family, was doing just fine and living life to the fullest in Melbourne’s Sugarloaf Reservoir. She was nonplussed when the ‘bleating’ humans arrived in 2023 and spoilt all her fun.

They took her to the Australia’s best ‘baa-baashop’ where she was pampered and given a glamorous buzz cut. She came out without her huge wool coat looking a little sheepish. That huge coat was what had the humans worried because having so much wool on her back could have exposed Sugar to parasite infection and disease.

Sugar has now been adopted by a non-kangaroo family where she continues to get pampered and expertly groomed every day. So, I suppose you could say, ‘all’s wool that ends wool’.

Remember: All of the Dusty Kent Mysteries, including the latest book Death in The Dandenongs, are available FREE in Kindle Unlimited.

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Winner! I was thrilled that my short story Shanty Shooting won first prize in the Mystery with History category at the recent Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto Awards. Honoured to receive my prize from the creators of the Phryne Fisher TV series - Fiona Eagger (l) Deb Cox (r)

I wrote Shanty Shooting as a 'rehearsal story' for the next Dusty Kent novel. The story is set in the 1860s and is inspired by the real homicide that I plan on weaving into Dusty Kent Mystery #8. Writing the rehearsal story was a way of helping to get the details of the real event clear in my mind before I start to write the book.

I’m looking forward to my upcoming two month break from teaching which will allow me to get stuck into writing the book.

There’s more to Matilda than meets the eye.