How did you mark International Women’s Day this year? After two years of lockdown-induced live events, it was a thrill and honour to MC an IWD breakfast at Bondi Hardware Restaurant in Sydney, bringing together impactful, global gamechangers from all over Sydney and all walks of life, itching to steup and make a difference in…
DetailsHave you ever wondered how people muster the time, patience and chutzpah to write that book, found a new business or start a brand new career from scratch ? Something completely “un” them? What in their past led them to doing what they currently do ? I often have. My dream during university was to become a…
DetailsWe are in the middle of a global pandemic and an economic meltdown. The only thing that needs to happen next is for an asteroid to come thudding to earth. No: it is not a nuclear crisis between The US and Iran. SARS was so 2003 and Ebola so 2014. We are in the age…
DetailsGrey clouds, never – ending airplane noise and Plattenbau* . These were my common associations with Frankfurt am Main. Like most intrepid travellers, I had only ever been to Frankfurt for its airport. After all these years in Germany, I’d not had occasion to actually exit the Terminal and visit the city which turned out to be…
DetailsI have always had a secret crush on Melbourne. As a student I would relish the chance to head down for a uni conference, catch a few games at the Australian Open or to visit my family and friends scattered around the bay. Then after almost a decade in Berlin, going back there a few…
Details” You need to write what ?” asked my mum. Like all things 21st century, if you can explain a new-fangled project or something rather abstract to your mum or to a child, then it means you have passed the explanation test. It was sehr viel Spaß (and slightly daunting) at the end of…
Details“If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere” sang Frank Sinatra about New York. So far, no musician has produced a similar song about those who cut their teeth in Berlin post-1989 (Winds of Change by the Scorpions in english perhaps comes close). But there is only one German song about Berlin, from rapper Peter Fox who sings…
DetailsMy little baby turned 6 months old today. I’m sitting here watching the sun-set over the Mediterranean Sea at Fréjus in France,furiously punching out prose on my iphone,emboldened by a few glasses of rosé,heeding his cries and my elder son’s demands for a bed-time read. Here’s 24 things (1 for each week of his existence) I’ve learned about…
DetailsWhoever said maternity leave was easy obviously did not start their 36th week of pregnancy in soupy 5° C, surrounded by Stollen, ‘evenings’ that commence at 3:45pm, the heady scent of Bratwurst and Gebrannte Mandel wafting through the air at the Christmas markets and itchy wool stockings. And so it begins. Mutterschutz. This is the official period 6…
DetailsHis body, lying flat. His arms and limbs, lifeless. This was the picture of that little boy whose life was taken by the sea, a little boy who compelled the world to sit up and take not just notice. But action. He was not just a photo. He was and always will be, a boy. His name was Aylan. His older brother Galip and his mama, they too were taken by the sea, for all the world to see. I was wondering how to approach this blog post, as I had started it a few days before the little boy’s death when news emerged of the plight of the Syrian refugees who perished in a truck at the hands of human traffickers .And now I have added in some other parts to reflect my anger, hope and pride not just as a writer, but also as a mama, at what is happening in Berlin and Germany with the tide of new refugee arrivals.
Details
