Author Archives: suewighton

A friend recently shared these tips from a 1950s women’s magazine on how to look after your husband. I reproduce it here with my thoughts in italics. Don’t judge me. Have dinner ready Plan ahead to have a delicious meal on time. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospects of aContinueContinue reading “Back to the fifties”

The world is a confusing place. There are myriad things I’ll never understand. In my simple-minded confusion, I wonder how I’ve made it to pensionable age with such gaping chasms in my general knowledge. Why do people buy gigantic four-wheel-drives solely for traversing the inner suburbs and blundering around harassing small cars in supermarket carContinueContinue reading “I don’t understand”

Dear FB friends, It’s time we had a little talk. Face to face. I want to chat to you about friendship – about sharing and boundaries. I want to remind you what real friendship means and to ask you to get out of my face, facebook friends. What defines a friend? Of course there’s noContinueContinue reading “Open letter to facebook friends”

This is a work in progress folks: For as long as I can remember I’ve been searching for perfection. To be specific, I’m seeking the perfect dishrack. One that drains. One where the utensils don’t fall out, kerplunk, into the sink. One which doesn’t rust or go mouldy. Is this so very hard to find?ContinueContinue reading “It’s got to be perfect”

‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ or as the Bible (Genesis) says ‘… for dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return’. Scattering my parents’ ashes was on my mind but I was wary. For starters, I think it might be a tiny bit illegal. Plus I saw what happened to Donny in TheContinueContinue reading “Ashes to Ashes”

My mum (Elsie Wighton nee Martin) died in 2000 aged just 72. Way, way too young and we still miss her. Mum had many attributes – a calm and lovely presence, a great sense of humour, which could be deliciously wicked at times, terrific legs, and a magical singing voice to name just a few.ContinueContinue reading “Elsie’s Hair”

Some things promise the world and then deliver very little. Take hammocks. Please. There’s a reason you see them in op shops. My daughter was waxing lyrical about the relaxation possibilities of a hammock the other day as she wistfully eyed the hooks on her back patio. She spoke of how wonderful it would beContinueContinue reading “Hammocks and other disappointments”

Christmas is coming and I need to resist the world view of scratchy old Ebenezer Scrooge from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol: ‘ … every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!’ Bah! Humbug!ContinueContinue reading “Christmas seasons”

I’m sick of ‘the journey’. I’m like that annoying six-year-old in the back seat whining, ‘Are we there yet?’ Where? I hear you ask. To a land where the word ‘journey’ may no longer be used in polite company. In this land, should you utter or write this word, soap and water or a writContinueContinue reading “Are we there yet?”

It’s hard to believe it’s twenty years since my mother died. Twenty years since my family and I nursed my darling mum in the last five weeks of her final encounter with cancer – secondary melanoma. She was just seventy-two. I understand for many people, euthenasia is a bridge too far. They cite improvements inContinueContinue reading “Choose Life”