Category: Daily Prompt

What’s your favourite month of the year? Why? November arrives in colour.Jacarandas burst into violet clouds, and lawns disappear beneath a soft, uneven carpet of purple. Every footstep becomes a whisper through petals. The air shifts too—not yet heavy with summer, but warm enough to loosen the shoulders, warm enough to invite the day in.…

What is your favourite place to go in your city? When people ask about my favourite place in Sydney, it’s easy to list the obvious ones. The Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Botanical Garden—everything the postcards promise—are all within a short walk of each other. Add The Rocks, with its historic laneways…

What’s the first impression you want to give people? I still remember the summer of the 2019 bushfires. The smoke had settled over Sydney like a heavy blanket, and news kept coming in about towns under threat. As I followed the fire maps each day, I found myself thinking about where our college students lived,…

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)? We were walking to school one morning when my friend Robert and I spotted a single banknote sitting on the footpath. No one else was around. To two eight-year-olds, it looked like a fortune — about fifty dollars in today’s money. We hesitated. We could have…

What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can? My wife calls me a camel. She’s right — I can go long stretches without drinking. There’s always something else to do first: an email to write, a meeting to get to, a thought to finish before it fades. She sometimes…

What is good about having a pet? We have two pets — a dog who is turning two and a cat who is nineteen. They share almost nothing in age or energy, yet both remind me daily what companionship means. Our dog is uncomplicated joy. She asks for little: food, company, and exercise. That’s all…

Name the most expensive personal itemyou’ve ever purchased (not your home or car). Maybe it wasn’t the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought, but it comes close. We were both students when we got married and had nothing to spare. In those early years, love was measured in patience, not possessions. About thirty years ago,…

What was your favourite subject in school? You were my quiet companion through school. For years I treated you as a task to complete, tables to memorize, or a pattern to memorise. You waited patiently while I solved for x and answered questions on exams. But in time, I began to see you differently. You…

How do you manage screen time for yourself? I’ve never been much of a scroller. My time on screens tends to have purpose — writing, reading, thinking through issues, responding to people. This blog is one example: an intentional space where I reflect, rather than react. Screens are woven through my day. I read the…

Do you need time? Time flies. Everyone says that, and it’s true. Days blur into weeks, and sometimes I wonder where it all went. There are moments I catch myself whispering, I just need more time. But then I remember two lines that have followed me for years. Tolkien once wrote, “All we have to…

Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate. During the long months of COVID, the world changed — not only in our routines but in the rhythm of creation itself. Cities grew quiet, skies cleared, and animals reclaimed spaces we’d long assumed were ours. Kangaroos bounded down Adelaide’s main streets. Birds returned to…

What are your favourite websites? Every morning begins the same way. I open WordPress, not for work and not out of duty, but because it’s my sandpit — the place I play with words. For 215 mornings straight I’ve written something there, sometimes serious, sometimes small. Writing steadies me. Some people think by talking. Some…

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live? If I could relive a year, it would be 1986 — the year we were married. It was a season of joy and discovery, of learning how to build a life together from the ground up. We were settling into a new town,…

The Port Arthur massacre in 1996 was one of the darkest days in Australia’s history. In a place once known for convict suffering and quiet Tasmanian beauty, violence erupted with shocking speed. Thirty-five people were killed, twenty-three wounded. For days the nation could only grieve — stunned, disbelieving, hollowed out. What might have happened if…

What’s something you believe everyone should know? Everyone should know that relationships matter. More than success, more than possessions, more than the restless drive to be admired. When I visit my mother in the nursing home, her world has narrowed to a single room. She doesn’t know what day it is, or sometimes where she…