Originally published by The Clifton Courier, March 23, 2022

I’m getting a bit of reputation, and I’m not helping myself at all. 

The other day, I had someone around to spray my place for pests. Now, pest controllers have to traipse around the whole house to make sure they get all the bugs. They need to give the entire place a proper lookover. They have to go through every room. They open every cupboard and every drawer.

So there’s not much they don’t see. 

I reckon most of them would have a few top tier tales about what they’ve seen on the job. 

As this particular pest controller was finishing up, he asked me if I was from the country, because he noticed my boots at the door, my hat hanging on the stair railing and, of course, he made reference to the multiple horse decorations I have about the place. 

Thankfully the hat and boots gave a little context so he assumed I was just a bit country (although if he looked closely at the un-scuffed boots and practically pristine hat, he’d have probably have assumed I was closer to a concrete cowboy than an actual bushie) rather than being a Horse Girl. 

Not that there’s anything wrong with being a Horse Girl – as someone with both summer and winter horsey pyjama bottoms, I encourage leaning right in to your inner Horse Girl. Embrace it. As the original Saddle Club members sang all those years ago: hello world, this is me. 

But I’m wondering exactly how much horse is too much horse. Because yesterday, I was in a second-hand shop and bought myself this magnificent ceramic wall hanging of two custard-coloured horse heads arranged together to make a bit of a heart shape. 

Obviously, I wasn’t going to walk past that. 

It was an essential purchase. 

But when I got it home and tried to work out where to put it, I realised there weren’t many places in my home that didn’t already have something horsey going on. And I live in a little townhouse, so there’s only so far I can space them out. 

Here’s an inventory of my horse décor:

A large framed horse print: This was something I inherited from my grandmother. I can’t tell you how old it is, but as it used to hang in a very prominent spot in Grandma’s house, it features in pretty much every picture I’ve been in with my grandmother since I was a baby – so it’s at least 30 years old. It’s a little faded, but with a majestic horse looking you in the eye as it splashes through a mountain stream, it makes a bold statement. 

A wooden horse statue: This was something I’d inherited from someone else’s grandmother, because they knew I loved a good horse statue. It’s well loved and I can tell it’s seen some good and bad times. So it takes pride of place next to the Irish whiskey I keep on hand in case I want to have wide-ranging late-night D&Ms and feel like garbage the following morning. 

A ceramic horse moneybox: There are no coins in it, but it’s filled with magic and mystery. It’s a white horse, which has a unicorn-like vibe but, come to think of it, it also reminds me of that white horse responsible for Claire’s death in McLeod’s Daughters. It’s next to the TV. 

A vintage vinyl-clad ice bucket with silvery horseshoes and horseheads decals, and stirrups on the side: Again, this serves no practical purpose of containing anything*; it just sits on the top shelf above my kitchen, looking cool.

* Actually, since this column was written, I moved said ice bucket and found it actually contained, would you believe, I plastic horse figurine. It’s now sitting on the bathroom bench for vibe-related reasons. The ice bucket is now on top of the fridge, where it serves as a holder of stubby holders.

A single brown horse salt and/or pepper shaker: A gift from some house guests who know me very well. This sits on the entirely necessary telephone table at the top of the stairs. 

The Tanga Cup Trophy from 2007: I didn’t earn this trophy. I know nothing about the Tanga Cup. I bought this at an op shop and have been using it as a bookshelf ornament for a while. It suggests I’m a magnificent rider, when in truth I’ve only ridden a few times… and on one of those times I broke my wrist. 

That’s a lot of horse gear for a small space. 

Now, this means that, if I’m going to hang my recent acquisition in a horse-free room, it may need to be bathroom or toilet art. 

As I said before, I’m not ashamed of being a Horse Girl, but something about staring into the eyes of a ceramic custard horse while you’re sitting on the toilet seems like it’s a bit much, even for me.

I think I had better make this my last horsey purchase for a while* … until I can afford an actual horse, of course. 

* About a month ago, I bought another aged, greenish horse print with a brown water stain on it. It’s fantastic and only cost me five bucks. It hangs above the spare bed for my guests to enjoy.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, March 17, 2022

Yeah, look, I’ve been a bit slack lately. Whattaya gonna do about it?!

I lost my headphones the other day and felt completely exposed without them. 

I do shift work. Which means I work weird hours. Which leaves me with a lot in-between time before or after starting work when there’s no one around to hang out with. 

And if I’m not careful, I’ll spend that time sitting on the couch scrolling through second-hand sales listings looking for some weird item to fill the void in my heart, wasting my time and my money. Don’t get me wrong, I love the tiny boomerang-shaped side table I spent far too much money on, but I could have done far more fun, more productive or more restful things with that time and could have better spent that money on… literally everything else.

So I send myself outside like a stressed out parent just wanting some peace and quiet. 

I’ll make myself put on a light-hearted podcast and go for a stroll around the neighbourhood.

It’s quite a nice way to spend a quiet afternoon, so I’ve really been making a habit of it over the past year or so. 

But the other day, when I couldn’t find my headphones, I wasn’t able to re-listen to my favourite podcast that dissects each season of Sex and the City as “the great American novel it truly is” (it’s basically authors Dolly Alderton and Caroline O’Donoghue getting tipsy and talking about how much they love the show, it’s an absolute joy to listen to and I honestly couldn’t recommend it enough – when I tell people it saved my life, I’m not joking at all). 

I just had to go on a walk without having anything to listen to, but, perhaps even more importantly, without being visibly listening to anything except the world around me. Headphones aren’t just something you can listen to someone espousing theories about the psychology of Miranda Hobbes through, they’re an indication, they’re a social prop.

And let me tell you, going for a walk without the social prop of headphones felt really weird to me. 

Because when I go out for a walk, I’m not huffing and puffing down the street like Kath and Kel on a power walk. 

I’m taking it very easy. I’m pottering along. I am in no hurry to get anywhere – because the whole reason I’m out walking is because I have nowhere to be. And I have a rather short stride, so it takes me a while to get from one end of the street to another.

And that’s fine. 

Because if you’re doing this while wearing headphones, you look like you’re “out for a walk”. They’re a visual signifier that you’re shuffling down the street as an act of light exercise. They tell onlookers that not only are you minding your own business, you’re too wrapped up in your own little world to notice them.

Headphones are like an invisibility cloak of social acceptability that immediately reduce a person’s threatening aura. 

People don’t pause or quieten their conversations when you pass closely by. 

They don’t give you suss looks when you pass them in their front yards. 

They think nothing of you looking into their garages as you pass.

But without headphones, that purpose for being out and about is less clear.

I felt like I had to keep my distance from groups of people chatting along the path, otherwise it would look like I was trying to listen to their conversation. 

I felt like I was casing the joint of every place I walked past. 

In general, I felt like I looked like I was out having a big sticky beak. 

And, don’t get me wrong, I’m doing that when I’m listening to podcasts too – you can listen to two women discuss the significance of fillet of fish burger splattered on Mr Big’s kitchen wall wall AND judge people on the contents on their garage. 

And I will regularly subtly pause whatever I’m listening to in order to overhear the juicy conversations of passers by if they seem worth listening to. 

But without the magic of my headphones, I can’t away with it and that really saps the magic out of a long afternoon walk. 

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, March 10, 2022

It’s always a good idea to give someone a spare key to your house. 

Now, I’ve had my key-related dramas before and I’ve documented some of them here in this column. 

There was the time I was out jogging and my keys fell out of my unzipped pocket, resulting in a frantic retracing of my steps. There was also the time not too long ago when I went out for a jog and realised I’d locked myself out a millisecond after the door lock clicked behind me. 

These things happen. 

So I’ve given out copies of my house key to a few people. Each of my sisters has one. My curly-haired friend has one. My tall friend has one. I’m pretty sure my parents have one… or, if not, they need to remind me to give them one. 

I have back-ups on back-ups on back-ups. 

It’s comforting to know that, if I do find myself locked out of my house, I can call on the Keepers of my Keys to come to my rescue. 

It gives me real peace of mind.

But it’s about more than getting access to my home.

I like that, if I go missing, one of them will be able to pop in to free me from the pile of old newspaper I was trapped under. I love that, if one of them is coming to my place for a visit and I’m running late, they can let themselves in and make themselves a cup of tea. I like that they could surprise me by sneaking in to do my laundry, mop my floors and leave a scented candle just for something nice to do (if so, please use the disinfectant rinse to get rid of the dank sweat smell from my clothes, pay special attention to the area around the bin and, please note that I prefer floral scents). 

So there are a whole bunch of keys out there that can open my front door.

But when I had someone stay with me for a few nights, I realised that I didn’t have a single spare key to give them. I’d given them all out. So I had few more keys cut. 

I got two to give to guests and one more just-in-case key. I put little ribbons around them and stashed them in a safe place. 

I felt very smug about this. 

Then, the other day, I went out for a jog. 

Now, before you go thinking “doesn’t she every learn?!” I will have you know that I did separate my house-key key ring – which is a bright yellow clog and a bright green bottle opener, which I’d selected to make them easy to spot should I ever drop my house key again – from my car keys and put it in my pocket. Which I zipped up. And I even felt for the key ring in my shorts as I was stepping out the door. I felt my pocket for said key ring when I out on my jog just to make sure it was still there. 

And it was still there when I got home and walked back up to my front door. 

I unzipped my securely zipped-up pocket and pulled out the key ring.

And then I realised. 

My key wasn’t on my key ring. 

I had unwittingly put my house key on a different ring in my bundle of key rings. Ironically, having more keys cut left me without a key. 

I had the little yellow clog. I had the green bottle opener. But didn’t have my house key. I’d have been all set if I were trying to assist a fairy who had lost a shoe and needed a beer opened, but unfortunately I wasn’t trying to assist a fairy who had lost a shoe and needed a beer opened – I was trying to get into my house.

And not only was I very thirsty and really hot, I also had a wedding I was supposed to be getting ready for. 

I thought about who to call. My little sister had recently had a birthday, so my Brisbane-based sister was in Toowoomba feeding her cake, along with my other sister and my parents. So they were no good. 

My curly-haired friend lives on the other side of town and was possibly at work.

But my tall friend lives 15 minutes away.

So I thought I’d start with her and, if she wasn’t around, I’d work my way back down the list. Thankfully, she was not only free at the time, but she was planning on popping by to pick up some stuff she’d left here. 

The system works!

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, March 3, 2022

I think the cat next door has it in for me. 

Straight off the bat I need to make a declaration: I’m not a cat person. I mean, I like that they’ve got this witchy vibe about them and I also appreciate that most cats seem to have other things going on in their lives so they’re not particularly clingy pets who need your attention all the time. 

But as much as I loved Aristocats as a little girl, I’m just not into cats. 

I recently stayed with some friends who had two cats, which turned me off opting into the world of felines forever. There’s the kitty litter issue. The stench of their food. And, just to really drive the message home, I witnessed one of them vomiting up a hairball on the kitchen floor.

Can you imagine coming home from a real stinker of a day at work, finally taking off your shoes for the day and walking into the kitchen to make yourself a cup of tea only to trod on a slimy mound of cat hair?! Not only is that extremely gross, but it’s also a major hazard. You could slip and hit your head and, look, I’m not saying cats are terrible people, but they certainly wouldn’t call the ambulance for you, you know? 

I just don’t want to deal with any of that and I certainly don’t want to deal with that within the confines of my home.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not polite to cats when I encounter them. And I’m always polite to the cat next door. 

I’m fairly certain one of my neighbours took in the cat belonging to the fellow who lived here before me after he relocated to New Zealand. I’m assuming said cat is the one I keep encountering because of the way it keeps looking expectedly into my front door.

So I’m extra considerate towards this cat.

I mean, that’s pretty rough. You live with someone and build a life together and then, one day, they just up and leave the country without you. Sure, it sounds like the responsible thing to do on old mate’s part, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t sting. 

So when the cat first tentatively approached me as I sat on the doorstep tying my sneakers before a walk, I was gentle. It kept looking past me and into the house. Maybe I’m projecting, but I’m pretty sure it was looking for old mate.

And it broke my heart a little – I may not be a cat person, but I’m also not made of stone! I said words to the effect of “Aw geez, he’s not here anymore mate”, and outstretched my hand to offer it the option of having a pat while not invading its personal space. But the cat just left. 

This kept happening until, one evening, I let the cat in to have a look around. It went into every room. It even looked in the wardrobes. It seemed to understand. 

After that, the cat has allowed me to pat it a few times. Sometimes, it rubs up on my ankles as I’m hearing out down the driveway. I mean, we wouldn’t go out of our way to see each other, but when we did, we were friendly to each other. 

I thought this meant the car was warming to me. 

But now I’m not so sure. 

When I noticed mulch around my newly-planted lavender bushes was displaced in cat-sized patches, I just assumed the cat just liked to sleep in my front garden to feel close to his former owner. 

When I heard the cat clawing at my doormat, I thought it was just because the mat really does lend itself to sharpening claws and I didn’t mind so much because it’s not really damaging the mat. 

But then, the other morning, I noticed a cat poo sitting right in front of my front door.

And I’m finding it very hard to shake the feeling that it was… deposited there on purpose as a message directed at me. But that’s just my imagination running away with me, right? 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, February 9, 2022

I recently went to a concert. 

Now, for those of you who have been following this dribble (which, obviously, refers to my column) since the beginning, you might think, “oh geez here we go, we’re in for another vomit story”. 

But I would like to point out that at the time of the aforementioned concert, I was in a healthy, (mostly*) unaltered state. And I would also like to point out that, back when I did get sick at that live music event way back in the day, the friendly festival medic put my affliction down to being under the influence of gastro. 

* It was a long time ago, so I can’t really say for sure how much goon had been consumed prior to the gastro infection…

And, besides, this isn’t one of those Dannielle-gets-a little-carried-away-and-vomits stories. I may well be past that. This is actually me passing down some wisdom I’ve acquired during my many trips around the sun. 

Of course, it’s repeatedly been established that I’m in no position to doll out life advice, but I shan’t let that stop me. 

I was at a sparsely-attended gig with one of my sisters, sober and feeling very much out of practice when it comes to being at a gig. Thanks to the pandemic, I was no longer the concert-going manic pixie dream girl I liked to think I was. And while I’d experienced live music since the outbreak of a certain unnamed virus, I was rusty and a little unfit. 

We hung right back from the small, density-limit-contained crowd, positioning ourselves so there was no one within a five metre radius of us. 

And while this was good for social distancing, it did make us feel a little off. 

Usually, back in The Before Days, you’d be right up in the thick of it at a concert. There would be a dense, sweaty clump of humanity that had a certain energy to it. Everyone fed of each other. The vibe was infectious. You couldn’t really help but dance in those circumstances.

But just the two of us on our own meant we had to be our own hype girls. 

And it felt awkward. 

Thankfully, we knew what to do to get ourselves in the mood and it’s something I feel compelled to share here, because it really is a game changer. 

Some old friends of ours had this thing they’d do in a dance floor or concert setting that never failed to get people moving, laughing and scraping the zest from the lemon of life. 

And it’s remarkably simple. 

All you need to do is place an object on the ground and pretend it’s something kind of sacred, kind of dangerous and extremely powerful. You revere it but, once it’s one the ground, would never, ever touch it. 

I used my over-the-shoulder bag on the night in question, but anything will do. A half-full glass of water. A hat. A discarded thong with a busted strap. Whatever is at hand, really.

Once you have your object, you proceed to artistically jump over and dance around it. 

Maybe you skip over it. Maybe you do a box step over it without your feet coming into contact with it. Maybe you circle around it, repeatedly pointing downwards at it like you’re a member of the Wiggles performing an ancient spell. 

Whatever you choose to do, you do not actually touch the object, but come very, very close to touching it and you make it as dramatic and silly as possible. You might start out small and restrained with your movements, but eventually you get sucked in. You loosen up.  You get loose then you get lewse and then you lose yourself to the rhythm. 

I remember one time, back when Big Day Out was still a thing, we deployed this method in rave-like corner of the festival. It started off with just the three of us and we were having so much fun, other people started joining in. It ended up growing so big that, for a second there, it felt like we’d created a new religious cult. 

It works at festivals and weddings and, just putting it out there, would probably go off at my wake. It absolutely worked in this case. As soon as I put my bag down, my sister knew that We Were On. 

And within about 23 seconds, we were loose, limber and very hyped up for the main act to come on. 

So if ever you find yourself wanting to dance, but not quite in the right frame of mind to do so, you know what to do. Trust me. It works.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, January 19, 2022

One of the best things that happened to me last year* was when I bought myself a second-hand barbecue. 

* Because of the passage of time, this reference to “last year” is actually a reference to 2021.

There’s something so satisfying about buying second hand.

Obviously there’s the environmental element to it, in that you know you’re not responsible for fuelling the capitalism machine and contributing to landfill by buying brand new gear. 

But the real kick is being able to brag to people about how good of a deal you got. And I got a great deal with this second-hand barbecue. So I make a point of barbecuing pretty much any time I have someone over for dinner so I can find a way to work how much I paid for the barbecue, the cover, the stand, the brand new gas bottle, the scrubbing brush and the spare plate* into the conversation. I’m extremely subtle about it, as you can imagine. 

* Which I’ve yet to actually use… even after all this time.

But while I do love a good brag about the cheapness of my second-hand goods (I got my desk for just 15 bucks from the Armidale dump!) I do also just love how much more delicious everything becomes after being cooked on a barbecue. Even the cheapest, scummiest cut of meat sings after being slapped onto that hallowed (and slightly crusty) cast iron hotplate.  

Corn. Tomatoes. Asparagus. They’re all fine vegetables on their own (well, pedants would point out that tomato is a fruit but I would tell those pedants to pipe down, because we’ve got more pressing issues to discuss) but drizzle them with a bit of olive oil, dust them in a grind of salt and pepper and bung them on the barbecue for a few minutes and you’ve got yourself a main meal – not a some limp side dish. 

But look at me, I’m rambling. How unusual. Let me get to the meat rub. 

For this recipe, I usually like to go one big hunk of meat instead of individual portions. Sometimes I’ll go a big thick rump steak from my local butcher and sometimes I’ll opt for the comically long pork fillets my local grocer does (it looks like a skinned wallaby tail, but the label assures me it came from oinker).

I came up with this rub after bastardising a mushroom shish kebab recipe I attempted for my veggo friend. And while I usually only bastardise recipes by adding stuff to them (that’s still the case here) I also omitted a few things… because while I’m happy to break out the mortar and pestle, I’m not willing to pound for as long as cinnamon quills and cardamom pods need to be pounded for. I’m a busy career woman!

Here’s what I do:

Step one: Warm about two teaspoons each of cumin seeds, fennel seeds and fenugreek in a dry frypan over a low to moderate heat for about two or three minutes. You want them to be warmed enough to darken slightly and punch you in the nostrils with their aroma – don’t stray too far from the hotplate while this is happening, you really don’t want the stink of burnt spices in the kitchen. 

Step two: Tip this into mortar (yes, I had to Google which part was which and, no, I won’t retain that information after today so will have to look it up again and again) with about two teaspoons of course sea salt and crush everything to dust with your pestle. 

Step three: Then add two cloves of garlic to the mortar and smack it silly – you should end up with a bit of a paste.

Step four: Then, scrape it into a shallow baking dish big enough to fit your meat hunk and mix in about two tablespoons of olive oil, a squeeze of half a lemon, another teaspoon or two of salt and stir with a fork. 

Step five: Coat the meat in this mixture and let it marinate in the fridge until about two hours (give or take, depending on how hot the day is) before you’re about to cook so it’ll come to room temperature. 

Step six: Whack that sludgy meat on a searing hotplate, cook for just a few minutes on each side, then triumphantly bring it back into the house.

Step seven: Let it rest for at least 10 minutes, so the juices get reabsorbed but, let’s be honest, a big part of this is being able to make a spectacle of the meat to your guests who will probably let out refrains such as “look at that” and “geez, that’s a piece of meat” and “you truly are the king of kings”. 

Step eight: Then slice the meat into 5mm to 1cm slices, perfect for chucking into tortillas, artfully draping over a puree of some kind or just picking at the dead animal like rabid cavemen.