The Australian Women's Weekly March 2023

For me, February was all about giving up. Not on life, just on some of the bad habits that had been lingering since the holidays. I call it my ‘reset month’. One where I didn’t drink any alcohol, or reach for a chocolate bar on autopilot every day after lunch. I’d quit staying up too late reading one more chapter of my book or watching another episode of my favourite show. I’d stop putting off the life admin tasks that have been piling up and just do them. I can’t say these changes have seen me springing out of bed in the morning or glowing from head to toe as I’d envisaged, but I do feel more in control and kinder to myself. It means that I then head into…

Teachable moment I’ve just read The Dark Side of the Schoolyard (AWW, February) and agree totally with the content. However, the article doesn’t address the bully. As parents it’s our responsibility to make sure our child isn’t a bully. We need to take the same steps of checking what they’re doing online or how they’re behaving in school. The bullying child’s parents need to take action to stop this behaviour rather than letting their child create such havoc. Name and address withheld. Heart & soul Every article in the February issue was a page turner and incredibly interesting, but the one that resonated with me was The Sweet Science of Soulmates (AWW, February). I’m a hopeless romantic and really believe Plato’s soulmate theory. Seeing photos of a kissing couple married…

Quirky COUTURE Turning style on its head Avant-garde luxury fashion house Viktor & Rolf put a new spin on a catwalk show with their “Late Stage Capitalism Waltz” collection. Sparkling, embellished bodices created with 3D printers and voluminous mille-feuille skirts were turned on their head (and side) while models were guided down the runway via instructions through an earpiece. Women we love Star of the Show Tiggy Eckersley, 10, has become the youngest-ever songwriter to win a Golden Guitar award for co-writing song of the year Star of the Show with her parents. Shine from behind Aussie film artists working behind the scenes have been nominated for Oscars. Elvis Cinematographer Mandy Walker (above) and production designer Karen Murphy are up for gongs. Our bright star Astronomer and Gamilaraay woman Karlie…

I still remember the first time I met Delta Goodrem in 2002. To be honest, I’d turned up not expecting terribly much. Earlier that week a Sony Music publicist had rung, asking for something of a favour. The label would be launching a talented 16-year-old singer-songwriter, they said. She would first appear on Neighbours, with her debut single following soon after. She was a big priority, the publicist semi-pleaded, before swearing this would be worth my time as well as something that would be remembered down the line. Arriving at a cafe in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, I found myself sitting opposite a sweet, self-possessed young blonde who, if she was nervous, gave no clues. Her slightly gravelly voice belied her youth and innocent aura. She was inquisitive. She asked me…

Column While 2023 will certainly be dominated by the pizazz of May’s coronation – the new sovereign in bejewelled crowns, donning a cloth of gold and anointed in secret recipe holy oil – this year is also vitally important for the monarchy as a whole. The future starts now, and the new slimmed down House of Windsor is already setting in train its manifesto. Now, it may feel like business as usual with community and military engagements filling the court circular in the UK and reports of a busy overseas program to support the government on the agenda. Yet already I have noted a deliberate concentration on often complex social issues coming to the fore, and a definite lifting of the mystical royal curtain, resulting in a more touchy-feely people’s…

It was an old, hungry, thirsty dog wandering into a caravan park that raised the alarm, but that was a week later. Events first began to unfold back in March 2015, as three people drove along a dusty track, through scrub and red earth, to a remote camp site 30 kilometres south of the tiny town of Sandstone in Western Australia’s Mid West. They arrived in three separate vehicles and set up camp at remote Bell Chambers, a series of abandoned mineshafts that had been dug out by hand 100 years earlier. The friends were there to prospect, to abseil into the holes in the ground in the hope of finding residue fortune. Three people arrived at the camp site that day, but only one of them would leave alive.…