Country Style May 2021

Mother’s Day is a very special celebration in my family. On the day before, my daughters’ school has a mother and daughter lunch, which my mum comes down from Ocean Shores to attend. Come Sunday, the girls cook us both breakfast in bed and we are spoilt with gifts. When they were much younger, presents were bought from the Mother’s Day stall at school and I often received tea towels. My youngest daughter, Ally, would always preface the giving of this gift with: “It’s something you really want!” Times have changed and they have learnt that baked goods are the way to my heart. An ardent fan of Muriel Halsted from the Country Women’s Association (CWA), Ally follows along with her lemonade scones on YouTube. We have included some deliciously dependable…

CLAIRE BINGHAM Claire has been an interiors journalist for more than 20 years. She wrote and photographed our Postcard story on page 64, about a creatively restored and extended home in Cheshire, England. As a teenager living in the idyllic Yorkshire countryside, “I was on the coach to London as often as I could afford!” says Claire, 47. After going to art college, she landed her first journalism job at Elle Decoration magazine. “I love meeting people in the creative industry,” she says. “Journalism affords amazing opportunities for travel and going behind the scenes.” The globetrotter spent three happy years in Sydney, and now lives in Macclesfield, in England’s north-west, with her husband Marc, daughter Josephine, nine, and their cat Pip. “We’re surrounded by nature and there is a great creative scene.” KRISTEN…

THE GOOD COUNTRY For many years I have subscribed to Country Style magazine. I can actually remember the first time I read the magazine in a doctor’s waiting room – such a pleasant thing to do before my consultation. Over the years, I have copied styles of décor and also visited many places that have been featured. Country Style is an opportunity to take oneself to wonderful places without having to travel there. This month’s edition took me to Richmond Hill, Tasmania. The photography was superb and I was engrossed in the beauty of the gardens. We are so lucky to live in our wonderful country, and have the opportunity to visit some really fantastic places. I have travelled and lived in many countries all over the world, but my heart always comes…

MY PHONE PINGS. “We were wondering if you were home this morning and if the patient was up for a quick visit?” “Yes!” I say. The farmer is on crutches as he gets acquainted with a brand-new knee and visitors will be a good distraction. I add ‘make scones’ to my already too-long morning list. I grew up in a house where there seemed to be a constant stream of people ‘popping in’. My mother would warm the teapot, pull out the biscuit jar, which would be full of her date slice, sluice the hot water around the teapot, warm the cups and all the while the chat would flow over the kitchen bench and fill the room with what felt like tendrils of connections out into the world. My mother was…

BECOMING A MUM for the second time changed Stacy Madden’s life. Amid the night feeds and the nappies, she made space for an art practice that’s grown beyond anything she could have imagined. “I was on maternity leave with Harper, who’s now five,” says Stacy, who lives with husband Stuart Greensill, a property valuer, and their son Ziggy, eight, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. “Our yard was full of palms that would drop down beautiful materials. They were very sculptural and tactile, and I thought ‘I could make something out of that’. It was as simple as that. I’m a creative person and I needed an outlet.” Stacy studied fine art at university, majoring in sculpture, and had intended to start a photography business while on maternity leave. But once she noticed the…

SEPTEMBER 2018 WAS A PIVOTAL MOMENT in Kelly Barnes’ life. Working casually for the National Centre for Farmer Health, her path crossed with suicide prevention researcher, Dr Alison Kennedy, who was running digital storytelling workshops. Kelly joined a workshop, creating a short movie using photos and videos of her life focusing on her mental health struggles and her battle with chronic pain and fatigue. “I have a chronic pain condition called fibromyalgia. The easiest way to describe it is you have a hypersensitive nervous system, so you react to pain and external stimulus on a much larger scale,” she says. “I was looking through pictures of my life to put together my story, and realised they were mostly photos with my dogs. It just made me really think about how much…