I had a great time talking about books with my parents when I was home in Australia a few months ago. Plus I bought quite a few back to England. Some need to return to the other side of the world.
I got organised (kind of) in between review books and read Susan Duncan’s ‘Salvation Creek’.
Susan Duncan appears to have it all. Editor of two of Australia’s top selling women’s magazines, a happy marriage and a jet setting lifestyle. The world was her oyster. Until her husband and brother die within three days of each other. She goes on auto-pilot for about 18 months until she can’t go on anymore.
She wants to up sticks and turn everything around but it won’t be an easy process. She has her own battle for survival. She chooses to create this new life in a waterside idyll cut off from the outside world. Apparently people either take to it within 2 years or don’t.
She brought it all to life as she moved around and described memories from her childhood. I could visualise her as she commuted to her job and then back to her tranquil life on Pittwater.
‘Life is blithely taken for granted by most of us – until it is threatened’. p.177
My mum’s copy has the lemon cake recipe, but as I was reading it, I realised that I have the cookbook that it has been adapted from: Stephanie Alexander’s ‘The Cook’s Companion.
Cathy Powell 