Reviewing 2019

It’s been a busy year with the usual mix of highs and lows. Rather than write about it, I’m going to show you my year in pictures.

The highlight was my daughter’s wedding to a Frenchman called Louis in Provence 20th July. A fabulous day and evening which brought family and friends from all over the world together in a kind of harmonic convergence. Old familial wounds had the chance to be redressed and healed. New family ties were created and forged.

Genevra and Louis in Capri.

Louis and Genevra’s Wedding in Provence.

And so, to see my daughter get married I had to fly to France! Quel drag!!!

Paris has been top of my bucket list for as long as I can remember and so to finally see the City of Lights was like waking up after an interminably long sleep and what a joy to see it with my daughter and my mother and my new son-in-law.

Une selection de Paris!

 It may have taken me decades to FINALLY get to Paris but I can still fit into a Size 10 pair of ripped jeans!

And then to London to meet the cast of my Cabaret Show, Wendy Waters Rites Words, a collection of songs drawn from three of my musicals, FRED, ALEXANDER and THE LAST TALE (composer Shanon D. Whitelock).

 

In my hotel room with London cast left to right Frank Loman, Monika Lidke (brilliant singer and close friend) Louise Burke, me and Lauren Lovejoy.

London cast of Wendy Waters Rites Words, Louise Burke, Lauren Lovejoy and Frank Loman with program.

And then back to Australia and into the worst drought we’ve ever had and a government in denial of Climate Change. My brother Dr. Marcus Scammell is exhausted but still fighting to raise awareness and develop renewable Green Energy alternatives.

 

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Australia Burning

Dr Marcus Scammell with Dr Alison Bleaney in Tasmania. Fires burning all over Australia.

And in between I took a trip back out west to scope the place where Genevra was born and where I once lived when I was married to her father, Grazier, Richard Hart. It was sad to see how dry the land was but wonderful to see that the trees I planted thirty years ago have grown and provide a patch of green!

 

Willows on creek

And the friends I have lost in 2019, Tom Martin, Deb McKain and Patrick Ward.

And then I self-published Fields of Grace, my second novel. I was waiting for a traditional publisher to offer me a lucrative advance and a mega-marketting campaign when out of the blue a brilliant Irish artist named Dean Micheal Rochford sent me a stunning cover image and asked me if I’d like to use it. It seemed like a sign to me!

Fields of Grace is available on Amazon http://bit.ly/WWFOG

I have a lot of good fortune with the Irish! Particularly Irish men. The cover of my debut novel, Catch the Moon, Mary (middle top row) was also given to me by a stunning Irishman, photographer Des Cannon and now Irish reviewer Peter Donnelly of the Reading Desk has included Catch the Moon, Mary in his 2019 Faves List. So honoured!

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to making me feel valuable and needed on this earth as we move into 2020, a year that will almost certainly bring great and necessary changes. Happy New Year one and all!

           Highlights and Hallmarks 2019

FRED Poster

Shanon Whitelock Composer The Last Tale

And lastly I will leave you with a tantalising glimpse of what’s coming to fruition in 2020.

                                      The Last Tale

                                                 by

                               Whitelock & Waters