I’m Jonathan Shaw, living a quiet life in Marrickville, Sydney, with my partner, known here as The Emerging Artist, not far from our adult sons and small grandchildren.
My earlier iBlog blog started out in May 2003 chronicling life with my mother-in-law who had dementia. I called it Family Life. [It lived on Apple’s iDisk, which went out of existence in mid 2011. I migrated it with some success to my DropBox, where it became inaccessible when DropBox changed the way its public folder worked.] Mollie’s dementia worsened. She moved out, and the blog moved on.
In May 2009, after exactly six years using iBlog, an excellent application that was discontinued, I decided to start over. So here we are, Family Life anagrammatised and transplanted. Occasionally when I want to refer to a post from the old blog I’ll retrieve it, so occasionally a ‘new’ post will turn up with a datemark that’s more than ten years old.
Make yourself at home. Read, comment, come again.
You can mail me at jonathan at shawryan dot id dot au
Me fail? I fly! 
Hmmm…living with a family member with some ailment is very challenging, but sometimes this also acts like the centre of attraction that glues all family members together. People are forced to come closer with their love and support…I have something similar to share. Will write about it soon.
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Love the blog. I’ve just nominated you for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award:
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Thank you. I’m flattered. I like your blog too. But I’m shy about joining these things that require people to nominate X more people, so I’ll pass on that, Jonathan
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Ah, Jonathan, why are your comment closed on Cold light? I just want to say that I’ve just written my review and have been poking around now to see others and I read yours. And I say to – I don’t think I’ve ever been so bored in a book that I still wanted to keep reading – Yes, Yes, Yes. I like your review, because it is close to mine, but yours is better!
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Hi Whispering. I had my blog configured to close comments after six months. This must be WordPress’s default setting. I’ve now changed it, since WordPress’s spam catcher is very effective, and I don’t (touch wood) have to worry about spam accumulating in older posts. I disagree with you: your review is much better than mine. But I can certainly tell we read the same book!
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I will go post my comment over there so future readers can see we agree!
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Excellent! When I have a moment I’ll say something on your review as well.
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That would be nice if you could … but don’t fuss if you’re busy.
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I like both your comments on Tóibín’s ‘The Testament of Mary’ and the way you’ve phrased them. I, too, was left with a feeling of an underdeveloped idea and nothing really original to say. I also found Tóibín’s prose sluggishly meandering with too many awkwardly structured sentences.
I’m glad I’ve found (and bookmarked) your blog.
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Thanks for commenting, Jeremy, and welcome. Generally I love Colm Tóibín’s work, and I thought maybe there was something wrong with me that I was so unimpressed by that one – especially as the general consensus seems to be that it’s wonderful. So it’s good know there’s at least one other person who read the same book I did.
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Your comments were off on the review of Lily Brett’s Only in New York. I wanted to say how much I enjoyed it. I loved the way Inga Clendinnen expressed the difference between a novelist and memoirist. I think I might go for a walk with Lily this Christmas.
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Thanks, Karen. I’m glad you enjoyed the post, and hope you enjoy the book. I’ve turned comments back on – there must have been a glitch with WordPress’s new, improved interface.
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Loved reading this Jonathan. And it certainly pulled at my heart. I remember Andrew back at Sydney University in the early 70s as well.
He was a lovely man full of joy and a zest for life and literature. It is hard to look back over 50 years and remember that lovely young man and read those desolate words!
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