Easy Street Retreat is situated on the banks of the Bellinger River in the Thora Valley near Bellingen in NSW Australia .

about

I spent my working life as a librarian, first at TAFE librarian and then in law libraries from 1991. In 1996 I took on web design when the Federal Court of Australia decided it needed a web presence.

I have an aged Jack Russell Terrier called Muffin or Muffy for short. Muffy is going on 20 in early 2011. She's frail but otherwise not too much to complain about.

When not out mowing, planting, weeding, picking fruit and veges, bird and frog watching and socialising my interests turn to:

• photography

  All the photographs on this site were taken with a Nikon D200. A selection of our photos are available for viewing on this site.

• web design

  I made websites professionally and now do the odd one if the work is interesting and challenging. My philosphy for web deisng is to keep it simple with ease of use (useability) and accessibility my main consideration. My most recent work is Kim de Vahl Baker: Visual Artist, and Patanga and of course, I designed this site. Look at my web design page for more information.

• music

  I have a large music collection of vinyl and CD, mostly of 20th century artists.
• reading
I am a member of BookMooch which is a book exchange site. My member name is Darkwood (AU). The concept is that members post books that they own and no longer want and any other member can request those books and be sent them for free. Sending books gains the sender points and then he/she can spend those points on books to be sent to them. All that's required is a small amount of money to pay for postage sending books, which is a pretty good deal for a book.

• family history

My second great grandfather on my father's side - William Purnell arrived in Australia on the convict ship 'Larkins' in 1817. He was granted his certificate of freedom in 1824 and died in 1871 in Lane Cove, NSW, Australia. He was from Gloucestershire in England.

My mother's family's heritage is a mixture of Scottish and Irish. My grandparents lived in Fauldhouse, Scotland and arrived here in Australia as assisted immigrants in 1912-13.

I am also well practiced in deciphering old hand writing and enjoy transcribing old parish registers for FreeREG. The objective of FreeREG is to provide free Internet searches of baptism, marriage, and burial records, that have been transcribed from parish and non-conformist registers of the U.K.

Please see my family history page for more information.