Show Notes

Episode 24: Tess Lehman’s Story - Never Going Back in the Box

On coming out, starting over, and learning to be exactly who you are

(Trigger warning: this episode contains some swearing. Just so you know what you’re in for — but I promise it’s worth it.)

Today I am joined by a woman I found the way I find most good things — scrolling Instagram at some point when I should have been doing something else.

Tess Lehman is a photographer based in Newcastle, and her Instagram bio reads: Photos that feel like home. Rebellion and magic. Not your average. And honestly, right there tells you everything you need to know about Tess.

She is as real and raw and as down to earth as they come. No bells and whistles. No performance. Just a woman with a big life and a beautiful, honest way of talking about it.

What a life it has been.

Tess grew up in a big, loud, blustery family on the edge of Inverell in northern New South Wales — one of seven kids, a voracious reader who hid in treehouses with her books so nobody could take them off her, a kid who threw down with her teachers (and won), and a teenager who, at eighteen, packed herself into a Subaru with her best mate and drove to Alice Springs because she knew if she didn’t leave, she never would.

From Alice Springs to the mines of northern WA. From Perth to Indonesia to Canada. Selling cars, working bars, laying 90 square metres of turf with three small children watching from the deck.

And then, at 33, painting a wall alone at 2 or 3 in the morning, she had a moment. A quiet, enormous, life-changing moment.

In this episode, Tess talks about coming out as queer in her 30s, and what it felt like to finally give herself permission to be the person she actually was. She talks about her ADHD diagnosis, and the strange grief of realising that the things you thought were just your personality — both the good bits and the hard bits — were something else entirely. She talks about her photography, and the transformation she witnesses when she turns the lens on women and reflects back to them a version of themselves they’ve never been allowed to see before.

And she talks about her precious sister. Her shining, hilarious, enormous-hearted sister, who saw Tess more clearly than almost anyone, and who died — and how you learn to live with that kind of missing.

This is a big, beautiful, honest episode. I think …. wait … I know ….. you’re going to love Tess as much as I do.

A little something from this episode to take with you...

“I am never going back in that box. I’m never going to be quiet. I’m never going to stop saying the things that are true for me.” Tess Lehman

Where to find Tess:

Instagram: @tessdoes_ and @wishmymothertoldme

The Podcast: Wish My Mother Told Me

Photography Bookings: www.tessdoes.com

If you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen, and if you feel inclined, leave a little review — it helps more story-lovers find their way here:)

Kim x

Where to find me:

✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.

✨To find out more about my writing program, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories

✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.
It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here

✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here. Oh, and from July on, there will be an extra special little gift waiting for one lucky duck subscriber. A ‘golden ticket’ will be tucked inside one envelope. Who will July’s ticket finder be?

✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)

✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com

✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also Kim
Production and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!

Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)

Well, what a lovely weekend that one was!

The Paper People Retreat was such a wonderful event. Michaela from Blue Stiggy (Michaela creates the most gorgeous handmade journals) did such an awesome job at making it happen and I can’t thank her enough. There are so many new, lovely subscribers here (over 150 of you!) because of that, and I want to warmly welcome every single one of you.

Knowing that you’ve each participated in my Memory List workshop and created some memory lists of your own truly does bring me soooo much joy. Even if that’s all you do, you have created some snippets of your story right there. And that is a wonderful, wonderful thing!

I am hoping though, that the workshop (and the extra next step you grabbed when the workshop was over) will ignite in you the motivation to keep going and get those precious memories down on paper. Truly it is a gift that will keep on giving as you and your loved ones get to share in your story forever more.

You know, I know I say this a lot, but for the new people reading this newsletter for the first time, I want to say it again - your life does not need to be a fairytale book of adventures and life experiences. Most of us don’t have too many stories like that. The majority of us women are living fairly ordinary, some might even say ‘mundane’ (I’m cringing and raising my hand as I type that) lives. Some of us are even purposely slowing down and doing less, not more. But the thing is, those moments are important because they make up our life. Our thoughts, our opinions on things, our childhoods, our transitioning into each new decade, our marriages, our divorces, our child-having, our not child-having, our jobs, our parents, our families, our friends, our homes, our interests, how we spend our days - all of these things are what makes us us. No one else can tell those stories. They are uniquely ours.

When I re-read old letters from my beloved mum and Nan and other loved ones who are no longer here, they are definitely not filled with exciting stories. Amongst them are notes on the food they were cooking, the cow they had milked, the baby joey they had rescued, the garden they were working in, the conversations they had been having with other family members, their thoughts on something I’d asked them - seemingly nothing things in the grand scheme of life, but to me they are everything. They give me the glimpses of them that I long for in their absence.

As I add to the stories I have of them from my own memories and from the things they and others who knew them have told me, I am piecing together a lovely compilation of who they were and how much I valued them in my life. It’s so much harder to do this when they are gone. Not impossible, thankfully, but gosh it would’ve been easier if they had left their stories somewhere on paper and in waaaaay more letters.

If we can do that about our own lives, for those who love and appreciate us, then what a gift we are giving.

Think about the things you wish you knew about the ones who are no longer here. Write down those things about yourself. We don’t need to repeat history and leave even more gaps. Let’s fill them in and keep our blips of lives alive, long after we are gone. Each one of our lives matters to someone - and if nothing else, it matters to us.

You can write down your memories using mere lists - your favourite teenage music, friends you had at school, childhood hobbies, memories of your home, or a particular person in your life; smells, sounds. places - the list for lists is endless.

You can take the next step and turn each one of those lists into more fleshed out snippets of the stories they relate to.

You could write letters or journal entries that include those snippets and lists.

You could take those letters, or journal entries and turn them into longer pieces of writing - chapters even;)

Gosh, you could write a book!

At whatever level you feel able, just do it. No matter how small the steps are, they are something. And the people you love are going to treasure it, I can tell you that from experience.

If you haven’t grabbed any of them yet, I want you to know that I have a few things that can help you go through each stage - some free, some paid. Take what you like, but I do suggest you start with the free list creating one because it will show you just how simple the process can be. Even if you are saying right now: ‘But I’m not a writer,’ I know some of you have just said that to yourself. It doesn’t matter that you’re not a writer. Please, please believe me.

These are some of the things that the lovely retreat participants said about The 5 Minute Memory List workshop I created:

”The list! I didn’t expect to get as much from the writing ones but probably got more!”

’Being transported back to my childhood with all the lovely memories flooding back, still thinking about them whilst I did my slow drawing.”

”I am not a writer, and I joined this event to watch all the artsy and crafty videos, rather than the writing ones. So I am a bit overwhelmed and surprised (in a good way, I’m actually smiling while typing this) after watching Kim’s tutorial. I have thoroughly enjoyed it! What a great idea! And it brought so many memories! They will be turned into a story.’

So, I want to share the workshop with all of you - it’s based on my freebie with the same name: The 5 Minute Memory List. My hope is that you will see how easy it is to get started with writing down your memories. If you never pay for anything here, but you start writing your memories down due to my constant nagging and some freebies to help you, I will be an extremely happy gal!

Enjoy!

THE 5 MINUTE MEMORY LIST WORKSHOP

There’s still some time to get in on the Library Pass for the retreat. It’s not free, but the value is huge! The workshops will be taken down but if you purchase a library pass you get lifetime access to them plus some really valuable courses, workshops and goodies inside from the talented creative tutors who presented over the weekend. There are art ones, writing ones, a junk journal one and there’s something from me in there too;)

LIBRARY PASS

Before I go, I’ve just had someone from the retreat mention the links are not working on my welcome email. Please let me know if you are new here and having trouble accessing any of my freebies. They are working again now but if you missed them, I’ll send them straight to you. Just hit reply to this one and mention you’d like the links. So sorry about that. Gosh, what is it with me and links? Can I blame menopause? ;) I’d best go and pour a cup of tea!

Have a lovely, lovely week.

Kim x

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List. It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

Show Notes

Episode 23: The Kitchen Table Letters — Nadine’s Letter

Today is a very special episode of Tell Me Over Tea, because today the Kitchen Table Letters begins.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know I’ve been talking about this for a little while now — an invitation for you, my listeners, to write me a letter. An actual, old fashioned, hand written, snail mail letter. And I’ll choose some to read here on the podcast.

Because stories connect us. And the stories of our lives — the small ones, the quiet ones, the ones we think nobody wants to hear — are all that we leave behind. And having them written down somewhere is one of the most precious gifts we can give to the people who come after us.

The very first letter comes from Nadine @rust_emporium, and it is a beautiful one to open this series with.

Nadine writes about her mum being handed a bundle of letters — written by her great grandmother Lottie, who lived in Brisbane, to her grandmother Jane, who lived in Oxfordshire — spanning twenty odd years in the late 1880s. Written in copperplate on tissue thin paper, folded into tiny handmade envelopes that would fit in the palm of your hand. Two women who never once met in person, but who treasured each other across vast oceans through the written word alone.

And Nadine asks the most beautiful question: what will my descendants think of me?

She also shares a quieter, deeply personal story — the day she stepped into a pine forest in Victoria to gather pine cones for her shop window, and how the hush of those trees stopped her completely in her tracks and changed her life.

This is an episode about letters and what they carry. About the forest and what it teaches. About slowing down before the world forces you to. And about the small, fleeting, everyday moments.

A little reminder from this episode…

They never met in person, Lottie and Jane.
But they both treasured those pieces of paper until the day they died.
And so did every daughter and cousin who came after them.

No one is ever disappointed to find letters. Never ever never!

Would you like to be part of the Kitchen Table Letters?

I would love to read your letter on the podcast. All you need to do is get in touch via the email address in the show notes and I’ll send you a list of prompts to choose from. Write your response by hand, pop it in the post to my address, and your letter might just be read aloud right here on Tell Me Over Tea.

You just need to be comfortable with me sharing bits and pieces — on the podcast, in my newsletter, or over on Instagram. If you’d prefer to keep some things private, just let me know and we’ll sort it out.

If you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen, and if you feel inclined, leave a little review — it helps more story-lovers find their way here 🙂

Kim x

Where to find me:

✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.

✨To find out more about my writing membership, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories

✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.
It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here

✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here. Oh, and from July on, there will be an extra special little gift waiting for one lucky duck subscriber. A ‘golden ticket’ will be tucked inside one envelope. Who will July’s ticket finder be?

✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)

✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com

✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also Kim
Production and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!

Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)

It was early. The house was quiet, my favourite kind of noise in my house;) You know the quiet that belongs to the hour before everyone else is up. Gosh I love that time of day! I was sitting at the kitchen table with my tea, and an envelope that arrived in the mail the day before.

I knew it was a Kitchen Table Letter and I knew that I needed to cherish the contents of that letter in a lovely, cosy, quiet time. Even though my instinct, when I took it out of my letter box, was to rip it open and devour it. I refrained. And I’m so glad that I did.

I opened Nadine’s letter.

Nadine, from @rust_emporium is a lovely Instagram friend who I’ve been following (and vice versa) for a few years now. She and I have a mutual love for all things old - especially homewares, and she also happens to sell vintage goodies in her online space.

Nadine wrote to me as part of The Kitchen Table Letters — my project where I ask women to write to me in real letter form, via the mailbox, telling me a snippet of their story.

I wasn’t prepared for what she sent.

Nadine wrote about a treasure trove of letters her mum had recently become the custodian of. The letters were written between her great grandmother and her grandmother, dating back to the 1880s.

Twenty years of letters. Between two women who never once got to meet each other in person.

I sat at my kitchen table in the quiet of the morning and I read that and I just — stopped. Put my teacup down. Brushed away the tears and sat with it.

Twenty years. A relationship built entirely out of words on paper, crossing whatever distance lay between them. Two women saying to each other, again and again across two decades: I am here. I am thinking of you. Here is my life, in my own handwriting, arriving in your hands.

And because of that — because those letters were written and kept and cherished and eventually found — Nadine knows who those women were. She has their voices. Their thoughts. Their handwriting. A piece of them that survived it all.

There’s more inside this letter too, and I can’t wait for you all to listen to the very first episode of The Kitchen Table Letter series that will be coming out today on my podcast. I read Nadine’s entire letter, and I know you are going to love it as much as I do. What a joy!

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately — about what we leave behind when we write things down. About what we lose when we don’t.

My own Nan wrote letters. My mum left behind a few. I’m trying to write as much of theirs, and my story, as I can, while I can. And every time I sit down to read one of the Kitchen Table Letters, I feel the weight of it — the privilege of being trusted with someone’s story, the responsibility of making sure it gets heard.

This is why I do all of it. Betty Mae Wrote, Tea and Toast, Little Life Stories, the Kitchen Table Letters, the podcast. All of it comes back to the same simple belief: your story matters. The everyday, ordinary, beautiful details of your life matter. And if you write them down — if you send them, if you keep them, if you share them — someone will find them one day and feel exactly the way I felt sitting at my kitchen table this week reading Nadine’s beautiful letter.

Pop the kettle on — this podcast episode deserves a proper nice cuppa;)

In other news …

If you love paper, creativity and slow living — and I have a feeling you do — I want to tell you about something happening this week that I’m very excited about.

It’s called Paper People — a free online creative retreat running from 3rd to 5th July, hosted by the wonderful Michaela from Blue Stiggy. Three days of short, beautiful sessions on writing, drawing, journaling, mark making, poetry and more. Each session is 20 minutes or less — made for real life, real schedules, real people who just want a little pocket of creativity in their day. It’s going to be sun much fun!

And I’m one of the speakers which I’m pretty chuffed about.

Tickets are completely free and the recordings are available afterwards if you can’t make it live. I would love to see you there.

You can grab your free ticket here:

JOIN HERE

There’s also a library pass you can grab, heavily discounted, and I have something inside it for you to enjoy.
This is the link to use for the library pass:

LIBRARY PASS

Tell Me Over Tea — podcast The Kitchen Table Letters: Nadine Out today. Keep your eyes peeled on your inbox.

PODCAST

Tea and Toast Letter Club — July is open and this month one lucky subscriber finds a golden ticket tucked inside their bundle. Gold leaf, a You Won card, and a special little gift on its way in the mail. This is going to be an ongoing treat in Tea + Toast letters. Yay for goodies! If you’d like to subscribe, there are spaces open now for July.

TEA + TOAST LETTER CLUB

The Kitchen Table Letters If Nadine’s story moves you and you’d like to send me a letter of your own — hit reply to this email and let me know. I would love to hear from you.

Until next week — thank you for being here, for reading, for writing, for keeping the letters.

Kim x

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List. It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

I have been thinking a lot lately about the word remarkable.

It gets thrown around a great deal, doesn’t it? We are told to live remarkable lives, to do remarkable things, to be remarkable people. As if the whole point of being alive is to eventually become the kind of person someone might write a book about. Even the famous Mary Oliver line that gets shared so often on social media — “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — can feel like pressure to perform.

Digressing just a little, to put that quote in context: it’s often used as a motivational nudge to encourage people to dream big and set goals, but really, Mary Oliver is suggesting the exact opposite. The poem speaks of spending the day watching a grasshopper eat sugar from her hand, of being “idle and blessed.” She is not saying dream big — she is asking the reader a different question: how will you choose to experience, enjoy, and simply be in the world?

It’s Mary Oliver’s actual intent that I wholeheartedly agree with. Not the way so many interpret it.

I have spent the past year sitting with women and their stories. Ordinary, gorgeous women. Women who raised children and kept gardens and made slow-cooked meals and wrote letters and loved people and lost people and got up the next morning and did it all again. Women who, almost without exception, begin our time together with some version of the same sentence:

“I don’t know why anyone would want to hear about my life. Nothing very interesting has happened to me.”

And every single time, without fail, I want to put down my tea and take them by the hands and say — are you kidding?

Because what I have learned from listening to ordinary (gorgeous!) women tell their ordinary (gorgeous!) stories: there is no such thing as an uninteresting life. There are only lives that haven’t yet been given the space and the permission to be told.

The woman who remembers the smell of her mother’s kitchen on a winter’s afternoon. The one who can describe, in perfect detail, the dress she wore on her wedding day and the way her hands shook. The one who kept a garden through a drought, who wrote letters to a sister who never wrote back, who made do and made beautiful and made a life out of the most everyday of materials. These are not small stories. These are the stories. The ones that stitch us together. The ones that remind us what it actually means to be human. These are the stories that connect us.

I think we have been sold a lie about what makes a life worth remembering.

We’ve been told it requires scale. Drama. Achievement. A Wikipedia page, at the very least. And so we look at our own quiet, complicated, ordinary little lives and we think — well, this doesn’t count. This isn’t the sort of thing anyone would want to read about.

But I think about my nan. Betty, for whom this whole business is named. She did not do anything the world would call remarkable. She kept a home. She raised a family. She made stews in winter and tended her garden in spring and wrote letters in her particular way — not a full stop in sight! — and drank tea from the same cup every morning for decades. She was not famous. She was not exceptional by any measure the world tends to use.

And yet.

The letters she left behind are among the most precious things I own. Not because they contain anything extraordinary — but because they contain her. Her voice. Her humour. Her way of noticing things. Her love, tucked between the lines of perfectly ordinary sentences about perfectly ordinary days.

That is what an ordinary life leaves behind when it is written down. Not a legacy in the grand sense. Something better than that. A presence. A warmth. Proof that she was here, that she noticed things, that she loved people — especially her family.

And I think that is everything. Don’t you?

So if you are someone who has ever thought — my life isn’t interesting enough to write about — I want you to hear this clearly: you are wrong. Understandably wrong, given everything we’ve been told. But wrong nonetheless.

Your ordinary Tuesday is interesting. The way you take your tea is interesting. The things you worry about at 2am and the things that make you laugh until you can’t breathe and the memories that live in your body — all of it is interesting. All of it is worth writing down.

Not because the world needs to read it. But because the people who love you do. And because you deserve to know that your life — this quiet, ordinary, complicated, tender life of yours — has always been enough.

It has always been more than enough.

It is, in fact, everything.

You might have listened to my latest podcast episode where I talked about my mum. She was another perfect example of someone who didn’t live the kind of life the world might deem noteworthy. She was a stay-at-home mum who adored her children, her husband, her home, and her garden. She was quiet and shy — another member of my family who had never even stepped foot on a plane. She would have been the first to say: my life is not worth writing down.

But do you know how often I wish, with all of my heart, that she had?

So, I do what I can to share her story — which is so very intertwined with mine — in the hope that her short and precious life might be remembered somewhere in the great big space of history. Because she mattered. And her story deserves to be recorded.

xox

LISTEN TO TELL ME OVER TEA

In other news…

Paper People Retreat — explore your creativity at this free event!

I know it’s hard to find time to weave creativity into a busy life — but you and I both know how important it is.

That’s why I’m so excited to tell you about the Paper People Online Creative Retreat!

It’s a lovely online retreat for people who want to slow down, reconnect with creative activities, and bring small acts of paper-based creativity into their everyday life.

For three days, from 3rd–5th July, the gorgeous Michaela from Blue Stiggy is bringing you a series of short workshops presented by a range of clever, creative tutors. We’ll be dipping our toes into writing, drawing, sketching, mark-making, calligraphy, poetry, and journalling.

The aim is to help you explore creative activities in small slivers of time that you can easily fit into your life.

And guess who one of the tutors is?

Hello! 🙋‍♀️ Yep, that’d be me.

I bet you can guess what I’ll be talking about…

Yep again — capturing your precious memories on paper through list-making. It’s going to be fun, simple, and by the end of the 20 minutes you’ll have a whole list of memories ready to explore and turn into stories. I can’t wait, and you can bet I’m going to be joining in on some of the other lovely workshops too. Maybe this is my time to learn how to draw?

It’s going to be so much fun and such a treat for those of you who want to add more slow, creative time into your lives.

Once you sign up you’ll be able to explore all of the workshops and choose whichever ones call to you — art, paper craft, writing, doodling, calligraphy, poetry and more. They are only 20 minutes long so there’s a possibility you could fit them all in! How fun!

Get your free ticket for the Paper People here:

PAPER PEOPLE RETREAT

Let me know if you sign up. There’s also a facebook group connected to it so we can catch up there too. Oooh, I can’t wait!

Kim x

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List. It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

This week I lit a candle, poured my tea, sat down at my desk — and opened letters.

Real letters that I carefully, excitedly fished out of my mailbox. Handwritten. Stamped. Addressed to me in someone else’s handwriting, which is one of my favourite things in the whole world to find inside my mailbox.

They were the first of The Kitchen Table Letters — a project I’ve been quietly putting together for a little while now, where I asked women to write to me, telling me a snippet of their story. Their ordinary, everyday, beautiful life.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I put the call out. I hoped a few might say yes.

Instead, my messages filled up and I’m hoping that will mean so too my letter box!

Anyhoo, so there I sat, at my desk, candle lit, tea poured, letters spread out in front of me. And I opened them one by one. Slowly. Each one felt like a small gift — someone’s handwriting, someone’s words, a little piece of who they are landing on my desk from somewhere out there in the world.

I got to know a little part of each person. How genuinely, extraordinary is that?

Because that’s the thing about a letter that an email will never ever be able to compete with. There is something of the writer in it. The way they form their letters. The pressure of the pen. The crossed-out word, the little doodle in the margin, the postscript squeezed in at the bottom because they thought of one more thing they wanted to say. It’s all there. It’s all them. I love, love, love it.

I am not taking this lightly — the trust of it. That these women sat down with a pen and thought carefully about what to say and then sent it to me. I am holding every single one of those letters with care.

They will be read aloud on my podcast, Tell Me Over Tea. Because women’s stories should be heard. That’s my mission for my podcast – to get our stories out of our memories and into words shared over a cuppa.

If you’d like to send me a letter and take part in The Kitchen Table Letters — hit reply and let me know. I’ll send you all the details.
Here are the new questions that I will ask you to choose from, if you decide to join in:

Write a letter to 18 year old you. What would you tell yourself now that you’ve lived so much more of your life?

What has life asked of you that you never thought you’d be strong enough to give?

If you could sit on a bench and talk to anyone for an hour, who is it? What would you say to them?

What is a mistake you made that actually turned out to be a massive blessing?

What is something you survived that you never thought you would get through?

Write about the exact moment you realised your life had to change direction.

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about why stories matter so much to me. Why I can’t seem to stop asking people to write them down, to share them, to trust that they’re worth keeping. To write my own down.

And I keep coming back to my mum.

Her name was Thea. She was the most gentle, non-judgmental person I have ever known. And I lost her when I was 18.

Not having all of her stories — that absence has shaped so much of who I am. It’s made me hungry for stories. Other people’s, my own, anyone’s. It’s why I nag at you, lovingly and persistently, to write yours down before it’s too late.

This week I recorded a podcast episode about her. Not about losing her — that comes next time. This one is simply a portrait. A daughter’s love letter to her mum (though it’s not in letter form this time).

It’s called Thea — A Portrait of My Mum and I’ve just uploaded it. Here’s the link if you’d like to listen.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE

In other news this week …

🎙️ I recently interviewed a lovely gal, Tess, who I met over on Instagram. Tess, an amazingly talented photographer, kindly shared her story with me and I cannot wait to bring this episode to you very soon. While you are waiting, you can find Tess and stalk her over on Instagram (in a nice way, of course!). You can find her here: @tessdoes_

💌 Tea and Toast Letter Club June is open if you’d like a little bundle of beautiful things arriving in your letterbox each month. A letter from me, an illustrated postcard by Lew, writing prompts, and a little extra something. HERE

Until next week — thank you for being here.

Kim x

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List. It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

Show Notes

Episode 22: Thea - A Portrait of my Mum

In this solo episode of Tell Me Over Tea, I give my mum, Thea, a little bit of the limelight she so richly deserves — and would almost certainly have hidden from if she were here.

Following on from Episode 21, where I shared a letter to my Nan about the grief of losing five of her six children, I felt the pull to tell you more about the first of those children to leave us. My mum. The woman who shaped me more than anyone else in the world, in both her life and in her death.

In this episode I wander back through her story — from Manly Hospital in 1954, through a Northern Beaches childhood full of siblings, Sunday school, Bob Dylan and that long, silky brown hair, right through to the weatherboard cottage on 105 acres in Bargo where she finally found the slow, earthy, rooted life she had always craved.

Along the way you’ll hear about:

• The hippie teenager who became a mother at 18 and never looked back

• A Jersey cow named Blossom who was anything but angelic at milking time

• Homemade bread, chocolate cake, and the most expensive milk in the Bega Valley

• A rooster incident I will not forget

• The mum who actually looked forward to school holidays

• And the quiet, powerful way she showed us, every single day, that the simple things were everything

This one is full of love, laughter, nostalgia and a few tears. So, pour yourself something warm, find a comfy spot, and come and meet my mum.

Part two — her cancer, her dying, and the rest of her story — is coming in the next episode.

A little reminder from this episode…

She never put a name to it.
She didn’t talk, talk, talk.
She just did.

But looking back now I can see so clearly what my mum was doing — living intentionally, choosing presence over things, building a home that felt safe and warm and full, no matter how humble its innards were.

She was showing us every single day that homemade bread and a garden and a mum who wanted to be with you — that those things were everything.

And they were.

Something to do after you listen…

This episode is an invitation to write about your own mum — or a motherly figure who shaped you. You don’t have to write the whole story. Start with one small memory. The smell of her kitchen. Something she always said. The way she laughed.

Those small details are the ones that matter most, and they are the ones most at risk of being lost.

Pick up your pen this week. Write it down. Pleasey.

If you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen — and if you feel inclined, leave a little review. It helps more story-lovers find their way here.

Kim x

Where to find me:

✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.

✨To find out more about my writing membership, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories

✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.
It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here

✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here.

✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)

✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com

✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also Kim
Production and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!

Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)

I turned 54 this year and something shifted.

I’m not sure I can explain it precisely — it’s not a crisis, nor a sudden reckoning. I guess it feels more like the blinkers came off. Like I’m looking at my life through a lens I haven’t used before. It’s a lens that won’t, any longer, soften the edges or reach for the silver lining before the cloud has even had its moment. I think that cloud has something useful to offer.

It’s a lens of realness and I find, rather to my surprise, that I like it.

So I’m writing to you today from that place.

Did you listen to my most recent podcast episode? It was a Dear Nan letter — so perhaps you’ve already read it — but it’s one that talks about the loss of my Nan’s children. It’s a sad one and it comes with a trigger warning, because it would break my heart to think you listened and felt blindsided by it. If you feel able, and you haven’t already heard it, you can find it here:

LISTEN HERE

I wanted to mention it today because I’ve been thinking a lot about the kinds of things I share in public spaces — and how they land with the people who read and listen.

If you’ve been here for a little while, you’ll know I’ve tended toward the cosy and the positive. The warm mug and the garden and the letter in the letterbox. And I love all of that — I genuinely do. It’s not a performance. It’s a real part of who I am and how I live.

But it’s not the whole of it.

And I’ve grown increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of only ever showing you the parts that feel good. I’ve been noticing, more and more, when I read or listen to or watch someone who only ever shares the beautiful, uplifting, sun-drenched version of their life, I feel a little hollow afterwards. The connection falls short. There’s warmth there, yes — but not the full truth. And without that, warmth only goes so far.

What I find myself drawn to — what makes me feel genuinely seen and genuinely connected — is balance. The cosy and the complicated. The golden afternoon light and the grey morning that preceded it. I want to know that the person I’m reading is a whole human being, carrying the same kinds of things I carry. Weeds and all, because no matter what photos you see here or on Instagram, I have plenty of weeds!

Otherwise, we risk something I find a bit repellent — that particular brand of toxic positivity that has taken up so much space on Instagram and TikTok. The relentless brightness of it. The exhausting performance of okayness. It repels me not because those people aren’t genuine, (I’m sure they are decent human beings) but because no human life is actually like that. And pretending otherwise does a bit of harm, I think.

I guess it’s what irks me most about AI, not that I want to jump on the anti-AI bandwagon because I do see it as a useful tool to help busy people, but it most definitely falls short if everyone is using it to write and create with. If it takes away the human experience and replaces it with a sugar coated version of life. I mean how will we ever know what’s completely real and what’s not or how to deal with life when it’s not all packaged up in a pretty pink (though I’d prefer green, just saying;), bow?

So. The grey days are part of it too. And I’m going to start saying so a little more.

My Nan lost five of her six children. My mum — her name was Thea, and she was the most gentle, non-judgmental person I have ever known — was one of them.

Thea died when her children were still young. Still needing her. And the shape of that loss has run through my life in ways I’m only now, at 54, beginning to fully understand.

I can see that so many of the choices I’ve made as a mother have a direct line back to losing her early. Not having all of her stories has made me desperate for stories — other people’s, my own, anyone’s. It has fed my already curious and inquisitive nature until it became something like a calling. It’s why I nag at you, lovingly and persistently, to write your stories down before it’s too late. (please do it!)

I know what too late feels like. And it’s not ideal, that’s for sure.

I wrote a book in 2017 about the unschooling path I took with my son Lew. In it I shared a chapter about my mum — and the chapter that followed was about her cancer. How she lived with it. How we, as a family, coped with it — which, if I’m honest, mostly meant pushing it to the side and carrying on as though it wasn’t really happening. But that was the eighties. And that’s how it seemed to me, in hindsight.

I’ve been sitting with that writing again lately and I’ve decided to record two podcast episodes in her honour — a magnifying glass on part of my own story, and by extension, part of my Nan’s. Because that’s the thing about the stories in our lives: they are so deeply intertwined with the stories of the people around us. All those layers. All those different ways of experiencing the same moments. This is what makes being human so beautifully, exhaustingly complex.

The episodes will come. I’ll let you know when they’re ready.

For now I just wanted to say that the grey days are part of it too, and I think they’re worth talking about.

A few things from my world this week:

🎙️ Tell Me Over Tea — Dear Nan: Too Much Loss Episode 22 is out now. A letter to my Nan about a grief almost too large to hold. Please listen with care — the trigger warning is there because I mean it. But if you’re in a place to listen, I hope it feels like the tribute it was always meant to be. HERE

📬 The Kitchen Table Letters The response to this project has genuinely overwhelmed me. Women writing to tell me they want to participate, that they’ve been waiting for an excuse to pick up a pen. Letters are already on their way to my letterbox and I am checking it with utter excitement! If you’d like to be part of it — send me a reply and I’ll send you all the details. If you missed the newsletter about it, you can read that HERE

💌 Tea and Toast Letter Club June is still open if you’d like a little bundle of beautiful things arriving in your letterbox each month. A letter from me, an original illustrated postcard, writing prompts, and a little extra something.

JOIN THE TEA + TOAST LETTER CLUB

Until next week — thank you for being here for the cosy posts and the grey ones alike.

Kim x

PS Have you done my survey yet? It’s to help me make some decisions around Little Lfie Stories. If not, gosh I’d love it if you would.

SURVEY

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List. It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

Back left - Robert, Mum Front left: Christine, Ron

Show Notes

Episode 22: Dear Nan Too Much Loss

In this deeply personal episode of Tell Me Over Tea, I read one of the most difficult letters I’ve ever written to my Nan. This episode contains discussion of child loss, cancer, death, and grief. Please listen with care if these topics feel tender for you.

This is a letter about grief, loss, and the unimaginable reality of outliving five of your six children.

From the baby she never had the chance to hold, to the adult children she lost over the decades, this episode explores the quiet resilience that carried my Nan through a lifetime of heartbreak. It is a story about motherhood, endurance, and the many ways people learn to live alongside grief.

While this is a sad and emotional episode, it is also a tribute to a woman who continued to love, laugh, care for others, and embrace life despite carrying more loss than most of us can imagine.

And, as always, there’s a cup of tea beside me while I read. In this episode I’m drinking the beautiful Madi blend from Ettie and Dorrie — a delicious, strong loose leaf black tea that’s perfect for that first morning cuppa or an afternoon pick-me-up. Hand blended by Sara, it’s exactly the kind of comforting tea you want in your hands during a reflective conversation like this.

You can find Sara’s beautiful range of teas here:
Ettie and Dorrie Tea

You can also find her on instagram here: @ettieanddorrie

Okey doke, time to pop the kettle on, settle in, and join me.

If this episode sparks memories you’d like to capture, I’ve created a free guide called The Five Minute Memory List.

It’s a simple, gentle exercise designed to help you gather memories, story ideas, and moments from your life—one list at a time.

You’ll find the link here and below in the show notes.

If you know someone who might love this kind of conversation, please do pass it along, and if you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen, and if you feel inclined, leave a little review — it helps more story-lovers find their way here.

Kim x

Where to find me:

✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.

✨To find out more about my writing membership, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories

✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.
It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here

✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here.

✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)

✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com

✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also Kim
Production and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!

Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)

There is a particular kind of morning here in the valley that belongs to the cusp of winter.

The fog sits low over the paddocks, so much so that I can’t see Mumbulla mountain. The fog is thick and it feels quiet and lively, and the light comes through it all golden and soft.

I’ve been stepping outside with my tea just to be in it for a moment before the day begins. Before my to-do list gets a look in. Just me and the fog and the brrrking of the chooks still inside their little house;) I love the hush of the world when no one else is awake, especially at this time of year. It just feels so slow and peaceful and I wonder if that’s because winter is for rest.

June has arrived - it is the first day of winter today. And with it, that unmistakable shift — it’s like an exhale and I feel the permission to slow down. Not that I need permission, just saying;)

Sometimes I do wonder if all of this is linked to the fact that maybe I’m just a lazy person. Honestly, any excuse to slow down even more is good with me. Hmmm, I shall ponder this for a bit and maybe get back to you on it.

……

I finally planted the peas over the weekend — fingers crossed they fruit this time, because past seasons have been a bit of a disappointment on that front. I’ve also continued with the mulching and tidying and generally putting things to bed. I like to think of it as my garden organising. There is something deeply satisfying about this kind of work in the garden. It doesn’t feel the busy, productive spring planting when everything feels like a big rush.

Actually, maybe that’s it!

The slow thing and me.

It’s the opposite of rushing - rushing always gives me anxiety. To be honest, spring gives me anxiety. It’s pretty and all of that and I do appreciate it, but there’s always a dread at this time of year, that winter will go too quickly. Everyone else seems to be willing away the cold weather and I’m left clinging to it for dear life.

Spring feels like an all systems go button gets pushed. The lawn cranks up a notch. The weeds are back. The blackberries, that were meant to be thornless but changed somehow, start reaching out their endless tendrils - it’s just a lot in the garden and then there’s the sun that I find so harsh.

Anyhoo, calm down Kim and just enjoy the winter. Ok, I will.

There’s my mantra for the next three months;)

…..

I’ve been doing some organising inside the house too — going through cupboards, reorganising, clearing out the things that have been slowly (and sometimes, quickly!) cluttering up since I last looked properly. There’s a theme here, I think. Is it that June asks us to tidy up, pare back, make space? To figure out what we actually need and let the rest go. Oooh, I like that. Do you?

Rest, I’ve come to believe, is not the absence of doing. It’s the presence of something more intentional. The garden doesn’t stop existing in winter — it just directs its energy inward, down into the roots, doing the invisible work that makes spring possible.

I wonder sometimes if we’re allowed to do the same.

To slow down without guilt. To let the pace of the season set the pace of our days rather than the other way around. To sit with a cup of tea at the window and watch the fog without immediately reaching for something to do.

This is, I think, how my writing lives too. In the slower moments. In the inward ones. When the noise of the world goes a bit quiet, well, at least quiet enough so that I can actually hear myself think — and feel — and remember.

I’ve been getting back to proper journaling. It’s such as good feeling. Funny though, I often feel twinges of guilt for doing it - as if there’s better things I could be spending my time on. How hypocrytical is that? Honestly, I blabber on to anyone that will listen, about how important it is to take the time to write our memories, feelings, thoughts, anything just to get things out of our heads and onto a page. Yet, I find myself doing it so often.

Enough with that! Until the next time I journal;)

I’d love your thoughts on any of this ramble - how do you feel about winter? Does it feel slower and quieter? Would you allow yourself more rest? Do you struggle with writing things down due to guilt? How the heck do you keep your cupboards (especially clothes) tidy? I want to know it all! Pleasey? x

In other news this week …

Tell Me Over Tea — a Dear Nan episode is a coming

A new episode is dropping later this week and it’s a bit of a sad one. In it I share the letter that I wrote about all of the loss my Nan suffered as she lost all, but one, of her children.

She was such an amazing person. So strong and humble and as basic and down to earth as you could ever find in a person. She didn’t ever complain about losing her children, though the grief remained raw for the remainder of her days. We didn’t talk a lot about it - there were moments when we did but mostly we remembered the happy times with her kids, because I think the pain of it all would flood her if she dwelt on it for more than a moment, and that felt far too heavy for her to bare.

I used to have so many thoughts around this - I wish she’d get some grief counselling? I wish she would let herself cry more. But I’ve come to realise that it isn’t my job to judge how someone grieves, and sometimes loss as big as hers, needs to be buried.

I still think about all of this a lot - that’s just where I am with it right now. This thought processing could change, I’m so very aware of that.

If you are subscribed to this newsletter you will receive the episode in your inbox when it’s ready.
If you’ve not yet listened to Tell Me Over Tea, and you’d like to, you can do that here (or you can find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify too):

LISTEN TO TELL ME OVER TEA HERE

Tea and Toast Letter Club — June is next …

May bundles have been sent and should be landing in letterboxes right about now — I love imagining that. If you’re a subscriber, I hope it arrives soon and gives you a little moment of joy in amongst the ordinary of your day. And if you’ve been thinking about joining us — June is a beautiful time to begin. You can subscribe via the link below.

JOIN THE TEA + TOAST LETTER CLUB

The Kitchen Table Letters

I’ve been checking the post rather eagerly. I sent a prompt out to my email list recently asking women to write to me — a real letter, with a stamp — and I’m waiting, excitedly, for them to start arriving. When they do, I’ll be reading them aloud on Tell Me Over Tea. It feels like something special is beginning. I’ll keep you posted.

If you missed the memo and you want to know more, please just hit reply and ask and I’ll happily share the details about how to join in.

Until next week — I hope June is settling in nicely around you, wherever you are. I hope there is fog, or firelight, or something warm in your hands. Or all three!

And I hope you give yourself a little permission to rest.

Kim x

PS Have you done my survey yet? If not, gosh I’d love it if you would.

SURVEY

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List. It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

Considering it is the last week of autumn I thought it should also be the last of the autumn prompts.

Here we go …

What’s in your cup?

Can you guess? Yes, of course, copious amounts of tea have been consumed this autumn. I’m loving Twinings Assam Bold in a teabag (for my lazy cups of tea) and Madura organic black tea loose leaf (for my less lazy tea moments). I’m also drinking a decaf black loose leaf from Tea Hut for the later arvo and evening teas. It has no nasty things done to it in the decaffeinating stage, so it’s a good one to slurp knowing I’m not getting the nasties of decaf but without the caffeine.

Gosh, that all sounds like I’m a bit of a tea addict, doesn’t it?

The only other thing I drink, during the week, is water. I tend to drink copious amounts of that too. On the weekend I might just have a wee glass or two (more likely to be two than one) of sav blanc — New Zealand, please. If I’m out during the day, my go-to in autumn is a chai latte. Nom noms.

What are you wearing?

Most evenings, after my shower (tmi?) I slip on into my daggy flanno pjs or a slightly less daggy pair of cotton button-up ones where the buttons are continually coming undone, which annoys me to no end. On top I place my fluffy pink dressing gown and on my feet are my rainbow stripy woollen socks or those fluffy more synthetic ones.

Most days I’m not fashionista-ish in the slightest — usually opting for baggy yoga-style pants complete with holes close to the crotch, and an equally holey comfy tee shirt. It hasn’t been cold enough for many days of long sleeves, though I sense the freeze is coming. ;)

If I must venture outside of home, I wear my comfy Birdsnest stretchy wide-leg jeans, and one of two puffy-sleeved linen tops and either boots or birkis depending on the temp. It’s definitely not jacket weather yet but when it is, and we have the occasional dinner out, I will be donning my Carolina silky top (I’ve got one in black and one in champagne, and a slightly different style in white) and a slightly more dressy pair of pants that kind of resemble jeans with big pockets at the front and my faux black leather jacket.

I am one of those people who wear the same things for years — until I wear them out, so I am rather boring, really.

What have you recently planted in your garden?

Oooh, this is a topic I’m much more comfortable with! In the flowering department I’ve just planted some Japanese windflowers (anemones), which I am very excited about; a snowball viburnum (again — super excited!); a mock orange; a mauve rose; a white shasta daisy; some more ajuga; and foxgloves. I’ve also got a new penstemon to plant. The sweet peas are sprouting everywhere and I cannot wait until they flower.

In terms of food plantings, I’ve bought two more table grapes that need planting, along with some snow and snap peas. So far in the veggie garden we have planted: brassicas, onions, beetroot, English spinach, parsnip and leafy greens.

It’s all starting to neaten up around here as we’ve been weeding and mulching lots.

Okey doke, well, there you go — the last of my autumn questions all responded to. I would love you to let me know what’s going on in your cup, wardrobe and garden in this last week of autumn. Next time we speak it will be winter.

In other news ….

The May Tea + Toast Letter Club envelopes have now been sent and are on their way to lovely subscribers. This month has been one of my favourite Tea + Toast’s ever. Something about the autumnal content of this month’s one, especially Lew’s gorgeous print postcard. Ahhh, it’s so lovely.

The June letters are now in the making and I can not wait to put this wintery one together. I wonder what June’s theme will be? hehehe I know, of course, but can you guess?

If you’d like to subscribe to Tea + Toast, there are now places available for the June one so pop on over to the website and grab yourself a spot:

JOIN THE TEA + TOAST LETTER CLUB

Survey …

I have a new idea that I’m tossing around, and I’d love to get your thoughts on it. I’ve created a quick survey and I’d love it so much if you’d respond to it. It won’t take long but it will give me feedback and your feedback is so very much valued:)

SURVEY

Have a lovely week ahead, oh and be sure to let me know if you attempt any of these autumn prompts. I’d love to know about your cup, clothes and garden:)

Kim x

PS Don’t forget to fill in the survey. I would be so elated if you did!

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much. I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List.

It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.
Just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

If you’d like something a little more meaty, please feel free to grab my other free guide: The Memory Cupboard. It’s 39 pages of helpful tips and ideas to get those writing juices a flowing and stop the overwhelm. Again, just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

Show Notes

Episode 20: Don’t Throw Away Your Letters

In this solo episode of Tell Me Over Tea, I share something that has been sitting on my heart ever since it found its way back into my hands — a letter I wrote to my Aunty Kathleen when I was just six years old.

Two short pages in fat, six year old scrawl. And yet, the moment I read it again, the memories I hadn’t visited in decades began surfacing — slowly at first, and then all at once. Flooded!

In this episode I read the letter aloud, and then wander through the memories it unlocked — a rogue young horse named Mischief, a little black rabbit called Cindy, the saleyards at Mudgee, a green and white school dress in a sea of brown and white ones, and the strange comfort of a cane sickbay bed when you’re the new girl and everything feels just a little out of sorts.

It’s an episode about the power of ordinary letters. The ones we write without any thought of their future value. The ones that sit in shoeboxes and drawers for decades, filled with moments in time waiting to be rediscovered.

So pour yourself a cuppa and come and sit with me for a little while.

A little reminder from this episode…

We don’t write letters thinking about the future. We write them because we’re excited about a horse. Because we have the measles but we’re nearly better. Because there’s a PS about a rabbit that simply can’t wait.

And yet, forty, fifty years on, those small unselfconscious moments become something more priceless than we could ever have imagined.

Don’t throw away your letters. Pleasey!

Something to do after you listen…

If you have old letters tucked away somewhere — in a drawer, a shoebox, a box at your mum’s house — go and find them. Read them. See what comes back to you.

And if you don’t have old letters, or even if you do — write one this week. It doesn’t have to be long. It doesn’t have to be eloquent. A tiny note with a PS about your rabbit is more than enough.

You have no idea what it might mean one day. To the person who receives it. Or to you, if it ever finds its way back home.

Come and write letters with us…

If this episode has nudged you toward picking up a pen, you’re warmly invited to join The Lovely Letters Project — my free snail mail exchange for women all over the world. With 900+ members across Australia, the US, the UK, Sweden, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Italy, Canada and beyond, it truly is the loveliest little community of letter writers.

You can find the link here to sign up — it’s free, and once you’re on the list you’ll hear from me about the monthly exchange. You can choose a permanent pen pal or a fresh new one each month. Either way, I’d love to have you there.

And if this episode stirred something in you — a memory, a story, a little nudge to begin writing — you are welcome to grab my free guide, The Five Minute Memory List, to help you make a start. You’ll find it in the welcome letter when you sign up to my newsletter at bettymaewrote.com

If you know someone who might love this kind of conversation, please do pass it along, and if you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen, and if you feel inclined, leave a little review — it helps more story-lovers find their way here.

Kim x

Where to find me:

✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.

✨To find out more about my writing membership, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories

✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.
It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here

✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here.

✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)

✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com

✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also Kim
Production and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!

Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)

photo by Rhiannon Clark - Run Rabbit Run

Thank you to those who shared your answers to the autumn prompts. There is something truly lovely about being invited into someone else's world — to see the season through their eyes, from where they sit and stand. I believe this is something our world needs more of: the willingness to step into another's life with curiosity and understanding. When we slow down and listen to where someone else is at, we can't help but feel a little more connected.

So, I’d like to continue our little autumnal series of prompts today with the next lot.

What food are you craving?

• Melting Moments (made and eaten over the weekend!)

• Slow cooked everything (also on the weekend - made a chicken and veggie concoction with brussels sprouts. Yum!)

• Caramel dumplings (since writing my Tea + Toast May letter)

• Cinnamon scrolls

• Roast veggies (including brussels sprouts!)

What are you making for breakfast, lunch, and tea?

If I can get a hold of any of that, up there, then I be having that, but otherwise:

Breakfast - (no judging;) All bran with banana, sultanas, almonds and seeds

Lunch - veggie sticks, sourdough bread with cheese and homemade zucchini pickles or whatever leftovers I can get my lazy hands on.

Slow cooked chicken and veggies; eggs and feta and herbs on a bed of spinach and sourdough (our easy meal most weeks); laksa; beef ragu and garlicky potatoes and veggies; lemon chicken soup; dahl and naan.

What treats are you helping yourself to?

This past weekend it was melting moments and some hokey pokey Whittaker’s chocolate. Ohh, and a couple of sneeky proseccos under the reddening grapes in the weekend sunshine. That was lovely.

What recipes are begging you to make them?

Caramel dumplings! Cinnamon Scrolls. Mum’s sultana cake.

Oooh, all that sweet stuff. What’s going on here? Actually, I saw a yummy whole cooked chicken (I’m onto the slow whole chook thing lately) in a leek, bacon and cheesey sauce recently and I think I want to try that with roast veggies and greens very soon.

Alrighty, well that’s my week sorted regarding food. How about you? What recipes and foods are calling you this autumn?

In other news ….

The May Tea and Toast Letter Club subscriber’s list has maxed out this month! That sentence right there brings me so much joy! I feel so utterly privileged to send each member a little bundle of goodies each month. The thought of their smiling faces as they open up their letter box to find a Tea and Toast letter brings a smile to my face.

You are still welcome to join but anyone who signs up from now until June 15th will receive the June letter:)

This past week, over on Instagram, I shared a little profile of one lovely Tea and Toast subscriber and the goodies inside her letter bundle. I wanted to share it here too, in more detail. She’s a treasure of a person and has her own creative business too, which I think you might just love. Her photos of the Tea + Toast letter were so lovely, and I know you will enjoy hearing a little about her and sticky beaking inside her envelope:)

Introducing the lovely Rhiannon…

Age: 34

Lives: Camden, NSW.

Job: Artist. Previously Primary Teacher but had to quit due to unexpected chronic illnesses. Art became my escape and joy

Hobbies: reading, writing/journaling, photography, gardening, op shopping, hanging out with my pup, anything creative.

Rhiannon’s photo of Tea + Toast

Letter writer since: Always! I have so many boxes filled with letters from my childhood. I adore collecting beautiful pens and writing materials. Washi tape, stickers, and scrapbooking odds and ends. I joined Lovely Letters during Covid and enjoyed getting to know so many interesting women from all around Australia and the world!

What do you love about letters?: I love that it makes you pause in your ever busy day. You have to stop to read or write. Grab a cuppa, exhale and connect with a story, something real, not just something on a screen. I love that hands have taken the time to form each letter, a mind has decided what stories are important to be recorded at that moment in time. Like a tiny time capsule. It feels more enduring in a digital age.

I recently went op shopping and found a postcard someone wrote in the early 1900s to their Mum about going on a picnic and having a glorious time. And they were one of the only ones who didn’t get dunked in the sea. It was a brief snapshot but very special to hold this little moment in time all these years later.

Rhiannon’s business and Instagram account is called Run Rabbit Run and you can check it out here. She creates gorgeous artworks and is an advocate for slow living. She’s also recently just created a sweet little guide called: A Gentle Pause: 12 Rituals for Slow Living, which you can download, for free, here.

And if you’d like to see the Instagram post about Rhiannon and have a peek inside her Tea + Toast letter, you can do that here:

RHIANNON & HER TEA AND TOAST GOODIES

Rhiannon’s photo of Tea + Toast

Okie dokey, I’m off to bundle some more Tea + Toast Club goodies. Have a lovely week and please be sure to let me know if you answer any of these autumn prompts.

Kim x

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much. I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List.

It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.
Just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

If you’d like something a little more meaty, please feel free to grab my other free guide: The Memory Cupboard. It’s 39 pages of helpful tips and ideas to get those writing juices a flowing and stop the overwhelm. Again, just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

How did you go with last week’s letter? I’ve been sitting here worrying about it a little. It’s hard to know how much to share in an online space. I’ve had some lovely responses which has helped, but I do feel a little cringey at the thought of sharing too much personal stuff. Oh, to find the right balance.

Anyhoo, on with today’s letter.

It’s a much lighter tone this time around, although I’m still on the autumn theme — because honestly, I cannot get enough of this time of year. It’s like I need to absorb it into my skin and soak up the goldenness of it all. It’s the height of autumn here — probably my most favourite month of the year. I’m savouring it as much as I can. I’m trying to do that more these days. Savour rather than rush on by, or have my head stuck in a screen of some kind.

Can you believe that we need to force ourselves to observe nature, live in the moment, and try very hard not to be so leashed to online spaces? I am often left quite stunned at where we have arrived as a society — but more than that, where I personally have arrived. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that I was doing everything by pen and paper, the telly only had a couple of stations, and reading a book a week was a regular occurrence. Shaking my head in bewilderment.

So … I want to ask you all the things this month.

I’m busting to know about you and life where you are right at this moment in time. I hope you don’t mind, but this is going to be one big sticky beak list of questions over the next few weeks. I would love it, so very much, if you would hit reply and answer. But if you can’t be bothered sharing with me, could you please promise to open a notebook and write about them for yourself — or take out some pretty (or not so pretty, it matters not) stationery and write them in a letter to share with someone else? That would be really lovely. No pressure. ;)

Okie doke, here are my questions for this week. I thought it only fair that I answer them first, so that at least you’ll feel this is a two-way thing and I’m not just being all demanding without following through. ;)

This is the theme for May:

Tell me what autumn looks like right now where you are.

Now for the questions …

What is the view outside your windows?

What does your garden look and sound like?

Are there any birds visiting?

What does the countryside surrounding you look like?

My answers …

What is the view outside of your windows?

As I type this, I am looking out through my should-be-front-door — it’s glass and feels like a window because my tiny desk sits in front of it — out to the northern section of my garden. I can’t quite see the hills and mountain in the background because the deciduous trees haven’t yet lost their leaves. By winter, I’ll be able to see beyond my garden to beautiful Mumbulla Mountain.

There are still some dahlias flowering, though they are most definitely on their last legs. Some are falling over — partly because I am a rather lazy gardener when it comes to staking things, and partly because the May winds have been a bit horrific. These kinds of reflections always fill me with remorse.

I can see the dahlia tree which, when in flower, is a soft mauve and reminds me of a delicate ballerina. It always flowers for Mother’s Day and usually takes a battering — but this year the battering was the worst ever. Still, I can see some buds on top and — oh, wait, now I’m looking more closely — there’s a single flower already out. Yay! Now I really know it’s May.

The light is golden too. The sun is lower and the light is very different from summer. My eyes appreciate it so much more than the harsh summer glare. The grass on the hills is emerald green and there are white cabbage moths flittering about — little monkeys amongst the brand new brassica seedlings.

What does your garden look and sound like?

In other parts of the garden, change is happening. The leaves on the ornamental pears are reddening and the grapes climbing on the pergola off the front verandah are a deep, rich burgundy. The quinces are golden and ready for picking and soon there will be no leaves left on the tree. The roses are sparse — there are still some, it’s been unusually warm — but the frost will come soon, I suspect.

My Nan’s golden pom pom chrysanthemums are flowering nicely. They remind me of Mother’s Day, and Nan, and my mum — and although I’m not a huge yellow-in-the-garden fan, I enjoy their show and the memories they take me to.

There are wasps galore — European ones, I think. The nastiest of wasps. Once the frosts come they seem to disappear too, which will be a relief.

The garlic is all up and some of the veggie beds are looking neat and tidy. There is still much to be done. Some beds are a riot of messy summer overgrowth and there are, of course, weeds — but at the moment I’m trying to take it one step at a time. This has become my normal autumn mantra, which I forget about until it’s required at this time of year. Overwhelm quickly sets in, I freeze with the heaviness it brings to my nervous system, and then I remember the mantra. It takes me through to the end of winter when I usually feel rather cocky and organised — only for spring to strip the arrogance from my sails and have me move straight on to my spring mantra. Which is, of course, the same as the autumn one. ;)

Are there any birds visiting?

The honeyeaters are enjoying the last of the salvias and the fairy wrens still pay me daily visits. The two boys that visited all through spring and summer have now turned brown and a new boy has arrived in the neighbourhood. He’s fully blue and must be the king of the fairy wrens, I’m thinking. No girls at the moment — where do they go? I must do some more investigating because I feel I know so little about my absolute favourite bird and their goings on.

I saw three eagles overhead this morning — must have been a mum, dad and bub. So beautiful. Unfortunately they look like tiny dots on my phone. They were calling to one another. It was mesmerising.

The rosellas are still visiting, trying to nab whatever they can from the garden. I resent them — but I know I shouldn’t, as they are so beautiful. I need to learn to share, don’t I?

Oh, and on Mother’s Day the fire tails turned up in a large flock. They do this at this time of year. I wonder what it is that they love about autumn here?

What does the countryside, surrounding you, look like?

The hills are green — we’ve had some autumn rain — and the poplars are on full display. They line the road that enters our little estate and right now they are golden and glowing and raining autumn glory. The black road is a mass of golden poplar leaves and everything looks so picturesque right now.

The surrounding mountains that envelope our valley are mostly a deep blue, but there are a few days most weeks when they grey with the haze of fire burn-offs. Today is one such day.

Okie doke, I shall stop there and hand the reins over to you … tell me all the things about your autumn view. Pleasey.

In other news ….

Did you manage to have a listen to my latest podcast episode this week? It’s a lovely foodie one where I chat with the gorgeous Kath Vincent from Kulinary Adventures of Kath about her love and passion for baking and the memories food and creating food holds for her. You can listen to it here:

PODCAST EPISODE NO# 19

Lew in true Tea + Toast form - hating the camera in front of his face!

Before I go — a quick note about Tea and Toast.

If you’ve been thinking about joining the letter club and haven’t quite got there yet, May is a lovely month to start. The theme is autumnal — and Lew has drawn something ever so lovely that fits rather beautifully with today’s letter … hint hint.

I’m busy writing the letter to tuck inside, alongside some autumnal writing prompts and a little surprise. OK, OK, you’ve twisted my arm — I’ll tell you what the surprise is … ;) There will be a favourite recipe of mine included, along with the story behind it. It’s not an “it all ends well” story — but then not all stories are. Let’s just say those who read it will get a giggle, so at least it’s got something happy to offer. ;)

You’ll need to subscribe by the 15th of May to receive this one. After that I’ll be putting the letters together and sending them on their way.

If it sounds like something you’d love — or something you’d like to gift to someone — all the details and the subscribe link are here:

SUBSCRIBE TO TEA + TOAST

That’s all from me to you, oh, and please be sure to hit reply and share your autumn responses with me, if you can be bothered. I’d so appreciate it.

Kim x

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much. I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List.

It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.
Just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

If you’d like something a little more meaty, please feel free to grab my other free guide: The Memory Cupboard. It’s 39 pages of helpful tips and ideas to get those writing juices a flowing and stop the overwhelm. Again, just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

Show Notes

Episode 19: Baking Memories, Family Recipes & Finding Comfort in the Kitchen with Kath Vincent

In this cosy and memory-filled episode of Tell Me Over Tea, I sit down with baker, recipe writer and storyteller Kath Vincent from Kulinary Adventures of Kath to chat about the deep connection between food, family and memory.

Together we wander through childhood kitchens, handwritten recipe cards, pavlovas with perfect peaks, and that beautiful love language of baking for, and with, the people you care about.

Kath shares precious memories of baking with her grandmother, the comfort of simple everyday recipes, and the special feeling of holding old family recipes written in familiar handwriting. The conversation also explores Kath’s own writing journey, her cookbooks, and the inspiration behind her much-loved recipe newsletters and baking projects.

It’s an episode full of nostalgia, warmth, gentle reflection… and plenty of talk about tea and biscuits. So, make sure you have a cuppa and a bickie handy because you’re going to get hungry, I promise!

About Kath

Kath Vincent is the creator behind Kulinary Adventures of Kath, where she shares comforting recipes, thoughtful food writing, baking inspiration and beautiful photography.

Kath has written several baking books including Everyday Bakes, Cozy Winter Bakes and Baking with Rose. She also writes a free and paid newsletter exploring recipes, food memories and treasured family baking traditions.

You can find Kath here:

• Kulinary Adventures of Kath

• Kath’s Substack Newsletter

• Kath on Instagram

love love love Kath’s book!

A nice little reminder from this episode …

Sometimes the recipes we inherit are more than instructions.
They’re stories.
They’re proof someone was here.
A handwritten note in the margin, a smudge of flour on the page, a pavlova made the same way every Christmas… all of it becomes part of the family story we carry forward.

Pop the kettle on, slice yourself a piece of cake, and enjoy this beautiful conversation with Kath.

And if this conversation stirred something in you—perhaps a memory, a story, or a little nudge to begin writing—you’re warmly invited to grab my free and fun guide to help you make a start. It’s called: The Five Minute Memory List. You can find it in the welcome letter when you sign up to my newsletter. If you’ve already subscribed, and you can’t find your welcome email, please email me and I will send it directly to you.

And if you know someone who might need this kind of conversation right now, feel free to pass it along.

If you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen, and if you feel inclined, leave a little review — it helps more story-lovers find their way here;)

Kim x

Where to find me:

✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.

✨To find out more about my writing membership, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories

✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.
It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here

✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here.

✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)

✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com

✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also Kim
Production and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!

Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)

This past week, over on Instagram, I shared some writing prompts for May and autumn. If you’d like them, here you go:

What always told you autumn had arrived when you were younger?

Who taught you how to make something comforting?

What did people in your family do to prepare for winter?

Write about a cardigan, coat, scarf or pair of slippers you remember well.

What did the evenings look like in the homes you grew up in during autumn?

What would you like to gather in this season instead of rush past?

What are you enjoying in this season of your life?

What have you outgrown like a tree letting go of leaves?

The last one is the piece I wrote about over the weekend. It’s pretty raw, so if you feel OK about getting inside my head for a bit, please read on. Just a warning though — it’s not the normal kind of share you get from me on a Monday morning.

In saying that, I’d like to add that this is honestly the type of sharing I crave from the people I follow on Substack and Instagram, and from the newsletters — and there are a lot of them — that I personally subscribe to. I want deeper. I want real and honest and raw.

I suspect it’s because I’m walking through life at the moment with my blinkers off — all of a sudden, it seems. My 50s are proving to be all about peeling back the layers, whether I like it or not. And this piece of writing I’m sharing with you today is one that past me would never, in a million years, have wanted to share.

Hmmm. But do I really want to share it now? I’m scared about it, for sure. It may cause me to lose readers — which is utterly OK. The thing I’m most worried about is it altering what others believe. My hope is that it simply gives you a little more insight into me and my state of mind.

It’s absolutely personal to me, but I also hope it helps you feel a little more able to talk about the harder things in life that are challenging you. Honestly, writing it down really does help. I’m hoping that sharing it will too.

To give you the heads up, it’s about my spiritual beliefs.

What have you have outgrown like a tree letting go of its leaves in the autumn?

I've outgrown judgment. Other people's judgment of each other, yes — but mostly my own. The quiet verdicts I used to pass without even realising. I’ve spent years in a quiet kind of judgment—the more insidious kind, where no one knows unless it accidentally spills out. The more troubling part of quiet, internalised judgment is that no one has the opportunity to challenge it, which makes it more likely to grow, or at the very least, not disappear.

The kind of judgement from me, that I’m talking about, is related to faith and, essentially, belief. I’m ready to let go of some of the belief systems I’ve held for the past almost 30 years. I believed in claims to know the truth, the one and only truth. I’m not saying there isn’t one, but I’m saying that I can’t possibly be the knower and understander of it, like I thought I was.

At the end of the day, I’m like an ant in the universe—I’m one single, tiny blip who has their own bias, and I plant only a piece of information I take in. How can I, without a single doubt, think I know these truths? I get it—being surrounded by others who also think they have the truth is a way of solidifying it all. But how can we know? How? Oh, by faith, you might say. Yes, but faith is subjective, surely. So many claim it is by faith—they believe in a certain Christian way—but isn’t faith itself also very unique to the one who holds it? But we might say it’s faith in the one who wrote the words—the Bible—by whose interpretation. And there I go again, on the treadmill, I can’t seem to get off—over and over in my brain, it ticks, until I get to the point where I’m tempted to throw it all away. But a big part of me—big or is it now only small—wants to hold onto it for dear life, because there’s fear in the unknown.

This is the thing I must set in stone: I will not stand in judgment of what others believe—no more. I’m shedding that like the autumn leaves, and in this spring, I will not shoot and blossom as the same tree, but hopefully a grafted version that is softer, less arrogant, and more open, without blinkers. This is the first time I’ve allowed my pen to touch paper with these words. It feels scary and raw.

I also wanted to add; just in case you’ve been wondering how my own personal life writing has been going - this is where it’s at.

I’m stuck in this space.

What I believe? What have I believed? What am I challenged by? What am I wanting to let go of? What do I want to keep, if anything?

The very thing I suggest to Little Life Stories members for their own writing is this: start with the memory or thought or time that is continually tapping you on the shoulder. For me, it’s this. This is the thing that keeps tapping me on the shoulder. I’ve been trying to ignore it, put it to the side, leave it for a rainy day.

I’m sorry if this all sounds a bit unclear, perhaps even a little cryptic. I haven’t started with the story of my own faith. I’ve started at the messy part. The part when I feel myself unfolding in a way I wasn’t the least bit expecting. I can write more about it all if you like, but I’m cautious as I don’t want to offend those who have a christian belief. I know how challenging these kinds of conversations can be for some.

Okie doke, in other news ….

I am currently having so much fun bundling together the May Tea + Toast Letter Club. It feels like my own little pocket of joy every time I spend time on it and I can’t help but think about the people who subscribe and the smile on their faces when they see a little letter addressed especially to them. Gosh I hope it brings them as much joy as it brings me.

Here’s a little video of the March one being bundled up:

A LITTLE TEA TOAST LETTER CLUB VIDEO

I will be sharing the April one, over on Instagram, this week.

Have a lovely week ahead, oh and be sure to let me know if you attempt any of the autumn prompts. I’d love to know.

Kim x

PS there are more subscription spaces available for May. If you’d like to join up you can do that here: The Tea + Toast Letter Club I’d love to send you something in the mail:)

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much. I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List.

It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.
Just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

If you’d like something a little more meaty, please feel free to grab my other free guide: The Memory Cupboard. It’s 39 pages of helpful tips and ideas to get those writing juices a flowing and stop the overwhelm. Again, just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

I’ve been thinking today about how quickly the details of the day to day things can slip away.

Not the big things—we tend to remember those.

But the smaller ones.

The way a kitchen felt in the late afternoon.
The things someone always said without thinking.
What sat on the bench.
What played on the radio.

The ordinary parts of life that didn’t seem important at the time.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a big clean-up at home.

If you walked through the front door, you’d probably think I was a fairly neat, organised person… but open a cupboard and you’d see the real story. Things shoved and piled, a bit forgotten.

But no more. I’ve been slowly working my way through—one cupboard at a time—trying to bring a bit of order back into the corners that don’t usually get much attention.

And in the middle of it all, I came across a stack of old journals.

Some I remembered.
Some I had completely forgotten about.

I sat down on the floor and started reading.

I read about family gatherings I hadn’t thought about in years.
Afternoons with friends.
Little ordinary days that, at the time, didn’t seem like anything special… but somehow, reading them back, it all came back to me.

I could see them.
Feel them.
Almost step back into them.

All because I’d taken the time to write a few words down in the mid 2000s.

But there were other parts too.

Heavier ones.

At that time, my marriage was breaking, and I was trying to make sense of something that didn’t feel like it made sense at all.

Reading those pages again was… a little confronting.

There’s something quite raw about meeting a past version of yourself like that.

Seeing what she was carrying.
How she was thinking.
The way she was trying to hold everything together and carrying weight that was too heavy to bear.

And alongside that, I noticed something.

My feelings for that version of me, softened.

I felt a deeper understanding of her.
More patience.
More compassion than I think I had for myself at the time.

It gave me a different perspective on the decisions she made… and the way she moved through it all.

I think that’s what surprised me the most. Not just that I’d remembered things but that I could understand myself better now because I’d written them down back then.

And it made me think about how many moments of our lives we carry without ever really giving them somewhere to land. A tiny space in the world for them to live on.

The good ones.
The ordinary ones.
The hard ones too.

All of it.

I think a lot of us carry more of these memories than we realise.

They sit there undisturbed until something brings them back for a moment,
and then they disappear again just as quickly.

And we tell ourselves we’ll come back to them. Write them down properly.
Make a start when there’s more time.

But I don’t know if it ever really arrives like that.

Life doesn’t tend to clear a perfect space for this kind of thing. We are usually too busy and in constant - I’ll do it one day mode.

It usually begins in the middle of everything else.

With a cup of tea.
A few minutes.
A small memory you decide to go with.

That’s all Little Life Stories is.

Not a big project. Just a place to begin… and a way to keep going.

The doors close tonight.

And if this has been sitting somewhere in the background for you this week…
this might be the moment you stop putting it off for ‘later’.

JOIN LITTLE LIFE STORIES

I’d really love to welcome you in.

Kim x

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much. I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List.

It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.
Just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

If you’d like something a little more meaty, please feel free to grab my other free guide: The Memory Cupboard. It’s 39 pages of helpful tips and ideas to get those writing juices a flowing and stop the overwhelm. Again, just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

Just a very quick interruption …. enter white noise with crackling record sound ….

The Little Life Stories doors will be closing again on Monday night.
Now is the chance to grab yourself a spot and get those precious memories out of your head and onto the page.

If you’d like to see a bit of a sneak peek inside Little Life Stories, you can do that here via Instagram:

SNEAK PEEK!

And if you’d like to hear and see me rambling on about it (cringe!), you can do that on Instagram too:

KIM'S CRINGEY RAMBLINGS

What else can I annoy you with, I mean, share with you?

Oh, there’s some lovely podcast episodes where current Little Life Stories members share their stories. Now those are definitely not annoying! They are bloody awesome!

Here are some to enjoy over the weekend ….

MARY'S STORY

KAREN'S STORY

MELISSA'S STORY

Although this next one isn’t shared by a Little Life Stories member, it is a beauty of an episode, especially for those of you who might be considering writing your own stories.

Mel Pike is a traveller and has written a book about life in Thailand. She’s self published and shares lots of goodies about writing and self publishing.

MEL'S STORY

Over the next three months, if you join LLS this week, this is what you’re stepping into:

• Six guided letters to help you begin and keep going.

• A private writing space where everything lives (the letters, prompts, suggestions, ideas and encouragement) and is easy to find again and again.

• Monthly group calls where we sit together as a Little Life Stories membership, reflect, learn and share (or just listen along quietly if that feels better for you).

• And my support in your corner when you need help, encouragement, or a nudge when things feel stuck.

And yes—you’re always welcome to email me. Any time!

JOIN LITTLE LIFE STORIES

The doors are open until Monday 27th of April aest.
The investment is $150 AUD for the full three months.
You can join here.

If you’re head has been nagging something like this at you: ‘I really should write these stories down one day’— then come on over to Little Life Stories! It’s such an easy, affordable, cosy way of making a start.
You don’t live with that icky procrastination any longer. I’m here to help you:)

Your stories deserve to be written. Let’s make sure women’s lives are recorded! It’s so important!

JOIN LITTLE LIFE STORIES

OK, I’ve worked up a sweat over that little rant. It really does get me going because so many of us have nothing written down about our lives. If we don’t write them down, no one else will. Please make a start. Even if you don’t join Little Life Stories, please, please make a start.

Please?!

Kim x

PS Sorry about the begging!

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much. I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List.

It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.
Just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

If you’d like something a little more meaty, please feel free to grab my other free guide: The Memory Cupboard. It’s 39 pages of helpful tips and ideas to get those writing juices a flowing and stop the overwhelm. Again, just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

The Little Life Stories doors are open again.🤎

I wanted to pop in to let you know but also to share that things look a little different this time around.

Instead of weekly emails delivered to members inboxes, I’ve created a cosy writing space, just for LLS members, to hang out in and visit whenever they like.

Think of it like a kitchen table, with a pot of tea brewing, a tin full of homemade bickies, and plenty of pretty notebooks and flowy pens to get you on your way. It’s a place you can settle into rather than something you have to keep up with.

Let me explain.

Inside Little Life Stories, you’re now stepping into a private writing space that holds everything for you over the three months.

Instead of weekly emails arriving in your inbox, everything is already here waiting for you—gathered into six letters.

Each one includes suggestions, inspiration, prompts and printable pages you can keep, return to, or tuck into your writing notes as reminders, if you like that sort of thing.

Nothing is rushing you. Nothing disappears. There’s nothing you have to book and no deadlines to meet. It’s all here for you to move through in your own time. If you like to open things slowly, week by week, this space is perfect for that, but if you like to binge content, then you can do that here too.

I’ve kept the garden thread running through it all too — because I can’t seem to help myself;)

But also, because it truly does feel like that to me.

Memories are so like a garden.

Seeds scattered by the wind and birds, taking root in all sorts of unexpected places. Once you start noticing them, you can gather them, tend to them, and give them a little care.

Some memories are already in full bloom, ready to be picked and written down.

Some are still growing quietly in the background, not quite ready yet.

And some appear completely out of nowhere — surprising you when you weren’t even looking.

This space is simply somewhere to tend to them. To potter. To notice what’s growing. And to gather what’s ready to be remembered.

Over the next three months, if you join LLS this week, this is what you’re stepping into:

• Six guided letters to help you begin and keep going.

• A private writing space where everything lives (the letters, prompts, suggestions, ideas and encouragement) and is easy to find again and again.

• Monthly group calls where we sit together as a Little Life Stories membership, reflect, learn and share (or just listen along quietly if that feels better for you).

• And my support in your corner when you need help, encouragement, or a nudge when things feel stuck.

And yes—you’re always welcome to email me. I really do mean that.

Here’s what some of my current, lovely members have to say about Little Life Stories and their writing process:

Kim is a gentle, comforting guide for all things writing. Her prompts, ideas and creativity makes the big overwhelm of writing your story into an approachable and highly enjoyable activity. As a Little Life Stories member, I’m incredibly grateful for having Kim right there to help the process along. She’s a true gem. Thank you Kim for continuing to encourage and support the importance of writing our stories and memories, gifts that last forever for our loved ones Mary Tresize-Brown

And another:

Little Life Stories is a writing program that gently reminds you that your stories matter, even if they’re only ever written for yourself. You don’t need to be a “writer” to begin, just brave enough to write the first word, the first sentence, the first story. Kim has created a supportive, non-judgemental space and her steady, thoughtful guidance helps to build confidence in your storytelling over time. Just as valuable is the sense of community within the group. Everyone shows up to monthly gatherings with openness and respect and that shared encouragement has been inspirational and empowering. Little Life Stories is such a meaningful experience which helps you capture memories and moments that might otherwise be lost. Whether you want to preserve memories for family or simply understand your own story more, Little Life Stories offers a gentle and uplifting program and I suggest that, if you’re considering joining, to take the leap. It will be worth it! Melissa Mack

That’s really it.

No pressure, no performance.

Just a place for your memories to land and for you to tinker away.

A few practical things:

The doors are open for one week only 🤎
The investment is $150 AUD for the full three months.
You can join [here].

If something in you has been nudging you towards this—
that constant thought of ‘I really should write these stories down one day’—

this might be your moment.

I’d love to welcome you in and help you get those precious memories written down.

Kim x

If you do happen to be new here, hi there! I'm Kim, and I love to share stories of home and childhood, and the moments that connect me with the people and places I love so much. I have a passion for encouraging you to write your own life stories down too and I have a 3 month guided personal life writing experience to help women do just that: Little Life Stories.

I have a podcast called Tell Me Over Tea where I share the wonderful stories of lovely women, my own life, my Dear Nan letter series, and writing inspiration. It’s been such fun to create and I hope that it gives you a cosy, slow space to pour a cuppa, unwind, connect and feel inspired to write your own stories.

If you’d like to get started with writing down your memories, and you want something quick and easy (oh, and you like lists!), please feel free to grab my freebie: The 5 Minute Memory List.

It’s a simple little guide to help you capture your memories in the time it takes to enjoy a cuppa.
Just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

If you’d like something a little more meaty, please feel free to grab my other free guide: The Memory Cupboard. It’s 39 pages of helpful tips and ideas to get those writing juices a flowing and stop the overwhelm. Again, just need to make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter first … Subscribe and grab the guide here. (You will get the guide in your welcome email).

The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter in the mail every month. You can read more about it here

I also have a gorgeous, free snail mail exchange for women, called: The Lovely Letters Project. You are so very welcome to join that. You can read all about it here.

I share all of these things over on Instagram, Pinterest and my website.

It’s really lovely to meet you!

Already part of the club? Welcome back! Love you long time! ◡̈ x

That’s my mum!

Show Notes

Episode 18: Dear Nan – Episode 18 | Parenting in The 50s and 60s

Growing a tribe of five

In this episode of Tell Me Over Tea, I’m sharing a letter to my Nan — written as I reflect on her years as a young mother, raising five children in the 1950s and 60s.

This episode is also held within a tender moment of goodbye. My grandpa recently passed away at 95, just days before the anniversary of my Nan’s death. With his passing, it feels like the closing of a chapter — the end of an era that shaped so much of our family story.

Through this letter, I return to the house on the hill in North Narrabeen… a place filled with baking days, childhood mischief, community, and the kind of everyday moments that became the legacy of my grandparents.

It’s a story of parenting five children in the 1950s and 60s in Sydney, Australia, of changing times, of laughter and chaos, and of the love that holds it all together.

Pop the kettle on and join me for this gentle remembering.

In this episode, I share:

• A personal reflection on loss and the end of an era

• Memories of my grandparents’ and earlier years in North Narrabeen

• A heartfelt letter exploring motherhood in the 50s and 60s

• Family stories filled with humour, mischief, and affection

• The contrast between past and present parenting styles

• The power of ordinary moments to become lasting memories

A gentle invitation:
As you listen, notice the memories that surface for you — the small, seemingly ordinary ones. They’re often the doorway into the stories that matter most.

Free Resource:
I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.
A short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing.

You’ll find it linked below.

If this conversation stirred something in you—perhaps a memory, a story, or a little nudge to begin writing—you’re warmly invited to join me inside Little Life Stories, my membership for women who want to capture their stories in a supportive, heart-led way. The doors will be opening again next week, so please be sure to subscribe to this newsletter, so you don’t miss a trick when dates are released.

And if you know someone who might need this kind of conversation right now, feel free to pass it along.

If you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen, and if you feel inclined, leave a little review — it helps more story-lovers find their way here;)

Kim x

Where to find me:

✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.

✨To find out more about my writing membership, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories

✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.
It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here

✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here.

✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)

✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com

✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also Kim
Production and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!

Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)