Hello and welcome to frangipani.info.

My name is Martine Cotton. I started this website back in November 2002, just before I moved to Japan. It wasn't really a blog back then, but I can thank Movable Type for making blogging a natural evolutionary process. I tinker away at it whenever I have some free time.. although I get the feeling web 2.0 has left me behind, and with the latest install of MT 4.1 I kinda broke the site comments and have no clue how to repair them at this point.... anyways, the site contains about 7 years worth of content so please settle in and take a look around. I hope you enjoy it here. I do.

After 6 years in Japan, in Feb 2009, I made the move back to Australia to try life in Port Douglas for a while. My family lives here, and it's a beautiful part of the world so it seemed a good place to re-enter Australian life.

So what does "Frangipani" mean? I'm always surprised by just how many people ask me that question. Frangipani's are a particularly pretty (and my fave) tropical flower, also known as Cultivar Plumeria. The little pink flower popping up all over the site and in your menu bar is a frangipani. [pron: franj-i-panni].