I Know this isn't a clear photo. I rescued it from a pile of stuff I found when sorting through Mum's stuff. I have to chuckle at this one. Its of a very "dynamic" moment. Don 23 and I 19 (circa 1974) had just arrived up at Mum's place in country New South Wales and announced to her that we were having a baby, but in no hurry to be married. Poor bloody Catholic Mum. How blase are we when we are young and how blind to the rights and sensibilities of those we really love.?

She was on a widow's pension at that time and had still two little kids to bring up. She'd just cooked us Tea and we'd just finished telling he with all the supreme confidence and stupidity of youth that "everything is fine Mum".

She grew to love Don especially out of all the sons in law she would have (5), but the look accross my head, and Don very deliberately tucking into the last morsel on the plate says it all.

As for me, smiling always semed to fix everything. It was alright, and we stuck together,
but she was right to worry... we had some "times".

Dad always used to say that when we bought our boyfriends home, he would take them down the back and if they couldn't chop wood for the fire, he'd let us know they weren't okay. Good standards dad. He didn't live to meet any of them.

Mum always said, "You can tell if someone is worthwhile by how they treat their own mother." which is fine, depending if the mother is a nurturer or destroyer.

I wonder what our kids will say we said by way of help or advice. Mine just crack up if I start but they are a bit older than I was in this picture.