Every year since the kids were little

we have taken a family photo of us four... usually use a tripod or if someone happens to be about, we use them. For all this time Don has always been our centre prop and the girls would always get around him, I'd set the photos up and run to the vacant spot.

We'd switch positions sometimes and half the fun was them expecting me to trip over the tripod leg and go sprawling... but I never did...maybe one day folks.

(Christmas day photo)

It was funny...this year when I set the timer and ran... we got all confused as to where we were all to be... and we all realised it at the same time... laughter... and for the moment it was like old times with all its silliness. We muddled through and as humans do, we maintained the things which meant something to us in spite of reality... and although it was sad it was also funny... maybe next year there will be the pitter patter of little feet or at least a baby bump to add to the photos...

(our Boxing day Photo)

"Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe."
But sometimes its enough to make you sick... very sick

http://www.newstarget.com/022434.html

Thousands Exposed to Poison by Government's Aerial Spraying

Indestructible!

I've been going through the tennis balls lately....within minutes of throwing one to Thorn (doggie) he has it ripped open and moments from being destroyed... he used to bring them back but now he runs away, destroys them and then brings them back with a big grin as if to say "got anything tougher?".

Alison bought him two specially designed extra heavy duty tennis balls especially designed for big jawed dogs...

So off we went outside to see how it went...

Took him five minutes tops and he had cracked the first one open...still held together for a bit longer so he could bring it back once or twice...

He's having such a great time smiling away... scooping up mouthfuls of grass in his enthusiasm...

I wasn't all that surprised... more bemused especially at Alison's reactions at the speed with which he demolished the first one ...

He's a lovely happy dog and makes us all smile. He's not been himself since the girls returned home last week am a bit concerned as he doesn't seem to have the energy he did, and usually nothing gets him down for long.

He turned 13 on the Saturday before Christmas, so for a large dog his age, he's probably just not handling the heat all that well.

And after he destroyed the two tennis balls he went back to his old string of sausages... which will maybe last a day or two... but I doubt it.

Happy New year people... be kind to yourselves and others okay.

Two Pink Flamingos.
Some time last year Melissa (eldest) spotted two big pink flamingos when we drove past a garden statue place. She nearly fell out of the car window looking at them and talked about them for ages. "Ahhh ... something pink and large... I need that pink thing." From the distance they looked as if they may have been made of metal and painted pink.... and therefore reasonably light.

They are made of very solid concrete. Very solid concrete.

You have got to understand Melissa. This kid was born in 1974 but should have been born in the 1930's...( glad she wasn't or she might have been my mother instead) she has always loved the old black and white film stars and the clothes and music...have no idea where she came from but at age two and three the 'drama' was in her...so what more natural for such as she to want two large pink flamingos outside her front door. So often its the other way about... but she loves all the old glamorous stuff...and although I can see what it is she likes about it, I grew up in different times and found nothing more dreary than on Saturday afternoons to hear that sort of music on the radio... so dreary I remember feeling despair... and then along she comes like a bright Christmas globe of light and sparkle... straight out of the 1930's... and even with that , she isn't a prima donna...she's really nice and commonsensical as a contrast...

So I got them for her. They were way, way too heavy to get home by myself although they came in a couple of bits...delivery costs were pretty steep, but this Christmas I wanted it to be a silly Christmas and did my best to get things I thought would be liked and make the girls smile.





Once the delivery guys (two big men) dumped them unceremoniously on the floor on their sides and left before I realised what they'd done - I had trouble shifting even one bit by itself...they really are solid cement. (Thanks Melissa...hope she wants something a bit more delicate next time...maybe a stack of nappies might be in order if we are lucky)

So we wrapped them up for her, Ali and I....
















And she unwrapped them.... happily and with big smiles...





then on Thursday she blithely flew back to Sydney leaving her two pink flamingos smack bang in the middle of the lounge room floor...

I've got them on a towel but still can't manage to move them... I tried many different pushing and pulling positions. Their beady little eyes challenged me to move them, and I lost of course as they knew darn well I would ...

she'll be back in early February with her car...but...

I am growing rather used to having them there right where I continually run into them as I am going out the door...

One day she'll come for her pressie... with her husband and an electronic hoist and they'll be in their rightful place... mmm one day...

Happy new year people!

Some photos...

Alison arrives just before Christmas Eve...

Melissa arrives on Christmas Eve

I am a pretty happy little vegemite having the girls at home... a rare enough happening...

We were to have a lovely cool Christmas which is really unusual... but enough of that ...thats for the next post.

Merry Christmas from Craggy Island Australia!

About to pick up 2kgs of South West Rocks Prawns!

Will catch up after the big day... hoping for a cool day and not blistering heat... Melissa arrives this evening and Alison has been here since Friday... the dog hasn't stopped panting and wagging his old tail since she arrived...

Best wishes to you all and I hope all of you have a really happy day with your people and friends (and pets), have enough to eat, enough to drink and get a lot of love from those around you...

Christmas 1963...




I was looking through old family photos and came across these two.
Unsure if I have posted these some long while back but as its almost Christmas they are getting an airing.
Here we all are Mum (in the first one) and Dad (in the second) with the little tree behind us and our
water tank next to that. Hard by, but out of sight is the outdoors toilet which always seem to have a crazy lean. Dad was a weekend house painter (an extra job) and he would paint the house and toilet with all the left over paint. One year the house and toilet were green, later on

pink and other colours...

My sister Veronica is the tallest and she was only14... she never grew an inch after this and now at 57 she is a tiny person these days (she shrunk a lot), then there was June...the delicate femme one... who no longer desires contact (sad really) she of the Social Worker mindset and the baby is Joanie...she is 47 now. Veronica, June and I were only 18 months apart respectively... They had another one in 1964 and she lives in New Zealand at Dunedin.

I am the one who always had a bad haircut...and no I did not do it myself.

Dad and Mum were a dream... they mucked in as many parents did not do in those days, but there were rules and manners and the odd smack.

I am so lucky. I had a wonderful childhood...free able to become whoever or whatever I wanted. Sadly Dad was killed in the late 60's by a drunk driver...but Mum still held it together...and laughed and smiled again, but she was never quite the same person after...thats understandable.


Charlie says "they are us, we are them" thanks Charlie...and this is truth. In my case what they gave to me grew because I was able to be myself all my life, living in the present, enjoying the kids when they were kids, not bemoaning not being able to travel or whatever...and yes...for me its true...I did marry a man just like my dad...


sometimes if your dad is a good bloke that can work... it was really hard work in the early days... rough diamonds are the best ones...as no doubt it was for mum, but I have a lot of pleasure in considering the love my parents had was equal to my own...we are the lucky ones.


These photos from so long ago in my life... well over a generation age. I am lucky to have them because without them so much gets forgotten. Looking at these photos I can remember the day as if it was yesterday and even the feeling of the sun behind the clouds...
We Australians would never have a tree in the yard if the sun was out in December... in all my childhood we only ever had two Christmases using outside trees...

Just received these. : ) : )
My niece Alanah just sent me through some photos she took at the wedding. We don't have the photographer's ones yet... bear with me ... our family is a bit short on weddings so this was, apart from my own backyard wedding only the fourth wedding I have been to in my whole 53 years...

The first photo was taken as everyone in the church went past the couple and gave them hugs, handshakes or in some cases (gasp) kisses - usually really old men like to do that most... This was taken when Melissa realised that the next one she had to greet was her sister Alison. She went from being a sophisticated 30yr old to looking just like that 4 year old kid I remember did when she was really happy... just check out the looks on both their faces. I don't need to see Ali's to know what she looks like ... just seeing the way she is standing tells me all. Its a beautiful photo for a mum to have.
(Click to enlarge )


The next one was taken while Ali was unaware and she just looks so lovely. She is as lovely as she looks also, but very grounded. I always told the girls to have your head in the clouds but your feet in the dirt...sort of like Oscar Wilde's "All of us are in the gutter ,but some of us are looking up at the stars"

So there are no bloody princesses in our lot.... they'd get "laughed at, chaffed at and flung shit at" to coin one of Don's more sensitive sayings.


And this one...

I am definitely going to do my best to be around for these two... I have pulled myself together again, since last post and I appreciate all the comments. I think I was about the lowest I have ever been round that time, but strangely thats as bad as it got and then the next day was okay... I signed myself up at a fitness centre which caters for old knees and sore backs but works on Cardiovascular system....so have started and was surprised...they all looked like me but with different heads...bizarre... could be pod people from you know where... but just deciding to do this and beginning has helped a lot. We are on 4 acres here and the way things grow right now its not as if I was sitting about moping... there are always lots of things to do so that the bush doesn't take over the house... but till I work out what to do with myself... I needed to do more physically and seemed to lack motivation.

We had been in a Carer/ Cared for situation for 25 years and much of the time I needed to be responsible all the time just in case. I have always hated the term "Carer" because so many paid ones are bastards...we were wife and husband...but just to explain, when the person you care for and love in the way we did is gone, it is worse than getting the sack or retiring because it was not just your Monday to Friday 9 to 5... it was your life so along with the loss there is a different loss. We really enjoyed our time together and too many people assume too easily that they know what it is like to be in our situation. I have been told "Oh! You must be relieved." Too stunned to react...we always think about what we'd say if we were quick enough. A bloody good smack in the mouth might suffice forthat person who was looking at me myopically just like social workers do...they all seem to be short sghted also. They look at you right in the face and stand too close as if that means they care... One eejit down in Sydney Hospital did that but she had a lazy eye and I am sure no one ever told her that the closer she got the more that other eye danced around inside its socket while the other one looked straight at you. Still makes me laugh.

All our kids are special but these two are extra. Aged four Alison the size of a peanut stood in front of her dad's manual (then) wheelchair after it got away from me on a slope and she stopped it with her own little body (unhurt both of them) ...Melissa still a child had to push him and his elextric chair (they had 2 car batteries underneath in those days and very heavy) up a long incline after he got the control box wet right down the back of the yard. My mum was there but she was too frail at that time...His chair had started to short out and went round and round till he lodged up against a barbed wire fence and the wheels still spinning. She sorted out all of that ( no mean feat) got it into manual which meant you push it...and got him safely in the house.

I am amused when people treat their children as babies at 7 and 6 and all of that. We hugged ours a lot and had a lot of fun, and we spoilt them occasionally but there was no choice sometimes but for them to be brave or inventive or whatever. They are better people for this, not that this was necessary...

Don and I managed to survive their teenage years when they both had sparks in their eyes and sparks in their hearts (and thats a dangerous mix) ... and now its just beautiful with them and has been for some years now... I am actually a very lucky person...we were very lucky people and we felt this at the time which is more important.

Had a bit of a wake up call health wise

on Friday - went to the doctors to check up on why I keep getting a sore chest and tightness which is really distressing and feel like I can't breath properly at times, something which never happened till this year and he took my BP...it was off the planet... 180 on 107 unbelievable. I normally sit around 120 to 130 over 80 0r 90. I hadn't realised how incredibly stressed I had become over the past year. It came down a fair bit when they got me to breathe deeply and relax etc... I hate going to surgeries anyway... feel like I am in dangerous territory... rather go to the vets...they know more.

The Doc sat me out in the nurses room and did an ECG and a couple more BP's before I left -

I knew all about Stress ...its the catch phrase these days... but I think this goes beyond what I had thought of as stress. I understand how one could actually die of a broke heart, but not in some drifty romantic way...more like a bloody stroke which leaves you unable to look after yourself...

I had been feeling really strange with vertigo, and a semi numb feeling on the side of my head and have had this for some time... since Don died...but having been burnt by his dreadful treatment I just thought "It'll go away" I am a great believer in just leaving things be like aches and pains and a few days alter they go...

So I have got to ease back and not let everything mainly other's problems, worry me so much and realise I am not responsible for the world and how it is. I had been crying a lot of late, seem to be more and more and have to wake up to the fact that Don wouldn't want me to bugger up my health this way... would be nice for the girls to have at least one parent around when they have kids... I had been feeling really unwell and spacey and no energy... all of which the grief counsellor (yes I actually went to one... totally unlike what I thought I would ever do) told me was to be expected because of the nature of Don's death...but I think that the grief masked what was happening physically also...

I tried a different approach yesterday... I was easy on myself and had a day when apart from doing what really needed to be done I pottered about and wandered in the yard... when the feelings came over me I tried to remember what I knew once about recognising the feelings and then acknowledging them and then letting them go on the breeze... as they came. Only had one really bad moment when I almost lost it but made a conscious effort not to get too angry about what happened as I know i have done what I can for now...set in motion so to speak...to ensure what happened to Don is exposed, acknowledged and recorded.

I would find myself getting quietly angry that no one in the family was able to take the cudgel away from me for a while in the fight... I have always been a fighter and know how to do reports and access media and MP's because Don and I were/are born shit stirrers... the kids called us "Shit Stirrer's Inc." even. The weaker side of me just wanted to hand it over, despite all the pretty words I would say to people. I think I just felt overwhelmed by the Titans I had taken on and knowing that the way the system works it will work to protect the hospital, doctors and nurses and thereby itself.

Its not the tears from grief which cause you problems...tears are fine...its the anger, the incredulity at the lack of compassion and the unbelievable cruelty that the system allows to happen - for which no one takes responsibility.

I even slept in this morning till all of 6.30am after months of waking at 4am eyes on stalks.

I know that I know what to do ...it just all got forgotten in the wash up.

better a wake up call than not waking up at all I always ses : ) - well I just ses it now anyway.

And now for something completely different... a friend emailed me this this morning...needs no words... but can't resist, "Say Cheese!"

As mad as a March Hare

... but in December

I have seen this little fellow about the yard early in the morning when I look out. Australia is well known for its rabbit (imported) explosion and the damage they unwittingly do to the land...but I had never seen a hare in real life before believe it or not.

Carl Jung - "Hare . . . not yet attained mature human stature . . . appears as the founder of human culture . . . the Transformer. This myth was so powerful that the members of the Peyote Rite were reluctant to give up Hare when Christianity began to penetrate the tribe. He became merged with the figure of Christ. "

Wikipedia - For other uses, see Hare (disambiguation).
"Jack rabbit" and "Jackrabbit" redirect here. For other uses, see Jack rabbit (disambiguation).
"Lepus" redirects here. For other uses, see Lepus (disambiguation).
Hares
European Hare (Lepus europaeus)

Hares and jackrabbits are leporids belonging to the genus Lepus. (Four other species of leporid in the genera Caprolagus and Pronolagus are also called "hares".) Very young hares are called leverets.
They are very fast moving. The European Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) can run at speeds of up to 70 km/h (45 mph). Hares live solitarily or in pairs, whilst "a drove of hares" is the collective noun for a group of hares.
A common type of hare in arctic North America is the Snowshoe Hare, replaced further south by the Black-tailed Jackrabbit, White-tailed Jackrabbit and other species.
Normally a shy animal, the European Brown Hare changes its behaviour in spring, when hares can be seen in broad daylight chasing one another around meadows; this appears to be competition between males to attain dominance (and hence more access to breeding females). During this spring frenzy, hares can be seen "boxing"; one hare striking another with its paws (This is probably the origin of the term "mad as a March hare"). For a long time it had been thought that this was more inter-male competition, but closer observation has revealed that it is usually a female hitting a male; either to show that she is not yet quite ready to mate, or as a test of his determination. - (makes sense to me)

Folklore and mythology

"How to allure the Hare". Facsimile of a Miniature in the Manuscript of Phoebus (Fifteenth Century).
The hare in African folk tales is a trickster: some of the stories about the hare were retold among African slaves in America, and are the basis of the Brer Rabbit stories. The hare appears in English folklore in the saying "as mad as a March hare".
Many cultures, including the Indian and Japanese, see a hare in the pattern of dark patches in the moon (see Man in the Moon). The constellation Lepus represents a hare. There is evidence to suggest that there was some sort of taboo regarding hares in the Proto-Indo-European culture; this is especially notable due to the likelihood that the common word for hare, *kasos, which literally means "the grey one", was a euphemism for a previous and now lost word for hare.[citation needed]
According to Jewish tradition, hares are among four mammals deemed not Kosher.

And here is something interesting

http://www.chrischapmanphotography.com/hares/ have a look on this site its the first I had heard of this...you learn something every day.

The Three Hares Project is researching and documenting an ancient symbol of three hares or rabbits running in a circle and joined by their ears which form a triangle at the centre of the design. The symbol is a puzzle for each creature appears to have two ears yet, between them, they share only three ears.
The Project has revealed the motif to be an extraordinary and ancient archetype, stretching across diverse religions and cultures, many centuries and many thousands of miles. It is part of the shared medieval heritage of Europe and Asia (Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism) yet still inspires creative work among contemporary artists.
The images shown here reveal the beauty of the design in varied contexts. The accompanying text highlights the remarkable story of the three hares.

So he wasn't just a plain old hare at the bottom of the yard...