Sister Mary Bondadventure is going of a parochial visit till next Saturday. She is quite concerned that Father Jack might be led astray and resume his drrrreadful drrrinking, so she's taking the "Toilet Duck" with her so he won't be tempted and will report back when she returns... May the saints preserve her and keep the good Father on the straight and narrow.

She hopes to return full of the energy she needs to keep Father Jack on the path to heaven, but she has her doubts that even she can achieve that. 

This is my maternal great grandmother in later life holding up my mother, one of her many grandchildren. I old age she moved to Sydney and lived with two or three of her adult children, all in the one house. Mum told me how much she loved to go on holidays there, because it was such a happy place and everyone talked at once... Mum also inherited this wonderful family gift. 

This old photo barely survived...but here it is. It was taken in 1890. The oldest little boy looking directly at the camera is my maternal grandfather, born in 1886. He became the mainstay of his family as the father turned out not to be the most reliable of husbands...

These three little boys had four younger sisters and all of them survived well into old age and without exception all died of the same type of heart condition, from what I have been told.

I knew them all as the most amazing and different band of Aunties and Uncles you could wish for.

Grandfather died first in 1963 ans they all gathered around this time. My Grandfather deserves his own story, because he was a gentle and remarkable man, but his little brother on the ground before him, was a real card.

Vain as vain and even in old age too handsome to ever sacrifice himself up on the alter of marriage. WE were all wary of Uncle Alf. if you bumped his shiny car you could hear his indrawn breath and he was horrified when mum and pram and her tribe all bundlef into it one time, after he foolishly offered her a lift.

The little one stayed little and became a jockey first and then a farmer. We all loved him because he always gave us a little brown bag of lollies when we visited from his large jar which never seemed to empty...and he had the most interesting back yard and house and never minded us exploring it... One whole room was devoted to his photo collection... He just died in his sleep, sitting in a chair near the fire...tea and toast nearby.

But it is the life of their mother which for me is so important. That she underwent deprivation and no doubt often went hungry to feed her seven children is known. But all of those children grew up to be good people, and talk.... could they all talk...all at once and everyone got heard... something I am good at still.

I have some older photos of this lady, my great grandmother, surrounded by her adult family, loved, looked after needed. Sometimes there is reward on earth for just doing the right thing. I n later years as an old woman she remarried and it was a good marriage. 

I really have no idea who these people are apart from the fact that they lived near my mother and her dad in the 1920's.

Its just an interesting shot of the times and the people.

Who knows where all those kids ended up.

Okay I hope!  

This is a photo of my Mother and two daughters about two years before Mum died. I had a very disturbing dream about my Mother last night. I dreamt I was asleep... a dream within a dream. I was lying there worrying because I had been told Mum was really ill and they were taking her to Newcastle Hospital .
She was in the local hospital at Scone (Australia). I started wondering (still in the dream) why it felt so long since I had seen her. Then I brought up in my mind's eye all the Christmas photos for the past few years and realised I had not seen nor visitied Mum for ages...it was the most awful feeling... as if I had forgotten her.

In the dream (still), I tried and tried to get organised to visit her but every time I did it seemed someone needed me to do something else.

When I woke up I felt so bereft.

It was my mother who clawed me through those awful first years after Don's accident. In the midst of despair circa 28...29...30yrs and till I was 39 she was there at the end of the phone or in person. Never critical. Always for me - but also understanding not to interfere in our situation.

She never ever interferred. But boy did she help me emotionally.

Before Don had his accident in 1982...he was a tad of a lad. One time we journeyed home to see Mum and my little sisters...a trip of about 3hrs. We had two babies at the time. Don pulled up in my old home town (about 7 miles away from where mum lived then). He went into the local pub for a quick drink leaving the girls and myself outside in the car. I would never go into my old hometown pub..."Oh! Yairss there's Freddy Spencer's daughter chasing her husband with her babies in arm." No way was I going to do that.

I have some pride.

So we waited out there... mid June... high winter in inland Australia.... ffffreezing. No car heaters in the '70's in our poor old car.

Waited and waited. No Don. Went to the front door and looked in, babes in arm... no Don.

Righto I thought. Got back in the car and drove the last 7 miles to Mum's.

Mum was all sympathy and tea and blankets and comfort.

But when Don finally turned up... a little worse for wear and I refused point bank to greet him telling Mum to climb into bed and pretend he did not exist... she shhushed me.

Out in the kitchen she fed him with Tea and toast and vegemite - it was midnight! There was no criticism nor anything to mar the visit except my gall.

The next day he got out in Mum's yard and cleaned it up, a big job and did a few other things she needed. Big things she could never have afforded. I was so very proud of him for this because I realised he understood poverty and what it meant for people like Mum.

She understood the nature of my husband which was not so much different than my own dad who I remember doing the very same things for others.

I remembered all of this in that dream and could not believe I had forgotten her for so long.

Then I woke up and knew the reason why.

I took these pictures of our eldest daughter about 5 years back...she was going through a blackhair phase then. I just love these pictures.It was a wonderfully mild day and husbands and boyfriends were absent... so we had fun with the camera... I like how the fabric of her dress flows and to me, apart from her face it is this which i find most appealing.

 

 

 

And just this last photo before I g to sleep. My wonderful Dad again taken not too long before he died..resting his hand on my little sister...she has no memory of him...so a lot of what i write goes to her to fill in her blanks. To be the toddler or the little kid with Dad was to be in heaven. And a the time this was taken my little sister would have been in her own little heaven.

Mum dealt more with us as we got older and perhaps ...no not perhaps..until we got harder work... but all of us remember that specia time we had as little kids following Dad around the big yard. 

This picture was taken of my parents on their honeymoon exactly 20 years before the one posted previously ...what can't be seen in this one is that on Mum's left is an aunt of hers... one I rather liked but am left wondering what she was doing with them on the honeymoon. Perhaps she lived in the area...I hope so, because I think that this was the first and last holiday they had without a tribe of us kids in tow.