12 posts tagged “family”
I had to take yesterday off work as teachers (and noone else) had a holiday in lieu of Anzac Day. It was a nice day. I got loads done, including re-arranging my son's bedroom (he can now see his sister's bed from his bed which should hopefully avoid the need for him to go and camp out on her bedroom floor during the night). We stopped in at this cafe after going to the post office. The kids were most impressed with the smiling babycinos.
We also had a visit later in the day from the kids' nan, great aunt, nan's friend and cousin. I cracked open the green cordial and got out the orange cake I had made the previous day in honour of the occasion - so a very good day for all concerned.
I don't usually do anything special for ANZAC Day but happened to be in the city with the kids on Saturday and saw lots of old diggers out and about. Seeing them always makes me feel sad. After we got home, I got out my grandfather's medals to show the kids. He was stationed in Balikpapan in Indonesia during World War II and, despite a general reluctance to talk much about his war time experiences (except to me), seems to have kept a lot of things from that time, including letters home, ration books, leave passes, tickets, photos etc etc. Here are a few photos of some of the items.
I have been meaning to scan them for the family and then maybe see if the War Memorial in Canberra would like any of the items as they would have better means of preserving them than we would. I am thinking with the letters that I will probably have to re-type them as they are so faded now that they wouldn't scan well. Some might even be written in pencil so it is amazing that they are still legible at all.
After the war, grandad returned to his former profession of painting but had to give this up eventually as he had sustained damage to his hearing which also affected his balance (an issue when you are climbing ladders for a living). He had always been interested in electronics and got a job in the physics department at the University of Melbourne (constructing circuits and things for the students). He also ran his own television and radio repair business in his garage at home. My brother still has the old sign.
This is him on the right at my university graduation in 1989. I was surprised that he was so keen to come along as his hearing was so bad at that stage and he preferred to stay away from noisy functions. I remember when I did invite him, he said "I thought you'd never ask".
He lived to the ripe old age of 97 (pre-deceased by his wife and eldest son - my dad - by several years) and managed to remain at home for almost all of that time. It is interesting reading his wartime letters (which were mostly written during his training in Sydney and Townsville, before being sent to Indonesia) as he seemed like quite a different person back then. He was always rather cantankerous when I knew him (although not to me so much) but he seems quite sentimental in his letters and talks about missing his wife and children back home. I'm not sure if it was the war that changed him or subsequent his loss of hearing (which isolated him from a lot of the people around him). It makes me think that you never really know anyone completely.
Had a great time. The weather was great even when it was cold (which it only was towards the end). Highlights for the kids were meeting my brother's dog, Bobby, for the first time, spending their birthday money and, for my son, meeting up with my best friend and her to boys. We also had a few bike riding lessons (mostly unsuccessful), went down and visited my 94 year old nana and watched way too much tv (as Mum has foxtel). Here are some photos.
This piece is all about car travel, the old fashioned way. My husband and I had a similar philosophy but finally succumbed to the temptation of the portable DVD players about two Christmases ago when facing a return drive from Sydney to Melbourne (about 12 to 14 hours) in hot conditions and along the notoriously boring Hume Highway.
My own childhood car memories involve lots of 'I Spy' and squabbling with my brothers in the back seat of the Holden over who got to sit next to the window (we ended up rotating seats every hour) and over whether it was okay to sing along with the radio or whether this was 'spoiling it for everyone else because you can't sing'. I also remember one brother driving us all mad by singing the Taubmans Paint Commercial (set to the tune of 'My Way') all the way on one car trip to visit relatives in the country (I still can't listen to anyone singing 'My Way' without thinking of this). This was all pre-airconditioning so we tended to have the windows open a lot of the time in an effort to keep cool and stop ourselves from sticking to the vinyl bench seats.
Seat belts in back seats came in at some stage during my childhood but weren't mandatory. My parents decided at one stage, however, to install some newfangled children's harnesses in the back seat of one car and the constriction these imposed was utter hell until we worked out how to loosen them and gradually managed to escape from them altogether. After that, the harnesses became an excellent piece of equipment for 'back seat waterskiing' which was one (probably highly dangerous) game we devised to keep ourselves entertained on long trips.
We tended to travel pretty slowly as Mum suffered from car sickness and also because the traffic just didn't move as fast in those days. Any trips used to involve lots of stop offs at small country towns that are now bypassed by the highways. There was also a lot more to see out of the car window than there is now and, of course, a lot more thrill seeking fun to be had in the back seat. No wonder modern kids need technology.
Oh and in relation to the ostrich story, I remember a similar thing happening to us once. We were sitting in the car at the site of dormant volcano (Tower Hill) in Western Victoria and Mum was turning around to talk to us or tell us off about something and an emu came and stuck its head into her window and put its beak right up next to her ear and made a loud kind of burping sound. Mum nearly went through the roof with shock and we kids thought it was the funniest thing ever. It probaby partly inspired me to choose an emu for my original avatar when I first set up this blog.
The story contains this rather horrifying statistic:
Nearly a third of men believed kitchen and cooking appliances were a perfect present for their partners
I wonder how long their relationships will last.
I did love some of the accompanying comments though, especially this one:
I have copied this and will wrap it in Chrissie paper and give it to the grandkids instead of a present. I am sure they will be relieved not to receive any more crappy christmas presents from me and mum. Another article about crappy BIRTHDAY presents in March and October would be much appreciated.Well its off to the club to spend my savings. Thanks once again.
I just had a call from Mum this morning to say that Nana had taken ill overnight and is now in hospital unable to speak. I am thinking this might be the final straw for Nana who is 94 years old and not in particularly good health (both physically and mentally). I feel bad that I haven't been calling her more lately and haven't seen her since our last trip to Melbourne, last year (see photo below). Nana was in quite good spirits that day but still talking in a loop. The kids found it quite amusing and didn't seem to mind answering the same questions over and over about how old they were etc etc. They also loved all the toys she has in her room in the nursing home and having afternoon tea with the all other oldies in the dining room (this also seemed to make Nana happy, ie, having an opportunity to show off her great grandchildren to her fellow nursing home residents).
Mum is having to defy the advice issued to all Victorians to stay indoors today away from the smoke so she can drive (about 45 minutes) to the hospital where nana has been admitted. Prior to this, Mum had said that it felt like the end of the world in Melbourne at the moment. Eerily quiet and smoke everywhere. I am on standby to fly down there myself if necessary so if I disappear all of a sudden, that will probably be why.
I have given up on either of my brothers having any human children so I am claiming this little fellow as a nephew. My brother got him from the Lost Dogs Home on the weekend. Bobby (he was given this name at the Home) is supposed to be a Jack Russell but I think he looks more like a Miniature Fox Terrier (our neighbours have several of these type of dogs and they look very much like this). Anyone know much about these breeds? He is 12m so fully grown and quite a handful apparently. My brother is going to start obedience classes with him soon.
I am finally getting around to doing a post on our Christmas celebrations.
On Christmas Eve we attended a German style Christmas Eve party at the home of my husband's cousin (whose wife is from a German family). My kids were a bit envious that these kids get visited by both German Father Christmas and Aussie Santa. It was a great (boozy) night and meant that we all, apart from my son, slept in late on Christmas Day.
The table at the German Christmas Eve party.
A chocolate house.
My son actually crept up early and snuck all his presents into his room to open in bed. This is why I wasn't able to get a shot of both the kids presents in front of the tree! I used recyclable Christmas shopping bags instead of stockings or pillow cases this year. The kids didn't get very much as their main gift was the plane ticket over to the island. They seemed very happy with everything though. My son's favourite gift was a $3 torch (flashlight) and my daughter's a little dog charm for her charm bracelet. My nephew and nieces also seemed happy with the shopping I had done for them (mostly clothes and books including most of what they got from Santa).
We celebrated (Australian) Christmas with my husband's extended family at a hotel with a pool. It was really nice and very low stress for everyone (especially those who would normally have been cooking and cleaning up). In addition to the pool there was also a lawn with games like bocce and quoits. Lunch was a buffet and the kids all particularly enjoyed the range of desserts on offer (including pavlova and chocolate mousse).
Show us a portrait.
I gave my 9yo daughter my old camera just before Christmas (it had been broken and we managed to get it working again). She has been mostly taking photos of animals and people and has managed to get some really good portraits (I think so anyway). Here are some of my favourites.
Just a small update to last week's Mum on the War Path post. All completely quiet from the annoying, kid dumping neighbours over the weekend. Roll around to dinner time last night and guess who knocked on the door! Fortunately my husband had been paying attention to my cursing and spitting last week and just told them that it wasn't convenient as our kids were having their dinner (not strictly true). The younger of the two children proceeded to have a meltdown on our front porch because he was "so disappointed" not to be able to play with my son (who is not his age anyway). You would think this might prompt an invitation for my son to over and play at their house sometime but no chance. The friend who was minding the children after school yesterday (our afterschool nanny quit on Friday night as she has been offered a better paying, full time nannying job starting immediately) was there to see all this and knows not to let them in if they come on her watch. I don't think they will though as they seem to wait until they see one of our cars out the front of the house because coming over. I don't think they even know that the kids are home with a paid carer before that (or I am sure they would be trying to turn that situation to their advantage).
I don't know what it is about us that makes us so appealing to kid dumpers. We had the same situation a few years back with the neighbour over the road. In her case, she was a victim of kid dumping herself, ie, from her son and daughter in law who would (and still do) use her as a free source of child care for the entire school holidays. She is quite elderly and not in good health but rather than risk upsetting her son by saying no, she would try and palm the kids off onto me whenever I was on a day off (I was working part time back then). It was just getting a bit ridiculous and the final straw came when she sent them over unaccompanied after I had previously told her that it wasn't convenient that day as we were all sick and also packing to go away that evening. I kept them for half an hour and then took them back to her again explaining why it wasn't convenient that day. She never sent them again and has been quite cool to me since then. She then turned to another set of neighbours who were a little more tolerant because their own son (an only child) not generally popular with other kids because of his behavioural disabilities so welcomed the company. Even they got fed up eventually though as these kids would be knocking on the door when they weren't even out of bed in the morning. They have since moved away and this woman still has her grandkids there every holidays. I would be quite happy to have just one of them (the girl who is the same age as my daughter) over to play every now and then but don't want to offer as 1) these kids seem to be a package deal (and the boy is a super annoying kid) and 2) I am wary of things getting completely out of control like they did last time.
Surely people must realise that if they push people's boundaries to the limit, then it won't end well for them (or maybe they are used to this approach paying dividends?). Anyway, it won't be our problem for too much longer as we are planning to try and move house after Christmas and will be an hour's drive away from both these sets of neighbours.
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