Auntie, Sister. Grandmother, Great-Grandmother,
Mother and Wife of German Descent
I've lived in Australia since 1959 together with my husband Peter. We have four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. I started blogging because I wanted to publish some of my childhood memories. I am blogging now also some of my other memories. I like to publish some photos too as well as a little bit of a diary from the present time. Occasionally I publish a story with a bit of fiction in it. Peter, my husband, is publishing some of his stories under berlioz1935.wordpress.com
Everyone knew already in March 2020 that Peter’s cancer was well advanced. So, it was only a matter of time, when his bladder cancer would spread into other areas.
By June 2020 the head oncologist at the hospital advised Peter, to bring his affairs in order. It looked to him, that the cancer had already spread to his bones. A few months later a nuclear test was done, that showed without doubt that the cancer had well and truly spread to his bones, which meant then, that in all probability Peter would have only a very short time to live anymore. It was obvious, that he was in the last stages of cancer and so was in need of some palliative care. . . . Soon, it was organised to give him palliative care at home with adequate pain reducing medication administered by Hospital staff who came to our home…
I have lots and lots of friends in the park. There are probably hundreds around close to my humble abode. I keep thinking I should really count all these friends and remember everyone’s pecularities. But so far I haven’t attempted yet to count them all. There is a cluster of them right between a few soccer fields. These are my special friends, and I know them pretty well. But I don’t really know exactly how many there are. I assume there would be at least one dozen, maybe more in that cluster.
What would I say to them, if I could talk to them? I might perhaps say the following: I love it, that you are there. I thank you for letting me hug you. I wish you a very, very long life. I love you so much!
Today is Saturday. In two weeks it is going to be the first Saturday in October! First there are still a dozen days in September left.
At the beginning of November Caroline and Matthew may be able to finally visit me again! I have not seen them since the 16th of May, when we were celebrating Peter’s birthday. Four months have passed since then. For twelve weeks we have been now in lockdown. I had some renovations done to my place. These renovations started towards the end of may and were more or less finished by the time the lockdowns started towards the end of June. I am waiting now for Aaron to return to do some more work for me. Maybe some outside work is going to be allowed soon.
I have so many good memories about places that I visited together with Peter. Since Peter died nine months…
} just did notice that in September 2021, that is last year, during the lockdown, i published about four Diary Posts. This one, that I reblog now, is the first of all these Diary Posts.
It is five o’clock in the morning. I keep telling myself, in a few weeks we are going to be in daylight saving time. If it was daylight saving already now, instead of five o’clock it would be already six o’clock! I reckon, six o’clock is a good time to start the day. So, I like pretending, that it is already six o’clock. I also like to pretend, there is somebody with me to start the day . . . .
Maybe, the best way to pretend is to be able to write. To write about how much I would like to have somebody with me continuously! Not that I do not like to do certain things on my own, like writing a bit of diary now. What I mean is, it would help enormously, if I knew there was somebody within reach at all times, and I do not…
In this video, I’m going to show you 44 psychological facts that will help you understand your relationships better. These are all backed by scientific research and they’re not just tips or tricks. They’re real things that will help you understand yourself, your partner and your life better so you can have a happier relationship.
It seems that my bad experience with PIP is sadly typical, so I have decided to share it in more detail, partly in order to help me get my thoughts together for getting the DWP to reassess my claim but also because I hope that by sharing my experience it will put pressure on the Scottish Government, which is taking over PIP in Scotland and replacing it with Adult Disability Payment, to ensure that its new system makes more accurate, humane and sympathetic assessments which preserve the dignity of claimants and aid them instead of grinding them down and adding to the stress and exhaustion that living with a disability or chronic illness creates.
One of the lessons I have learned since my stroke is that while you can recover many of the functions and abilities that the stroke robbed you of, performing these tasks becomes far more time-consuming, exhausting…
In lots of ways my life resembles now the life that our daughter Gaby lived. I think about it more and more, how she managed her life without being able to use any of her limbs.
The entrance to a hospital ward at the former Prince Henry Hospital. Little Bay, NSW
We were on the way to the funeral of a friend of ours. Someone had asked us to stop by the hospital were the friend spent the last weeks of his, in the end painful, life and pick up some of his possessions that were left behind. We had enough time on our hand and agreed to do it.
After parking the car we went up to the ward to see the matron. While my wife went with a nurse to a store room I was waiting near the sister’s desk. Nosy as I am, I looked around the ward.
To my surprise, I saw in a corner a “wooden tank”, which I knew had the function of an iron lung, such as our daughter used to spend her nights in while she was still alive. As I stepped…
Corinna’s partner and the father of Carlos is Walter. Carlos has an older half-brother who lives with his mother but comes regularly for visits. The two brothers get on very well together.
. . . . I seem to get to that stage now, where it is somewhat difficult to keep up with all the names. This is why it is good for me to write everything down. This way everything may stick a bit better in my memory. Also some of my descendants could in future perhaps be interested in all this, that is, if, what I write down is going to be preserved somehow for posterity!!
Maybe I am going to publish my posts about marriages and divorces and separations and partnerships in my “pages” one day to keep them all together. That way someone who is interested in my family can look it up all at once. I find it interesting to contemplate about different living arrangements that people have. Looking at my extended family there are various examples of different ways of living together. What about single persons? Well, there are not many in my family that I can think of. But there are some. I can also think of one single parent with one child. Most divorced people in my family seem to have ended in some kind of new relationship, either a new marriage or just a partnership.
. . . . One brother of my father is a widower who married a widow. Other widowed relatives stayed on their own after their spouse passed away. And so it goes. All my relatives, who were older than I, seem to have passed away now. I cannot think of any that are still alive. That means I am well and truly the oldest in my family!!
In Peter’s family I can I can think of several people older than him who are still alive: For instance his two sisters, also cousins Margot and Renate. I had three older cousins on my father’s side: All are dead. However there are a number of younger cousins that are still alive. I really would like to see all of them one more time.
On my mother’s side there were only three cousins all together, all older than I. Come to think of it, one of the cousins, Wolfgang, the son of my mother’s brother, may still be alive. He is eight years my senior. So I am probably not the oldest after all!!
Wolfgang’s twin sister, Renate, died in October 2012. At the time we happened to be in Berlin for a visit. Renate died in Munich. We travelled from Berlin to Munich for Renate’s funeral. Soon after I wrote a blog about this.
Corinna, my niece, is the daughter of Klaudia and my brother Peter Uwe. She is the one who introduced me to WordPress. And this is how I came up with the blog name Aunty Uta.
Corinna has a son named Carlos Emilio. It was his birthday the other day and I forgot it. I am really becoming very forgetful! Corinna’s partner and the father of Carlos is Walter. Carlos has an older half-brother who lives with his mother but comes regularly for visits. The two brothers get on very well together.
So this is a bit more history. For an outsider all these names and connections may be rather confusing. I too seem to get to that stage now, where it is somewhat difficult to keep up with all the names. This is why it is good for me to write everything down. This way everything may stick a bit better in my memory. Also some of my descendants could in future perhaps be interested in all this, that is, if, what I write down is going to be preserved somehow for posterity!!
Maybe I am going to publish my posts about marriages and divorces and separations and partnerships in my “pages” one day to keep them all together. That way someone who is interested in my family can look it up all at once. I find it interesting to contemplate about different living arrangements that people have. Looking at my extended family there are various examples of different ways of living together. What about single persons? Well, there are not many in my family that I can think of. But there are some. I can also think of one single parent with one child. Most divorced people in my family seem to have ended in some kind of new relationship, either a new marriage or just a partnership.
I think I did not mention one brother of my father who as a widower married a widow. Other widowed relatives stayed on their own after their spouse passed away. And so it goes. All my relatives, who were older than I, seem to have passed away now. I cannot think of any that are still alive. That means I am well and truly the oldest in my family!!
In Peter’s family I can think of several people older than him who are still alive: For instance his two sisters, also cousins Margot and Renate. I had three older cousins on my father’s side: All are dead. However there are a number of younger cousins that are still alive. I really would like to see all of them one more time.
On my mother’s side there were only three cousins all together, all older than I. Come to think of it, one of the cousins, Wolfgang, the son of my mother’s brother, may still be alive. He is eight years my senior. So I am probably not the oldest after all!!
Wolfgang’s twin sister, Renate, died in October 2012. At the time we happened to be in Berlin for a visit. Renate died in Munich. We travelled from Berlin to Munich for Renate’s funeral. Soon after I wrote a blog about this.
Auntie, Sister. Grandmother, Great-Grandmother, Mother and Wife of German Descent I’ve lived in Australia since 1959 together with my husband Peter. We have four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. I started blogging because I wanted to publish some of my childhood memories. I am blogging now also some of my other memories. I like to publish some photos too as well as a little bit of a diary from the present time. Occasionally I publish a story with a bit of fiction in it. Peter, my husband, is publishing some of his stories under berlioz1935.wordpress.com View all posts by auntyuta
berlioz1935EditOh, dear! We are all getting older and soon there won’t be anybody in front of us any more. Our grandparents are long gone but we still carry the stories they told us in us. That is a family history of between 140 and 150 years. At least I was listening when they told stories. My grandchildren are not interested in what I have to tell. How do they feel of what happened eighty years ago. Perhaps I should ask them next time I see them. I might be surprised.Reply
auntyutaEditYes, do not give up, Berlioz. Do tell them stories! Reply
giselzitroneEditWünsche dir liebe Ute einen wunderschönen Mittwoch hoffe es geht dir gut liebe Grüße von mir GislindeReply
auntyutaEditDanke, liebe Gislinde. Ja, es geht mir gut. Ich hoffe, dass du eine gute Woche hast. Liebbe Grüsse von mir, Uta Reply
Holistic WayfarerEditThat’s great writing all this helps your own remembering and yes, will certainly be precious info for those below you. =)Reply
auntyutaEditThanks very much for this comment, dear Diana. It means a lot to me. Reply
aussieian2011EditYou are to be commended Uta for keeping these records for future generations. That is one positive aspect of technology in regards to the computer. My storys are mainly word of mouth, as most of my life was military, and that can become a boring subject after a while, even though there are quite a few interesting aspects of that life. Wishing you both great happiness, and may you both live long enough for Tony Abbott to send you back to work, hehe. Regards IanReply
auntyutaEditOh, yes, Ian, I am sure someone is going to employ us before long, If only we try hard enough! It is possible for us to work, I am sure a kind employer wont mind that we are getting slower and slower. I’d say it is a good idea to have 80 and 90 year olds in the workforce. No need to employ all the young people. What for employ young people if there are still enough oldies around?! No doubt there would be some interesting aspects of your life, Ian, that you could tell about. Some things you probably already tell your grandchildren, but maybe a lot more you could write down for future reference. You may have time to do all this if Tony Abbot refrains from sending you back to work! Hehe Cheerio UtaReply
berlioz1935EditI wonder what job he has in mind for us, planting trees, perhaps?Reply
auntyutaEditPeter, I think whatever we do, it can only be volunteer work and looking after ourselves as much as possible without government intervention. This is a way to save government money, isn’t it?
The entrance to a hospital ward at the former Prince Henry Hospital. Little Bay, NSW 
AuntyUta 