A week after my birthday Joan, one of my neighbours, called and gave me this beautiful large rose out of her garden.
On Monday, 29th of September, Peter and I went to the Dapto Leagues Club. As a member I had received birthday vouchers for free cake and coffee. I chose a rather large piece of cake with a profiterole. It was delicious. There was plenty for both Peter and myself.
After we finished our coffee and cake we went to another room where we had noticed – surprise, surprise! – on a big screen was shown the Berlin Marathon that had taken place on the previous day and where a Kenyan had been running a world record. There was still one hour’s running left to show on the screen. We decided we would sit down and watch it.
These lovely pots of tea were served to us.
I gave Peter my camera. So he took quite a few pictures from the screen. Most of these turned out all right.
Yesterday, on the 27th of September 2014, Baby Alexander Robert, a brother for two year old Lucas, was born in Wollongong Hospital. Ryan and Ebony made it to the hospital barely an hour before little Alex was born. Twelve hours later they were already on their way back home, where the first family visits soon arrived.
Today, on Sunday, Caroline came from Sydney to see the new baby. Peter and I picked her up from Dapto Station. Caroline arrived on a rail bus. There were no trains today because of track work. Towards 3 o’clock in the afternoon Peter, Caroline and I could see the new baby for the first time. He is such a sweetie! The baby had been born soon after midnight on Saturday. So this afternoon he would have been going towards forty hours, that means he is still less than two days old! It was great that Ebony was allowed to go home already.
Grandmother Monika, Great-Grandparents Uta and Peter with Baby Alex
Lucas has a look at the cheese-cake.Soon there were cups of coffee and cheese-cake for everyone.
In the morning I had been going to church. I noticed some beautiful yellow roses and took some pictures of them after Mass.
It was a lovely, balmy sunny morning. In the afternoon the temperature reached 28 Degrees Celsius. We felt that this was a bit like a summer day already. I have not been to the swimming pool for a while. If we have some more weather like we had today, I might have the courage to go for a swim some time soon. So far we had either clouds and a bit of rain or very strong winds. But maybe the next few days are going to be very pleasant. I hope so! 🙂
This picture is from yesterday (Tuesday) morning. Marion, one of my neighbours, came along to ask for our gardener’s phone number. Peter gave her the number. I showed Marion in the computer the photos that we had taken on Monday morning at the lake.
Here is another photo that I tried to shoot with my camera from the computer screen. It shows part of that beautiful playground near the lake.
Marion asked me whether I still felt to be in a celebratory mood. “Very much so,” was my reply. Tuesday morning was a lovely morning: Wonderful sunshine, the air felt balmy. When Marion arrived we had already finished our morning tea outside in front of the house.
A little bit of ice-ream cake had still been left from Sunday. Peter and I enjoyed this before we had our cup of morning tea.
I wore this hat sitting outside in the sun.I had tried the hat on in the bathroom to see what it looked like.Before I got dressed I had taken another picture in the bathroom. My aim was to take a picture of the flowers when I noticed I could also be seen in the mirror!Later I took a picture stepping back a bit – but surprise, surprise: the mirror did still catch me!Looking through my birthday cards again and again I felt I wanted to take a picture of them.
These are the names of the ladies who gave me these beautiful flowers. Joan came a bit later after work. Her name is missing on the card. Anyhow these are the flowers I received from the ladies on Monday. Aren’t they beautiful?
So Tuesday morning I went around enjoying all the flowers. I kept shifting them to different places and took pictures of them from different angles. I just love taking pictures of beautiful things!
Here you can see Peter in the kitchen busily fixing the curtain rod.
Breakfast Time
Sparkling Apple Juice for LunchSalad for LunchThis in Lunch
Here is this week’s TIME magazine. On page 14 it says:
ON A HUMID MID-SEPTEMBER NIGHT,
SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY
ARRIVED AT THE ROYAL PALACE ON SAUDI
ARABIA’S RED SEA COAST TO BEG
THE FAVOR OF A KING
The writer of this article says that Abdula bin Abdulazis is perhaps the most powerful man in the Middle East.
It is said in this article that the U.S. has built a fragile web of alliances to fight ISIS.
The question is being asked: WILL THIS SHAKY GROUP OF PARTNERS HOLD?
I, Uta, ask myself, how can we as ordinary citizens possibly grasp all the complications? It’s of no use working myself up, right? But I still want to know as much as possible where we are at at present.
Back to my flowers. Here is another glance at them:
Under the above picture it says: Diplomatic dance Kerry leaves a photo op with leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, on Sept.11
I glanced over newly published blogs that I had not seen yet when I came across the above one. It made me realise that more and more we are not allowed to say any more what we think. I want to point out here that I am in principle not against the G20, not at all. I mean I too may have some objections but I want the G20 to go ahead. However, I do not believe the meeting is going to be stopped by some people displaying a few stickers. I am very concerned when people are not allowed to voice their objections any more. What sort of a world do we live in when security forces over react to such an extent? Does our government want to stay in power by scaring us to death?
On a lighter note, we had a lovely day in Sydney yesterday. We saw Caroline and Matthew. We also saw quite briefly Matthew’s daughter Alex who came with her boyfriend to take Matthew out for lunch for a belated Father’s Day meeting. Caroline and Matthew showed us heaps of beautiful photos from their short stay in Bali. They packed a lot of things into the few days there including their friends’ Wedding Reception, which was the reason for this trip.
After we had some coffee Matthew left for his lunch and we had lunch with Caroline. Rather than go to the park for a picnic lunch, we did eat our salads at Caroline’s place and had a cup of tea also. We assumed the park would be packed full of people since it had turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. After lunch Caroline drove us to Centennial Park. She soon managed to find a parking spot. There were hardly any spots left, even though it is a huge park with parking all along the different drive-ways that go through the park.
We then had a lovely walk in our toe shoes. A few hours later Matthew had arrived back home and we had tea and excellent pieces of cake with him before driving back to Dapto.
Caroline and Matthew had given Peter a bottle of duty free Hennessey as a belated Father’s Day gift. It was great that we could go on this outing to Sydney and meet Caroline and Matthew after their exciting trip. I had been somewhat concerned that maybe Bali was not such a safe place to visit. But it turned out that my concerns had been totally unwarranted.
Caroline’s Toe Shoes
There were a lot of these flowers in the grass where we were walking.One of these flowers got stuck between my toes.Peter takes a photo of Caroline.
Peter took this picture on the morning of Sunday, the 7th of September 2014. This was Fathers Day in Australia. There were blue irises as well as a bottle of Peter’s favourite port-wine. The cake made with ground almonds was for the afternoon. Monika arrived in the afternoon with sons and daughters as well as two year old grandson Lucas. Monika brought gifts along for her Papa: A lovely bottle of wine, chocolates, scratchies and a card.
Son Martin rang from Melbourne at night-time. This call was diverted to our interim mobile phone that Telstra had sent us to use while our landline phone was out of order. This mobile phone had no ringing sound. Instead a computerised female voice always announced to us when we had a phone call.
Caroline and Matthew had been going away for a few days to attend the wedding of their friends. They are back now and we are going to see them on Sunday. They probably made a lot of pictures and are going to tell us a lot about their trip.
Peter thought he had a lovely Fathers Day last Sunday. We are looking forward to seeing Caroline and Matthew very soon.
Today is Fathers Day here in Australia. I just want to give a short message via hotspot from Peter’s mobile phone. This use of the internet can become expensive. However next Friday, the 12th of September, we’ll be connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN), meaning we are then going to have a proper phone and internet connection. At the moment our landline phone is dead. We have been given an interim mobile phone that means any landline calls are being diverted to this interim phone.
Today, the 1st of September, is the first day of spring in Australia. For the time being the rain has stopped. Actually we had quite a bit of sun yesterday but still with some chill in the air. When we returned from Sussex Inlet two weeks ago Caroline bought us four beautiful looking tomatoes.
The oranges came from our orange tree.
The oranges fresh from the tree taste delicious.Our first meal at home after returning from Sussex Inlet.
On a Friday in August we bought some vegetables at the markets in Wollongong.
We also like kale very much
A meal with KaleOur Driveway on a rainy Day in August 2014
We are close to the end of August 2014. A lot has happened the past few weeks. The best thing that happened was our family reunion at Sussex Inlet. It was only for a weekend, but it was a great success. I already published several blogs about this beautiful weekend.
The weeks after, right up to today, we had much, much rain. There was hardly any sunshine. When the sun came out a bit, it felt rather warm. But the rest of the time we had to cope with rather cold temperatures. From 1st of September on we are supposed to have spring. I hope it is going to be much sunnier and warmer then. Yes, I am looking forward to September.
It is only about three more weeks till my 80th birthday. This is really a milestone, isn’t it? Maybe it is about time for me to learn to slow down at all times. I find it is so much better for my health if I do everything slowly. This includes the way I eat my food. I usually take a lot of care these days to chew my food slowly. And this includes very soft food too! I feel it is very good for me when I take the time to do this.
On Sunday, September 7th, it is Fathers’ Day in Australia. We expect some family visit on that day. Of course, we are looking forward to this. We are also looking forward to some addition to the family.
Last Monday we went to a funeral. Our granddaughters’ paternal grandmother had died after a long sickness. May she rest in peace. We knew her quite well. She always was a very friendly and very brave woman.
I am still thinking back a lot to that day when we had this lovely walk first through the bush and then along Bherwerre Beach. We were very lucky with the weather on that Saturday morning for we did have quite a bit of sunshine. The following morning some very wet kangaroos appeared at our camp. It was raining!
Here again some pictures from our holiday weekend in August.
On Sunday he did get to see some kangaroos.
Little Lucas, soon you are going to have a little brother or sister!
AuntyUta 