Today I happened to read what I published nearly two years ago about feeling hot after my morning walk with Irene. Apparently feeling hot like this reminded me of a character in one of Lily Brett’s books. Here is what I wrote about it:
‘You gotta have Balls’
“This is the title of a book by Lily Brett. This very funny novel was first published in Australia in 2005. One character in the book is a buxom sixty-something woman who came from Poland to New York and loves to cook meat-balls. She tends to feel hot while she’s doing the cooking. This is why she stands in her kitchen in her beautiful, elegant bra with just an apron on top of it.
After my morning walk I felt hot again and had to strip down to my bra. I helped hubby in the kitchen with the breakfast dishes and didn’t even wear an apron on top of it! When I do this sort of thing, I’m always reminded of that buxom woman in the book.
Lily Brett is an Australian writer and lives with her Australian painter husband, David Rankin, in New York.”
UR -OPA PETER WITH GREAT-GRANDSON LUCASFather’s Day CakeLucas with Aunt Caroline admiring the cakePeter spoils us on Father’s Day.Monika gives her grandson some cake.
Lucas likes the cake very much and just wants more and more. When there’s no more cake left on Monika’s plate he moves over to his Mum who gives him more cake from her plate. Peter tells Lucas to remember that his Opi baked the cake! Opi is a cake lover too. So Lucas has this in common with his Great-Granddad.
Peter loves baking cakes. This cake was made with almond-meal and semolina and lots of eggs. The filling was fresh cream (with some chocolate spread in the cream) and also some apricot jam. As topping Peter used dark cooking chocolate.
Lucas is now 13 months and a bit and loves to walk. He walked tirelessly round and round in our place, from the dining room to the kitchen, to the hallway and back to the dining room. While he was eating his cake he made noises of pleasure that sounded like singing.
When writing memoirs I may have to consider the feelings of certain living relatives. I feel with some memories it may be a good idea to fictionalize a bit, for instance, change names and perhaps places and dates. But on the other hand this may be a bit confusing for my descendants if they want to find out about the life of their actual forbears.
I am also in doubt how much I am allowed to tell about my friends or about people who briefly crossed my path. I went as far as changing names slightly of people I remember from the 1940s! This concerns of course my childhood memories. When I reblogged some of these memories I reconsidered and changed my friends’ names back to their real names.
In reading once more some of my old blogs, I kept coming across the name ‘Aunty Elsa’. Well, ‘Elsa’ was really ‘Ilse’. It’s only an insignificant alteration of the name. I guess anybody who would seriously study our family history later on would be able to figure out who this aunt was.
If it comes to surnames it gets even more difficult. There are some rather unusual surnames belonging to the people from the past that I am writing about. I must say I am a bit reluctant to disclose all these surnames.
However if it comes to my family tree I feel it is quite all right to mention all the proper surnames. From this follows that it is really okay to use all the relevant first names too, doesn’t it? I have to remember this next time I publish a bit more family history!
Ryan with Lucas at Stanwell Park Beach on Saturday, 24th August 2013
These pictures with little Lucas were taken by Ebony, the mum of Lucas, and I got them from Facebook. Credit for these pictures goes to Ebony.
Monika, grandmother of little Lucas, had her first birthday on the 5th December 1959.
This picture was taken on the 5th December 1959
The following pictures were all taken on Christmas Day 1959.
Birgit, a friend of the girls, with Gaby and Monika at Fairy Meadow Beach. Christmas 1959Uta with Gaby Fairy Meadow Beach Christmas 1959Peter with Monika and Gaby, Christmas 1959Uta with Monika at Fairy Meadow BeachThis picture of Monika is from February 1960
There was a Prayer Service this morning at Mary Mother of Mercy Chapel, at Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery, a Service of Thanksgiving for the Life of David.
David’s four brothers (two from Sydney, one from Tasmania and one from Melbourne) as well as his three sisters (the sister all from the Sydney area) had come. So we were able to meet all of them. David had been the eldest in the family. The youngest one, Anthony, had been looking after David’s affairs while David was in nursing home care during the last months of his life. He probably saw to most of the funeral arrangements too.
Our two daughters, Monika and Caroline, came with us to the service at Rookwood Cemetery. These funeral services get people together. A lot of these people we would otherwise never have met. Extended family members, neighbours and friends had come too. David had such a great family. Now that David is gone, it feels to us that maybe we won’t meet any of his family again.
Both Gaby and David were of course always part of our family life. However, as David’s health suffered more and more, he often did not come to our family gatherings any more. Gaby had known David for more than 30 years! Their lives were often quite turbulent. Now, I am sure, they are at peace.
We are never going to forget how David made it possible for Gaby to live an independent life in her own home. It takes a strong character to take on the responsibility to look after a severely disabled person as our daughter Gaby was. The strange thing is, that towards the end when David frequently had to stay in hospital because of disabling sicknesses, it was Gaby who more or less looked after him! She would visit him every day in hospital, taking her companion dog along too for the hospital visits. David loved this dog.
How did she do it, you may ask. Well, she was just a very resourceful person. Despite all her disabilities she was always full of life and did whatever was possible for her to do. She was a great talker. whereas David never talked much about his feelings. He would sometimes scream and shout when people tried telling him what to do. When I would say: David, you should go and see a doctor. He would just say: Mama, you worry too much!
From the car I watch Peter and Caroline how they try to find out the right way to the chapel.
It’s such a huge cemetery, you can really get lost.
Now Monika joins them in trying to find out the right way
In the end we made it to the desired chapel right on time.
David died on the 5th of August 2013. Tomorrow, 19th of August, is to be his funeral at the Catholic Chapel, Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney.
I just reblogged some pictures of David and Gaby. David survived Gaby only by one year and a bit. Gaby’s funeral was on the 24th of July 2012, also at Roodkwood Cemetery.
Monika did bring Lucas along to our place yesterday (Sunday). We were very happy that Monika managed to make time for this afternoon visit.
Monika feeds Lucas some yoghurt with honey.
Monika took the top picture. Lucas gave her a big smile when she said “strawberry”. For some reason he finds this word very funny!
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And here now are pictures of the shoes that Caroline and Matthew bought for themselves recently. They walked the other day all the way from Waverly (Eastern suburb of Sydney) to the city. Probably some five km. They said they can walk very well in these shoes. They’re very happy that they bought them.
The weeks go so quickly. I can’t believe it’s Saturday again. Last Saturday we were at that conference in Sydney. I think on the Saturday before this I went to the swimming pool. Actually I would love to go to the swimming pool again today even if it is a cloudy day with no sun. The water in the pool is always kept at 24C.
I definitely have to go for walks again today whether there’s sun or not. Last Thursday it was pouring. So I missed out on my walk on that day. But Peter drove me to my heart moves class, which was good. Marta. our instructor, had to cancel. But lovely Janet was prepared to take her place on short notice. Janet said Marta had a pinched nerve, I think she mentioned her back. My pinched nerve is in my right wrist. It’s still painful. However because I take these pain killing tablets now it’s easier to cope with the pain.
The doctors want to give me a pain killing injection into my wrist. I am very reluctant to agree to this. Months later they want to operate on the twisted nerve in my wrist. I want to ask for more information on this before I take any steps regarding the injection and the operation.
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The other day I walked with Peter around the reserve and I took some pictures from the back of our backyard fence. The trees in our backyard have grown a real lot as can be seen in these pictures. When we moved here in 1994 there were just a few seedlings planted. We never imagined these seedlings would grow as much! The reserve is adjoining our property. Kids play soccer there on certain days. In some of my pictures you can see where the kids have their playing fields. I concentrated on taking photos of a number of huge trees in the area. I love to go for walks along these trees! There’s also a nice little playground at the other side of the reserve. When we first moved here to this place, we sometimes went with the grandchildren all the way across the reserve to this little playground. Now all the grandchildren have grown up, the youngest being fifteen. Maybe one year old great-grandson Lucas may get a chance one day to stroll around the reserve. This would be very much to my liking!
For the past six weeks we’ve been travelling to Sydney every Wednesday for my appointments to get my new dentures constructed. As you can guess, to get me proper dentures made is not exactly easy. I seem to have a very difficult mouth! Anyhow, I am hopeful now that all the effort is not in vain and in due time my mouth is going to be all right. 🙂 🙂 🙂
So last Wednesday was the day when we met Matthew and Caroline for lunch. Before we met up with them I had seen my dental technician. After our delicious ice-cream treat we took a bus for a few stops and then we had to walk a bit to reach China-Town. This was where we were about to have our lunch. On the way to China-Town and around China-Town Peter took the following pictures.
Near Market City Peter and I were waiting to catch a tram to go to Central Station.
From Central Station we caught our train back home to Dapto while Caroline and Matthew were going back to their place in the Eastern suburbs. We were very happy that we had been able to see them on that Wednesday.
AuntyUta 