It had been a long time since we ventured for a walk in our toe-shoes. But we found out that they still did fit us all right. Surprise, surprise, on that Friday morning we actually got ready quite early for our little walk. We thought it would be important to walk before it got too hot!
Actually, some clouds were to be seen already.
Would it perhaps rain later on? Anyhow, we started walking across the grass in our toe-shoes. Our destination was the little playground in Lakelands Park. We had not been there for a while.
Of course, the playground was still there!
Then it was my turn on the swing. What fun for an 82 year old!
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On the way home we ended up among some trees. I published the tree pictures here:
“Ich bin hier!” – I’m here! – Peter called out. I had just been shooting a few pictures. Camera ready, I took a snapshot of sneaky Peter. He had actually sneaked up on me. I hadn’t noticed at all that he was that close to me!
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These pictures were taken during our early walk on Friday, the 20th of January 2017.
This picture was taken exactly one month ago on the day of our 60th Wedding Anniversary.
We visited our grandson with his family on our way back home from Melbourne. The above layout pictures are from our visit at the farmhouse where Tristan and family live now.
These are Kia and Jaki, our great granddaughters.Son Martin and grandson Tristan with his wife Stephanie
The following are some pictures from our anniversary celebrations on Christmas Eve:
This Berlin puzzle we have had for many, many years. We have had it for so long, that our middle aged children can remember it from their childhood! Amazingly it is still intact, didn’t get thrown out yet with all the other things. Martin occupied himself doing it one night before last Christmas when he stayed at our place.
After the Christmas of 2016, Peter and I stayed at Martin’s place in Melbourne. It did rain a lot. So we asked Martin, could he show us one of his puzzles. We ended up doing a world puzzle, and I think we took a picture of it after the puzzle was finished, but tight now I cannot find this picture. But I found a picture of another of Martin’s puzzles that we did all together on New Year’s Eve:
This Australia puzzle looked quite easy to do, but I thought it was actually not all that easy.
Back home in January I wanted to try out a new puzzle that we bought. It had a lot of water and sky in it. So I expected it to be very, very difficult. The picture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House in the middle of the puzzle, for sure I could manage to do this, couldn’t I? Well, I was wrong. It took me a long, long time just to do this little bit. I did not want to leave it on our dining table for days on end. So I packed it away again. Is there anyone who would like to do it for me? I did not throw it out yet. I only packed it away, sorted out in different little bags. Anyone is welcome to have a go at it!
P.S. I asked Peter about the picture of that other puzzle. And surprise, surprise, he found it in the cloud! So he copied it for me to use it. It took him a while to work out how he could get it out of the cloud!
Here is the picture of the other puzzle that we did with Martin.
Towards the end of last month Caroline and Matthew moved back to Sydney. Since they both work in Sydney, they save a lot in travelling time by living in Sydney again. Peter and I do not see them so often anymore and we do miss them! There are visits of course, but visits cannot take place all that often. So naturally we are just by ourselves now most of the time. Still, at least Peter and I still have each other. We cannot help to sometimes think about it, that there might come a time when maybe one of us is going to have to cope without the other. This makes it important to make the best of the time that we still are together and appreciate every day of it.
I was thinking today about what it was like a year ago when Caroline and Matthew had just moved in with us. I thought it would be interesting to look up a few posts that I published ten or twelve months ago. I ended up having a close look at these two posts:
On some weekend last year Matthew drove all of us to a club-house where we had some good Aussie food for lunch. This view of the beach was a few steps away.
I think back to what Sydney was like in the 1960s. Oh, so much has changed since then. On a Sunday you would see hardly any people in the city, Outside cafes? Not in your dreams.
I cannot recall that I noticed then a lot of homeless people. When our daughter became sick with the polio virus, she received in Sydney the best of medical care paid for by the Hospital Fund. We were recent migrants. My husband was on very low wages, but we had no money problems, none whatsoever!
Our diet in the 1960s included of course fish and chips and meat pies, also topside steak (which was very affordable) and minced meat and occasionally a leg of lamb roasted in the oven. I never liked to eat chicken, but I cooked it for the family. Of course we could always afford to buy fresh vegetables and fruit. We thought Australia was the best country for our young family. We had three children within three years, and I was able to stay home with them! We were also able to save up for our own block of land to build our own house on with a loan from a Building Society. So we were able to get by on my husband’s low wages. We were never without some kind of accommodation or basic food. We did not spend a lot on clothes. How about that? Unheard of today!!
We never borrowed any money. Our only debt was for a second hand car and later for a very low priced house.
As I said we spent some time with Martin in Melbourne. But Martin also spent some time with us in Dapto. He arrived at our place right on time for our wedding anniversary. Christmas Eve we spent with him and Caroline and Matthew at the place of Monika and Mark.
Monika as well as Roxy with one month old Baby Carter came to see us for afternoon coffee the day of our wedding anniversary. Caroline and Matthew had moved to suitable accommodation in inner Sydney the weekend before, but were back in time for the anniversary.
We were only ten people at our Anniversary Lunch in Wollongong (including Baby Carter). Some working people in our family were glad when we suggested instead of taking time of work for the anniversary lunch, we could all together have some anniversary celebrations on Christmas Eve. Monika and Mark were happy to have these celebrations at the back of their house.
Usually the whole family would turn up at our place for Christmas Eve celebrations. This had always been the tradition in our family. In a way I was glad, that we did not have to have it this time at our place. It was the first year that we also did not bother to have a Christmas tree.
This is the sort of health food that Caroline likes to prepareWe did this Berlin Puzzle with Martin
Martin travelled with Peter and me to Melbourne. We left very early in the morning of the 27th of December. Peter drove up Macquarie Pass. (He knows this Pass very well!) After a stop at Moss Vale, Martin took over the driving. It was very good that Martin could take over a lot of the driving to Melbourne, but Peter drove part of the way too.
Matthew bought this Cognac. I quite liked a little bit of it.I am holding Baby Carter in Wollongong Hospital the day after he was born. He was born on the 21st of November 2016.
From this terrace at Wollongong Hospital one gets a good view to Mt Keira This is where the terrace is. There’s some outside seating too.
Most of the time when we were visiting Peter on that Saturday we were allowed to stay with him. When we had to leave him for a while, we would spend a bit of time out here on that terrace. We also went inside for a cup of coffee. The hospital also has a chapel, which is a quiet and peaceful room. But it was not open on a Saturday. However there was a bit of seating outside the chapel which we found to be pretty good.
This is part of Wollongong Hospital. I took this picture on Sat. 10th of Dec 2016On Friday, 9th Dec, Peter had been admitted to the hospital. We were allowed to accompany him to this Holding Bay before he went to the operating theatre.
The 9th of Dec was Caroline’s birthday. Since we were not allowed to see Peter for some time, we took the chance to all go out for some lunch in Wollongong, sort of like a birthday lunch for Caroline.
Soon after lunch we went back to the hospital and found out that Peter was doing all right. The procedure had been going as well as expected. (In the meantime we found out that Peter has to undergo the same procedure another time in a few months.)
The following day, Saturday, Caroline and I went to visit Peter in hospital. This was the day when Caroline had some major problems driving our car. With the help of Matthew the car ended up in the repair shop. Monika was still on leave and could help us to pick it up again after it was fixed the following week.
Late on Sunday morning Peter was allowed to go home. I had been waiting with Caroline and Matthew in the ward in his room. We were all very happy, that he was allowed to leave the hospital already on Sunday. Since our car had ended up at the repair shop, it was up to Matthew to drive all of us back home in that very small and very old good Proton. Matthew thought, there was nothing to it. Within a few minutes he had us safely in our home. Peter’s recovery did not take long. The main thing was, that he had to drink lots of water all the time (he still does!) and go to the toilet frequently.
In the meantime we have had our anniversary: We have been married for 60 years now! Someone took a picture of us in 1956 a few months before our wedding. However, we do have no wedding pictures! We thought they would cost a bit too much money.
Uta and Peter in 1956
We do have a few pictures of our 60th Wedding Anniversary. I am going to publish them in another post.
On the 21st of November our daughter Monika became a grandmother for the third time. Her daughter Roxy delivered in Wollongong Hospital a beautiful boy, named Carter Scott, a son to Roxy and Scott.
He is a cousin to Lucas and Alexander.
From Gundagai we travelled on the Hume Highway towards Goulburn.
This fruit salad was absolutely delicious!
We stopped at Belmore Park in Goulburn:
We always love to have a toilet break there when we travel past Goulburn along the Hume Highway. Opposite the park in Montague Street is the Courthouse and the Roses Cafe:
Peter took pictures of the courthouse. Then we went to the Roses Cafe for some tea and fruit salad.
Our next stop was Robertson where we bought some pies at the pie-shop to take home. One hour after that we arrived home in Dapto. It was still early afternoon of Tuesday, the 3rd of January 2017. We had left home for Melbourne on the 27th of December 2016. It was good to be back home. First of all we had to open all the windows in our house and put some ceiling fans on because the air felt rather humid.
We had had a very good time on Monday, the 2nd of January, with our grandson Tristan and his family. And it had been great that we could spend some time with our son Martin, getting to know a bit more about Melbourne again and celebrate the arrival of the New Year in Melbourne. It is summer in Australia. So we had had some pretty hot days in Melbourne, and strangely enough, also quite a bit of rain!
AuntyUta 