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!
We spent last weekend at Sussex Inlet as you may have seen from my previous posts. There are some more pictures from that weekend that I still want to publish. We had a barbecue on Friday night as well as Saturday. On Sunday we had to leave for home soon after lunch.
Nighttime at Sussex Inlet
It did get very dark at Sussex Inlet. Our Units were quite some distance away from the barbecue area. I found it a little bit difficult to walk along the dimly lit grass. I was always grateful when someone helped me to find my way.
Here are sausages, pepper steak, onions and mushrooms.
Monika and two of her daughters enjoyed doing the barbecue. There were different salads, as for instance potato salad as well as rocket salad and bread rolls.
This was the barbecue area on Saturday morning.
On Friday night, soon after our arrival, we already did have a barbecue with all the family. On Sunday Matthew and Caroline cooked lunch for us. Sunday was a rainy day. This is why it would not have been such a good idea to carry all the supplies for lunch to the barbecue area. It was decided to have lunch on our verandah. Our family had rented four units. They were all next to each other. From every unit a table was carried to our verandah. And everyone carried their own plate, drinks and cutlery from their unit to the tables on our verandah. We had been sixteen people. But Mark had to leave early. Soon after it turned out that four of the young people could not stay for lunch either. In the end we were ‘only’ eleven people, including two year old Lucas’.
Beautiful LasagneRed cabbage, potato salad and red wine which we did drink our of cups!My lunch plate. I had rocket salad, potato salad, red cabbage and a real lot of lasagne sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.On Saturday Lucas met up with a wallaby.On Sunday he did get to see some kangaroos.
Watching the kangaroosWith this bit of rain the grass that the kangaroos can eat for sure is to grow a bit more.A friendly visitor
Saturday night was card game night in one of the units. Expecting Ebony and Lucas needed a rest and went to bed early. Eight people were playing cards, always four at a time. The rest were just watching.
After the card games we asked everyone over to our unit for some drinks of sparkling wine. We had a few bottles of this and Caroline poured the sparkling wine into these blue wine glasses. We were able to use the glasses from all the different units. I mentioned that I was looking forward to my approaching birthday. I actually sang a song about my approaching birthday which may have impressed a few people!! Ha,ha. Anyhow, I was in a cheerful mood.
Here is the song (the German version);
Ich freue mich, dass ich geboren bin
und hab Geburtstag bald.
Man hat mich lieb
und schenkt mir viel,
zum Essen, Trinken und zum Spiel.
Ich freue mich, dass ich geboren bin
und hab Geburtstag bald.
The following day, Sunday, after lunch all the units had to be cleaned before we could leave. Some people were still cleaning while others were waiting outside. Here I am with the group of people who were waiting.
Ryan had come with a van and could take in it all of our stuff that did not fit into our car.
We drove back along this road. 40 means 40 kilometres.
This is one of the photos we took on Saturday morning when we walked to the Lone Pine. Our “camp” was of course some distance away. Where we stayed there are modern units now, but we still call it camp. The site belongs to the RAIL TRAM AND BUS UNION. When Peter was a member it was just a railworkers union. Since 1985 we have often been staying at this holiday park. All our family have treasured memories about this place. It is situated in a National Park that belongs to the Capital Territory. After a 13 km dirt track we reach the “camp” which is right at the Sussex Inlet. If you want to reach civilisation you have to go by boat from the inlet to St Georges Basin or drive back along the dirt track until you reach some sealed roads.
We noticed that quite a bit has changed about this place over the years. For instance when we came to the inlet after our walk along Bherwerre Beach we could see a lot of devastation along the site of the inlet. They must have had big storms there. There was no space to walk on left near the water. We were tired after the long walk and me, old great grandma, needed some help to get through there. Nobody thought of taking pictures of this devastation along the water. Here is one picture that Caroline took of Matthew, Peter and me after we had made it through and were close to where our camp units were.
Caroline soon produced some lovely lunch for us with some quiche.
Caroline and Matthew had brought along lots and lots of food and stayed in our unit with us. They did keep us beautifully fed. All in all it was a great holiday for us. Friday night and Saturday night the whole family gathered for barbecues. There was an excellent place provided for this.
This is what Caroline got ready for breakfast on Saturday morning.
The salads are rock salad and pickled cabbage. To this a fried egg was added. We probably had some toast and butter too, as well as a good cup of coffee!
Caroline had brought bags of rocket salad along. Delicious!
I think I did not take many pictures after our arrival on Friday. But here are a few more pictures from Saturday morning:
Including the photographer we were 14 people at this stage. A few hours later two more people arrived. Here in this picture the Sussex Inlet can be seen in the background.
We are the last ones on our way from the camp to the Lone Pine.
On that same morning, which was a Saturday, we walked on to Bherwerre Beach and from there back to our camp, which was a long, long walk. We took of course a lot of pictures. I’ll publish some of them in my next post.
I once published under “pages” a post with the title: “Who is Moving?” Originally I probably wrote parts of this already in 2008. Presumably I saw then in the paper that a low priced house was on offer in Goulburn. At the time we had this idea that if we relocated we might end up with a bit of money left over for our travels.
We did not relocate. Actually nothing much has changed since then. We still look after ourselves, meaning we are not at that stage yet where we do need some home care. I glanced in “pages” today at what I published under the title WHO IS MOVING. I did mention then that we could not very well move to a new home such as the one that was advertised in Goulburn because this particular low priced place seemed to need some renovations. My thinking then was, that we were too old to do the required renovations ourselves, and to pay somebody for doing the renovations would be too expensive. So we concluded we were better off just staying put where we were, namely here in Dapto.
We moved here into our present home on my 60th birthday in September 1994. It was a brand new home then. All the walls had been freshly painted of course. Peter has painted the walls only once since then. This was towards the end of 2000. He painted the walls and all the woodwork in all the rooms. Only the ceilings did not get any fresh paint. They must have been done with good paint for even now after having lived here for twenty years they still look fairly good. Recently Peter started contemplating that a new paint job is kind of overdue. He wants to do all the rooms again, and this time including all the ceilings as well.
So far so good. Peter is pushing 80 now. I ask him, do you think you can stand on a ladder and do the ceilings yourself? Well, he says, he wants to give it a go. He reckons, maybe he can do the ceilings standing on a table. And he thinks if he does everything at a slow pace, he may eventually be able to do all the rooms in the house, one after another. Yea, let’s hope it is going to work out all right. 🙂
Peter and I had our 50th Wedding Anniversary in 2006. I tried to find a picture of it in my blogs. But there seems to be none so far. The day of the Anniversary was 21st of December. Here are three pictures from that day:
Peter and I with our son and three daughtersHere we are with all our children and grand-children on the day of our 50th Wedding Anniversary.
We had lunch with the whole family. Two long tables were set for us. Here is one of the tables, the one with Peter and me in the middle, Gaby and Monika at the end of the table, David next to Monika. The twins, Ryan and Troy, can be seen with their three sisters, Roxy (in the front), Natasha and Krystal. In the back at the other table can be seen Liz and Martin, Caroline and Matthew as well as grandson Tristan with Stephanie who as it turned out was already pregnant at the time. Also at the back table are Martins daughters Justine and Lauren.
Soon after the Wedding Anniversary there was of course Christmas. The other day I came across some pictures from the 25th and 26th of that year.
This is the little Blowhole in Kiama.
We went there with Caroline, Matthew and Matthew’s daughter Alex.
The following day, the 26th of December, which is called ‘Boxing Day’ in Australia, we went with Caroline, Matthew and Alex to Gaby’s place in Merrylands West for some Christmas celebrations.
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.
AuntyUta 