Fathers Day in Australia in 2014

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.

Uta’s Diary 2014

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.

 

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The oranges came from our orange tree.

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The oranges fresh from the tree taste delicious.
The oranges fresh from the tree taste delicious.
Our first meal at home after returning from Sussex Inlet.
Our first meal at home after returning from Sussex Inlet.

On a Friday in August we bought some vegetables at the markets in Wollongong.

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We also like kale very much

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A meal with Kale
A meal with Kale
Our Driveway on a rainy Day in August 2014
Our Driveway on a rainy Day in August 2014

Uta’s Diary

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.
On Sunday he did get to see some kangaroos.

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Little Lucas, soon you are going to have a little brother or sister!
Little Lucas, soon you are going to have a little brother or sister!

Corinna and the Family

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.

Sussex Inlet in August 2014

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
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.
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.

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This was the barbecue area on Saturday morning.
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’.

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Beautiful Lasagne
Beautiful Lasagne
Red cabbage, potato salad and red wine which we did drink our of cups!
Red 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.
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 wombat.
On Saturday Lucas met up with a wallaby.
On Sunday he did get to see some kangaroos.
On Sunday he did get to see some kangaroos.

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Watching the kangaroos
Watching the kangaroos
With this bit of rain the grass that the kangaroos can eat for sure is to grow a bit more.
With this bit of rain the grass that the kangaroos can eat for sure is to grow a bit more.
A friendly visitor
A friendly visitor

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Ryan had come with a van and could take in it all of our stuff that did not fit into our car.
Ryan had come with a van and could take in it all of our stuff that did not fit into our car.

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We drove back along this road. 40 means 40 kilometres.
We drove back along this road. 40 means 40 kilometres.

More Photos from our Holiday Weekend

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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.

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Caroline soon produced some lovely lunch for us with some quiche.

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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.

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This is what Caroline got ready for breakfast on Saturday morning.

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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!

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Caroline had brought bags of rock salad along. Delicious!
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:

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This holiday park is right next to ours.
This holiday park is right next to ours.

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Holiday Weekend

Hannemann Family Reunion
Hannemann Family Reunion

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.
We are the last ones on our way from the camp to the Lone Pine.

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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.

RENOVATIONS?

I looked the following add up in wikipedia:
http://www.serviceseeking.com.au/new-job/painters/painters.html

Painter Wanted!Step 1

1. Tell Painters What You Need

Step 2

2. Painters Offer Quotes & Prices

Step 3

3. You Choose The Best Painter!

 

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. 🙂

Going back to 2006

 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 daughters
Peter and I with our son and three daughters
Here we are with all our children and grand-children on our 50th Wedding Anniversary.
Here we are with all our children and grand-children on the day of our 50th Wedding Anniversary.

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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.
This is the little Blowhole in Kiama.

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We went there with Caroline, Matthew and Matthew's daughter Alex.
We went there with Caroline, Matthew and Matthew’s daughter Alex.

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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.

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