Fifteen Months ago

Fifteen Months ago? Was it only fifteen months ago when I published the following? Indeed, I found that I published the following on the 18th of March 2018.

I did write, that we left Benalla on Monday on the night train from Melbourne, arriving Tuesday morning back home (that would probably have been around 7am.) At 9 am on that day we left again for my doctor’s appointment in Wollongong, going to Wollongong by bus. We both felt rather tired after having spent a night sitting up on the train!

I remember very well how awfully tired we both felt on that morning after having been sitting up on the night train . The Melbourne night train would have arrived in Benalla some time after 11pm. At around 5am we would have had to get off the train to go on the railway bus that goes down MacQuarie Pass towards Albion Park, Dapto, Wollongong. So this bus is a good connection to Dapto where we live. Only on that morning we had to leave again soon after we had arrived home. This was really terrible. We said then, we would not go on the night train again: The next time we would be catching the day train! Very conveniently there is also a day train from Melbourne that stops in Benalla at a convenient time, and then the railway bus takes us, not too late in the evening, from Moss Vale to Dapto!

“The XPT service runs two return trips each day between Melbourne and Sydney, making scheduledstops at Broadmeadows, Seymour, Benalla, Wangaratta, Albury, Wagga Wagga, Junee, Cootamundra, Yass Junction, Goulburn, Moss Vale, Campbelltown and Strathfield with optional stops at Culcairn, Henty, The Rock, Harden and …”

https://www.rome2rio.com/trip/pnwrvcyo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney%E2%80%93Melbourne_rail_corridor

So here now is the copy of my post from the 18th March, 2018:

“How to keep Track of Time? Yes, how do you do this? Eighty + years of impressions, incidents and experiences, having seen so many different places, having met so many different people. Does it all become a blur in the end?

For young people time often seems to drag on slowly, slowly. But ask any elderly person, the answer is, that time passes awfully quickly. What is a week? A week, well, a week just flies away. I try to recall what we did last week, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, four weeks ago. Four weeks ago? Is it four weeks ago that we stayed in Sydney for a few days for our daughter’s wedding? Is it two weeks ago that we travelled to Benalla to stay there for a week with our son? What about doctor’s appointments? Did we have three different doctor’s appointments during the past week? Quite so. That is, I met another specialist for the first time last week, and Peter also met another specialist for the first time last week. Peter also saw his GP, the one that he has been seeing for many years. He was the first one who explained to Peter that according to some test results a ‘tumor’ ought to be investigated. Some 18 months later he looked at some other test results and concluded that there were some problems with his heart. And so it goes.

On one of Benalla’s Walking Tracks with son Martin

We left Benalla on Monday on the night train from Melbourne, arriving Tuesday morning back home. At 9 am on that day we left again for my doctor’s appointment in Wollongong, going to Wollongong by bus. We both felt rather tired after having spent a night sitting up on the train!

Anyway, the following day, Wednesday, Peter saw his GP who is now in Corrimal (not in Dapto anymore). I went along with Peter. The visit at the Corrimal Medical Centre was over quickly. So well before lunchtime Peter drove us to the Leisure Coast fruit shop in Fairy Meadow where we did some serious shopping.

Thursday would have been the day for my slow movement exercises here in Dapto. But I felt awfully tired and gave it a miss. I felt that it was really good for me not to have to do anything on that day! Peter however felt on that day well enough to locally do a bit of shopping to get the ingredients for a quark cheesecake. And in the afternoon he actually did bake this cake while I was resting in the bedroom. – This cake baking seems to have been a kind of relaxation for him.

Friday morning Peter found the time to go through the whole house with the vacuum cleaner. Then he went off to Wollongong to see the surgeon who may do a heart bypass operation on him. It turned out, before he is about to do this, Peter should go for some more scan tests!

I stayed home on Friday. After having done some wiping of the floors, I did get some lunch ready and I also made preparations for my afternoon visitors. It was my turn to have the four ladies over for our Friday afternoon games of Scrabble and Rummy. Also on Friday, our daughter Monika dropped in at 5,30 after work. Talking to our daughter about a lot of things was a good finish of the day.

And yesterday, Saturday, was a very good day too: Our daughter Caroline and son-in-law Matthew came to visit!

Is it only two more weeks to Easter Sunday? So it is, and I am looking forward to some family visits at Easter time!”

The last Part of my September 2017 Diary?

I hope, this is going to be the last part now. I think, our stay at BIG4 Nambucca Holiday Park I have pretty well covered by now, except for one outing, that is, we stopped one morning at Nambucca Heads Railway Station just to have a look. I assume it would have been on that day when we went to the Honey Place at Urunga:

https://auntyuta.com/?s=honey+place%2Cat+Urunga&submit=Search

When we stopped at that Honey Place, we were really on our way to Coffs Harbour. So we stopped at Nambucca Head Railway Station first.

nambucca heads railway station phone number

We went around the station for quite a while. It was early morning. The station master was not there yet. His shift started a bit later. While we looked around taking some photos, time passed quickly. And before we started leaving the station master already appeared for his shift and Peter could talk to him. It has been a while since Peter worked at a station. During the conversation with the Nambucca Heads station master, Peter mentioned that he used to work at Albion Park Station. However, this was a long, long time ago. It really has been a long time that Peter retired from his job.

DSCN3377 (2) DSCN3378 (2)

DSCN3379 (2)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macksville_railway_station

South of Nambucca Heads is Macksville Railway Station. We did not have a look at that one. But coming back from Coffs Harbour in the afternoon we went as far as Macksville. We had a pleasant stay there near the river and sat in a cafe having some tea.

http://www.aussietowns.com.au/town/macksville-nsw

Now to Coffs Harbour. I have no pictures of it, that is we stayed there only in a shopping centre for the toilet facilities and a bit of lunch. A lot of building work was going on in the centre of town. Somehow Peter never found his way out to the coastal areas. After lunch we turned straight back onto the Highway going back in a southerly direction until we ended up in Macksville where we liked it very much.

It is a pity we did not take time to see a bit more of Coffs Harbour. I am sure near the sea there are some beautiful spots as you can see here:

https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/north-coast/coffs-harbour-area/coffs-harbour/beaches

On Thursday, the 21st of September, we were on our way back home. We stopped at Taree for lunch.

WP_20170921_12_24_26_Pro (3) — This was an excellent lunch near the Manning River.

Towards evening we arrived in Newcastle where we stayed at the Ibis Budget Hotel. Our granddaughter Lauren picked us up from our hotel to take us to a Pizza place for dinner. We were happy that we could see our granddaughter for a bit who was enormously busy at the time preparing for a competition.

We left very early the next morning and had a very good run home. We arrived home on Friday, the 22nd, at around midday. That was really a very fast drive home!

On Sunday we had at the club a belated birthday lunch with some friends and also some family.

After lunch we enjoyed Coffee and cake and later on some wine. WP_20170927_18_13_29_Pro

few days later it was the 3rd Birthday of Alexander.

Olympic Games 2020

Japanese people are overjoyed that Tokyo is going to get the Olympic Games in 2020. This reminds me of the announcement in 1993. We stayed up all night and then we heard that the Games for 2000 were going to be in “Syddeney”. What immense joy! We celebrated by going to a joyful parade in Sydney. Our granddaughter Natasha turned two at this time of the year. Our daughter Monika was happy to let us take little Tashi along on the train to Sydney to watch the parade. Our daughter Caroline came along too with us. This week Natasha is going to be 22! Last year she had a big party for her 21st birthday.

Tashi contemplates whether to sit at the edge of the street too to watch the parade.

Maybe she did not like so much to have her photo taken.

Here is another photo from 1993: Tashi and Caroline.

Here is Tashi with her twin brothers and her new born sister Roxy. Why is Roxy crying?

The twins near Shellharbour Beach with Tashi and Caroline

Peter with the twins, Caroline and Uta near Moss Vale Railway Station. 1993

Our son Martin with his daughter Justine.

February 1993 The twins with Tristan and Justine, the children of our son Martin. — February 1993
The twins with Tristan and Justine, the children of our son Martin.

Remnants of a Rainforest

It was windy and cold today, however plenty of sunshine and beautiful clear air. We thought it would be wonderful to go up to the highlands on a day like today. To drive up Macquarie Pass was no problem. Here is what it says about this pass in the Wikipedia:

“Macquarie Pass is an eight-kilometre-long section of the Illawarra Highway passing through Macquarie Pass National Park. It was opened in 1898.[1]

Macquarie Pass links the Southern Highland town of Robertson to the coastal town of Albion Park, descending the Illawarra Escarpment via a very narrow bitumen roadway, which has several single-lane sections and is mostly two lanes with double “no overtaking” lines. It is in the Shellharbour local government area.

This section of roadway is very steep, and contains a large number of hairpin bends, resulting in buses and trucks needing to reverse on some of the bends. The pass is quite notorious for accidents due to its nature, and drivers and riders are required to be cautious.

After heavy rain, the Macquarie Pass can be closed due to flooding on the top half of the pass. Cars and motorcycle riders may opt to use Jamberoo Mountain Road between Robertson and Jamberoo, while trucks are advised to use Mount Ousley Road (Southern Freeway) and Picton Road as an alternative.

The road is very popular with motorcyclists on weekends and public holidays. The Shellharbour and Wingecarribee Councils and the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority have therefore published a safety brochure entitled ‘Motorcycling Macquarie Pass.'[2]”

We reached Robertson and decided we would first of all have an early lunch with one of the famous Robertson pies and a cup of tea. The pies were delicious as ever. We have frequented this PIE SHOP in Robertson for over fifty years. The pies there are really special. Peter had a pepper steak pie and I had a beef curry pie. A hot cup of tea with it was lovely.

In the Wikipedia it says that the road is very popular with motorcyclists on weekends and public holidays. And so it is. At the pie shop for instance scores of motorcyclists had just arrived for a well deserved break. The eating section of the shop got pretty crowded after a while for lots of other holiday makers with children on winter school holidays had also arrived. The shop did a roaring business with their pies.

Near the railway line and near what used to be Robertson station is the little bit of rainforest which we had not been visiting for decades. Today was the day. We got ourselves reacquainted with it. There is a round-track of only about 600 m. We walked along it and felt like being in another world.

Earlier in the morning on the way to Macquarie Pass we stopped at the Marshall Mount Dance Hall. Our daughter Monika liked to go to their dances nearly forty years ago. Looking at the hall today Peter recalled how he drove to this hall on a Saturday night to pick up Monika and her friends after the dance had finished. We noticed today also a building next to this hall which used to be the Marshall Mount Public School.

We did a little detour through the country side where we noticed some ducks crossing the road. All in all we had a lovely day on this beautiful sunny winter day with gusts of wind that felt very cold.

On this coral tree were already some flowers appearing. Does this mean spring is not far away any more?

In Love with Leipzig

This is a copy of one of my earlier blogs!

“I found an interesting contribution about the German city of Leipzig.

http://blog.goethe.de/meet-the-germans/archives/179-In-Love-with-Leipzig.html

As a ten and eleven year old in 1945/46 I did get to know a bit about this city. Sure, when we first moved there to stay at grandmother’s place, the war hadn’t finished yet and we experienced quite a few bomb raids.

As I told in another blog, one bomb raid in April 1945 turned out to be disastrous for us. This was probably the very last bomb raid that Leipzig had to endure, because soon after the American troops together with some Canadians occupied the city. When the Canadians moved through neighbouring streets to lay out some cables, we kids were watching them. We were impressed by their appearance. They were all very young looking, tall and lean in immaculate uniforms. We welcomed the foreign troops.Them being with us meant, we wouldn’t be bombed any more. From now on we could sleep in peace!

We were a family of six. Having lost our home in the bomb raid, we applied for accommodation for our family. We were given a flat in an area where the buildings weren’t damaged at all. We were assigned an apartment that had three rooms plus kitchen and bathroom. Had grandmother been just with Renate she would not have been able to get an apartment of this size. Only families of five or more were assigned accommodation with that many rooms! So we were lucky again. Grandmother stayed in this apartment in Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse for many more years. She died in 1957.

About Leipzig I remember the ‘Ratskeller’, where we had a few times a lovely meal. I always thought it was something special to eat out somewhere. But I loved Grandma’s cooking too. Like magic she always produced excellent meals even when there was not much food available. She was a great one for improvising. And never ever was any bit of food thrown out. She always pointed out to us, to throw away good food, was a sin. This kind of thinking still sticks with me today!

I also remember the Thomaner Church in Leipzig and the Thomaner Choir. I believe the journalist who wrote the blog about present day Leipzig is from England and lives in Berlin now. He went for a visit to Leipzig and ended up loving this city. If ever I have a chance to visit Germany again, I plan on paying Leipzig a visit together with Peter, my husband, and Peter, my brother. If you are interested in finding out more about Leipzig, please look up the above link.”

Last year during our visit to Germany we did not forget that we had wanted to visit the city of Leipzig. We actually went there for a day visit. We had in our minds to search for the grave of my paternal grandfather who had died in 1947. After a lot of searching we were able to locate his grave site. We made some pictures which I published in a blog. Leipzig seems to be a thriving city these days. We would have liked to stay there a bit longer. But we had to go back to Berlin the same day. The Main Leipzig Railway Station (Hauptbahnhof) has been very modernised. A huge modern shopping center is located within its premises.

Out and about in Melbourne

Famous sculpture at the Yarra River in Melbourne.

Peter, granddaughter Lauren and I had been waiting at Flinders Street Station for granddaughter Justine who was going to meet us there after work. It was a happy meeting after not having seen each other for sooo long!

Uta and granddaughters at the Yarra River

Dinner at Il PRIMO POSTO, Italian Restaurant

After dinner we strolled to a Gelato shop that was still open. We each had a little tub of this delicious gelato and sat down at a large table with a terrific view of the Yarra.

This was a lovely night out with the granddaughters. Justine caught the train back home from Flinders Street Station. Peter and I went with Lauren by train back to Essendon where our son Martin was waiting with the car to take us home.

Thursday Outing

We had a twelve hour day yesterday: Leaving our home a bit before seven in the morning and returning a bit before seven at night. We actually caught the 7,15 train from Dapto, changed trains at Refern (one stop before Central). From Redfern we caught the Western Line train to Newtown. In Newtown is one of our favourite cinemas. Since we’ve been there last time the complex was enlarged. They have now ten cinemas within the building!

Arriving at Newtown Station, Peter straight away took a whole lot of pictures along the way to the DENDY Cinema. Onece at the DENDY we noticed the milkbar had already opened. So we took seats to have a cup of flat white. We also ordered some delicious fruit salad, which we shared.

The movie was a German movie called ‘Barbara’. It was in German with English subtitles. Only a handful of people watched it with us. We thought this movie was very well made. The main actors were really, really good. They were both medical doctors working in a hospital in the northern parts of Germany at the time of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). They had a very miserable life. Under what conditions people had to work in the GDR. is very truthfully and realistically brought to life in this movie. Peter said, he can’t understand how people can feel nostalgic about a place like this! Maybe a lot of people tend to remember the things that have been good in the GDR and choose to forget the constant harassing. This is why they don’t care to think about it how in those days they could very easily be deprived of their freedom, meaning you could end up in jail or be taken in for questioning again and again. You were not able to trust anyone, for everyone could be a spy who wanted to dob you in for offences against the state of the workers.

On the way back to the station we talked a lot about the movie we had just seen. We decided we’d go by train back to Redfern and from there catch a fast train to Parramatta. At Parramatta Station we had a quick lunch. We then took the free bus as far as the Ferry Station at Parramatta river. However we didn’t venture down to the wharf but went to the foot-bridge instead which lead us to the other side of the river.

According to the map which Peter had printed out, it would be only a short walk to where the Aged Care Facility was once we had crossed the river. It turned out to be another twenty minutes for me in the heat of the early afternoon. In the end I got quite stressed and hot. However we found the place we were looking for, no worries. It turned out to be a huge place with a lot of wards, similar to a hospital. David was in a two-bed room. His room-mate was outside somewhere. But David lay in bed. Apparently he lies in bed most of the time. He smokes only two cigs a day. A nurse takes him outside in a wheelchair for this.

David was quite happy to see us. A few of his things which we had found amongst all of Gaby’s stuff, we handed over to David. He kept everything in his room to look at it later. We told David we’d see him again around the time of this birthday. He said he was looking forward to see his brother Anthony and sister Ann soon.

On the way back to the station we noticed a crowd in front of a huge building. We don’t know whether it was a demonstration or a fire-drill.

We could have gone down to the wharf to catch a ferry to the city and go from there back home by train. But it was getting a bit too late for this. So we just caught the free bus back to Parramatta Station and went home from there. We did the ferry trip quite a few times over the years. It’s lovely to travel to the city all the way on the water. Sure we’d like to do this again some other time. I’m sure there’s going to be another time.

Coming Home from Sydney

For part of the way the ocean can be seen from the train. This is going home in the late afternoon after having spent some time in Sydney. These train-trips are rather exciting because it’s such a beautiful scenery.

Visiting David

David’s brother let Peter know that David is in hospital. We went to see him there two weeks ago on Sunday. We traveled by train to Westmead station. From there we walked to Westmead Hospital. We found David in good spirits. He looked much healthier than we had seen him before. We talked for about an hour. He called us ‘Papa’ and ‘Mama’. He showed us his leg where it had been amputated. He said he was going to get physio so he would be able to walk better. In a few weeks he was to go back home.

In the meantime the brother sent another message that David was to be sent to a nursing home. So the villa where Gaby and David had lived for the past twenty-three years had to be vacated. We were asked would we perhaps want anything out of the villa that had belonged to Gaby? We said, we would go up to the place on a day when David’s family was to be there too.

We didn’t take any photos inside the hospital. But David was in a pleasant ward, I think it was on the seventh floor. He had a room all to himself! He was listening to his radio which a neighbor had brought in for him. He had just had his lunch and someone came in to pick up his lunch-tray. He said he didn’t smoke any more and this was going to save him a lot of money. We were very happy David felt so much better after having had good medical care in hospital for several weeks.