Tag: family

The Year 2025: It is June already!

How come more then six months have passed already since Les died? So much has happened during this time. Still, it feels like the months did pass very quickly. There is really not much I can do within one day. When a day has gone, I have not been able to do much at all. It is as though a day has only 16 hours instead of 24. And this includes about ten hours sleeping. I may overall have 14 hours when I can be awake. But during these 14 hours at the most I can do only as much as what normally people can do in less than 7 hours. So, I am always behind. Still, I try to do as much as possible.

I don’t know whether what I write here makes a lot of sense or not. In short, I have the feeling I am always running out of time. I have to get used to it to do everything slowly. This means I cannot do everything I would still like to do, unless I can get a lot of help.

How much help can I get? At this stage it is actually just 3 hours per week!! I am hopeful that perhaps I may soon get about 4 more hours per week. – – –

Of course my family helps out a bit whenever they have a bit of time for me.

This post was to be for the month of June. So, what happened this month so far? Today is only the 8th of June, It is the King’s Birthday weekend. This means tomorrow, Monday, is a public holiday. We had planned to drive up to the Southern Highlands today, that is my daughter Monika had planned to give me and her daughter Natasha a lift to the Highlands. I would have liked to stop at Mittagong to see my friend Gerard. The trip had to be cancelled because of sickness.

Memories about our Dutch Friends

I want to write about our friends Nick Tap and Nell Tap. They were both of Dutch origin. Nell died in January 2013. I have no idea what happened to Nick. He had major health problems. There were widespread family members, including three sons.

Nick and Nell were both born ln 1933. They suffered a lot under the German occupation in World War Two. The food that the Dutch people did grow ended up on German tables. For the Dutch population there was hardly anything to eat. The children suffered severe starvation.

As I said in the previous post Peter and I liked to visit the Taps. I remember how they told us about the scarcity of food. Once a German soldier very secretly had given Nick a piece of bread. This soldier could have been severely punished for this!

Where am I?

I am ninety. So I know that my time is very limited. But that does not matter for as long as I feel happy about being alive and maybe can also still do a little bit of writing. I very nuch care about relationships. To devote a great amount of my time to respond to what people say is important to me. Without significant relationships I am nothing. I have to say that relationships that I did have in the past do count a lot too, and I want to be able to tell about them and write about them. However I feel I should not forget to write about present relationships too!

So, where am I at this stage? Can I prioritize and devote myself to the things that are the most important to me? How can I still make the most with the time that is left to me? Even though I cannot know exactly how much time I may still be given, I can still try to make the most of every day that I still feel alive enough to be doing something at all. To be able to do something is such a blessing!

What about loneliness? It is said the feeling of loneliness can be a killer as much as any sickness. For most people it seems to be important that they have someone to hug and to kiss. How can hugging and kissing be so important? But it is. Instead of generalising I want to tell here something about myself. I think for most of my life I was more an introvert than an extrovert. Has aging changed me in some ways? Maybe yes. In my old age I find it usually not very difficult to be somewhat outgoing in communicating with people who in the past perhaps would have been very much out of reach for me. Also I find now often some increased desire to hug and kiss people.

Looking back at my longtime marriage, I think it lasted fot that long because we always had some kind of love and respect for each other. Now that I have a ‘boyfriend’ who is nearly as old as I am, we too love and respect each other. He too comes from a very long lasting marriage. It seems to me he has sometimes difficulty treating me just as a girlfriend. I like him very much, but I like him as a girlfriend, not as a wife . . . .

So, where am I? I am happy that Les and I have found each other. We have lots of fun together. Les has a wonderful sense of humour. He often makes me laugh. And he likes me to laugh a lot! 😂

 Our landline phone was out of order

Great Memories
IMG_0391

Peter took this picture on the morning of Sunday, the 7th of September 2014. This was Fathers Day in Australia. There were blue irises as well as a bottle of Peter’s favourite port-wine. The cake made with ground almonds was for the afternoon. Monika arrived in the afternoon with sons and daughters as well as two year old grandson Lucas. Monika brought gifts along for her Papa: A lovely bottle of wine, chocolates, scratchies and a card.

Son Martin rang from Melbourne at night-time. This call was diverted to our interim mobile phone that Telstra had sent us to use while our landline phone was out of order. This mobile phone had no ringing sound. Instead a computerised female voice always announced to us when we had a phone call.

Caroline and Matthew had been going away for a few days to attend the wedding of their friends. They are back now and we are going to see them on Sunday. They probably made a lot of pictures and are going to tell us a lot about their trip.

Peter thought he had a lovely Fathers Day last Sunday. We are looking forward to seeing Caroline and Matthew very soon.

A picture that Peter took on Fathers Day 2014

A missed Cruise, but still some beautiful Birthday Celebrations

Nearly two months ago was my 90th birthday. It was not celebrated the way it had been planned. Come to think of it, the changes were not all that bad. I tell myself, I am still a lucky person. I am grateful for being alive and able to enjoy life a lot. Here is what I published before:

Remembering September 2024

All this about September 2024 I published one month ago in October. Here is a reply to that post from dear Linda (Rangewriter) and my reply to it:

  1. rangewriter What a bitter disappointment.
  2. auntyuta Yes, Linda, It took hours and hours before it was esablished that Monika could not receive her new passport soon enough for us to be able to board the ship before its departure. Finally, we had to find a way back home at our own cost. What a horrible day! However, my sweet daughter Caroline drove me all the way home to Dapto late in the afternoon. When she heard of our plight that we were not allowed to board the ship, she left her work early and retrieved her car to where it was parked in Sydney to take me home to Dapto. We had a bit to eat at my place and at about 10pm Caroline drove back to her place in Sydney.

https://auntyuta.com/2024/10/13/remembering-september-2024-continued/

As you know, on Wednesday, September 18th, the ship left without us. My daughter Caroline drove me back home on that day.

Three days later was Friday, and this was my 90th birthday. On that day I had a good time staying overnight in a nearby hotel with my friend Les. Naturally we spent the following weekend together too.

Thursday September 27 was the day that the Carneval returned to Sydney, and our luggage was there to be collected. I had borrowed from Les a big suittcase for the cruise! The suitcase had done the trip to Vanuatu and back without me. My family picked it up for me and I was happy that I got it returned in a good condition.

On the following Sunday, the 30th of September, we had as planned a family gathering to celebrate my turning ninety as well as great-grandson Alexander turning ten on the 27th of September just a few days after my birthday!

We had a nice birthday lunch as well as afternoon cafe and birthday cake at the neraby German Club. About ten people were present, including the birthday boy of course. Unfortunately some people could not join us on that day because of illness.

I feel sorry for Monika and Natasha that they had to miss out on a cruise that had cost them so much money. All that money is lost now. But they still hope eventuallyto be able to go onto another cruise. I made up my mind now: I do not want to book another cruise again. I prefer to stay close to my home.

Tuesday, 14th of September 2021

More and more cases appear in Wollongong as well as in Shellharbour and all over the Illawarra, also the DELTA cases all over Sydney have not stopped yet.

I had been hoping to have a few birthday guests on my beautiful deck. Yes, I had so hoped, that a few outside guests would be allowed to come! But no, having a few guests I must now forget about a bit longer.

My youngest great-granddaughter, Evie Rose, who turned two only yesterday, I have not seen for a while. And my eldest granddaughter, Natasha, who turned 30 last Saturday, I could not see either. Alexander Robert, great-grandson number five, is going to be 7 in two weeks on Monday. I already missed the birthday of Lucas, great-grandson number four, who turned 9 last July.

I would also love very much to see our friend Sylvia for her birthday on Tuesday, the 27th of September. Sylvia was born in 1957 in Germany, the same year that our Gaby was born. Their birthdays were only a few weeks apart. In 1959, we lived in Balgownie Hostel in Fairy Meadow. Gaby’s second birthday on the 28th of August was celebrated in the Hostel, and little Sylvia was one of the guests! So we have known Sylvia and Christa, her mother, for that long. Sylvia’s father used to be a workmate of Peter’s. Sadly, both he and Peter are dead now.

I have seen Christa and Sylvia a few times before the lockdown. They did sit beside me at Peter’s funeral celebrations. And they invited me to spend Christmas Day with them at their place. Both live together in Wollongong. Because of the lockdown, I cannot see them right now. And they cannot come to Dapto to see me. They have not been able yet to see my beautiful new deck. All my outside area looks so different now. All I can do is this, that I can write an email to Sylvia for her upcoming birthday.

I wonder when some of my family will finally be allowed to visit me! So far, only Monika, who does some caring work for me, was able to see my deck and the refurbished outside area. No one else of my family has been visiting yet. But I do get twice one hour weekly home help. The home help wears a mask when she enters the house to do some cleaning, and she usually does a few things outside a well. I am so lucky, that I do get a bit of home help!

Some of my neighbours could already take a glance at the deck. I think it made quite an impression on them. When I meet my neighbours outside, I wear a mask and I do insist on social distancing. Since we are in lockdown, we do not enter each others houses. But there is plenty of room to meet in the common area surrounding the ten free standing villas.

And as I said before, I just love to go for walks with my rollator in the neighbouring park. I am so lucky that I can spend so much time outside in beautiful fresh air. I cannot drive and I have no car. So lovely daughter Monika is helping me by doing some weekly shopping for me. I feel blessed, that I do not have to enter any shops right now.

Diary

Yesterday, on Thursday, I had some real quality time with some of my family too: We went for three hours to a beautiful park at Lake Illawarra with four children of our family! 🙂

There were heaps of other children there too, since the kids were still on their Easter holidays. Granddaughter Natasha was great in watching her nephews, aged 4 – 6 – and 8 years, as well as 18 months old niece. My daughter Monika had picked me up from home with my rollator. The two older kids are the kids of one of Monika’s sons, the two younger kids are the kids of one of her daughters. So all of them are my great-grandchildren! I enjoyed watching all of them playing to their heart’s content in this beautiful park area with lots of other children and lots and lots of playground equipment on a perfectly beautiful sunny autumn day. For lunch we had fish and chips from a nearby shop. We had brought our own drinks. I was so grateful to Monika that she had asked me to come along with them! 🙂

There was opportunity for some interesting conversations with granddaughter Natasha. She is a care worker. To be able to have some longer talks with her was very interesting! 🙂

Rainy Days

On the 28th of January the following was in one of my replies:

Right now, here too it’s raining a lot: Temperature is still around 20C though. Yesterday, before the rain started, Monika came along with all of her four grandchildren (my great-grandchildren!) and we went for a walk with them to the playground at the back near the grassy soccer fields and near all the beautiful trees. The kids were full of beans. It was cloudy and not very hot.
I think last Tuesday, we had about 40C. This would not have been a good day to take the kids on such a walk.
Strangely enough, yesterday, we were the only people roaming about, walking along the footpath, then across all these grassy areas, and having fun at the playground. Very strange indeed. We had the whole place to ourselves! So, isn’t that lucky, that we had such a good time before the rain started?
From next week Lucas, 8, and Alexander, 6, are going to be back at school again.
Lucas and Alexander are the cousins of Carter, 4, and Evie (16 months). The two little ones just love to be with their ‘big’ cousins, and the older cousins love to look after the little ones!
It reminds me of my early childhood when I was so very fond of my older cousins.
Evie is already a good walker and also tries to talk a lot! 

🙂

You can find my reply here: https://oosterman.wordpress.com/2021/01/28/the-mattock/

I also said:

My son, Martin, shares his dog, Millie, with his neighbour on a permanent basis. By the way, I am in luck, Martin is planning to visit me! He wants to leave Benalla on Sunday. I hope he can stay for at least a week, and I hope, that the borders wont close again. Martin is probably bringing Millie along again. I am looking forward to that! 

🙂

Martin did actually come to visit! He arrived here in Dapto last Sunday, the 31st of January. Today he and Millie left early in the morning to go back to their home in Benalla. However, I am in luck again: Martin is going to be back here in about four weeks, with Millie of course! So this is then in March and they might stay for a bit over a week. And then I’ll go with them for a visit to Benalla. I am very much looking forward to that! The reason why Martin is coming here again, is, that we are invited to a wedding on Saturday, the 13th of March, that is, one of my granddaughters is getting married! Peter wanted to go to that wedding too. But alas, he could not stay alive for that long anymore. Rest in peace, dear husband. We’ll be thinking of you!