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!

The First Sunday of Advent 2019 with some Pictures from 2015

Next Sunday is the 1st of December, which means it is the first Sunday of Advent!

I am going to republish the pictures from that blog that I published four years ago:

https://auntyuta.com/2015/11/28/first-sunday-of-advent/

I found the following in the comment section from 2015:

Aunt Beulah
November 30, 2015 at 1:31 pm
Thanks for sharing a bit of your life with us. The photographs are beautiful, interesting, and charming.

Reply
auntyuta
November 30, 2015 at 2:56 pm
Thanks so much for your lovely comment, Janet. Our ‘Adventskranz’ is of course made up of artificial green stuff, and we’ve had it for many years. I love the little decorations on it. Come advent I admire them each year again. Like a little girl I take time inspecting and enjoying each of the pieces.The other day I thought it might be interesting to see how these little decorations would come out in some photographs. So I spent a bit of time taking pictures and later on cropping some of them. I guess all of these decorations remind me a bit of my childhood. 🙂

ACTUALLY, we do still have this ‘Adventskranz’. I was just thinking, I might soon get it ready for next Sunday! 🙂

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DSCN0213 — This is the Park near where we live.

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DSCN0312 — Well, this was four years ago!

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Our Overseas Visits

https://wordpress.com/post/auntyuta.com/761

Today I wanted to write about our overseas travels. So I checked what, I had written about it before. Luckily, I was able to find quite a bit of information under the title ‘Memories from August 2010’. (There is a link at the top of this post!)

Anyone who goes to this post from 2010 is going to find out that even by 2010 we had done already quite a bit of overseas travelling. In the meantime we travelled overseas two more times, namely in 2012 and then in 2016.

Living in Australia and having some family in Germany makes us want to travel overseas as often as possible. So far we had the good fortune of being able to use all this airline travel. On top of it, Airlines do still offer low price airfares!

At least a few people must be aware by now, that air travel is extremely bad for the environment. But how many people do actually try to avoid air travel these days as much as possible?

In 1990 we did do a trip around the world. I wrote about it here:

https://auntyuta.com/2014/02/05/our-trip-around-the-world/

Our first trip overseas was in 1977. Caroline was born in December 1978. We travelled with Caroline to Berlin in November 1980 and then again in March 1986 when Caroline was seven.

In 1977 Peter and I visited my cousin Renate and her family in Munich. From Munich we did a day trip to visit my uncle Edmund and his wife Flora in Augsburg. Among other things we visited with them the Augsburg Fuggerei. For lunch they invited us to the close by FUGGEREI STUBE.

https://auntyuta.com/2015/08/10/the-fuggerei-is-the-worlds-oldest-social-housing-complex-still-in-use/

In 1977 we travelled a bit around Western Germany staying with family and friends. But most of the time in 1977 we spent visiting our family in Berlin.

Some more Pictures from our Weekend at Sussex Inlet in June 2019

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The above pictures I took early on Saturday morning on the 1st of June 2019.

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On that weekend at Sussex Inlet, Peter and I as well as our daughter Monika remembered our arrival in Australia 60 years ago, that is we arrived at Port Melbourne on the 31st of May 1959 when Monika was barely 6 months old!

Monika’s partner, her two sons and three daughters (one daughter pregnant with her second child!) and also their partners and Monika’s 3 grandchildren and our 59 year old son Martin (Monika’s brother) were all cebrating with us. Still, there were a few other family members that could not come to Sussex Inlet on that weekend. But some we had been seeing earlier on in May. On the last weekend of June, that is this month, we are going to be in Newcastle to celebrate the 21st birthday of Martin’s younger daughter Lauren.

This is what I wrote in May after we had had quite a few visitors on Mothers Day:

“We had quite a few visitors yesterday for Mothers Day. Come to think of it, all the mothers that were visiting, were already grandmothers. And I am even a great-grandmother! I was so happy, that great-grandons Lucas and Alexander were visiting too yesterday! And Peter actually did hand out roses yesterday to all the visiting mothers. I think they liked this very much.

So, for about three hours in the afternoon we had a large crowd in our house. Daughters Monika and Caroline did most of the catering. This was very relaxing for me.

Monika had come with her daughter Natasha and her son Troy had come with his fiancee Antonina. Troy’s twin-brother Ryan and wife Ebony spent the afternoon with Ebony’s family, but Troy and Nina had brought their nephews Lucas and Alexander along to our plae. Caroline’s husband Matthew and Monika’s partner Mark had come too, and Mark had brought his mother Merl along.”

As far as the 1st of June is concerned, I reflected that on the 1st of June 1959 we had already settled into our accommodation at Bonegilla, Victoria. I wrote about it here:

https://auntyuta.com/2019/06/17/how-we-settled-in-australia/

St Peters Church and Cemetery

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Peters_Church,_St_Peters

The following are copies from the Wikipedia:

“St Peters Anglican Church, St Peters, 187-209 Princes Highway, St Peters, is one of the oldest churches in the suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.[1] Designed by Thomas Bird,[2] the church is sometimes referred to as “St Peters, Cooks River,” as it is located in the Anglican Parish of Cooks River, New South Wales.

The Cooks River, named by James Cook in 1770 when he sailed into Botany Bay, is crossed by the Princes Highway, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) to the south of the church. The suburb of St Peters, in which the church is located, was named as a result of the area’s proximity to the church.

The site contains three main buildings (St Peters Church and hall; a former rectory, built in 1906; and the present rectory, built in 1996) and a remnant graveyard.[3] The church building is unique in that it is built of sun-dried bricks with stuccoed finish forming the walls. The surface of the walls are expressed to simulate stonework and have attached buttresses supported on sandstone footings integrated into the sandstone footings of the walls.[3]

The church is listed on the NSW State Heritage Register[4] and the Register of the National Estate.[5]”

DSCN3781 — St Peters Church and cemetery. The spire and bell chamber were removed in 1963.

Cemetery

“The first burial in the graveyard, that of John Benfield, a soldier, took place on 4 March 1839,^[8] although the graveyard was not consecrated until 26 December 1840.^[9] The final burial, that of Sarah Ann Sargent, a widow, took place on 10 April 1896.^[8]

In February 1948 an Act of the New South Wales Parliament (Act No. 48 of 1968) was passed authorising the use of the cemetery land for purposes other than a cemetery, including use as a rest park, a garden area and a recreation area.^[8] However no action was taken at the time and, in 1979, a permanent conservation order was placed on all of the church property by the Heritage Council of New South Wales.^[8]

Since that time the congregation have undertaken voluntary maintenance of the cemetery grounds. A listing of all of the headstones was made in 1985 and photographs have been taken of many of the headstones.”

OUR STAY IN ST PETERS:

Our daughter’s wedding took place in Sydney on Saturday, the 17th of February 2018. The wedding ceremony was for 2 in the afternoon. We, that is our son Martin, Peter and I, booked into the Ibis Budget Hotel in St Peters for two nights on Friday already. The following day quite a few members of our family booked into the same hotel as well in order to attend the wedding on that Saturday.

https://www.accorhotels.com/gb/hotel-2699-ibis-budget-st-peters/index.shtml

Opposite our hotel was the old St Peters Cemetery. Peter and I went there for a walk. This old cemetery is kept in perfect condition. It was a pleasure to walk there among the old grave sites and read some of the stories about graves from the 19th century!

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Last Monday in February 2018

Today, the 26th of February, I think back on the last few days. I feel it has been a long time since I mentioned anything that is going on in our lives. Too many things have been happening, mostly very lovely things! Saturday, the 17th of February was definitely the best of all the recent happenings: It was the wonderful wedding ceremony of daughter Caroline and son-in-law Matthew.

As usual I am running out of time again. So I just want to insert a.few photos and write another post when I have a bit more time.

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THE RECEPTION WAS AT THE MARRICKVILLE BOWLING CLUB. THE CEREMONY HAD BEEN HERE AT THE STABLES THEATRE;

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I can publish some photos of the wedding ceremony when we get the official photos from the wedding photographer. Here now are some photos I took at the club of people dancing. I want to mention here that Caroline and Matthew did a magnificent opening dance, and I’ll show some pictures of the bride and groom dancing at some other time when I get some photos of it!

Beginning of October 2017

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I can’t believe that today is already the 4th of October. The different months just come too quickly. I feel as though it must still be September!

Well, these beautiful flowers in the picture I received last Sunday, which was the 1st of October. On Monday we had a public holiday here in NSW and Victoria of Australia. So this long weekend was a good time for travelling. Our daughter Monika for instance and a lot of her family travelled to Victora over last weekend. I hope now that Monika can see us after work sometime this week so she can tell us all about their trip to Victoria. I think they stayed for one night in Benalla where our son Martin lives now.

We had daughter Caroline and Matthew staying with us last Sunday. We went for lunch to the TREASURE COURT restaurant at the Dapto Leagues Club which I enjoyed very much. I had small prawns in Curry sauce and boiled rice. We also had vegetarian mini spring rolls as an entree. And all four of us had beautiful Chinese tea. We each got a fortune cookie with our tea. Caroline and I took our cookies home and did only open them at home. Can I remember what it said on the cookies’ verses? Sorry, no I can’t.

With our coffee at home we had savories instead of cake. I took some more pictures of my beautiful flowers on one of the following days:

Newcastle and Sussex Inlet (continued)

I reckon one gets a wonderful impression watching this 2 and a half minute video about Newcastle’s Merewether Beach. This video was made in 2015:

“From Plan to Place – Sea Change@ Merewether Beach precinct.
Merewether Beach is one of Newcastle’s famous beaches and has been designed as a National Surfing Reserve.”

As I said in a previous post – https://auntyuta.com/2017/08/24/lunch-in-newcastle/ –

we had lunch in Newcastle at beaches cafe. We had this view from the terrace of the cafe:

DSCN3117 — View to Merewether Beach from the beaches cafe.

DSCN3121 — Martin had ordered baby octupus

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I had four prawn cutlets. They were delicious. The chips and salad were good too. After lunch we went down to the beach for coffee and ice-cream:

And now back to my post about Sussex Inlet:

https://auntyuta.com/2017/08/23/diary-august-2017/

Just one week ago we arrived there and stayed only for the weekend. We had booked three units. Each unit could accommodate four adults plus two children. There were only in one unit some children, that is, there were of course our lovely great-grandsons: Lucas (5) and Alexander (nearly 3). Unfortunately no-one did take a group picture. But we are going to have a great memory about this weekend anyway.