Uta’s Diary

I wanted to upgrade yesterday, but something went wrong with my VISA card. Then Peter tried his card, but it didn’t work either. We have to go to the bank and find out what we can do about it.

It is Friday, the fourth of January, 2013, eleven o’clock in the morning. Already we have 33 Degrees Celsius in the shade. None the less we enjoyed having our cup of morning tea under the trees at the back of the house. Our trees have grown immensely. We hope we won’t get any fires and hot wind. In many parts of Australia the fire danger is extreme and the temperatures are soaring. People are warned to be prepared for evacuations. So far this doesn’t apply to Sydney or the Illawarra.

First Days in Berlin

DSCN3574 — With our daughter just before we have to leave

DSCN3646 — Yesterday with Klaudia on a rather cool day

I apologize for not being able to write much at present. Unfortunately I had frequent cold attacks during the past few days. Luckily there’s internet connection in our little Berlin apartment, but I think inserting pictures is going to be a slow process. This is why the bulk of the Berlin pictures I’ll safe for publication for when we’ll be back in Australia. So today I show just a small sample of the pictures we’ve taken so far.

Last Saturday, 8th September, Caroline and Matthew saw us off at Sydney airport. We had a good flight and arrived at Tegel airport in Berlin early on Sunday morning. where Klaudia was waiting for us and took us to the apartment of Peter’s sister Ilse. We stayed there for a lovely welcome. We knew our apartment wasn’t available till 2 pm. Ilse served us coffee and homemade cheesecake. She also provided a bag full of things to eat for when we would arrive at our apartment. We arrived early in the Hansa Viertel with Klaudia and all our luggage in Klaudia’a car. We passed the time walking with Klaudia through the Tiergarten towards the Teahouse of the English Garden. It was a balmy late summer day. We sat outside eating some of the beautiful food Ilse had packed for us: Slices of crusty ryebread, zwiebelwurst, Harzer cheese, butter, bananas etc. A bit later we had coffee in front of the Teahouse.

Strolling back to where Klaudia’s car was parked we arrived at the apartment at exactly 2 pm and were let in. The place turned out to be just right for us. We are going to stay in it for two months! After this we’ll stay 100 km north of Berlin in a small place called Neu Canow. For the 16th November we have booked our flight back to Australia.

DSCN3569 — Matthew and Caroline see us off at the airport

Centennial Park

DSCN3211 — This is the bench on and around which were placed the eighteen members of our family who had come to clebrate our 50th. An additional person took photos!
This was in 2006.

Peter is approaching the outside area of the cafe

The glass-doors to the cafe

Look through the glass-doors

DIGITAL CAMERA — This is the bench on and around which were placed the eighteen members of our family who had come to clebrate our 50th. An additional person took photos!
This was in 2006.

Peter is approaching the outside area of the cafe

The glass-doors to the cafe

Look through the glass-doors

http://www.centennialparklands.com.au

Three different parks belong to the Centennial Parklands:
Centennial Park, Moore Park and Queens Park.

After a very satisfying breakfast at our daughter’s place we drove to Centennial Park not far from where the daughter lives. We wanted to see what the place looked like where in 2006 we were celebrating our 50th Wedding Anniversary.

We found the place without difficulty. We knew they had done some alterations a few years ago. So when we arrived there we noticed that to the original cafe a Kiosk had been added plus a lot of outside sitting area. On this mild sunny morning quite a few people were out already enjoying sitting outside with their refreshments from the kiosk.

The cafe looked inside still very much as it looked at the time of our Anniversary when we had lunch there with the whole family. The cafe was closed because it was still early in the morning but we could have a look through the glass-doors. So we took a photo looking inside from outside.

In some parts of the parks horse riding is allowed. On the way into the park we saw a few very beautiful horses with their riders. Unfortunately I did not think of taking picture and later on we didn’t see any horses anymore.

Here are some details from the Map Guide of the Parklands. There’s
Rollerblade Hire
Cycle Hire
Horse Hire
Dog Wash
Underground Reservoirs
and Bubblers

Distances around Grand Drive, Centennial Park:
Road 3.8 km
Walking Path 3.7 km
Horse Track 3.6 km

Distances from the Parklands:
To the CBD of Sydney it is 5 km
To the Airport 7 km
To Bondi Beach 5 km

DSCN3196 — Bikes for hire

View to the CBD of Sydney

Inside Centennial Park

Merrylands

After we stopped at Sublime Point Lookout last Thursday we drove on to Merrylands, a Western suburb of Sydney. Gaby had been visiting David, who’s in Westmead Hospital again.

Gaby took a bus from Westmead and arrived in Merrylands at about the same time we arrived there. We had some lunch in the Stockland Shopping Centre. After lunch it was time for Gaby to withdraw some money so she could do some shopping. Peter helped her with the withdrawal. The pictures show Gaby in her wheelchair. Her dog ‘Honey’ is being attached to the wheelchair. Peter is busy sorting out what bills Gaby needs to pay. Gaby decides then how much money Peter ought to withdraw with her card from the ATM.

As soon as Gaby has been loaded with the required amount of money, she heads off to pay her bills. Then it is time to do her fortnightly shopping in one of the supermarkets where ‘Honey’ is not allowed in. So it is my task to take Honey out for a walk. Gaby usually takes one hour to do her shopping in the supermarket. She gets her stuff home delivered for six Dollars.

It was a beautiful sunny day last Thursday. I enjoyed taking Honey out for a walk. While walking around with Honey I occupied myself taking a few pictures. One picture is of Honey. The other pictures show the street around the shopping centre. This shopping centre has recently been extended. There are still some more extensions going on. You can see it by the huge crane which I tried to capture in the photo. I also took photos of one of my favourite outside cafes called ‘Heart to Heart’.

This area for the kids is inside the shopping centre. It had been provided for the kids during the Easter holidays for the entertainment of kids during certain hours of the day.

We just finished off the last bit of this Easter Cake. It had a lovely vanilla taste and was nice to eat with some unsalted butter and cherry confiture. It had a hard boiled red coloured chicken egg on top. We bought it last Thursday in a shop in Merrylands.

Diary

Last week on that ‘Sunny Sunday in Sydney’ we met Angie and Roy. Yesterday they arrived in Cairns and sent us from there a photo of the two of them in front of ULURU. It’s a beautiful photo. Makes me want very much to see ULURU. Peter and I so far never yet made it to the centre of Australia. We should really go there one day.

In Cairns Angie and Roy are going on a Snorkeling Cruise. I admire them for their fitness. They’re retired in their sixties and still fit enough to go snorkeling! Peter wrote them to watch out that they wont be left behind somewhere on the Great Barrier Reef.

After six days with sunshine and no rain we are back now to some more precipitation. It’s still warm enough. Seems to me our climate becomes more and more subtropical. Our bushes and trees around the house grow spectacularly. Peter took the other day some pictures of the vegetation around our house. Doesn’t this look very lush?

On the first picture you can see the ‘jungle’ behind our fence!

A Sunny Sunday in Sydney

We arrived at 10,30 am at Martin Place station to meet Angie and Roy at 11 am. We walked along Macquarie Street to their hotel and Peter took some pictures along the way. When we arrived at the hotel they offered us refreshments straightaway. And we soon got into talking amiably.

Later on we had Japanese lunch with them at the Opera House. The sky had cleared for the day. In beautiful sunshine we walked up to the Opera House. Peter took some pictures. When my lunch arrived Peter took a picture of that too. I had ordered a vegetarian roll. It looked beautiful with the avocado on top and cut up in small pieces. Somehow I managed to eat all this with chopsticks! I spiced every piece with soy sauce, horseradish and ginger. Delicious! The others had ordered something with fish. They all commented that my dish looked much more colourful.

After lunch we walked through the Botanical Gardens and Peter took some more pictures. By 2 pm we were back in Macquarie Street where Angie and Roy were staying at the InterContinental.They had tickets for a concert for later in the afternoon at the Opera House. So it worked out well that they could have a little rest before going out again. Peter and I wanted to catch our train back home from Martin Place. We had had a lovely day with two people we had never met before. But some of Angie’s family are known to us. They all were emailed some photos of yesterday’s meeting. One of Angie’s sisters, who lives in England, already emailed back saying she and her husband were planning to travel to Melbourne next year to see their two sons there and meet other family members. It’s such a small world! Peter worked out that a lot of the descendents of his paternal grandparents already live in Australia.

Angie and Roy travel today, Monday, to South Australia and to the Barossa Valley. They stay in Australia for two weeks only. During this time they also plan to fly to Alice Springs (to see ULURU), as well as to Cairns and from there back home to America. I think in Sydney they had had only three days.

Picnic at Bronte Beach

What a lovely day: 28 Celsius, no wind, mostly sunshine. It was picnic-day at Bronte Beach in Sydney.

For this perfect picnic-day we have to thank N since she was the one who suggested it. N is in Sydney on another visit from Berlin. She stays here with friends. Recently she contacted us and asked: Would we like to meet her? She also contacted C and M. This is how Peter and I came to have this picnic yesterday with N, C and M.

We had plenty of food and drink set out on a roof covered picnic table right at the beach. A swimming pool was nearby and all of us went for a swim in it.. Later in the day C and M invited us to their place for coffee and home-baked scones with plenty of fresh cream and strawberry jam.Yummy!

It took us 90 minutes to drive back home to Dapto. We happily arrived home at 6 c’clock in the evening.

Going shopping with Gaby . . . .

Going shopping with Gaby and Honey, who’s Gaby’s lovely companion dog. Once every two weeks we meet our daughter Gaby in Merrylands Shopping Centre to help her with her shopping. Gaby loves to bring her dog along too. Since Honey is a registered companion dog for a wheelchair person, she’s allowed to take the dog into the shopping centre. However when she goes to the supermarket to buy her groceries, the dog has to stay outside, that means ‘Grandma’ Uta has to stay outside too to mind Honey, while Grandpa Peter helps Gaby with her grocery shopping which usually takes her the best part of an hour. I don’t mind sitting outside, where there are some comfortable seating arrangements and carpets for the dog to stretch out on. Honey is no trouble whatsoever. I’ve been known to sometimes nod off a bit when I feel tired!

Yesterday however, when we met Gaby again, I kept myself awake the whole time while waiting for Gaby and Peter. What kept me really awake was an e-book which I liked reading very much. When we had some coffee earlier on, I asked Peter to take a picture of Gaby and me. Then I thought it would be nice if Honey was in the picture too. So I lifted her up. That made me laugh outragesly because it’s not normally my habit at all to lift Honey up. (Can’t remember ever having done it before.) Looking at the picture now, I really don’t like it very much, but I’m going to include it anyway for I don’t have any other pictures for today. I asked Gaby, would she mind if I put her pictures in my blog. Her answer was, that she didn’t mind at all, since she’s always being recognised by a lot of people anyway.

While I minded Honey, quite a few people talked to me about her, recogning her as Gaby’s dog, petting her and asking about Gaby’s whereabouts. Yeh, Gaby is well known, that’s for sure. And not just in Merrylands but also in a lot of other suburbs of Sydney. In her electrified wheelchair Gaby travels around a lot on trains, busses and taxis. Nearly every day she goes out on her own somewhere. A collection box sits on the table in front of her, also her mobile phone. She collects money for a charitable organisation. Some people approach Gaby on a regular basis to give her a donation. Honey, being fastened to Gaby’s wheelchair, always makes the rounds with Gaby. So no wonder that Gaby is a well known identity in Sydney.

Gaby was born 1957 in Berlin and came to Australia before she was two years old. On her fourth birthday she became very ill. The doctor who saw her at home, said the measles were around. That Gaby could not move at all, did not seem to make him suspicious. Then we called another doctor who established immediately that Gaby indeed could not move at all and an ambulance was called to take her to the hospital. It turned out she was struck down by polio. So that was fifty years ago! – – – – –

It is amazing, what a well adjusted person Gaby is. She loves to live and do all the things that are possible for her to do. She loves eating and collecting recipies, going out with people, talking to people. In the evening she spends time with facebook, but Friday nights and sometimes weekends too she likes to go out. Overall she seems to enjoy life and makes the most of it. I think that makes able bodied people perhaps wonder about their lives when they find it hard to get enjoyment out of their lives.