HAPPY AND SAD TIMES IN 1982

 My Story continued:

The girls were getting older and starting to enjoy extra curricular activities in their spare time, which also took up my spare time driving them everywhere, like mum's do. Carol had joined a Saturday Morning netball team. I enjoyed going and cheering her on.

Carol first on left in front row.

My beautiful brown eyed babies now ten and eight.

Another activity they liked was going to Brownies one evening a week.

But it wasn't all smiles and fun. My dad had been diagnosed with bone cancer and he was dying. My mother cared for him for two years but sometimes he went into Calvary Hospital for respite care.  I used to fly down to Sydney every school holiday with the children because Bill was at work. I would help Mum at home caring for him and I would drive him to and from the hospital. My mum didn't drive, she had to visit him by train. The following year he entered the palliative care ward in the hospital full time.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Bill came home from volunteering at 4EB Radio Station not looking well. He slumped over the steering wheel as he parked in the carport. I went out and helped him inside. He lay down and complained about pain in his chest. I thought it can't be a heart attach he is only 39. The doctor had a surgery at 2:00pm on a Saturday. We waited two hours until it turned two and I drove him to the doctor's. The doctor examined him and said he has had a heart attack and needs to go to the hospital.

We set off for the hospital when I realised it was voting day, which is compulsory or you get hit with a fine, so I drove into the next polling booth and we went in to vote. By now Bill felt better and didn't have any pain. (To this day I can't believe I did that.)

Bill stayed in hospital for a week and had lots of tests and X-rays. One of the heart arteries had blocked and caused the attack. His heart was scarred and damaged. He came home and had to take it easy but doing little walks each day and increasing the distance each week. He was off work for some time but luckily his company paid him sick leave pay. Bill was very depressed at this time and I kept trying to divert him with doing things like going to art galleries and going for drives but it wasn't until he showed interest in computers that his mood changed. So I encouraged him to buy one. Sonya was learning to use a computer at school and she enjoyed helping her Dad to use the computer. His zest for life returned and he went back to work and happy to come home to his new toy. Computers were very basic in the eighties but Bill has kept up with them. He still loves learning new skills in computing.

Brisbane won the right to hold the Commonwealth Games in 1982.  Brisbane got a facelift and new sporting facilities were popping up all around the city. My friendly neighbour, Moira and I and the four kids went to the opening ceremony. It was quite well done but it was a cold windy day which didn't make the day perfect. We didn't go to any other events but watched it on TV.

We were very proud of our marathon runner who won the event. Robert De Costella, who was of Swiss descent.

Later in the year my friend and I took the children to Dreamworld, an amusement park on the Gold Coast. 

Carol and her friend ready to go to their first disco held at their school.

Finally, professional family photos for 1982. We were so lucky to have Bill still with us after having a heart attack. So now he was on a quite a few medications.

LIFE GETS BUSY IN 1982

 My Story continued:

In 1982 I started full time work again after being a stay at home mum for ten years. I went to night school  to upgrade my qualifications. Bill had to come home from work and feed the girls and put them to bed while I went off to lessons. I was really nervous about standing in front of a class again and hoped that it would all come back but teaching methods had changed. Luckily, I had volunteered at the girls' school so I watched keenly what was happening in education.

I was posted to Marsden State School, it was a new school in the outer suburbs of Brisbane where the population was growing rapidly. Already the school was too small. There were not enough classrooms so my first class was a Year 7 Class squashed into a withdrawal room, a small room between two normal classrooms, used for teaching a few children, not a full class of 30+ in those days. 

It was a trying time. Soon new classrooms were built and I was given a Year 4, which I was happy about. It is my favourite year level. I soon got into the swing of teaching again. It was when team teaching was all the rage and I shared a double classroom with a male teacher. His style was different to mine but we did get on okay. I can't believe how many kids were in the class then 34! When I retired we were down to 25 thank goodness

I had to balance working life with family life. I tried to switch off work and turn on family life as I drove home from school quickly so that the girls weren't home by themselves for too long. They used to walk home from school just a few blocks away. It was at this time that Bill took over cooking duties so that I could help the kids with homework and get then bathed.

We also entertained overseas visitors at the beginning of the year. My Uncle Gil and Aunty Win visited us from England. It was the first time they had been to Australia.

First, they had spent some time in Sydney with my Mum, Dad and Aunt Ada. Gil was my mum's younger brother and Ada was their older sister. It was the first time they had been together for many years. 

Mum (Florrie) 76, Gil 72, Ada 92 in 1982.

Florrie 6, Ada 22, Gil 2 in 1918.

 There were eight siblings all together. Ada was the second eldest and Florrie and Gil were the youngest two. Ada trained as a nurse and she helped her mother look after the younger children.

 

We took Gil and Win to Lone Pine Sanctuary, where there were koalas, kangaroos, emus and other animals.

Not long after, we had visitors from Switzerland, Eddie and Erica. Eddie was from Swiss Radio International and was a friend of Bill's through his volunteer work at Radio 4EB in Brisbane.

So once again we were off to the Koala Sanctuary.

BEAUTY ON THE DOORSTEP

 Since I have had a sore hip, I sometimes walk around the village instead of the longer walk in the forest. I realised there is a lot of interesting things to see close to home. 

FAMILY FUN IN 1981

My Story continued:

 In 1981 the girls were seven and nine and they were enjoying school. Bill was working in air conditioning and I was was working as a Supply Teacher sometimes called a Relief Teacher. I had applied for full time teaching with Queensland Education Department and I was waiting and hoping to be given a  job. Times were tough financially on one wage with mortgage interest rates ridiculously high and we wanted to visit Bill's parents in Switzerland again, which was expensive in those days.

We lived in a small but comfy house. It was a new house in the new suburb of Springwood. 

Carol turned nine and she had a small party with neighbours and best school friend.

Springwood Central State School had their athletic carnival. Sonya is second from the back in the team.

Carol running in a novelty race.

Our friends Ben and Lyn had bought a farm in Gatton. They grew tomatoes for the markets and they had dairy cows for their own milk. Ben migrated from Switzerland with Bill in 1967. They came to learn English and return home after the compulsory two years immigration rules, but they loved it here and stayed forever, both marrying Aussie girls (even though I was born in England.)

Bill donned his Swiss farmer cap and tried to help Lyn.

Ben spent a lot of time renovating the interior of the farm house. Later he worked on the outside and the yard and installed a swimming pool.

Bill was enjoying volunteering for Radio 4EB (the ethnic station). One Saturday morning they had a promotional stunt of flying a hot air balloon in King George Square in front of the City Hall in Brisbane.

Our beautiful, cheeky girls (just a tad biased). They could also be trying at times.

End of year concert for Sonya's class at school. She was a chicken in yellow. I made the costume.

Sonya was also a lamb in front of the line.

Time for bed after a big day.

HERE WE GO AGAIN

 South East Queensland has gone into lockdown. We have cases of the dreaded Delta strain found its way into some of our schools, which means there are thousands of contacts to trace and isolate. It originated from two overseas travellers who caught it in a quarantine hotel. (There is outrage here about using hotels for quarantine rather than purpose built facilities). Lockdown doesn't bother Bill and I too much, we can find things to do at home. However, I do miss my morning walk with friends. So, wearing my mask, I go by myself into the forest and enjoy the peacefulness of nature.

The wild flowers are starting to bloom.

Even the bushes are wearing masks.

Australia's national flower, Wattle.

A tree fell across the trail so the rangers cut out the offending part and left the rest to rot. 

Ah downhill to home. I have bursitis in my hip at the moment and it makes walking up and down hills difficult but I love walking in the forest.