LOVE IS IN THE AIR

I spied this cute little fellow in the garden and luckily I had my camera but he was hard to capture against the light. After fiddling with a few settings I managed to get him before he flew away.

I think it is called a Scaly Breasted Lorikeet.

I moved around the tree to get a better shot but he had disappeared but then I suddenly saw where he had gone. He went to woo his girl. I'm not sure that she is interested.

HOME ON LEAVE-1958

My brother, David, left home at 19 in 1956 to work in the jungles of Papua/New Guinea as a Patrol Officer. He sent us many letters and coloured slides of his adventures. (I don't know what happened to his slides but I did find this old print.) From the news we received from him, he was enjoying his work, which was exciting and sometimes dangerous. He had to navigate crocodile infested rivers, climb steep mountains and penetrate villages where tribes had not seen white men before.We had missed him and we were looking forward to him coming home for 3 months leave, which is what Patrol Officers got every two years.

David in TPNG 1958

All the family together again.

While David was home and I was still on school holidays we went on some day trips. On Boxing Day we drove into the Blue Mts, west of Sydney, to the small town of Blackheath. David invited his friend Mervyn and his sister Shirley.

Shirley and I enjoyed the pool.

There we met our friends Ida and Jenny who had come from Mudgee, on the other side of the mountains. Ida had adopted another two children, Fiona and Robert, since the last time we saw them.

Lto R: Shirley, Jenny, David, Fiona, Ida, Mervyn, Robert, Mum and Dad.

L to R:  Dad, David, Mum and Mervyn at Mt Keira Lookout. All four have now passed away.

Mervyn overlooking Wollongong from Mt Keira.

Another day we headed down the south coast to Wollongong and Mt Keira lookout. Mervyn was David's best friend from when they were at high school. He worked in Sydney and remained friends with my parents until they died. He kept an eye on them for David and me, as neither of us returned to live in Sydney.

THIS WAS MORE MY IDEA OF FUN!

 Hooray! School holidays! It was December 1958 and our school year had finished. I had just completed 4th Year (Year 11). Now it was summer and time to relax and have fun.

I had a call from a girl, Marilyn, who we had billeted for a while. My memory is a bit rusty, but I think it was for a sporting event. However, her parents wanted to repay us by asking me to go to their place for a weekend.

I wasn't too sure about staying with people that I didn't know well but off I went anyway.

My parents drove me down the south coast of NSW from Sydney to Wonoona. I waved them goodbye and wondered what was in store for me.

There was much excitement in the house as it was The Wonoona Show weekend. Marilyn and her mum were fussing over what I thought was a cranky, ugly dog.

It turned out to be a pedigree, Dachshund, show dog and it was being groomed for the show.

I'm afraid I couldn't get excited about this activity. Every time I went near, it snarled at me.

When doggy was brushed, pampered and ready, all the family went to the show.

They were excited to see uncles and cousins with their show trotting horses. I enjoyed watching them race but not much else.

It must have been about this time that I realised that I wasn't a country girl but a bright, lights city teen.

 The next day I was taken to the beach. It was a beautiful long beach, with yellow sand, blue water and white crested waves stretching for as far as you could see to the north and the south. The handsome, bronzed life savers were practising their stuff. 

We dropped our towels and rushed into the sea, splashing and diving through the waves. We would swim out past the breakers and then body surf back into shore. This was more my idea of fun!

GROWING ORANGE FLAGS

In my garden there are orange flags.

There are 30 of them throughout the garden.

The orange flags are so that I can find these little containers when the plants over grow them.  The containers are termite stations. Some time ago I discovered termites in a cupboard under the house, where I keep the gardening stuff. I got into a panic thinking that the termites might be eating our house, so I called the termite exterminator. He came to check the house and proclaimed we were lucky as they hadn't got into the house. He was not happy with all the loose timber we had lying under the house nor did he like the bark mulch covering the garden, all of which attracts the termites.  I asked him how could we prevent them getting into the house and he suggested installing termite stations all around the house as a barrier.

So we told him to go ahead. $2300 dollars later we had 30 installed. Every month we have to open them and check if there are  termites eating the timber slats inside. If there are we call the man. The first time I checked them I found one full of the creepy, white horrid pests. We rang the man......... 

  He undid the lid with a special key,

but because I had disturbed them most of them had run away. There are just a few on the timber sides. Anyway he fills the container with a paper pulp poison mixture, which hopefully, they eat and take back to their nest and feed the others. Then he asks for $140 dollars. An expensive feed for the little critters.

Did you notice the ground cover is in flower. I think it is called japonica pachysandra but I'm not sure.

Last week we cleaned out all the timber from under the house and found more of the little blighters. Our dear friend Paul and his son helped us get all the rubbish to the dump. Hopefully we are safe from the termites now.

A NEW HOUSE FOR FREE

Kids from John Paul College raised enough money to help rebuild a house for a young couple who lost everything in the flood and they didn't have enough money to rebuild. Tonight there was an article on Channel 7 News. It was about the family moving in. It brought tears to my eyes.

2000 CHILDREN COME TO MY HOUSE

When I drove home from the gym and turned into my street it was literally full of children all walking towards my house. Teachers herded them off the road to allow me to get into my driveway. I recognised the uniforms as the local school called John Paul College. It is an ecumenical private school and the largest school in Queensland with 2400 students. It is only one block away from our house.

I raced upstairs and grabbed my camera and captured thousands of children walking past our house and around the block 3 times. It was a walkathon to raise money to rebuild a house for a family who lost their house in the floods. Their house wasn't insured against flood.

They didn't have to wear their uniform but could dress up or wear their sports uniform.

They just kept coming and coming.....

....and going. More and more and more....... It is a quiet cul-de-sac street so they were quite safe on the road and there were many teachers and adults with them.

JPC is a lovely school and it is where our girls went in the 80's, but it wasn't as big or as flash as it is now. This is the Coleman Centre for high school children.

The classroom foyer in the Bradley Centre

Open Learning Centre for older students.

A Primary School class.

  This school is a leader in computer education and often have international teachers visiting for seminars.

For the very young students.

The school caters for children at Child Care, Kindergarten, Prep through to Year 12 and Year 13 if students need an extra year to qualify for university. There is also an English Language School, where overseas students learn English prior to entering the college at high school level.

THE HOOVER DIED

We had a Hoover clothes dryer and it has lasted for years, I bought it to dry nappies back in the seventies and it just kept going until a few months ago and I had to get the switch replaced. It cost a fortune to have the repair man come to fix it.

Last week the door catch broke and we decided it was going to cost nearly as much to get it fixed as to buy a new one.  We realised that the poor old Hoover had passed its use by date so off we went and looked at all the space age models and especially the Hoovers but they were all too big and expensive.

Since there are only the two of us we only needed a small, simple one as I only use it for undies and towels. So we ended up getting a Fisher and Paykel. Our daughter has one and she says that it is good.

In case you are wondering why the car is parked in the laundry, it is because the laundry is in the garage. This suits me because it is down stairs and close to the washing line.

Can you believe this. The man is actually reading the instructions.