Valentino and viewings

 Happy Valentine's Day - or rather, happy birthday to Uncle Tom. Aunt Ada was an April Fool and Tom a Valentine. The baby was Grandma.

He was named for Thomas, his paternal uncle, the man who would steal how mother away - or was her running Salvation? We will never know.

Hr had the sort of tight curl "the teacher used to pat it every time he walked past" until one day Tom snapped and, without raising his eyes from his work, took a ruler and rapped the annoying insect hard.

Grandma adored her big brother - her tale was she so loved her big brother that she could not bear they part, and ran away TO school at a very young age to be with him.

Which was just as well, because when their mother left their father put them in an orphanage as he could not work and look after three children.

Perhaps he was too proud to turn to his sisters and share his bewilderment. His own paternal example was a man who abandoned his family. (I have just realised that there is a strong history of abandonment in that branch of the family!)

Therefore Tom, aged about five, became the man of the family - one older bossier sister of about seven and the baby aged three.

They lived in various foster situations - but the rest is a story for another day.

Today I went viewing houses. I was so organised. You see, until this week there had been nary an interesting house to see - maybe one a week and generally not so exciting as to go to the extra effort of checking it out. 

I have been to only a handful over the past few weeks.

Today I had five on the list - two between 9 and 9.30, a 9.30, a 10 and a 12.45.

The first not too far from my work. It's near the top of a hill, which after the nearly two decades of the flatlands, is interesting. 

Rooms led to other rooms and no corner was square. You never knew what surprise you would find beyond the next door. I could have loved it there. 20 year old me would have swooned at the potential. Unfortunately 20 year old me wasn't buying houses (how cheap they would have been then) and I wasn't buying for 20 year old me alone.

As there was another house to view in this timeslot and it was across town, I set my phone to navigate and went to see the other.

It is in this little neighbourhood where there is this secret park that about three of four dead end streets end at it. 

I got there with three minutes to spare but the moment that I walked in I knew that it was not me. The agent opened with the fact that there was already a Southern offer on the table. There was a sunken lounge with a balustrade, a tucked away kitchen it was definitely waiting for a different family.

The next was in a different part of town and it is right at the very extreme end of my budget - but there was plenty of bang for that buck.

All of the boxes plus that little bit more. We want 3 bedrooms and maybe an office - this one has 5, an office AND a big-a$$ed media room. Want a pool - one so inviting I could see myself attracting many friends! Walk in wardrobe! Bathtub in BOTH bathrooms.

Way out of our league! Way way WAY!

Cherry on top is - you know The Griswalds? The Christmas themed neighbourhood they lived in? That is what this neighbourhood is renowned for - although doubtful that anyone could throw such a party, as the roads are closed during the peak pedestrian hours every evening.

The fourth house was in the same neighbourhood but the poor relation end. Yes a pool but the clothesline blocked one garage, a rainwater tank didn't attach to the broken gutters and one bedroom had two doors entering it side by side.

I know, picky picky picky.

I abandoned my quest before the fifth. It was in a further part of town near my worst ever workplace. That workplace has now moved but my Spidey senses said "you're not going to live here" and I listened.

Still, one of the blessings of the offer we have accepted is time. So we will keep using that.

The bleak February of 1954

Firstly a note - the story in the previous post was that - a story written for a prompt.

It did not happen. Well, it did but from my mind to your eyes.

This next story is true. And it has turned quite bleak so trigger warnings about death - in the past but still deaths are integral. But there is also other stuff.

Image - all images are screenshots of a local newspapers classifieds section. Call it "a take on modernistic scrapbooking for lazy people"

But it does get heavy.

I can only imagine what it was like for Dad.

Image - all images are screenshots of a local newspapers classifieds section. Call it "a take on modernistic scrapbooking for lazy people"

 You don't really need me to keep saying the image thing do you?

This morning, my Dad mentioned that it was 72 years to the day that his father died. 

My father has always remembered it to be a Black Friday, and folklore told of how he was advised on a school day - but instead I discovered only today (through independent research) it was a Saturday. In fact it was the Saturday that Queen Elizabeth the Second landed in Canberra.

Image - all images are screenshots of a local newspapers classifieds section. Call it "a take on modernistic scrapbooking for blah blah blah"

His recollection could indeed be true. He had been deposited at boarding school for the first time a week before. Perhaps he was notified when they knew that his father would not make it. Maybe they delayed telling it until after to soften the blow. Maybe they had Saturday prep. Anything is possible. The only one who could possibly answer that question is Dad.

Less than a month later, Dad and his box brownie were in the throng lining the street as Her Royal Majesty and Prince Phillip were driven past in an open car. The mythology of the subsequent photo is another we grew up with. It is no doubt in one of their boxes. Perhaps there are boxes that I have never opened.

Image - all images are screenshots of a local yokel tidbits of life.

In my research tonight, I discovered that the flood that Dad and his family travelled through to bury his father one week later was the same flood that his second cousin, a boy of seven, was one of

 "between 26 to 30 people died as a result of the flooding, severe winds and storm surges."

When I asked the internet about this relative by name (for I am currently "saving money avoiding ancestry" as it's new homes I need to hunt, not dead relatives - see how well that's going!), internet helpfully offered me his namesake on the other side of the world spotting trains on Facebook.

Image - all images are screenshots of a time and place that no longer exists.

Which I think is my sign from the universe that I need to sleep then hunt.

Sorry for the downer.

On the upside, houses have only risen a squidge.

Image

Night all.

Wednesdays Words on a Friday - Garden Centre Gnomes

River prompted me with her Wednesday's Words on a Friday

Apparently (and this is lifted directly from River's blog) this month the words/prompts are supplied by Lissa and can be found at her blog

This week's words/prompts are:

1.heartbreak 2.cheeseburger 3.postcard 4.afterlife 5.beachcomb

Charlotte's colour of the month is Electric Rose



So -

He was chewing heartily when he began to berate me out of the blue - that's right, a total stranger, no pause to swallow, just multi-tasking his way through cheeseburger whilst in the queue at the garden centre.

"Do you know what happens to people like you in the afterlife?  Its not a picnic, you know.  Its not a postcard from Sydney, its not find pearls when you beachcomb - you would find dog turds." He ranted on.

 I had tuned out at people like me.  I was wondering what bucket of human I had been scooped from in his mind to be worthy of this diatribe.  I began to meander through the corridors of people who would make up the halls of the afterlife with me.

And then I wondered about the colours of his damnation.  No doubt rainbow.  Perhaps all greens.  Scarlet, definitely - but what about pinks?  From Fuchsia through Electric Rose - but Blush - would that also be damnable?  And the Sunset Yellow in the tin that I was buying - I would have heartbreak if that was the colour of my slippery slope.

Luckily the line moved forward and he slurped his soft drink and found another target. 

A Quick 11pm post

 Oh goodness. I just went back to this day (ish) 17 years ago.

Breath-taking

I had been going to post about how different this 11 o'clock would have been been way back when.

And then 18 years ago - Always looking on the bright side

And then I went to 15 years ago - (nearly) teenagers and (nearly) toddlers

Oh! 10 years ago and A Yarn from 1982 - or why my mother didn't have a breakdown then, I will never know.

 

Has anyone else done a drift back in time?

Give me a blog post from your past.

Poet's Garret in Paradise

Given the proximal habits of garret, poet and poor in everyday life, it is no small wonder that my need to send a concise response to a proposed real estate transaction has me tongue- (or is it thumb-? (in these days of using the keyboard on the phone)) tied.

Image: 7.40am view of the Pacific Ocean with the sun glaring off the water and the white bonnet of the car. For full context, invoke McDonalds breakfast bribe for both of us, an inadequate coffee reinforcing the stark realisation that you no longer know how to order adequate coffee - and Paris is this side of the frame, too)

I have visions of being so rich that I could employ someone to do it all - find a house, sell a house, be a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a niece, an aunt, a friend, a poet, a blogger, a cook, a driving instructor, a volunteer it support and hold down a full-time job while I read books and researched dead people and be me - whoever that might be.

Image: the beautiful "house panther" Gangsterrr.

Maybe that will all change.

Image - sunset view from the balcony taken (and shared here on this blog some years ago)

The ball, it doth roll.

No image as I found no balls...

Home again

 I have returned from a 36 hour round trip to my parents.

Dad's niece (my cousin) turned 60 and Dad's brother-in-law (her father) 90 later in the year.

I stayed with Mum (with my sister's help) and a good time was had by all.

Image - a found pair of reading glasses, a charging cord and a water bottle. Background is a vinyl tablecloth with a rustic check pattern and flowers in green and yellow 

I have finished The French Revolution (well, Series Three of what threatens to be several more - it has become a running joke) and was cast into the audio wilderness on my drive home.

Due to no internet connection for the majority of the trip, sporadic mobile reception and negligible radio reception I was reduced to downloaded books or my wits. 

Image - a roundabout, locally known as roundabout as opposed to the turtle roundabout.  If you turn left off this roundabout you go along the front, rightish takes you the other way, to the basin and the playground with the wobbly thing and around past the golf club to eventually meet with you should you take the righter turn - if you go back the way you came you'd get back to the little roundabout.

If we are using similes regarding deserts and entertainment options then the books that I downloaded were a dune and a butte - I would love to say that my wits were an Oasis to complete the triumvirate but life is never that neat.

Image: wooden walkway along the front. On the other side of that strip of sand is the Pacific Ocean.

There wasn't even cricket this time around. And what with the moon in the mirror and the mosquitos and the sleeping in a strange bed the night before I needed something to keep me awake on the drive home today.

My first book was about Marple - right in the nerdzone for me. And there were a lot of my "ooh, did I read that one?" (Grandma M's bookshelves were amazing) - but there is only so much fictional character development you can take before you have to grapple with the creator, and Agatha can be challenging - or is that Enid? I conflate them at times.

(Should you desire, here is an Instagram of some excellent Miss Marple moments)

My other was a romcom that has had a few too many clangers that caught my ear and took me on tangents.

Like why was the main character going on about how the other main character was Australian, but obviously from her accent she too was from these fair shores and most of the book (well, 40% of what I have heard) is set in Australia 

Tomorrow is a day off work for house stuff and appointments. Today was a public holiday. We had pizza for dinner and didn't put any television on because the last night of school holidays can be watershed moments - can you believe Paris is within 2 years of finishing school?

Image: omg more stuff to pack and move before photos. A ladder, a surfboard and another stepladder.

And both V and I worked out that we have been in this house for longer than either of us have ever lived anywhere. For me 19 1/2 years!

What's your record?

A post about a post and a stick

 It is all kicking off soon...

The house sale process was going to happen a while ago but factors far beyond our control meant that we had a few days to get ready for Go Time on the house.

Of course, with my life being what it is at the moment, it really is only a few days.

A very few days.

Image is a black cat with a pink collar and yellow tag - very Carla Zampatti this season - laying on an old local newspaper and amongst unwrapped china. The green eyes evoke a defiant answer of wilful ignorance - or is it anarchy?

I work full-time - although chance and appointments have managed to break up every work week for the first five weeks of 2026.

My work has, through a business model imposed by their client's structures, required me to completely change a lot of rather nerdy things... But that wasn't what forced our delay.

Image is of a flood plain, lush and green and bisected by a large flood drain. There is a road with a right hook at a little bridge cleverly hidden by a power pole. There is a grey metal box that is something to do with the internet.

This weekend is a long weekend here. Monday is a public holiday and on this particular public holiday there is always a festival type thing at the public beach within walking distance of our house. 

So tomorrow a sign is being hammered in to our front yard to advise.

Image - this is not the sign that will be put in front of our house. The picture is of the local Catholic church up around the corner. I walk past it on my morning walk. The light behind the cross flicked out just after I took this picture earlier in the week. I don't know why - some people may theorise but not everything has to have explanation attached. Maybe just because.

However that handful of days that we had available to prepare did NOT include tomorrow as tomorrow I am travelling 200km to be with my beautiful Mum and lovely sister as my father will be celebrating my cousin's 60th and my uncle's 90th in a town 350km further on.

It's a lot of moving parts right now.

Image - the view the other way isn't bad either. Next doors wall accented by Alf's tree. Alf was our neighbour and the most interesting elderly Italian Guerilla Gardening gnome next door. When I first arrived 19 years ago he gave me tomato seeds but his last years were dedicated to his flame trees in council gardens so that his line of sight to the beach was marked well. A very lush lawn that honestly has grown since you were looking at it and in the distance an apartment complex.

And we too would love to see our new place - but we ourselves haven't found it yet. We have found a few places that will not be our new place.

Not a lot of them about either.

But I have confidence. It will happen.

6

Image: this is not a picture of current real estate prospects, rather appears to be a painting or print that my mother has had in her house for at least the majority of my life. It is an old weatherboard cottage surrounded by trees - there may be a water tank? It's on a hillside and the signature appears to be G Draissord?

I have been listening to a podcast on The French Revolution - I am on episode 4 of the third series and we have been lurching from one disaster to the next.

I can get through this.

Image - a meme stolen from the internet - I just googled and I am not the first to do so. Text says "One of the grand tragedies of history is that Maarten Nieuwenhove had a face born to wear an oversized Metallica t-shirt that smelled of weed but was forced to live in the 15th century" - nothing to do with French or Revolution I know. And unfortunately for Maarten, the only thing that he now known for unfortunately - a bit like Dr Guillotine I suppose.

BTW - things got interesting here while I was writing - a large stick insect had crawled through the slatted windows above the toilet. A BIG stick insect. 

V was advocating technology with a long handle via the vacuum. 

Paris had tried valiantly to be brave and capture it into a shoebox but her bravado failed at the last moment and so I was deputised (deputed?). 

I am the short one of the family and the slats are very tall. Unfortunately when the stepladder was brought in, the toilet blocked me horizontally so the tall ones had to work something else out. 

What worked in the end was a bigger stick for it to crawl upon then be moved back outside - it was last seen shaking it's fist at Paris - quite fitting.

Image - a meme. Text exchange between people approaching middle age that is somewhat amusing regarding technology and keeping secrets. Actuallychloehaseyes has typed "serious question for the millennials... my older cousin said she used to 'burn' cds for her crush. like... with (emoji of fire)?
was that a ritual? did it work? you guys were literally practising witchcraft just to get a text back? I'm scared of y'all (emoji of scary stuff)" beingiakezal responded "The old magic will not be discussed with the children of the new"

The so long thong song

(Cultural note - a thong in Australia is known as flip-flops or jandals or I don't know what elsewhere.  What some elsewhere people call a thong is a g-string here - glad we have cleared that up.  Below is regarding footwear not floss) 

 Lost in the annals of time,

Twas a tale of of a twin unentwined

On a merry-go-round dropped?

At a Mount Perry pit stop

My thong and her pair 

Split - life being unkind.

To a group Perry bound I lament-ed

The divorce left me hopping quite mad

For this "three pairs for ten"

The least worst of a neat half dozen

Slivered art between feet and and the pad.

For years long the lone thong 

Formed an alter - strong in the hope that she - the other, the lost - would walk right back in to our lives. 

Hope disintegrates to despair.

Unable to bear the pain of the lost possibility any longer 

One Tuesday evening I allowed her to be taken away in a rare Marie Kondo moment - was I wrong?

Christmas last my eldest 'Salina cleaned the inside of my car.

Dusted the dash,
Flossed the furniture,
Defragged the detritus tween the 

Here I have to interrupt myself - I was getting a bit d- d- d- and I thought that I would try my ham French on AI and see what we could do. I was trying to convey the concept of car seats using attempted phrasing of "derriere" and the places where one may put theirs, and I thought "throne" and put an extra d- in there to continue with alliteration and to an Aussie chick like me, that would be funny.

The French AI did not think that I was funny, and suggested that I not use the Anglo throne, perhaps I meant "troner" and so I thought " well it does sound more French-y, try that" and the dumb French AI dude said that traditionally the French did not associate the derriere with the "troner" and, well, you see what's going on.

Based on the search results, "trone derrier" (or likely trône derrière in French) refers to a few different contexts, primarily a phrase describing something sitting in a place of honor, or a specific design brand:

Trôner derrière (to sit/reign behind): Used to describe something prominently placed, such as a, "La patronne du magasin trône derrière la caisse" (The owner sits/reigns behind the cash register), or a large sculpture sitting behind a bar.

Trone (Parisian Design Brand): A brand specializing in modern, colorful, and unique ceramic toilets and bathroom fixtures.

"Sprout a craqué son slip" (TV Series): A series where a boy's best friend is his own butt (derrière), which sometimes rebels. 

If you were referring to a specific image or phrase in a context not listed here, please provide more details.

Cracking on with the thong.

So I tidied the pile left behind 

'Mongst the boxes of things that you find

When you sift through your life 

Mother and daughter and wife

And up pops this one of a kind.

"I found her" I glee with delight

Then it dawns with true oversight 

That it's never to be

Lest the fates intervene 

And I binned her pronto without fight.

Now the moral, I am sorry to say 

For this lament of the one believed astray

Is missing complete 

Like beneath the back seat 

The thong was going Schrodinger's way.

Sunday Selections

 I rarely follow blog themes, but on occasion get inspired. Unfortunately I don't really know the etiquette of memes but hat tip to River and Andrew who had their posts up this morning, thus striking the flame.

Image of a mob of Kangaroos across the road from my house. 

Kelly requested more roos. We regularly have many kangaroos - it may be the thing that we miss the most when we do move, as not many places in town offer this.

 

Painted sign on footpath advising "Slow Zone" with a snail image.  

Its amazing how many people meander along these paths - but they are a shared zone and there are also a lot of people who zoom along these paths on bikes (and even more horrifyingly, e-scooters and e-bikes) so there is a requirement to remind people to be considerate - this is near the playground, so even more so!

 

Image of very aged concrete with very little insects!!

I am not sure if you can see it, but in the crack in the driveway concrete there are several gazillion ants moving to higher ground with their eggs - a flood is coming!

 

Red grapefruit tree laden with green fruit (and a very lush lawn requiring attention_ 

The grapefruit tree (and the orange and the lemon) are all abundant with fruit this season - we are hoping that a few ripen before we leave, but that is in the hands of the real estate gods come 5th Feburary.

 

2 images of a garden bed planted with petunias, celosias and snapdragons and hemmed by bricks and concrete  

These photos were taken 2 weeks apart - the main difference being the effects of a pressure wash - I am hoping that those flowers get a go ahead soon but they are starting to put together a bit more colour.

 

4 panel cartoon - adult asks "How was school today Nelson?"  Nelson replies "A mean kid asked if I was a nerd."  Adult: "What did you say to him?"  Nelson: "I said I preferred the term 'Smarter than You'".  Attaboy.

 

Enjoy your Sunday folks!

 

On my list today is painting, packing boxes, taxiing the teenager, lawn-mowing and wondering what is for dinner - oh, and then making it, I suppose. 

 

(Apologies for the layout - blogger is having a tantrum!) 

Come Walk With Me

 I got up at stupid o'clock this morning - which was a half hour after I awoke.

I read blogs.  Many of you are cold.  Some of you are unwell.

So I thought that I would take you on a morning walk with me - through a corner of "Paradise".

Walk commenced at 5:05am...

 

This is the footpath from my place towards the Pacific Ocean. We were a bit unlucky this morning, as there are no roos here - normally there is a mob or two.

Turning right at my next street, this is my view towards my left (East) - the "Avenue of Pines" we will walk back past later. 

 Further along, this rock wall is built in the style of the walls that were built by South Sea Islanders in the late 1800s.   Unfortunately this region's sugar history includes usage of indentured labourers.

At the end of this street a large left loop takes me down to the beach for the walk back home. 

 

This "Turtle Tracks" playground was a bit of a hangout when both of my girls were little (I blogged about it in 2008!!) although it has had a few coats of paint to freshen it up over the years!

"This Avenue of Pines" reads the plaque "was donated by Mr and Mrs C Langbecker, in memory of their daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Charles Zunker, who lost their lives in a tragic cane fire in November 1953."

 

This is a small enough community that everyone knows someone who has been connected with this family.   

 

 

if you went straight ahead here, you would go past the headland where I married V and on to the public beach - but its only a short walk today (and I have spent a lot of time on the 45 photos that I took that blogger told me was too many) so we are instead turning left and going home.

Time to go to work.

(although I wrote this in the evening after, so actually time to go to bed) 

Good golly a post

The algorithm is not a new concept.

MMM mastery of the eighties gave me a ringside seat to lemming power.

The call to king and country enlivened the young men to plunder their lives for two memorable generations last century.

Bank crashes. Famine uprisings. Fires. Fashion choices and others reactions.

There is beauty sometimes in turning it all off. Don't you wish, at times, that we could turn naptime (totally keeping that autocorrect in) and look to the paper for what is on in our town to do and what people have done great things in our little community and some far off lands with funny names.

There is good in this instant connection but sometimes I wonder if the price is too high.

But then...

Did they wonder that at the advent of flight? Of automobiles? Of sailing ships? The sextant? The clock? Literacy?

Light relief.

Its been a weekend.

And it's only Saturday.

This was going to be a post about grandmothers and genetics and guilt.

Of goats and goat hay and green beans and corn.

It's V's birthday tomorrow. I remembered on my drive back today that the box of various cards that everyone has somewhere we have somewhere - in storage 

I do, however, know where I can lay my hands on A birthday card.

In the bag of paperwork I came across a card that had not been written in but I have no memory of ever buying.

I don't think that it will be suitable.

It is very specifically to a sister...

I had quite a drive home from my parents place this afternoon.

I didn't like my audiobook which meant that the was thrown to the mercy of what was on the radio and it was cricket.

Do you know that you can listen to the cricket, drive and think all at the same time? You sometimes need to turn it down when you have interesting bits of road, good views or if you want to make a call.

It was deemed by both the environment and weather departments that I would not be able to balance another verb to the pile and book the bowling alley thus ticking off an item on my list.

In fact, the technology department also stuck their oars in and insisted that not only would the phone not work. It would need a reboot.

So how was your day?