August ending

 The middle of our last weekend here and the end of the weekend there.

It has been a mostly busy day.  A "drop everything we are socialising and entertaining today" sort of day.

I really don't mean to be bossy. Honestly. I am happy to be a worker bee, a "tell me what to do and I will do it" kind of girl.

But I have been in situations where it has muddled and nobody stepped up in time to get it directed.

The trick, I think, is getting your timing right - so you are assured that nobody else has dibs and not realising until too late the requirement of the someone taking the reins is you. 

Judgement that the someone has thrown their hat into the ring they also worthy and not doing it just because - and not yielding to a claim of gazumping just because unless they are the perfect solution.

Aren't photos wonderful" they said. "They keep memories alive." Outside San Diego Zoo with V, mother-in-law and Paris. Really, it is!

Luckily in the scenario today I was always going to be "it". Mother-in-law had work until the last moment and momentum from several different directions had already come into play and needed harness.

I was so bossy today and yet I wasn't. As I said to my sister, I was merely a lollipop lady with a list. I love a good list!

It went relatively smoothly and there was more than enough in the way of food and drinks and connections made - and enough spots to hide if you are a shy teenager in a morass of adults or sneak off and watch baseball.

Nobody complained of being allocated tasks or denying then the honours, anyhow. Well, not yet but is a long weekend over here.

In what situations have you ever found yourself in a "needs must" role?

Communication

 Isn't communication a revolutionary thing? I mean, compared to the era of my 2x great grandparents and their family across the oceans or that of my greats without phones or grands without fax to parents starting to email and us with our old-hat blogs and Facebook while the next is IG, Snapchat and tiktok and who knows what into the future.

Today (which is a relative term), I am

• carrying on a conversation with a friend last seen in the early 80s in Rockvegas rowing on the Fitzroy;
• Having a meme conversation with an old work colleague;
• Operating multiple mobile phones profiling one another to find why one octogenarian's phone isn't receiving group photos connected to 19 relatives on that branch, of which statistically she numbered two! (All of you who have ever assisted older generations with any form of technology, nod slowly) (BTW I succeeded - it was not that she was not of the clan, it's that her phone had deemed the clan to be spam! It had also pocket-blocked a favourite nephew.
• Assisting only very slightly with the administration of the generation where computers and apps and mobile technology are definitely not second nature (or even placing)
• Giving opinions on the advisdedness of designating certain persons asshole status in certain almost certainly contrived situations 
• (Because surely to goodness nobody is that mean or thick)
• (Surely not)
• Peeking over the out-of-office notification of my work emails to see who might be making a dartboard with my picture while I continue to swan it up 
• Expanding the branches of the family tree in a few new directions with living sources, and 
• Ordering food for eight people.

I certainly could not have done that in yonder days...

It was the sort of day that doesn't get a title

 It was a day of waiting for phone calls and seeing adjusters and listening to the constant whine of a compressor drying the walls and us determinedly not being driven up them.

I finally watched whole episodes of Downton Abbey (very late to that party) and did loads of washing and mother-in-law recut hair (still perfect but now tapered more) and redid Paris's highlights and we had ravioli and played pool badly.

See - more taper here

I also had some technical issues. Due to something or other Luddite my phone is not esim compatible which is as much research as I have done regarding connectivity while here.

This hasn't limited me too much as mother-in-law has WiFi and folks that I need to talk to here are all contactable via mother-in-law and folks that I need to talk to elsewhere I can get through social media so have had little to require it. 

One day of international roaming costs $10, and it is charged for 24 hours from the moment you accept a call or text or make one.  

I did pay for 1 day to speak to Paris's school so she could continue with her work.

However today I should have known there would be issues as Dad, who I ring nearly every morning at 7.25am, couldn't pick up his end because Messenger would ring once and disappear. He then sent me a voicemail which I couldn't download and we continued in this fashion until he rang again and I, despite the dose of Scots, answered the $10 phone call.

Which was very stressful for both of us - no video for Dad meant a huge comprehension issue and on his end the line kept dropping out until it disconnected and I couldn't get through calling back.

Luckily my sister-in-law went to see them today.

Then I got an extended family message to beat the drums for another of the older generation and so I did what I could from here that someone will be able to advise the right people. 

I even inadvertently discovered another familial vendetta that one particular branch specialises in which is just so petty and tiresome. Just passing along news, not looking to start, maintain or broker anything here!

Instead of Amtrak we caught the umm track

 Today the plan was rise early, catch the train North along the coast to a site where V misspent part of his youth, stay the night and return on the morrow.

Instead, water views were on offer in unusual places here and many administrative duties undertaken to alleviate that situation.

Amtrak refunded the tickets.

The flood was 12 hours too late to cancel our accommodation.

A pipe inside a wall behind the fridge had developed a leak and the leak had developed into a stream when my mother-in-law noticed when searching for a 3am peanut butter snack.

The damage wasn't the worst that it could be. Phone calls have been made and received, one guy put blue tape on bits of wall and a noisy machine with pipes dehumidifying the wall, another guy checked a temporary fix and took photos for a report for insurance and we will have another few guys around at 9 tomorrow to talk how many 0s might be involved.

It's going to be a few uncomfortable days and possibly a bit of wall repair.

But it was Providence at work, because I sure as heck wouldn't have wanted to have gone away and returned to the damage that could have been done.

And we therefore also got to get a bit of shopping done closer to home so not all wasted 

150 years ago

 A 17 year-old came out on assisted passage - Alfred Benjamin Martin - alone amongst 350 on the "Isles of the South" (check out this trove article by the captain on the voyage - the man should take a masterclass in understatement - would go nicely with a decent port!)

Six years hence he married a 20 year old German girl who had lived half her life in Queensland. Wilhelmina - or Minnie - Schultz.

Over the next 10 years , four children had been born and the wife had died when the youngest was not yet three years old. I saw a very old photograph of them - Bennie,  Rosie, Lennie and Lillie.

He brought his father (Alfred) and 3 siblings out to Australia from a changing England - an older sister (Esther) and two much younger brothers (William and George).

The sister looked after these four motherless children until a business discussion led to a new wife nearly half his age. Phoebe Emma (or Anne - it appears interchangeable) Edwards.

I have several matrons in the family tree who had a dowry. Both have stories attached.

One great great grandfather - no relation to the above for another generation - was a total scoundrel but did not touch the 1,000 pounds that his wife Hannah brought with him.

But this great grandfather was a great bloke and friend to all, had well-taxed deep pockets and Phoebe's 10,000 but 5 years later Phoebe had four well-married stepchildren, a 19 year old son (another Alfred - James Alfred),  a sadness (Hector died at 1 day old and there is a family story told many years later that there were up to 10 pregnancies) and two late surprises with an 8 year old girl (Jean) and a 4 year old boy (Ian - my grandfather) - widow's weeds and a line of business associates of her late husband requesting that she waive the IOUs that were due - and less than 400 with no money coming in.

He was many more things than the above in his amazing life - he was a scholar, an engineer, a mill manager and spokesperson for all things sugar in the region - first Mackay and then Maryborough, both serving pivotal roles in his life journey.

But back to the trove story - unfortunately this post - I was about to make up a word - anniverses - does it work? This post doesn't anniverse the story with hailstones

 A very heavy N.W. gale was experienced on the 27th, in latitude 33° S. and longitude 155°* E., with much thunder, lightning, and large hailstones. A sudden shift to S.W. (for which we had prepared ourselves) took place, and a new inner jib paid the penalty and was

blown almost to rags, the sheet of which was flogged into quite a "Gordian knot," which took some pains to unravel.

but instead, it would have been the month prior 

On August 24 (62 days out) we passed the meridian of Cape Aguthas, in lat. 44° south, and then a fair run of 233½ miles a day for 27 days was made. On August 29 Flog Island, one of the Crozet Group, was sighted ; and on this parallel of 45° south we continued to run down our easting, during which mostly favorable weather was experienced with an occasional gale and a high sea to break the monotony of the day's routine. 

But that is Captain J. D. B. le Conteur for you - understated!