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?