Happy 40th Ben

Today is my son Ben's 40th birthday and of course my thoughts turn to Peter whose birthday is tomorrow. 

When Peter turned 40 we had been back living here for over twelve months, and he was entrenched in his third career change; when I turned 40 I had had three children, was working part time and had just started studying again.Somehow Ben doesn't seem as old or experienced as we were, but I know that he has had many more varied life experiences than either of us at the same age.

When Ben was born I was 24 years old and Peter was one day off 27. We thought we were so worldly wise  ready to take on this new phase of our lives. In reality we were dreadfully under-prepared and our lives were never the same again.

The day that Ben was born was a cool November day, very similar to the weather we have been experiencing lately. I now know that we went to the hospital way too early, but I was unsure of what to do and impatient to meet my first born child.

As a result, we spent most of the day walking on the edge of the lake and waiting for labour to set in or risk being sent home. That would have been the ultimate humiliation, to have to go home and come back another time!

Fortunately my friendly GP decided to intervene in the early evening by breaking my waters and Ben was born just before 8 pm that night. Our family began with the birth of my parents' first grandchild, my grandmother's first great-grandchild and the fifth Kendall grandson

Day 30!!!! Fond memories of Paris

So I have made it to day 30 of the 30 Day Blogging Challenge where I undertook to post once a day for 30 days. I have surprised myself at the persistence I have exhibited and I am hoping that it has not been too tedious for anyone who has been reading my blog posts.

I was planning to do another post today with more pictures describing the next stage of our trip to France in 2014, but with all the sad, sad news coming out of Paris today I think I will just post a few of my favourite Paris photos and send heartfelt loving energy to everyone in that beautiful city.

Week 4 roundup

This week I managed to again post every day to my blog, although I wasn't able to get through my planned sequence of travelling through France. Doing that should see me through to the end of the 30 Day Blog Challenge and then I can decide how often I plan to regularly post if not every day.

Here's a brief run down of what you missed if you  haven't yet discovered my website.

Day 22: Week 3 of Grandmarg's blog
Day 23: Travelling from Sydney to Hong Kong on the way to Paris 
Day 24: Day 2 - Arriving in Paris and exploring alone
Day 25: Neighbours - how much I loved our neighbours, and why
Day 26: Going to school - how I continued to hate going to school
Day 27: Misunderstood - addressing a writing prompt
Day 28: July road trip - some photos from my solo road trip

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July road trip

In July of this year I went on a solo road trip where I met up with old friends, went to a family reunion and explored several places I had never been to. 

Misunderstood

The eight year old girl never felt that she could tell her Mum or Dad how she was feeling: her mother always seemed so busy with the younger children at home and she didn't want to bother her any more than necessary, and her father was always so tired and distracted when he came home long after dark that she didn't talk to him either.

She continued to ask herself for many years why she always felt she could never talk to her parents about what mattered in her life, what frightened her and what didn't, what she was proud of and what she was ashamed of. 

Finally the answer came to her: as the eldest child she was always told that she was the big girl, older than the others, able to cope; but all she ever wanted was for someone to get it, to understand, to say, " I know how you're feeling."

If only someone had sat her down and asked some questions about how she was feeling and what was bothering her, she may have learnt to cope with change more readily at a much earlier age, because sometimes she didn't feel so grown up and just wanted a little babying. 

She wasn't looking for someone to fix the situation, just another person who could understand and let her know they understood. 

Going to school - Kywong

When I was five years old I started school. I had to go on the school bus and every day I hated leaving my family. 

Dad would drive me to catch the bus and my heart would sink when I saw the bus coming around the corner. I used to cry a lot and I told Mum that some of the kids on the bus teased me; I don’t think they really did tease me, I think I was just plain miserable at having to go to school and needed an excuse for crying so much.

However, I do remember having some happy times at school, especially an occasion when the School Inspector, Mr Lake, came to school and I had to read for him in front of the class. I loved to read and this was probably when I first realised that sometimes other people had trouble making sense of the words on the page.

First aid was a concern because our school was so remote, without even a telephone to contact the outside world. Friar’s Balsam was the universal antidote for all manner of cuts and scrapes and if you had a toothache during the school day the headmaster would give you Oil of Cloves to relieve the pain.

On one occasion the school photographer arrived unannounced for school photos and we had to tidy ourselves up very quickly; it must have been a very quick preparation because in that photo my hair is standing up on end.

Growing up in such a large family circle should have assured me of plenty of self confidence but it didn't. I really hated going to school, I hated having to go to travel on the bus and I think I just hated any change in my life. 

It must have been so hard for Mum to send me off sobbing every day on the school bus. I know how she must have felt because I experienced the same thing some 40 years later when Amy was going to school most unwillingly.

Knowing what I now know I would have taken Amy’s concerns more seriously and sought professional help for us all. I was struggling to commute to work full time in Canberra as well as study part time by distance, and Peter was working at the gaol so he was often not available to help out. We got through those difficult years somehow but I still feel sad and I do hope that Amy realises that I did the best that I could at the time.

I still feel anxious when I think of little tots starting school and I already wonder how my own grandchildren will go when it’s their turn. 

Just the thought of having to leave someone so young for a whole day in a group situation fills me with trepidation – my heart starts to pound and I feel the anxiety flood through me. But why do I feel this way? Am I just transferring the memory of my own experiences onto my grandbabies? Both Sally and Ben went to school with very few problems but perhaps I identified more with Amy than with them.

Neighbours

 From the time I was born until I was ten years old I felt nothing but unconditional love for our next door neighbours.

I was extremely fortunate to live on a farm next door to my father’s parents and I saw them almost every day of my life.

In my memory we are always seated around the large kitchen table having morning tea, afternoon tea or lunch. There is always a crowd of people there - my uncles, aunts, grandfather, Dad, and sometimes also shearers and other workmen. 

The kitchen always smells of delicious meals, soups, roasts, and of course fruit cake and slice. I always have a cup of cocoa with the adults because my grandfather makes it deliciously sweet and creamy, just the way I like it.

Soon after, my grandfather died, my uncle married, my aunt returned to live at home with her two children, and then we moved far away from that encompassing circle of family love.

The magical spell was broken but those happy times will remain always in my memory.

Day 2 - Arriving in Europe and exploring Paris alone

The longest leg of our journey to Europe was from Hong Kong to London, a total of 11 hours in the air but mercifully most of the trip was in the evening.

We arrived in Paris at about 9.00am and then had an unplanned free tour of Paris attractions as our (replacement?) shuttle bus driver took a small bus load of jet lagged tourists all around Paris hoping our hotels would magically appear:-). He was so stubborn that he would not admit he was lost, kept checking maps on his phone and even resorted to asking people at traffic lights for directions. We FINALLY arrived at our very posh hotel Hilton La Defence after 2 hours of driving around Paris. 

We settled in and dozed for the afternoon and then ordered Room Service for our first French meal - Croc Monsieur, yum!

We had a free day before joining our Trafalgar tour so decided to spend the day having our own tour of Paris. Trevor was extremely jetlagged and couldn't wake up so we left him to sleep it off.

After a couple of hiccups we managed to negotiate the Metro and found ourselves at Gare Saint-Lazare. I realised that I was REALLY in Paris seeing places I had only read about, and was also hearing and still understanding the language I had learnt some 45 years ago. I was ecstatic!

We hopped on and off a Big Red Bus Tour of Paris. Here Wendy admires the
beautiful River Seine.

One of our stops was at the Musee d'Orsay where I photographed this magnificent horse for Wendy's grand daughter who loves horses.

After meeting up with our tour group we were taken for dinner to this beautiful restaurant overlooking the Louvre. We watched the sunset from the terrace and then went inside for our meal.

2014 - my life long dream fulfilled

Day 1 - Sydney to Hong Kong

In late September 2014 I finally realised a long anticipated dream - to travel to Europe, especially to France, and more especially to Paris. My friend Wendy was my travelling companion and she brought along her well travelled friend TTTT (Trevor the Travelling Teddy.) In anticipation of boring friends with MILLIONS of photos on our return, I set up a Facebook page to share photos each day. This page was called Griswald Grannies Do Europe and was a great hit amongst our friends.

Trevor was ready before us, waiting patiently for Wendy's son Tim who was our trusty chauffeur to Sydney.











We stayed overnight in Sydney so that we could be at the airport with plenty of time to spare the next day. 

While waiting to depart Wendy took some basic French lessons from Trevor. He told me she was a good student but needed to keep practising.







After what seemed like the longest day we arrived in Hong Kong and I began my photo frenzy, snapping pics of the amazing ultra modern Hong Kong airport.

We were labelled (in case we wandered off?), very efficiently collected and delivered safely by mini bus 

to  our beautiful hotel the Eaton. 

A good night's sleep and a restful day in and around the hotel's luxury coffee shop prepared us for the next leg of our trip, overnight to London.

Best of GrandMarg's Blog week 3

Celebrating three weeks of continuous blog posting

This week I have continued with my plan to alternate photos and writing, and although I have not yet had anyone comment on my posts I have had a few more lookers. I am happy that I have managed to post something every day for the past 3 weeks.

Here's a brief run down of what you missed if you  haven't yet discovered my website.

Day 16: Best of GrandMarg's Blog - week two(ish)
Day 17: Deep Sleep - written on a tired Friday
Day 18: Flowering succulent - photos of my beautiful cactus
Day 19: Language - addressing a writing prompt
Day 20: Spider webs - photos of spider webs taken this year
Day 21: Bus stop - how I hated going to school on the bus

In the next week I plan to combine writing and photos of my European trip last year, and by the time I have finished that my 30 days of blogging will be complete.

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Bus stop

I hated going to school as a young child, especially having to travel on the school bus– having to get onto the bus in front of so many others who often jeered at me, being squashed into the bus, sitting next to people I didn't like and didn't want to sit next to.

The bus was noisy and hot in summer and cold in winter; someone always seemed to be having ‘wars’ with someone else and there was always some ill feeling in the air.

************************************************************************

The timid six year old waited anxiously for the bus to arrive, fighting bravely against waves of dread at having to say goodbye to Dad or Mum. Getting on the already crowded bus packed with noisy kids who would invariably jeer or make fun of her was the biggest challenge she faced each school day. Every morning it was something different – the colour of her jumper, the shoes she wore, the size of her school bag, how her hair was parted – so she never knew what she could have done that day to try and avoid criticism.

She just wished that she didn't always feel so different to everyone else.

 

Once she arrived at school the day would go smoothly, as she usually got top marks for her spelling and reading. However this also drew attention to her and gave her enemies more fodder for tomorrow’s teasing; but still she was never deterred from trying to always do her best.

Going home on the bus every afternoon was another harrowing experience to be endured. If she had had a successful day at school there would certainly be comments made about how ‘brainy’ she was, how she must read encyclopaedias for bedtime reading, how she was just being so smart to show everyone else up.

Somehow the half hour bus trip to her stop passed before the next hurdle came. Would someone be waiting to meet the bus or would they be running late?

If there was no one there to meet her she knew the ritual – get off the bus, and walk about 500 metres down the dusty country road to the first house where Mr & Mrs Byrnes lived.

“Gran” Byrnes and her husband, “Grand Mister” were old people about her grandmother’s age who had never had children but loved everybody else’s as their own. Gran Byrnes was a wonderful cook and always had lovely fairy cakes or chocolate slice or date scones for afternoon tea.

It was a long lonely walk in the heat anxiously scouring the roadside for suspicious creatures and jumping at every rustle in the grass, but she knew that once she reached the house she would have fun waiting for Mum or Dad to pick her up.

Spiderwebs...a little late for Halloween

I continue to be entranced by spider webs and I love to catch them with a  little dew or frost highlighting them. This is a selection of ones I photographed earlier this year.

 

Language

She continued to listen to her iPad, trying to implant the once familiar French phrases into her subconscious. Each phrase she heard made the language more real to her and she could see the words written in her minds-eye. 

This preparation was for the much anticipated trip to Paris, another item to be crossed off her bucket list.

The plan had been to travel in June of the next year, stay with the young people in London and then cross the Channel, explore Paris and have a bus trip around France. 

The savings plan went well for a while but several unexpected expenses dented the nest egg and now she was facing the prospect of having to defer the trip. 

This was not a particular concern to her as she preferred to travel when she had adequate money, but she was dreading the disappointment in her son's voice when she had to tell him of her changed plans.

2.12.12

Flowering succulent

This beautiful plant surprised me by flowering for the first time
last year and did not disappoint this year.

This is a close up of one of its flowers; the photo does not do it justice.

I tried to get a shot from directly above
but don't think it was as successful as I had hoped.

Deep sleep

In a deep sleep
With endless dreams
Caught in the momentum 
of continual dreaming
I know that I must wake soon.

Waking finally
I fight through depths of sleep
Until eyes finally open
And consciousness returns.

Dull headache
And hot wind outside
Make me grateful that today is Friday.

8.11.13

Best of GrandMarg's Blog - week two(ish)

This week I have kept up with the 30 Day Blogging Challenge by posting every single day, I have revamped my blog page trying out a new look and I have started to alternate photos and writing in keeping with my new look page.

Here's a brief rundown of what you missed if you  haven't yet discovered my website.

Day 11: Seven word Sunday (on Tuesday)-my attempts at writing Small Stones
Day 12: Spring comes to the garden - 6 photos of our Spring garden
Day 13: My slow but steady fitness quest - how I am starting to walk more frequently
Day 14: Day 14, more flowers - some more photos of our garden
Day 15:Albert Hall Canberra 1944 - how I imagine my parents met


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