Catching up with a cousin...

Today DH and I again went up to Toowoomba. This time my brother and his partner also came along...they both took a day off work...

So what was so special about going to Toowoomba today? My cousin Liz and her husband Allan were going to be there on their journey home to Corowa (in southern NSW), from Badu Island ( in Torres Strait to the north of the mainland) where they have managed a supermarket for 3 years. Liz and Allan wanted to avoid driving into Brisbane as they felt that its traffic would be rather overwhelming so we organised to meet in Toowoomba. 

Liz is very special to my brother and I. In 1999 she gave him the information he needed to find his birth mother; that last piece of the 'jigsaw', was my phone number. He had written to Liz but had never met her so he was thrilled to learn that he could thank her in person. I finally met Liz in 1973 but, encouraged by our grandmother, we had written letters to each other in our teens. I found her a few years ago on Facebook and have shared old family photos with her via that medium.

Liz as a debutante; a photo that she sent to me in our letter writing days...

A photo I took of Liz in 1973...

We all had a lovely lunch at a Teahouse near Liz and Allan's motel at Highfields and talked about our family, especially our late grandparents and Liz's mother, my Aunty Mary. My brother has also done a lot of research on my grandfather's side of the family, so his notes piqued Liz's interest in doing some work on the family tree. 

Posing for a photo today...



The last 3 photos show the smoke from a number of fires burning around Toowoomba, Grantham and Gatton. It's obviously very worrying for those communities...