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Wednesday, February 28, 2018

A little more of February 1968...

In the last post I forgot to write about an outing 'to the pictures' (as the movies/cinema were described in my youth). 

By 1968, many of the suburban picture theatres had closed and a trip to the city theatres was still a special outing. So it was in February 1968, I was taken on a movie date by a 'beau from school' called Ron. The movie was 'Thoroughly Modern Millie', starring Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Channing. My diary entry recorded, ' The movie was absolutely marvellous ' and I continued on, 'Ron paid $1.85 each for the seats' followed by lots of exclamation marks!!!! Obviously quite expensive compared to the suburban theatres. 


I do remember loving the movie so much that I went to it again that year as well as watching reruns on TV over the years. 

February 1968...

So it's back to that little old diary of mine for a round up of that month in my Grade 12 year. 

The school year had started, so many of the entries are about school. My high school had opened in 1963 so it was still fairly new. For my first 4 years at the school, extensive building works continued with at least one new classroom block added each year. In 1968, I vaguely recall that there was no building going on so the noise levels were down, as was the dust!
The photo shows the first block built...A block.

February started off at school with me being chosen to read the prayer on weekly assembly. Ha ha! No prayers these days at state schools...not for years and years! In the following weeks of February, the staff chose the Prefects and from then on, only prefects read the prayer...and no I wasn't chosen as a school leader.
In the Feb 5 entry I described the new students in my class...it's only looking back now that I realise how difficult it must have been for those young people starting at a new school in Grade 12!  In a bit of school gossip, I wrote about a girl called Sheryl M who had returned to school after giving birth to twins in the previous year...can't remember it though 😉
Now something else that I'd forgotten until I read it in the February entries, was that a girl called Alison F was 'giving me a hard time'. Surprising that as I know that in the future, I had invited her to my (first) wedding in 1972, so we must have become friends eventually! Lol
Despite being early in the school year I complained about the workload in Geography, Modern History and Modern History. I mentioned in one entry a novel that we had to read in English; one that probably most students had to read...'The Red Badge of Courage'...😕
I don't think this was the cover of mine in 1968, but who knows, it might have been! Lol

Talking of my English class, I described our teacher thus...' Mr Marks, as usual, was hilarious! He's not sure of anything.' Harsh words! In the same entry I wrote how he played a tape of the play Macbeth for a double English period; that was 80 minutes! No discussion of the plot, characters etc, we just followed the script of the play in our textbooks while the tape played! By jingo, we were a polite class! Years later I met Mr Marks and after a bit of chit chat, I said to him, 'You didn't really like/enjoy teaching senior English, did you?' His answer was non committal, but as a teacher by then of some 30 years experience, I already knew the answer.
In another Feb entry I wrote about borrowing a book from the school library. The title was 'The Grand Sophy' and when I read that entry I had no idea of what the book was...so I googled it and it's a Georgette Heyer book. Didn't think it was my style but then remember my friend's mother lending me a copy of the book 'These Old Shades', another Heyer book, so maybe I was into those kinds of romances when I was 16 going on 17 😉.
So outside of school, what did February 1968 have in store for me?
I obviously wrote letters to friends; 2 that I mention are still friends today. Another friend that I regularly wrote letters to was mentioned. Dawn got married at 16 ( you know the term, 'had to get married' 😮) to a serviceman and with their baby, went to live in Malaya where her husband was stationed at Butterworth. We wrote lots of letters while she was away and in Feb 1968, she wrote that they were coming home. My entry on this was showed my excitement at this news.
I wrote of a row with my mum with her withdrawing permission to go on a church camp with the youth group at my friend's church...what a meanie! Lol. I don't say why I was in so much trouble but I vaguely remember my mother saying that she didn't like the youth leader, so she was probably protecting me.
The weather was hot that February with temperatures of 95 degrees F for days on end. I wrote about mowing the lawn in that heat for my mum who was widowed by this time.
Some entries were about visits to the shops. My suburb had had a shopping arcade built in the 1960s which was pretty swish for a suburb then 😉. At the newer chemist shop I bought a hair rinse ( didn't tell mum though!). I even wrote the name of the colour rinse in my diary, 'Kiss of Smoke' and I concluded after putting it in my hair that it , ' didn't make any difference!' Obviously my hair was too dark to let the colour of the rinse show. 😆
Another shopping trip was to the local Barry and Roberts store. ( a family owned department and grocery store. The stores all closed in the early 1980s)
Photo below shows the Barry and Roberts store in my suburb. ( Source; BCC-B54-15245)

On this shopping trip I bought some lemon colored linen. The diary described how I drafted a pattern from the New Idea magazine, for a dress which crossed over at the front and had a ruffle that went from hemline to neck on the edge of the crossover. Now when I read the next bit, I laughed and laughed at my optimism/naivety/ stupidity 😂😂😂😂
I mentioned that I had planned to have this new dress finished by the time all the Grade 12s attended a night time performance of our set play Macbeth at Festival Hall in the city. Being a state school we were allowed to wear ordinary clothes for excursions out of school hours. Well Miss 16 y/o Maria thought that a lemon linen dress could work magic...here's what I wrote...cringe cringe.
' hope to wear the dress to Macbeth to impress Patrick T' !
Well it didn't work! Lol. Our paths never crossed! 

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

The Wiggles! Lol

Most weeks, at least once per week, DH picks up Miss A ( eldest granddaughter) early from Daycare and brings her home to our place. The routine is usually some afternoon tea, playing with the toys in Grandma's toy box (😉😆), reading stories, helping getting the washing off the line, a little trike riding, even running under the garden sprinkler but when 'us oldies ' start to flag, it's time to watch a Wiggles show on Netflix!

Lots of dancing required!

I always joke with Miss A that I want a red car just like the Wiggles car!  😉😂
So out come the photos that were taken on our trip to the Powerhouse Museum last year and in particular the Wiggles Exhibition...


The exhibition also featured the Cockroaches which was the pop band that the original Wiggles' members  formed long before they became the Wiggles...

Ah hah! There's that car!!!

I just couldn't resist climbing into it!

But hang on...I urged DH to take the photo again...

That's better...the classic index finger waggling was needed! Lol

Saturday, February 24, 2018

Another Quick Trip to Toowoomba...

Poor DsD1 is still in hospital as she awaits the birth of their first baby. Because her home is 4-5 hours away from Toowoomba and its medical specialists, the obstetrician has kept her there under supervision and care.
So on the Monday before last, DH and I took another trip up to visit her. The road to Toowoomba from Brisbane is good and traffic was light on the mostly dual carriage way highway.

St Vincent's Hospital is like a lot of hospitals with old and new sections and with lots of 'rabbit warren' corridors and confusing levels! ( yes I did get lost when I attempted to go out to the car park on my own and had to ask a staff member where the exit to the front of the building was! Lol)

Some nice landscaping near the front entrance...

DH went into the CBD for lunch...it was a great view from the rooftop car park.

We planned to head back to the hospital for another short visit later in the afternoon, but before that, DH suggested a drive to the new airport that has been built just outside Toowoomba. This airport was built by private enterprise; a local family company.

We could see the terminal building on our right  had a few kilometre drive straight ahead before the road curved around....

Nearly there!

The drop off area for passengers...

Parking is free for 3 hours, so we parked in the large one level car park and walked to the terminal...yes! I did say 'free'!

The terminal is very nice, but as there were no flights due in the next 2 hours that day, it was very quiet and the coffee shop was closed.

As we were leaving, a shuttle bus arrived but I was a bit slow getting a photo...so just a part of the bus is in the photo! Lol. If you look at the lettering on the right of the photo you may see that this airport is known as Wellcamp Airport, situated in Brisbane West...about 2 hours west of Brisbane actually 😉.

Driving to and from the airport, I got to see more of the Toowoomba area than I normally see. Hopefully next visit, we can go to a favourite spot of mine there...Picnic Point.




Friday, February 23, 2018

A Second Birthday! 

February has been a busy month and one special event was our eldest granddaughter's second birthday celebrations.
The actual birthday was on a Thursday and some of the family gathered at the playground at a local library for a little morning tea, some gift giving followed by Rhyme Time in the library. DH and I decided that we would give our gifts to the birthday girl that day...

Another 2 titles in the much loved 'hippo series' by Hazel Edwards as we knew how much Miss A loves  'There's a Hippopotamus on our Roof Eating Cake'!

To help act out the stories we added a lovely hippo puppet and a wooden High Tea set. ( forgot to take a photo of the latter, but it had lots of 'cakes' in the box! Lol

DsD2 said that the puppet would be a hit and later on sent us a photo of Miss A, napping with him/her 😍.

The big celebration was on the Saturday. The venue was Bunya Crossing Reserve which is situated on Bunya Creek, just north of our suburb. It's a very popular place for families, just like all the river and creek crossings where my generation would swim in the 50s and 60s...very few pools in those days!

And the bunting I made for A's first birthday had its second airing...( two photos of it merged into one)

I still wasn't very well, so settled myself into a chair and cuddled grandchildren...

The thoughtful birthday girl took time out to check on her baby cousin...

And of course every birthday party needs a birthday cake and DsD2 made a cute duck cake...

What a lovely way to celebrate a birthday!



Monday, February 19, 2018

St Valentine's Day; 1968 and 2018

When I read through my 50 year old diary earlier this year, I was both charmed by part of the entry  for February 14 and also found some of the entry cringeworthy! Lol. Then I shared with my schoolmates with whom I'm still in contact. 


Yes, my classmate Richard gave me an iced biscuit with a heart piped on it with 'M' in the middle. Now Richard  and I are friends on Facebook, so I sent him just the first 4 lines. He didn't remember it of course but we had a laugh together. 

Here he is at a class reunion a few years ago...


The diary entry shows that I was a fiery girl...apparently a fellow student called Pat P accused me of sending him a love letter for Valentine's Day. From what I wrote, I seemed to know it was another student with the initials CP who wrote this letter. I've checked the class photo and there were 2 people with these initials. I couldn't imagine one of them writing it but the other was a great mate of mine with a wicked sense of humour and I CAN imagine her writing it. Lol!!! You see, this Pat P was a real sleaze...if he sat next to you in the library, he would rub his foot up and down a girl's leg 😬. Maybe that's why I slapped him that day in 1968! Fiery!!!

Anyway enough of the past...DH and I rarely celebrate Valentine's Day by going out to a restaurant, usually preferring to having a nice home cooked meal. Sometimes I might be surprised with some flowers and sometimes I would buy DH a nice bottle of red. But this year my friend who owns a cafe was having a special St Valentine's Dinner so I decided to 'shout' DH to a night out. 



It was a wonderful night; worth every penny. My previous experience with St Valentine's Day dinners at restaurants was overcrowding and food obviously not freshly prepared; just squeezing a many people in as possible. Not so at Crema and Cream! 

The food was gorgeous...the handmade ravioli for entree...( photo from the Crema and Cream Facebook page) 


DH and I chose the salmon for our main course...delicious! ( photo also from the cafe's FB page)


Others chose the duck...from the comments at nearby tables, it was as divine as our salmon. ( photo from Crema and Cream Facebook page) 


The dessert was a shared plate of all sorts of sweet treats...mmmmm 😊. 

At the end of the evening my friend gave each of the ladies present a 'rose' and asked us to guess what it was made of. It had a slight fragrance like Vanilla but I couldn't work out what it was made of...


Eventually Gracelyn told us...it's made out of soap! When we want to wash our hands, we just have to pull a petal off, wet it, and wash our hands! Amazing how lifelike it looks! 

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Oh darn!!!

A few posts ago I wrote about my upcoming wisdom tooth extraction. This all happened on February 1 with the procedure taking 15 mins ( I'd been given a 45 minute appointment) and despite the tooth being mostly below gum level, it all came out cleanly with no bits breaking off...which apparently can happen occasionally. And no stitches were required either. The next day I needed only one strong painkiller tablet and I thought , ' so what's all this fuss about wisdom teeth?'. Bad move...
Day 3 I woke up with a feeling like I'd been punched in the jaw. And my left eye socket hurt and my left cheekbone also hurt. So out came the ice packs for the sore jaw, heat pack for the sore cheek and nose and the Panadeine tablets again. And I was so tired and was even shivering in our hot summer weather...I retreated to DH's recliner chair.

 Eventually after a particularly bad night, on Day 5 I went to the GP. Despite a lot of mouth pain, she felt that the wound wasn't infected as she couldn't see any redness or swelling around it, but I had swelling on the left side of my face and was also running a fever. So an antibiotic was prescribed.
After 3 days of these tablets, yesterday I started to feel almost human again...the mouth pain had eased and this seemed to coincide with my needing to blow my nose a lot...it was streaming with some rather nasty mucus that smelled of a mix of sulphur and bitumen...what a combo eh?? I'd been tasting something similar for a few days before.
So this evening, I have energy, 3 more antiobiotic capsules to take tomorrow to finish the course, and thankfully no more 'runny nose' or yucky taste in my mouth. There's just the gland on the left of my neck that's still a bit swollen.
So whether removing an infected impacted wisdom tooth caused all this...who knows? But I hope the other 3 wisdom teeth stay nicely in their gums and cause me no problems whatsoever.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Wool on Sunday

Probably that should be amended to Cotton on Sunday as will become apparent soon.

The genesis for this post starts back on January 22 at the Redcliffe Hospital, just to the north of Brisbane.



DD1's baby girl was born at 3.04 am by emergency C-section after DD1's blood pressure rose alarmingly after a long time in labour.  Both mum and baby have done really well after that was all over and done with. My daughter and her husband have asked that photos are not posted publicly so this next photo doesn't show Baby Carrie's little face...



The little one is the 'spitting image' of her dad! 😍

DD1 had chosen some colours from the Patons Cottonblend range for me to make Carrie's blankie. It only has another 9 or so inches left to go before it's finished. (Cotton works so well for these summer babies as my stepdaughter would attest to. Anthea now has hers in the cot, just as a light cover.)

Carrie's blankie so far...



I noticed on a number of blogs that people are doing 10-15 minutes of sewing most days. I think it's a great idea but wouldn't publicly commit to it myself. Nevertheless, over a couple of days I made DD1 some 'mop up' cloths for Carrie. I had been given a remnant of soft towelling which was enough to make 2; using cotton fabrics from the stash for the fronts.
 I was horrified that DD1 had bought some; paying a considerable sum for such basic items.
Linking up with Janine's monthly feature on her Rainbow Hare blog. This month Janine posted about a stunning cardigan that she has knitted...the texture is just gorgeous! Wool on Sunday