Looking back...

It’s funny how an inanimate object can spark a whole lot of memories. 

And so it was recently in country Victoria. Apparently the woman who was employed to service the rooms at the motel we were staying at, had given notice and left the day before we arrived. The young couple running the motel were trying to get the rooms ready as we drove up. By the next morning it became obvious that we were running out of toilet paper. A walk down to the office drew a blank as there was no one there. So I rang the mobile number on the door and left a message asking that toilet paper be taken to #16! 

DD1 had some in her room so gave us half a roll. But when we went into town, just in case it was needed, I bought a single roll of paper; something you don’t see often in a supermarket these days.

Well we ended up not needing it as our room’s supply was replenished, so I brought it home.

So what about this memory? First of all, I’ll share another anecdote.

A few years ago, a friend in her early 90s gave me a written piece to read. After her great grandson had asked her whether she had had a pet dinosaur when she was a girl, she decided to write about her childhood and what life was like then. 

She wrote of lots of things that are so different to life today but one particular memory concerned ‘toilet paper’. I’ve used quotation marks because this paper bore little resemblance to what comes to mind at the mention of toilet paper 😉😜

Firstly Ailsa wrote about the backyard outhouse. These were still around here in parts of Brisbane when I was a girl. 

Here’s a photo of a tract of public housing in Norman Park, Brisbane, in the 1950s...note the outhouses all in a row! 

They weren’t flushing toilets though...

Yep! Those tins/pans had to be emptied and there were men and trucks who took the filled cans away and replaced them with empty ones once a week. 

Now the quality of the paper didn’t matter as there weren’t any pipes that could get clogged. My friend wrote about how people used cut up sheets of newspaper as toilet paper; I kid you not! The cut up sheets would hang on a nail. 

But as suburbs were sewered people had to stop using newspaper as it caused blockages in the system. Even when my parents had the outhouse before our suburb was sewered, because my dad was a fruiterer, he brought home bags of tissue paper which apples had been wrapped in and that was our toilet paper. So we had a hessian bag of screwed up tissue paper on a nail. 

How embarrassing to be a kid whose family used tissue paper!! Wink wink!! 

Maybe my mum was embarrassed too as when we were having visitors, she would put out a ROLL of toilet paper which she had purchased; just the one roll no multi packs then! 

When the visitors left, she would remove the roll and put it away in a cupboard until the next time we had visitors. And our family would use our tissue paper from the apples again! Lol

When I related that story to my friend Ailsa, she laughed and laughed! And apparently she’s been sharing my story with lots of her friends. Life was tough when Ailsa was a girl in the late 1920s and I guess in the 1950s life still could be tough for my parents who were also growing up in the late 1920s. 

A special gift!

About 6 weeks before DH’s birthday, his daughters contacted his friends, work colleagues and family asking for memories, stories/anecdotes or photos of their father. I was recruited to help them with obtaining lists of people who could help and of course find email addresses of these people. Might I add there was a fair bit of detective work on my behalf finding ways of contacting friends from school days and also from the years DH was involved in the Brisbane amateur theatre scene in the 60s and 70s. 😆

The girls hoped to get 70 items but of course not everyone wrote back...but at least 50 people did reply. And on the Saturday night at Bribie a box of memories was presented to DH. We’d kept the secret really well as did those people the girls had contacted and it was a big surprise for the birthday boy. 

So on the night, DsD3 is ready to hand over the memories box but first she presented DH with a special golfers’  watch. 

DH needs to remove his glasses to read so that’s the first step after the box is handed over 😉. 


In 2 sessions during the evening he read out the messages. Some made us laugh especially those from friends from his teen years and definitely those from former work colleagues.


Here’s one from a theatre days friend...


Here’s one from a work colleague of mine...


From my brother...


One of Bruce’s school friends who now lives in Melbourne went to card making classes to learn how to make a special card...


Her message...


A friend of mine for many years wrote if the first time she met DH...and at the time she thought that she might have frightened him off! 🤣


DH’s former wife wrote a lovely tribute...an excerpt.

My anecdotes 😉

And with some detective work I found Diane a former childhood neighbour of DH. She wrote about the band that DH was the lead singer for...

And here’s a photo of our 60s pop idol in action at the Enoggera Memorial Hall in lieu of a photo on the boat! Lol

One of DH’s former bosses sent along some photos of when the cast of the Rocky Horror Show came into their office 😀

Now who is DH looking at...not being sure of the copyright of the photo, I’ve done a bit of cropping and masking...

So who was behind that voting screen? 

Why Frankenfurter of course! 

DH didnt look the slightest bit fazed by having Frankenfurter sitting down behind a voting screen. 

Psst! It’s really Marcus Graham 😍.

So there you have it; a selection from DH’s Memories Box. It was certainly a very special gift indeed💕

From 3 very special young women.


It all got very rushed at the end to get it all finished so we are all ignoring spelling and punctuation mistakes aren’t we? 😉😜

Birthday Bash at Bribie...

A year ago DH started planning a holiday in May 2019 for the immediate family as part of the celebration of his 70th. Each year his 3 daughters, their partners and children spend a long weekend away with his first wife to celebrate her birthday, and DH thought that sounded like a good way to celebrate this special birthday. Finding a property to rent for our blended family of 11 adults and 5 children turned out to be quite a challenge. But we found a large house for rent which overlooked Pumicestone Passage.

Lovely views from the balcony on the first level as well as from the lounge room on street level.

The family went on lots of beach walks...the beach was just over the road...

The sunsets were gorgeous! 

A few group photos were taken on the beach...

Getting up off the sand after this series of photos was ‘interesting’ to say the least! Lol

One morning the family all walked up to the museum and we spent nearly 2 hours looking at the exhibits. On the Sunday we drove up to where the mini trains run...

How’s this for the cutest little steam engine?




We had visitors one day and we went to the Bribie Island Bowls club for lunch as I’d had enough of cooking for a crowd by then, lol. 

The photo shows the meal one of our sons in law ordered 🤪

This was my more modest whiting, chips and salad lunch...

That same afternoon DH and I met 2 friends for afternoon coffee at the same club. These 2 sisters were at school with DH and I so our friendship goes back a long way. 

On the morning of our last full day, DH’s cousin and her husband visited us for morning tea. By then the young people had all gone home so it was just DH and I. 

I did mention in passing just before, that I’d spent a fair amount of the week cooking meals for a bit of a crowd. But I had a lovely kitchen in which to work. I particularly loved these corner drawers and wished I had them at home instead of those difficult to get into corner cupboards that my kitchen has...

Bribie was a perfect venue for our family gathering as where else would you find a main road named in honour of our family? 🤣🤪

Now the back story of this blog post.

The house he found that we eventually rented was very large...but not large enough. It was meant for 8 adults and 3 children. We thought some family members would be happy to sleep on mattresses for the nights of the weekend when it was planned for the whole family to gather...nup, all expected queen size beds. Some stayed many nights and felt that they should have the 3 extra bedrooms. That meant that the other family members with work commitments felt slighted and one couple would only come for the day as a result. I discovered that adults with young children are hampered from being able to offer much help and meals are delayed by baby needs. 

Every day some of the granddaughters had mega ‘meltdowns’ when it came time for bath or bed. And it wasn’t only the grandies...siblings sniping at each other was also observed. 

My 70th might be different! 😉😄

Wool on Sunday...

Joining in with Rainbow Hare’s blog and Janine’s monthly feature, Wool on Sunday. https://rainbowhare.com/category/wool-on-sundays/

So what yarny things did I get up to in May? Most of what I did was for the charity I belong to...especially after I read these posts from the founder of K4BN on the group’s Facebook page. 

And...

But what about this post? This sort of thing breaks my heart...

So firstly some items I’ve made from donated squares;-

A baby blanket made with squares from Cheryl E

A large blanket mainly made with squares from Susan W



I had 5 of Susan’s squares left over...

So I’ve spent a week or so crocheting the 25 granny squares needed to make up 30. So I’ve crocheted in the car and at Trivia night at the RSL club as well as in front of the telly or sitting in the sun on the verandah 😉

And I’ve now got a bundle of 25 to make another blanket! 

And I thought I’d share some photos of a K4BN Knit and Natter...

 

This is at the Zillmere Community Centre and here are some of the May donations...it’s amazing what this group contributes to make life a little better for those in need.

So while we watch the first State of Origin match for 2019 with DH yelling at the TV ( coaching points maybe?) I’ll calmly keep on crocheting 🧶😆.