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? 😉😜

July...

Today is August 4, so July is well and truly over for another year! The way things worked out, this last July was a busy one for us in terms of celebrations! 

First up was the weekend of my annual high school reunion...our numbers were small this year but what we lacked in numbers, we more than made up for in enthusiasm.  😉

Then 6 of us met on the Sunday for lunch...

The next weekend was the annual Art and Craft Show in our parish...

We didn't buy a painting this year as none took our fancy...so I gave a donation instead to help with the fundraising.

On Bastile Day, I put on my 'Paris' scarf and DH and I lunched at a local cafe called French an Mor...

Next up was my brother's 60th...we had a lovely family gathering at his place...with pizzas from Tomato Brothers. 😉

Later in the month my brother's youngest had his 18th...the family celebration was held at an Italian restaurant...I just had to put a couple of photos of Rowan as a little boy in the collage! 😉

Also in July we welcomed DsD3 home from Canada with some family dinners...one at DsD2's place

And one at our place!

I think that August will be a little less hectic...although DH reminded me just before that we have a '60s night' in a few weeks. What on earth are we going to wear I wonder??? Lol

A lovely day out...

Both blogging and attending Let's Get Stitched weekends has meant meeting lots of other ladies over the last few years. One of these is Wendy from Adelaide and this week she is spending a few days in Brisbane. So that was a perfect excuse for a catch up! 

We met at the Dragonfly Cafe which is part of the Eden Garden Centre at Carseldine in Brisbane. 

First 'order of business' was to order morning tea...here is our guest of honour, Wendy and what she chose to accompany a pot of tea...

Nice presentation, you'll agree :-) The rest of us had the Devonshire Tea with a huge, freshly baked scone. 

Then after a few hours of chatting and generally catching up, we decided to order lunch...

Some of the other 'patrons' were quite reptilian...

Yep! A water dragon...bold as brass he/she was...no fear of humans. ( they are not dangerous). Poor water dragon...no food for him/her...look at this sign...

We met at around 10.15 and stayed until the cafe closed at 4 pm.

Before that though, we posed for a photo.

De, Lynda, Marilyn, Wendy and me!

Most of us brought some stitching/knitting to do while we chatted/caught up. 

 But we didn't around to doing any crafting; we were too busy talking! Lol

Last Sunday...

Last Sunday was a busy day for DH and I...

Our parish church was filled with red balloon to celebrate Pentacost. Parishioners are encouraged to also wear red for this service each year...but I forgot! Lol. 

After lunch we headed off to an 80th birthday party. 

The party was at the Geebung Bowls Club...

The birthday girl and I met 14 years ago when we were both teaching at an inner city school. We very quickly became good friends. I expected to see lots of people I knew at this party, but that was not the case. The guest list had been carefully selected and I realised it was quite an honour to have received an invitation...we were all considered to be special friends. Some of us were more recent friends, others went back to Lee's school days and others, all those years in between.

My friend is what you would call 'a real character'; always a supportive friend and lots of fun! 

Lee had us all laughing...

Friends also had some 'stories' to tell...

Lee's Irish son in law also had us laughing...

The cutting of the cake...but not the cake the guests would get to eat....

We each got a specially made cupcake to take home. These cakes were made by one of Lee's friends...

A photo of Lee and I. Lee and I job shared for 3 years...she did Fridays.

And after this party DH and I had one more event to attend...family dinner at my niece's to catch up with my Sydney based nephew and his wife who were visiting. The menu that night was Mexican and my contribution was 2 salads. One salad my niece asked for was Mexican coleslaw. What the? I had never heard of that, so 'googled' it. Eventually chose a Jamie Oliver version...it turned out really yummy with a simple dressing of lime juice and olive oil. 

Some visitors...

I wrote 2 posts recently about little excursions DH and I have taken but I've also had a number of visitors since I have come home from hospital...
Some of these visitors have spoiled me by bringing flowers, which I absolutely love!

This beautiful bunch were brought over by my friend Helen; the roses have the most beautiful fragrance!

 These flowers came from my friends The Newmarket Mum's...

 Another friend, Liz, came over with some zucchini slice and some bromeliads to plant...

DH, Liz and her husband Glenn, catch up while I circle the table taking photos :-)

With DH doing all the hard work, these were planted pretty much straight away. You see there is a 'bromeliad story'...

A little while ago I came home from Liz's place with a supermarket bag of bromeliads to plant...DH thought that it was rubbish...so you know what happened don't you! lol
The other day Liz also brought over some EPP that she did in some classes ages ago. She didn't know what sort of patchwork it was called but her memory had stirred a few weeks back when I was talking about my current projects. I loved her table centre and gave her all the info she needed to finish off the project!

Liz's EPP in front and a glimpse of one of my projects that I have on the go at the moment...

 I also had another visitor who came recently. Now we did not invite him to sit down nor did we offer  him coffee/tea but DH did send him some money later by direct debit...

Graham, who lives in the next street, is our plumber and he came round to see why the drain was overflowing when the washing machine and dishwasher water emptied...

DH was convinced that it was the roots of my shrubs that were the culprits for blocking the drain. It was looking like I would have to have these bushes pulled out, just when we needed the privacy from the complex next door, as well as for shade on our kitchen window from the western sun.
But all was good! It wasn't tree roots; it was just a build up from the soaps and general grease/scum. As well as cleaning out the blockage and sending the 'electric eel' all the way through the pipes to the street, Graham was also able to view the drains with a camera...no tree roots and no other blockages.

Not Quite 50 Shades with Grey...

Way back in early July, I wrote about the knitted throw that I donated to our Parish Art and Craft Show this year. The weekend of the art show coincided with the camel race day that DH and I attended in Wandoan, so we were unable to be there. My friend Carmen sent me a text to say that my thow had been sold but she didn't have any details about who had bought it.

A month or so later I found out that a lovely lady called Marge had bought this year's throw; Marge had bought another one of my donated throws 2 years ago as well! I gently teased her about this one Sunday, saying she was my best customer.
 At the beginning of this month Marge suffered an aneurysm, underwent surgery and was pronounced to be 'on the mend', albeit an expected long recovery period.  But this wasn't to be...Marge passed away unexpectedly on September 6. This is going to sound strange...but her funeral was actually a joyous occasion with all her favourite hymns and some wonderful tributes from her children and grandchildren.

One of Marge's best friends Gwen, gave me a photo (below) of Marge that she took at the Art Show...how special is this?

I already  know what I will make for the art Show next year...
Another  throw in blues, greens, mauves and purples (mohair yarns again) and it will be called 'Memories of Marge'...or 'Marge-ma' as her grandchildren called her.