Magical Day

Today was a truly magical day, my lovely niece took me to

the enchanted woods, and treated me to a lovely picnic under

the trees with a blanket of leaves on the ground, mind you we

were comfortably esconced a mattress and rugs and cushions,

along with many yummy goodies and coffee, and a story from

the "Faraway Tree" it was truly a memorable day.

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Fantasy

There is a fairy garden
along a crooked way,
Your reach it by the path of sleep,
Or by the road of play.


There is magic, if you have the key.......

Build a Strongbox

Build for yourself a strongbox
fashion each part with care,
When it,s as strong as your hands can make it
Put all your troubles in there.

Hide there all thoughts of your failures
And each bitter cup that you quaff,
Lock all your heartaches within it
Then sit on the lid and laugh.

A Little More about Home No. 2

We had all the usual animals when living in the bush. Chooks and ducks among them. For some reason they were going missing, and one day Mum saw a huge eagle going for one of the chooks.
Now Mum had never used a rifle in her life, but she ran inside and grabbed Dads rifle and his box of very precious and expensive bullets, and started firing at this eagle in the sky.
She used a lot of Dads bullets, and surprise surprise one of those bullets hit the flying target and down the poor thing came.
Mum was so proud of herself, but Dad when he saw how many bullets Mum had used was not so happy!
My sister and I went to a tiny school with no more than a dozen children, and we were given this huge clydsdale by a neighbor to ride to school, we must have looked rather cute on this huge animal, but sadly we didn,t tie old Model up properly and she decided to wander off. It was many month later that dear old Model was found safe and well.

Our Many Places of Residence No 2

Our first place of residence was the little shack in Glenorchy near the Grampians, from there we moved to a house in the middle of a wheat field in Mystic Park West in the Mallee, I have so many fond memories of this house, it was in a grove of gum trees, with farm sheds all around in which the wheat harvesting machinery was housed.
We loved to play with old machine cogs with grooves all around them on the sandy roads around the house, they left interesting marks, like tractor tyres, we also played marbles, digging littles holes for the marbles to roll into.
We had an orchard at the back of the house, and my sister and I would sneek out of the house at night, and eat oranges under the trees, it all seemed so exciting as children.
The people who owned the house had a dam dug out just behind the orchard, watching it being filled was amazing, it seemed so huge to us, but in reality it probably wasn,t that big. From it ran a little channel that we used to swim in with the ducks, I really loved that place in the middle of the paddock.
My little sister was born while we lived there, I remember how much fun it was to see her start walking, what loveley memories, my Mum and Dad used to sing a lot together, we felt very secure, even though we were quite poor.

Going to School as a migrant child

Starting school was an ordeal, we did not speak the language, and in those days migrants were not exactly welcome. I remember escaping and coming home, and it was a longish walk in the bush, in the middle of school hours.
I really did not enjoy school, we were outcasts, and it stayed with me for all my school years.
Sadly my parents did not speak our mother tongue in the home, they wanted us to teach them what we learnt, so our Dutch, even though my parents could speak it fluently, we did not learn it properly. Hence I have endeavoured to teach myself, which I have been successful in to a point.

Arrival

We arrived in Australia, and moved to a little Town at the foothills of the Grampians, it was incredibly primitive, not that we noticed so much as children, but there was no running water, no electricity, and the "house" was no more than a shack, but Mum who had been used to all the above including an indoor toilet, thrived, she was absolutely immersed in the amazing Australian bush life, totally fascinated with the wildlife, maybe it was her attatchment to the lifestyle of the bush people of the time that has always endeared the outback country to me. One thing I remember, she had to wash (in a copper) all our clothes in dam water, and of course it all came out yellow, so the farmers told her to put ash in the water and it worked, not as white as one would like, but better.

A little more about me

I havn,t always lived in Australia, we came here my Mum and older sister on the ship Sibayak in 1950, my Dad had immigrated a year before to "get things ready for his family" I was four my sister 7, I don,t remember much about the long 6 week ship journey, but I do remember our departure.
Our close relatives were on the dock and we, that is my sister and I, a bag of speckled sugar coated almonds, lots of soft colours, this was very special for us as just coming out of the war years, luxuries were in scarce supply, and then each of us was given something I will never forget, a little metal car, I remember one was red the other blue, that was incredible, so exciting! Then the long voyage began away from our homeland Holland.

By Michael Jackson

If you enter this world knowing you are loved, and leave the same, then everything in between can be dealt with

Of Special Note

contentment is not the fullfilment of what we want, but the realisation of what we have.

All things fair and beautiful

I enjoyed a lovely day out by the sea with my daughter yesterday, what is it about the water that is so calming? I do believe that the negative ions the moving water emits has a lot to do with it as we are positively charged. In any case anywhere by water has a wonderful effect on me.