Looking back in time..............

It must be time once again for the latest newsfromjude. My last post was written while staying at Mum's after our family Christmas in Adelaide. I spent 5 days staying with Mum and managed to fill in the days easily. 

I spent a day in the Barossa doing Grandma duty with Mr Tate and Miss Bridie while DS and DIL went to appointments in the city. A fair bit of the time was spent trying to pass the "driving test" for remote control cars. Needless to say, Tate always raced me. It took awhile for this Grandma to learn the coordination needed to control where the car goes. (Shares in the battery companies might be a good investment I think!!)

When Miss Bridie came home from school, we played a game of Bingo.

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One afternoon I took Mum for a drive and we toured around the river areas to see how things looked. At Sturt Reserve, which is the main river front area of the town, they have built a levee surrounding the Rowing Club building.

It will be interesting to see if this works, depending how far the river rises yet.

I then drove along to the wharf area and here is the railway bridge with the 1956 flood marker on it. There is still a way for the level to get to this mark, but the peak is still to come down and no one really knows?? There is a lot of water to come down from NSW and the snow fields yet.

As I was coming back to the car, Mum pointed to the train about to cross the bridge, so my timing was good for a pic.  

The rail bridge is in the foreground and the road bridge in the background. Repairs are being done to the road bridge, so there are traffic restrictions for traffic to going one way only at present. Last week there was an accident on Swanport Bridge which takes all the highway traffic. For a few hours all that traffic was detoured through Murray Bridge and it was banked up for miles!!

From the wharf area we drove further up and could see how fast the river was flowing and coming in at various places.

It's the first time I have ever seen a rubbish bin closed due to flooding!!

I shall be back in Murray Bridge in a few days, so will be curious to see how much more water has come down. Apparently there have been a few levee breaks along the river in places. 

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I mentioned that Mum's sister died recently and we farewelled her last Thursday. This photo was taken a few years ago when Aunty Coral (left) won the WAB Genoa cake competition. (Mum on the right). She was an amazing cook and won many ribbons at shows. The Eulogy told of her many other achievements in her 94 1/2 years.

Following the service, lunch was served at the Brinkley Hall, which was the centre of many district functions when we were all growing up.

Here is a photo of 17 of the 45 cousins in our family!!

Out of the 10 members of the family, there are now 4 remaining, with the oldest at 96 being my uncle in Queensland, who was unable to attend. Here is Mum and her younger brother and sister. 

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After the funeral Mum and I packed our 'stuff' and Mum has come to Bordertown with me until Boxing Day. It looks like we might be packed for a month??

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Home again, and I picked the first of the zucchini.............

..............and more strawberries.

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Our family is well known for being avid readers, and here you see us both lined up with lunch and a book!! Mum has read 2 books this week......

.....and my read has been this book, The Dry, by Jane Harper. I enjoyed this and now look forward to seeing the movie.

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As well as being avid readers, some of the family write a diary. Aunty Coral did this for many years, and her daughter has typed them up and printed them out. We brought them home with us to read while Mum was here, and our week has taken us back in time reading these. These diaries are a very comprehensive record of family events, which include not just Aunty's immediate family but our whole extended family. She also had a book of newspaper clippings which was collected over many years of births, deaths and marriages as well as events. There may not been a lot of work happening in this house this week, but there has been a lot of memories and history. 

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Reading all this has made me want to get back to the story of my life that I started writing a few years ago. Out came all my photo albums for Mum to look at.

I decided that there were a lot of photos in my albums of people that my children would not know, so we spent time dismantling a few of my books and putting some photos into envelopes to give to those people or their families. 

In some of those old albums, (back in the 70's) the photos were stuck in with plastic sleeves over the pages. Some of the pictures came out easily, but some were stuck well, so out came the hair dryer, which helped to melt the glue!

I had information and photos in many places, and I think now that it is a bit more organised and I hope to spend some January time making further progress? (I think that my January list is getting a bit long?)

I also came across all these letters. Early in my married life, after moving away from home, I used to write letters to Mum and Dad. Mum kept a lot of these and some time ago she gave them back to me. I read them all tonight and had some chuckles. I sent a pic of a note to DS for him to read, when he was just a baby. He laughed too, and asked why did I write and not phone instead?? Tis a whole different era isn't it? Back then (40 years ago) a long distance phone call was quite expensive, so letters were the main communication. Now phone calls on a mobile with a plan are fairly cheap, and sometimes unlimited, and distance is not considered.

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I did say there has not been much work happening, but I did catch Mum cleaning out the cutlery drawer which was getting rather untidy..................

...............and this morning she decided to attack the plastics drawers and match up lids and bottoms!! There are a few items that have hit the bin, and the drawers are tidy, well until I decide to rummage around in them again! How do containers lose their lids?? Or how do the containers disappear!!

After the plastics drawers were tidy, I decided that some time in the pantry would be well spent, and now that is tidier and I can see what's in there again!

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Yesterday we had a morning tea while Mum was here, and enjoyed scones, cake, a cuppa and much conversation, solving the world's problems.

Tomorrow will be another day sorting out photos and information for my life story. I will cook some meat for our lunch for Christmas day. I have been spending the first hour of each day in my garden, watering and still attacking the weeds. 

Be back soon,

Blessings, From Jude