Pomegranates

This started with a photo I took of a bowl og pomegranates, and just went on from there.

Lest We Forget

ANZAC Day tomorrow. These images are of Alan's Grandfather William who enlisted as a volunteer in 1916. He left behind a young pregnant wife. Alan's mother Iris has recently turned 90, she was born in April 1917 and didn't get to meet her father until she was 4. William was wounded twice but was sent back to the trenches after he recovered in an English hospital after the first wound. These photos were among Iris's collection which we sorted through for her 90th Birthday Party. The photo of William in the trench was in a small plastic box. We believe that thinking he had little chance of surviving the war and the freezing winter, he passed this photo to a friend to send home for him. The words were on the back. I deliberately left the scratches on this very old photo as I believe they are symbolic. The other photo is a studio shot of Will in his formal uniform. The poppy is one of those paper ones you buy on November 11 and I have scanned this and duplicated it. To me the poppies are so symbolic of France in WW1, and of course they are also a metaphor for blood, so much of which was spilt there in such a short time.

Beadalicious

Today I decided to go to a beading class for an `Artist Date'. This turned out to be a lot more fun than I thought. The cost was $5.00 for the lesson and then you just paid for the materials you used. In my case this was about $15.00. I learned a lot of new to me `beading terminology' and then I made a bracelet with earrings to match it. Really good fun. First up you choose your beads from the hundreds available and then you arrange them in the pattern you want and then start threading and crimping etc. I will definitely be going back as I want to make a coiled bracelet with `memory wire'.

Happy Birthday Sam

Our Grandson Sam was 10 yesterday - double digits - he is really growing up. So yesterday we drove down to the coast to take him shopping for his presents. Joel came too and we went out for lunch and then Alan took Sam and Joel to the movies while I shopped. We stayed for dinner which was Pizza followed by a Mud Caramel Birthday Cake with 10 candles. There was Bubbly for the adults and lots of toasting. Then this morning Alan and I took Bella and Gypsy for a long walk on the beach. It was a perfect morning. Sue and Brian are lucky enough to be able to walk to this beach. Then after that we had morning tea by the pool and then made our way home. Sam had a really great Birthday and we enjoyed it too.

My New Old Car

Reading about Paull's Daihatsu Rocky on his Blog has motivated me to post a picture of my new old car, or is that old new car - a 1992 Daihatsu Feroza aka `the shopping trolley'. We found it on Ebay, it was located in Bundaberg so we drove up there and knew it was `the one'. It has an awesome sound system, added by a previous owner's boyfriend, so there is a CD player and it even has sheepskin seat covers. I love the colour and the decals and the vroom vroom noise it makes driving around town. It also has roof racks and a sunroof and in fact the whole roof lifts off if you want to drive on the beach with the wind in your hair (possible to do very close to here). So all that was needed to finish it off was a Billabong sticker with pink frangipanis for the back window (given to me by wonderful Son IL Jeff) that is the sticker not the back window LOL. So it's just perfect and also very fuel efficient. We use it pretty much every day as `town' is about 5k from home and we are there every day, sometimes twice a day.

Easter Games

We are winding down now after a really busy and enjoyable weekend. We spent Easter with our Carriage Club camped at a local sporting ground. We had a lot of fun driving carriages and playing games and generally enjoying our horses and ponies. Then on Sunday night Louise, Jeff and Tate came up for an overnight visit. Tate had his first ponyride (well he sat on Velvet). Monday we all slept in and while Louise helped me make a DVD slide show using Windows Moviemaker (great little programme), Jeff helped Alan with some other boys type jobs. Here is a photo of me driving Velvet (we used to own Velvet and this jogger and we borrowed her for the weekend). Also a photo of Alan Jeff and Tate. It really looks like Alan has told Tate a joke.

Good to read on Patti's Blog that Cate, Paull and Lauren have also started Blogging. Woo Hoo! I love to drop in on all the family Blogs to see what's going on. All different. Now I have a family Blogging folder in my faves. I find reading Blogs really interesting, you do get an insight into people which short emails just don't provide and you make friends all over the world as you link from Blog to Blog. Only time stops me reading all that I would like to. I read somewhere recently that it is now possible to get your Blogger pages made into a book. This could become the 21st Century version of all those old letters people used to keep. A great way for future generations to see how their great grandparents lived and what interested them, complete with photos and other images.