Wondrous

These pics were taken from our balcony last evening.

At risk of boring everyone stupid, with my continuing pics, from the same spot, I find I am constantly amazed at the changing vista of the sky.

I consider myself truly lucky to have such a spectacular view to admire. I dont think I ever noticed the sky quite so much as I do since we have lived here.

I swear, that looks like a giant eye, peering down upon us! What do you think?

I should have rung my friend to come to take some pics, as she has a lovely new camera, & is very interested in taking unusual photos. The trouble is, the scene changes so quickly in the evenings. Possibly by the time she got her car out, & drove up here, the chance would be gone, even though it is only 5 minutes by car.

The most spectacular sunsets I have ever seen, were while we were on holiday in Phuket. I had always dreamed of seeing one of those fiery red sunsets, so they were a dream come true. We were surprised at how suddenly it got dark once the sun went down.

Living in the South Island of New Zealand, we had long twilights, & when we came to live over here, I missed those beautiful twilights. They could be a curse in Summer, when you wanted little children off to bed, & daylight saving was in force. It didnt get dark until almost 10pm.

I recall my Grandmother, who came from Yorkshire, telling me of the long twilights they used to have in England, in Summer.

Yesterday afternoon, it was hot & sticky, & we had a few sprinkles of rain. I went & collected DJ & SG, & brought them here for the afternoon. SIL was working, so we had the whole afternoon to talk & just 'be'.

I find it very difficult to bath Leo these days, as he is a very strong & sturdy dog, so DJ gave me a hand. I had done Honey, & she is easy, she is so little & quite light. Leo was reluctant at first, but DJ got him 'under control' & he looks very handsome today. Needs a bit more work on his tail, but at least he is lovely & clean.

All my reminiscing about childhood memories is still swirling about in my head, so I can feel more posts coming, about the past. My Beloved Brother rang me last night from NZ, & we laughed about various things we recalled.

When our Grandparents got their own house, it was new, & was built on a 1/4 acre section of land, which was on the road frontage of a farm. My uncle was a Returned Soldier, & he got the chance to buy the land. The owner of the farm, was a very nice man, & he subdivided 3 Quarter acre sections of land to sell to Returned men.

My uncle was young & unmarried, & he very generously gave the land to my Grandparents to build their house upon. When he got married, he built a Bach, which was a 2 room dwelling, behind the main house. He & my Aunt lived there until they had had their first son, & built their own new house, closer to the town.

My Grandfather put in a huge vegetable garden, & we always had plenty of fresh vegies, & there were fruit trees too. Peaches, Nectarines, & Passionfruit, Tamarilloes- which were known at Tree tomatoes in those days! There was the dreaded choko vines, & the huge Scarlet Runner bean frame. I loved those beans, but only when they were young, as they tended to be stringy as they got older, & could be very off-putting. To this day, GOM does not like beans, as, his mother used to salt preserve them for winter, & they had them all winter long! My Grandmother never did that, we always seemed to have plenty of other vegies for the winter months.

There was a chook house, with a large 'run', up at the back of the section, & my grandmother kept several hens. They used to lay plenty of eggs, & I remember going to feed the, chooks, & collect the eggs. My Grandmother would mix 'layer mash' for them, & of course we always gave them the vegie scraps. I still swear those eggs tasted better than any 'shop bought' ones today!

Our Grandmother had a lame leg, with a stiff knee, due to a bad break she had suffered, so she used a walking stick, but she still used to get out in the garden & though she couldnt bend her knee, she could get plenty of gardening done.

My brother had a young playmate who lived on a farm further up the road, & he & my brother used to sneak tobacco off the father, & they tried out their first cigarettes behind the chook house!

And once, we sneaked a bottle of beer out of the toilet window, & drank it up behind the Chook house too. (It was not nice at all, but we pretended it was great!)

The back of that Chook house could have told a tale or two!

On a trip back once, to the old town, we visited our Grandparents house, & quite surprised to find it still there. It was a small house, but the young couple who had it then, were renovating, & they said they had bought it because it was a very sturdy & well built house.

The sky is sullen & grey this morning, but it seems to be very humid & hot again. I think there is hope for rain, but who knows??