Monday, January 8

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??

7 comments:

Joyce said...

You have some beautiful sunset photos. THe sky is contstanly amazing, especially with clouds like that. Our house is situated for sunrises bun not sunsets because of the hill to the west. Some of our winter sunrises can be beautiful and not all that early in the winter . Summer is another story when the sun is up by 5AM.

molly said...

I remember those long northern evenings in summer when our parents despaired of getting us inside and to bed....as long as it was light out we felt we should be allowed to stay out. After all, when winter set in we sometimes walked home from school in the dark......

Ali Honey said...

Many of my Childhood memories are similar to yours, growing up in rural NZ at a similar time to yourself. I got a good pick of our scarlet runners for dinner tonight; they are my favourite beans and I like being able to pick them standing up.

My float said...

What a lovely post. I love those sunset shots - one of my 'essential' criteria for choosing a house is making sure it's high enough to allow us to see the huge blue bowl of sky, rather than being closed in by adjoining homes.

Love those stories, too. I am planning a whole garden and am trying to rope in Aunty Evil to do my flower arrangements - will you plan my vegetable garden?!

Aunty Evil said...

Geeze Meggie, watch out for My Float, she will have us all working at getting her house beautiful while no doubt she admires herself in the mirror! :)

Those sky pics are great, as are your reminiscences! (did I spell that right? Sorry if not, too tired tonight to try to correct it)

verniciousknids said...

I am so jealous of your sky...I miss the wide open Aussie sky - especially the stars.

Jellyhead said...

Meggie, no way are you boring anyone with those pictures - they really are lovely. Best of all, when you write about them, your positive nature is shining up from the page (or should that be the screen?!).

Great tales from your childhood....I love the story of the bottle of beer behind the chook shed!!