Keeping me busy

This lot has kept me busy over the past couple of weeks - I agreed to make them for someone going overseas at the end of the month. She wants souvenirs with photos of Australian native plants (and a couple of plants in her garden) to take to her English relatives. The sewing was the easy part - I kept jamming the printer .............aargh.............and Bill was not impressed. he says printers were not meant to print fabric!!!

I was in a great hurry as I am going away again next Monday on a family pilgrimage with my sister and I still have to scan lots of old photos into the computer to take the images away hoping that cousins older than I will be able to identify them. I am as guilty as everybody else as I know I have boxes and boxes of photos with no identification on them so that the younger generation will have no idea who they are.............I keep saying when I get time.................one day it will really happen.

We are going to drive from Brisbane to Sydney, staying with cousins along the way and going to the 200 year anniversay of Ebenezer Church, the oldest church in Australia. My great great great great grandfather was one of the founders of the church. He was the surgeon on the Friendship in the first fleet in 1788. When I was growing up I always knew about him, but in those days it was considered very shameful to say you were descended from convict heritage - half of Australia must have been! - so I didn't realise till I was an adult that he eventually married (after they had four children) an ex convict from The Lady Penrhyn - also a first fleeter. How times change. Now everyone is claiming convict heritage as a badge of ritual almost. I also didn't realise that The Lady Penrhyn had been part ofthe first fleet before her notorious voyage to bring out the whores at a later stage.

There is a weekend of celebrations at Windsor where they are expecting about 3000 people I think, then on the Sunday afternoon the descendents of Thomas Arndell are meeting at Cattai National Park, where his home still stands. I remember my mother talking about going there to visit when she was a young girl so it will be fun to see everything for myself. I will also meet some Arndell cousins for the first time.

I wish these events were not held at the end of the financial year. I went away just before the end of June last year also and sorting out all the office stuff is not fun. This is when I wish I had really retired, instead of just the theoretical retirement our accountant talks about. On the ohter hand, I am sure this keeps my brain working, at least in a sort of way.

Time to stop, I had another injection in my eye today and it is starting to feel gritty so I am off to bed. I go back to have it checked on Friday, then hopefully when I return the doctor will say I can have the cataract done, and I may be able to see a bit better.