"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan....."

On Tuesday we woke-up to a beautiful day.

When we looked out the kitchen window, sheep were grazing in the paddock.

We could hear the laughter of a kookaburra and when we went outside to look for him, he was in a tree right by our unit.

After pottering around a bit and getting ready, we headed off to see my sister Gayle who lives in Burnie (above picture).  My brother and sister are quite a bit older than me and were grown and gone by the time I have any real memory of them.  Gayle did come back home to live on and off and I have some fun memories of that.  I remember having a photo taken with her, not sure how old I was, but she had made a blue evening dress to go out somewhere.  She had her hair all done up and I thought she looked like a princess!  I called Gayle by the name Sissy.  In fact, I remember when I found out that her name was in fact Gayle, and not Sissy.  I was in shock!!  Gayle lived and worked in Melbourne for a while, one time when she came back home, she gave me a little tea set.  I still have it and it sits on the windowsill in my kitchen.

Me, Gayle & Jim

In April, Gayle was married 39 years.  In April, just before her anniversary, she left her husband.  We were all shocked that she had left, but not suprised.  Does that sentence make any sense???

Joshua, Sam, Gayle & Jessica

Take a good, hard look at this photo.

What is different?

What has happened that is a very rare event?

Jessica is smiling for the photo!!!!!

Just in case you missed it!

I love my girl

It was wonderful to see Gayle again.  Across the road from her house was a little bakery.  We spent a lot of money on some very good Australian take-away food.....beats McDonald's hands down!

Jim, Joshua and Jessica stuck with the tried and true Aussie meat pie

Sam and I had sausage rolls

I couldn't resist getting a Vanilla Slice - heaven

As I said, I love my sister Gayle, but she can be a little bit of a morbid streak at times!  Every time we saw her, Gayle mentioned, "We need to make the most of this, we will probably never see each other again."  Now, I know this could be true, but.........
Gayle also made a point of calling everyone and telling them this little tidbit.  Her intention was to push the point home that they needed to make the effort to see us as many times as they could.  We teased her considerably about this, well, Jim did.  Everytime she said the words, "This could be......" I remembered a poem I learned in 3rd grade.  We had to memorize it for the local eisteddfods.  We also had to memorize one about a cat.  I can't remember that one very well except for the phrase, "The cat came back the very next day."
Anyway,

"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,

In accents most forlorn,

Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.

Gayle is very like my Mum - in looks, mannerisms and a sense of the morbid at times!  Gayle tells it like it is!

After leaving Gayle, we headed back to Ulverstone.  On the way we stopped at a little town called Penguin.  My Auntie Lyn lives there and so does my stepmum, Birdie.

Birdie lives in a nursing home called Coroneagh Park.  It is very nice there.  Birdie was very much the same as we remembered.  A little older and slower, but still a very loving and caring person.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find Auntie Lyn's house, but we would be going there tomorrow for lunch.

This is not a very good picture of Birdie, but remember that I do not have my camera and am relying on photos taken by Joshua.  I had to take this one from a luncheon that we had and crop it!!

Penguin is a beautiful little town.  We took the scenic "old" highway back to Ulverstone.  There are beautiful flowers all along the road and railway tracks.

We decided to go to the Bluff in Devonport for the rest of the afternoon.  It is one of Jim's favorite spots in Tasmania.  We went there several times, so will share the photos on another day.

It was definately good to be home and to see people that I love and have missed so very much.

Sally-Ann