Sunday

Sunday was a sunny, but quite nippy, day.  We all got ready for church, packed a picnic lunch and headed out.  We arrived at church a few minutes late and quickly found a pew to accommodate us.  I was worried that there wouldn't be anyone there that I knew, or that would remember me.  It had been 12 years since we were there last and with Mum gone, I hadn't had very much contact with the people who attended the Devonport Ward.

But, as I looked around, I saw many familiar faces.  Sitting in front of us was Wayne and Maureen Lunson.  A few seats up, Mike Fitzpatrick.  The Travis family and the Horsmans

I felt quite emotional.  These people had played a big part in my life while I was growing-up.  Together, as a small branch of our church, we had saved and saved to build the building that we were sitting in.  Many parts of it was built with our own hands.  My friend Angela and I had stained the wood in the library.  For a youth activity we put the insulation in the ceiling. 

They were people who had been my Branch President, Bishop, Primary President, Home Teacher......and friends.  They were people who remembered my Mum and had helped care for her.

It was so good to see them again.

After catching up a bit with everyone, we went to the Devonport Lawn Cemetary to go and see Mum's grave.  I hadn't been able to come home for Mum's funeral, so this was the first time that I had gotten to see it.  I know that it is just a plaque, but it was important.

My Auntie Lyn had given us great country directions to find Mum's gravesite.  Down to the number of garbage cans to look for on the side of the road!  I only just found out that you could get a map on line that pinpointed the location - who would have thought???

We found the spot with out incident using Auntie Lyn's directions, but......... we had not anticipated............

PLOVERS!!!!

These birds are the things that nightmares are made of.  The Alfred Hitchcock movie, "Birds", could have been made just using these birds and no other.

I kid you not.

Many a child growing-up in Tasmania has fallen prey to these swooping, evil birds.  They are mainly aggressive during nesting time, I think they just do it for fun.  They have barbs on their wings that can scratch if they swoop close enough to make contact........they swoop very, very close.  I had warned my family about  Plovers, but this was their first experience with them.  We managed to get close enough to take a photo of Mum's grave stone.  Jessica wouldn't venture from the side of the car once she saw how close those dreadful birds came to your head.

I love my Mum and I miss her.

We drove to Latrobe and had our picnic lunch at a place called "Bells Parade."  It had changed quite a bit since my childhood, but was still very beautiful.  When I stayed with Graham and Dianne, my nephews, niece and I would ride our bikes down to Bells Parade and swim.

We then went on to my brothers' place.  My neice, Katrina, and nephews, Andrew and Jason, had come over from Western Australia to see us.  Andrew and Jason had gone up to the lakes to spend some time there with their Dad, but Katrina was there.  It was very, very good to see her again.  We had all grown-up like brothers and sisters, we are closer in age than I am to Graham and Gayle.  We had a wonderful visit and were coming back tomorrow for lunch.

This is my sister's oldest son, David, his wife Denise and their little boy, Freddie.

David loves trains and he helps to run a minature railway just outside of Ulverstone.  They only operate on the 1st Sunday of the month during the winter, so we stopped by there to have a ride.

We rode on David's train, which is a replica of a Amtrack train. We thought we would just do a couple of loops around the track, but David had other ideas!!! We went around and around and around.........

I lost track of how many times, and we would probably still be going around if other people hadn't come for a ride!! It was great fun and David showed us all of the other trains that were there.

The big kids were good sports!!

It was a good day.

Sally-Ann