The last day of the year 2021! I wonder what 2022 will bring us? Hopefully much cheer and happiness!
This morning I visited a cousin of mine. She and her husband only live a short
distance out of the city, but it has been almost twelve months since I last saw
them.
It was great to catch up over a cup of tea and some
shortbread and Christmas cake.
We got to talking about the “good old days” when we were
children and our different memories of our shared grandmother. She always wore a hat and gloves when going
into town, and was quite a stickler for doing things “the proper way.”
We remembered her home and the large section it sat
upon. She had two full-size plum trees
in the back garden, a large vegetable garden, and a dug-out beneath the house
that was used as a garden shed. I can
still remember the smell of that place, all dusty and cobwebby and full of
shells she had collected over the years.
And then my cousin produced a diary her mother had passed on
to her. It was dated December 1899 and
was a record of a holiday my grandmother’s mother took when she sailed from
Wellington, New Zealand, to Sydney, Australia, and stayed with some of her many
relations there.
She had taken her two children with her – my grandmother
(then aged 4 years) and my great-uncle (then aged 2 years).
I have spent a happy afternoon reading the account (the
words I can decipher, anyway!), and it is intriguing to read about shopping for
silk and lace to make a bonnet, catching the train to get around the city, and
being met at the station by a cab and two horses.
Her diary entry for today (31 December) reads: “Charlie opened the bottle of champagne for
dinner. A sleepy afternoon. I read on the verandah while the children
blew bubbles. Still very hot, day and
night.”
She could almost have been writing about life as we know it
today 😊
Margaret.
