Penniedarling

Our home, well it's not really but it is the first design, too many problems with it so I took charge and changed a lot upstairs.

Labels: 6/15, Home

 Meet Susie, our first pet sheep, Nerys called her Susie, I don't know why, neither does she :-)

Way back in 1974 we went on a 3 month holiday in our Big Green Bus, we headed South from Sydney all the way through N.S.W. into Victoria and following the coast as much as possible to Wilson's Promontory, then along south east Victoria to Melbourne where BTW, the City doesn't really cater for Double Decker Buses.   Along the Great Ocean Road into South Australia and to Adelaide, back into NSW through Swan Hill then North through Mid West N.S.W. to Goulburn where David and I had met back in the 1960's.

After this lovely relaxing holiday, David was dreading having to get home and mow that enormous back paddock of ours at home and he had this brilliant idea!

We bought a sheep at the Goulburn Sale Yards...  Neither of us can remember how much we paid for this sheep, it is 40 years ago now...

We tethered Susie on the back platform, which at this stage was still open and watched the looks on the faces of people admiring the bus as we drove past... when they saw the sheep sitting quite contentedly on the platform they did a double take, such fun for the kids to watch out for.

 Susie did a brilliant job of keeping the grass down and David was a dab hand at shearing, I spun the wool and we had a little bit of country in our own back yard in the 'burbs'!    Except Susie used to escape and I'd get a phone call from a neighbour across the road saying, could I please come and get my sheep as she was in their garden eating the Petunia's.

After Briony was born we decided we wanted to go and live in England for a while, we rented our home and organized for a friend to come in and shear Susie while we were away so all was calm on the home front.  We were away for two years and in those last few months we got word to say that Susie had been mauled by a dog and the Pymble Police had to come to shoot Susie to put her out of her misery... Susie was buried just about where our Garage is now.  Thank goodness this didn't happen when the children were around.

Then in about 1980 Briony and I, along with Briony's godmother Carol and her young daughter  Melanie drove out to West Wylong to visit Carol's parents who lived on a Sheep Station. 

Now it just so happened that Carol's family had a Poddy Lamb that they were hand feeding and I immediately fell in love with this black, cream, brown and white lamb which I called Sooty!   Carol's father told me that he didn't know what he would do with Sooty because of her coloured wool and he thought Sooty was a twin because all his sheep had lambs and he had no missing sheep.

I was driving my station wagon so we tethered Sooty in the back, the two girls in their car seats and we headed back home.

Sooty was adored by us all and I really loved spinning her wool, she did a great job of keeping that back lawn down but she thought she was just one of my children... which did cause a few problems.

 Nerys meeting Sooty for the first time.

Briony and Sooty were best of friends.

Now here's a mystery, David and I both remember looking after a very old sheep for someone for a while, but for the life of us we cannot remember who owned this sheep or how long we had it before it's owner came and took it away again...  do you children remember?  Was it Pippy?

 We had to hand feed Sooty three times a day, with a powdered milk mix, an enormous teat and a beer bottle.  As Sooty got bigger and stronger the children couldn't keep hold of the bottle so I had to take over the feeding and I can tell you it was like a tug of war match every time, Poddy Lambs sure have a strong suck.

 As I've already mentioned Sooty thought she was my baby so when I left her  at home to go shopping or visiting or whatever she would bleat so loudly and consistently the neighbours kept complaining so for several months I had to take Sooty wherever I went.   I would tether her into the back of the station wagon where she was quite content watching things go by, she was even content when I left her in a car park for a little while, passers by thought Sooty was a lovely little dog until they did a double take. 

Sooty liked nothing more than to get into the house,  she would just blast her way through the back fly screen door of our old home, tear straight down the hallway, jump onto my side of the bed and settle down, till I shooed her out again.

Sooty loved to play Cricket, her favourite game, here she is playing wicker keeper with Tom and Briony.


 Susie became our local Sports Club Mascot...she was black and white after all and she was never any trouble, she quite happily let me lead her anywhere.

 David shearing Sooty...  quite a man of all trades is my David :-)
 A shorn Sooty!

Eventually Sooty had to go, we were building our new home on Sooty's back paddock, I was pregnant with Gwilym and she was getting a bit too big for me to handle easily so we were always watching out for her and as you can see in this photo, our old home was about to be demolished, that's the old red  bath on the veranda, about to be stripped and put into our new bathroom in our new home.

We had friends who had sheep on a small property at Gulgong and they willingly came and took Sooty away with them in their Station Wagon... but that was sad, we'd known Sooty almost all of her life and she was leaving us... very sad.

A couple of years later we visited Sooty at Gulgong, our friends told us that she'd taken a couple of months of hanging around their home but she did eventually join the others in the flock and she even had a couple of babies, one year she had Twins!  Just like we think she was, but all the lambs Sooty had were plain white.  She was the only one who was special.

On our visit to Gulgong, I saw Sooty on top of a small hill, I called her and she stopped, she looked at me and started coming my way but her flock started panicking and bleated furiously warning her not to come near me, she stopped and went back to flock, I kept walking and calling and despite her flocks opposition she came gently trotting to me, she looked at me, let me pat her but the protesters from the top of hill became too much for her and she headed back to her flock... looking back at me from afar.

Mmmm... I did get a bit carried away writing this didn't I, and I'm feeling a little teary now but it's been lovely remembering!

Labels: 6/15, Sheep

 With a Tea Towel for a start  :-)  I thought this was rather funny, I dug around and found my 200 tea towel and just washed yesterday's 225 tea towel.

This weekend we Celebrated the 225th year since John Cobcroft and Sarah Smith arrived in Sydney Harbour from England... and the Celebrations have been fantastic, we met at St John's church in Wilberforce where a lot of our ancestors, including John and Sarah, are buried.  Warren Luxford a Genologist and School teacher who's Grandmother was a Cobcroft organized an incredible day with so much information and so many stories my head is still spinning. 

Below is a photo of about 1/4 of those who attended, more photos coming.

Labels: Cobcroft

Labels: 6/15, Food

LOL!!  cooking our evening meal on the luggage rack of our old London Taxi, somewhere off the road in Portugal way back in 1968.  Plaits, Mini Skirt, Leather Boots and my matching, to David's, Aran jumper.

Labels: 6/15, London Taxi

 Some boys came to play with Pennie and David... or did they?   That's Charlie's friend Luke in front.

 Nerys and David are 'Face Timing' each other, why look at each other if you can FaceTime eh!

 Remy has made a great train here, he is the Driver with the whistle between his legs, you can see how fast they are moving by the arms of the Driver!  That's Gundagai sitting up front and there's room for one other behind... me me me come and pick up me please Remy.
Thinking, thinking, thinking...

Just look how our little James has grown!  Such a big boy now.
Hello is that you Pennie and David?   Are you sure it's you?  Yeah it is Pennie and David :-) 

Labels: Grandchildren

This is the biggest gift I have ever had... my darling grandmother Mama, and yes that is me she's holding :-)

Labels: 6/15, Mama

Labels: 6/15, Garden

ME!  That's who.

Susie gave me these flowers today, after she'd played with my hair... I wonder why?  :-)

Susie was telling me about her oldest daughter who had just been in Canberra for a few days on her first school excursion from home and her parents.   The teacher rang during the trip assuring Susie that everything was okay but her daughter had just lost a tooth and what should the teacher do about the Tooth Fairy.  Susie told the teacher that the tooth fairy usually gave $2.00 a tooth but not to worry about it the tooth fairy would probably arrive the night the child returned home.

But... guess what!  That Tooth Fairy knew that little girl was in Canberra and it duly delivered the going rate of $2.00 per tooth.  The teacher later told Susie that even those children too grown up and no longer believing in the tooth fairy were very surprised and started doubting themselves.

How lovely is that teacher!  Lets hear it for Teachers!  Hurray, Hurray, Hurray!

Labels: Flowers, Stories

This photo was taken in 1971 or 72, and we are in the garden of our old home, the tennis court is standing here now and our old home and the old home next door are no longer standing. 

And this is Torsten who was from Sweden and staying with us for a few weeks.  We met Torsten on the Trans Siberia Railway in 1970, David and I, a Sydney Taxi Driver and Torsten all shared the same cabin.  Torsten was a retired store man and on our pleading came to see Australia, he loved it and loved to garden as well.  Torsten was shorter than me and had a 6'6" twin brother living in the USA. 

What a lovely man he was and what a lot of laughs we enjoyed over the differences in the English, Swedish and American languages.

Labels: 6/15, Home

 Visiting David's Uncle Keith and Aunt Virginia holiday home at Big Sur in 1970.  The fog is amazing but we did eventually catch a glimpse of the coastline and the ocean, although I don't think you can see the Ocean in this photo.

Labels: 6/15, USA

Interesting.

Labels: 6/15, Money

 I love these Violets, they remind me of my Aunty Cranky and my Mama.  They were growing at 'Wollogorang' Breadalbane, in Cranky's garden and many many years ago, probably about 60 years ago, her sister my Mama, dug up a few and planted them at her home in Newport.  When David and I moved into our home, Mama gave me a few plants and they are still growing and spreading and giving me much love.

David and I enjoyed a little wander around the garden this morning talking about which tree was here when we bought our first home, which tree we bought and planted ourselves, which tree or plant was given to us and so on... it's always lovely to have a little wander and chat... then I spotted a couple of these little Iris and it hit me ... three threes!

Three big petals with deep purple at their stem, three slightly smaller petals with yellow and white markings and three little petals in the middle!  333!

Labels: Garden

 I've had enough 'Wet' around our home for a while so here's a photo of Wet Cement being poured to make our pool way back in 1988!

Labels: 6/15, Home

This is a Screen shot using 'Grab'  so as you can see I'm playing on my Ancestry.com

I'll take another Grab now...
:-)  This is fun.... 

Labels: 6/15, Computer

 Okay... so at 9am this morning this is what Max and Min told me...
 I wanted to wander around the garden but it was raining so I just took some photos under the shade of the Veranda...
 Rain drops were falling on my head.

 Puddles stopped me going any further.

 More raindrops...
 ... and more rain drops.
It will be a while before David's 'overies' are dry.



9pm tonight... the temp didn't change much today did it!!!    Max says 12c and it's just under 10c on Min now.

Labels: 6/15, Garden

We have a brand new Pedestrian Crossing at our local shops.
David's trying it out... this way and that.

Labels: 6/15, Turramurra

It's been wet and dull and grey all day.   I just walked outside and spied this neighbour's tree all lit up and glowing.

Labels: Garden

Gwilym made this bed for Remy who just loves it and now quite happily goes to bed and sleeps through the night, how lucky is Remy and more to the point... how clever is his Daddy!

Labels: Remy

I had this absolutely delicious Crispy Pork Knuckle at the Blue Gum many lunchtimes ago... it was enough to feed a whole family. 

Labels: 6/15, Food

Labels: Garden