Happy New Year. May it be one full of adventures, health, happiness and fun. Now all I have to do is to remember to write 2018 instead of 2017!
December 2017 - A Farewell - And a Celebration
as a family member's illness has kept us close to home.
This December we said goodbye to a dearly beloved member of our family. A couple of weeks prior to Christmas, my brother, sister and I held our dear mum's hand, as she passed away.
She was always one who loved creating a beautiful Christmas for her family, and so this year we carried on the tradition with her in our hearts.
As this year draws to an end, we wish you joy,
and time with those who matter.
House Sitting - random moments...
We decided to start going slow on our trips back and forth to Queensland and this time stopped off at Ballina and Coffs Harbour. If you're headed through Coffs, stop off at Coffs Yachties at The Jetty for a treat. Great view, food, service, can't speak highly enough of it.
Pompeii and a visit with an old family yacht, Rival
Facebook does come in handy for some things, a friend posted something she had seen at The Pompeii exhibit, and I was glad she did as I wanted to visit that while we were in Sydney. So we headed off to Darling Harbour. The Maritime Museuem is really worth a visit if you have time, we were so impressed with the area.
The exhibit, as is all of the museum, very well curated. We were a little disappointed to see only a few actual treasures from Pompeii, but the way it was displayed, was excellent. We discovered that a lot of the items were plaster casts of the original. However still an excellent exhibit.
however I wouldn't mind this coming to live at my house.
Time to wander on and out to see if Kevin's grandfather's boat was still at The Maritime Museum...
Rival was in Kevin's family for many years. Rival is a 16' skiff built in 1928 by Harold Griffin at the Spit Middle Harbour, she sailed for more than 40 years at Middle Harbour Skiff club.
It held the record for the most wins in any season, and earned the title of 'ghost ship' for it's uncanny ability to overtake the rest of the fleet in light airs.
Minding Toby at Milsons Point
As our house sit comes to an end, we just wanted to say thank you to Toby for being a great little guy to mind. We have loved your cuddles and tender little nature, you are a very easy boy to love and care for. Toby is the dearest little 16 year old Havanese, that we have been looking after in Milsons Point. We also loved how much joy you gave to everyone who saw you in your poochy pouch as Kevin carried you around on your walks. We will miss you. Lots of love treasure.
May Gibbs Nutcote
We didn't set out that day to find Nutcote, but we'd seen signs of May Gibbs along our walks, little reminders of her stories are to be found in the plantings and sculpture around the area.
I noticed this building as we were pulling up in the ferry, some houses just seem to have a story to tell, don't you think? Well, turned out that we'd stumbled across, Once Upon A Time.
This is certainly the land of the stairs this area. But somehow, this ferry stop seemed a little bit magical.
1935 Once Upon a Time. 1936
Live Peaceably with all so shall
thou lead a happy life thouself.
~ Goethe.
I had to find out more...
Once Upon A Time. Former home of William Alfred Leopold Crowle, its entrance gates are presided over by a stone lion ( formerly two) supposedly bought from the London Houses of Parliament after the WWII blitz. Nearby are verses from Goethe, including (in German) “When someone makes a journey they have a story to tell”. This is a house with a journey and a story to tell.Crowle was a Sydney importer, businessman and inveterate traveler and collector. In 1935-36 he had designed and built Wyldefel Gardens stepping down a hillside in a ‘V’ to the waterfront at Potts Point. This townhouse development with its flat roofs and modern styling was a radical innovation for Sydney. At the water’s edge, he built his own house, Once Upon A Time, the bottom floor being the boatshed for his yacht. Returning in 1940 after three years of traveling, Crowle found that the navy was about to acquire his estate for the development of Captain Cook Graving Dock and to connect Garden Island to the mainland. Rather than lose his house, he had it dismantled and bought across to Kurraba Point on barges for reassembly. Crowle died in 1959 and his enormous collections of artifacts and books were auctioned off. Once Upon A Time is now three apartments. ~ Information from May Gibbs Neutral Bay Walk
How fabulous to live in a house called Once Upon A Time, how fabulous to have called this house that. I think I want a house called Once Upon A Time.
It was such a beautiful feeling to have discovered those words at the top of the stairs. One of the delights from just wandering... Anyway, walking on a little way, we noticed a sign to May Gibbs home, Nutcote. So we followed the sign and found a wonderful little place, one that has the feeling that lives have been lived there, with many happy memories.
"Once upon a time, on the beautiful Sydney shoreline, was a house called Nutcote and in that house lived a remarkable woman called May Gibbs who turned gumnuts into tiny people and banksias into villains." ~ Angus Stewart
Little Toby the darling Havanese we are minding, looks to me like he could be one of May Gibbs little characters.
"This is May Gibbs. At the moment I live in a house in Neutral Bay, Sydney and it's a dear little place with a long, long garden. I'm very fond of it. The first books that I ever did were the flower books or the Boronia Babies, Wattle Babies, Gumnut Babies and I think another baby - Flannel Flower Babies.""I used to walk about the garden, weeding the garden and loving it," the recording continues, "with a book in my pocket and a pencil and that's where I got all my ideas. I used to think of them when I was gardening." ~ From the video in Nutcote.
Well Nutcote exudes happiness.
Visit inside May Gibbs home online: May Gibbs.com.au Click Here
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