For Grandma's Memoirs

My memories of Grandma include - running through the waves when the other members of the family were in deep discussion on the beach.
Grandma said, "Would you like to run along the beach with me?" Of course I said yes. It was freezing but I loved it!
I still love running along the beach and take my grandchildren as often as I can.
Grandma took me on a beach outing once and offered to buy me an ice-cream. An ice-cream! All to myself.
We could never afford that. I was so cheeky I asked for a double one, but I couldn't eat it all!

Grandma helped me cut out and assemble a 'Muffin the Mule' puppet with movable joints.
She found some split-pins (don't ask me where!). The picture was on the back of a cereal packet.
Mums don't usually have the time to do these things, but grandmas do! I help my own grandies with craft and they love it!
She even had a writing desk with paper and pencils in a special drawer for me to use when I visited their place.
Every time we visited I checked to see if it was still there and it always was.
That made me feel pretty special.

I remember visiting Grandma in hospital in Melbourne when I was a teenager.
I told her not to die as I loved her so much.
She was the one who encouraged me with first aid badges when I was in the Girl Guides,
even buying me a Nurse's manual as I thought I would like to be a Nurse.
I have kept my First aid certificates current from 1974 as I have needed them for my various jobs
in schools and welfare work.

So you see Grandma is still influencing me today and I am pretty sure I base my grand parenting style on hers.

The Beautiful Blue Wren

THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE WREN

My husband Ernie loves to work in the garden – especially in the front, as the morning sun shines on our north facing home.

We bought in Metung twelve years ago. Holidaying here so frequently meant that inevitably we would settle here one day.

The Blue Wren is Ernie’s favourite bird, next to the Crimson Rosella. He knows each one by its markings and personality. Yes, they do have their own personalities. (Real little characters, some of them!)

Recently there has been a little Blue Wren with a stumpy tail hanging around. Ernie called him ‘Short tail’.

Short tail followed Ernie while he worked in the garden and sat on his shoe when he had a cuppa on the front veranda.

This morning, when we were having breakfast, sitting in the beautiful, East Gippsland winter sun, Ernie saw a little Blue Wren on the driveway. He was not looking very well and was a bit wobbly on his feet. We noticed with dismay that it was our friend, Short tail.

Other Blue Wrens gathered around him as if they were concerned about him and wondering why he couldn’t fly.

I went down and picked him up gently - a tiny ball of fluff in my hand. He was breathing hard, opening and closing his beak.

Then he stopped, stretched out one wing and lay still.

His time had come. My eyes grew misty (over a bird I didn’t even know very well.) Such beautiful colours – indigo feathers under his chin and those distinctive, iridescent, pale blue markings on his head.

I wondered that a God, with so much to do, would bother to bestow such magnificent markings on one so small. Who would know if He had chosen not to?

A bit like us – He knows how many hairs on our head and when each sparrow falls.

I lay Short tail down in a dappled, sunny spot and covered him with an oak leaf.

One little, feathered friend came and visited him to say goodbye. I don’t know how he knew where I had put him.

Such comradeship and compassion between them.

Would that more humans would follow their example.

The End