Winter In Queensland
Without Prejudice
I havr to escape the Winter in Melbourne. I have S.A.D. which is governed by the right amount of light. I find it easiest to go to Qld instead. Dave my younger Brother has a business up there. He's quite well off and lives in a 3 story home right on the water at Redcliffe. Redcliffe used to be a little old fishing village. Full of returned servicemen, retirees, big on bowling greens poor on crazy night life.
George my older brother runs and owns a business too and buys and sells machines, most of them brake presses, lathes. He loves it and lives just a stone throws distance from his business. Jackie my older Sister lives at Ormeau Hills in a gated community with her hubby Winn. Winn was going to retire a couple of years ago but I am not sure Jackie was ready for it.
So he goes into his business, every day and is as happy as you could ever expect a poor boy from Yorkshire, a canning engineer, turned rich to be.I stay with them and I love it, I get to live the rich luxurious lifestyle for a while. I also have an immesnsely hard working pretty and patient younger Sister who is a senior Nurse and lives near there at Beachmere. Bechmere is like Redcliffe used to be but much smaller.
And my genius brother Ian, lives at Darwin River and is married to one of the nicest women I have ever met.
I often question myself as to why I don't live there permanently. All that sun and sea and humidity. But my family lives here in Melbourne, my 3 girls and their 13 kids. I suppose if I had a place up there for Winter they could all come up, bringing babies and kids. Yes, I would love that.
We stayed at the sweetest little house up there one September. Four steps to our own private beach. Golden Four Drive Tugun. Tugun being out of the mainstream Gold Coast toursit mayhem. At Tugun, the 50's style house was surrounded on both sides by 3 story apartment blocks. No one in them in Winter.
We had the best fun, we were up early every morning straight on to the sand. Swim, sunbaking, watching the strolling traffic of tourists and permanents as they walked or ran the beach. One older lady of about 70 strode along topless, her breasts no more tha a mans. And brown all over like a well polished leather handbag.
We went to the Surf Club at Kirra for breakfasts, looking out over the beach and sea. There was my boyfriend Howard and my Son in Law Andrew and his daughter, my grand daughter Ashleigh. The men would go off and do their thing later in the day, (pub) and Ash and I were free to do what we wanted.
There was a tiny verandah on the front of the house where you could sit at night and hear the waves shushing on the beach metres from where we sat. We drank lots of wine and laughed a lot. Andrew was wickedly funny and have us in stitches all the time. My fella was english, bald and hated the sun. Ash and I had gone to the beach early one morning and the sun was already fierce.
Howard came down and stood watching us frolicking in the sand and sea.
"Get out of the sun", I called.
By that night he resembled a matchstick, red head, red face and very very burnt feet. We had to get him to soak his feet in condy's crystals the chemist said and it turned his toenails a peculiar shade of brown purple. I called Ash into the room the next morning.
"look", I said, "he looks like a red head match"
He did too, Howard snored for Australia and head back and snoring with a white neck and red face he looked like a matchstick. That was it Ash and I couldn't look at him for the rest of the trip without cracking up. Brown nails, red feet and head and face. Silly bugger shoudn't have gone to the beach uncovered with skin like he had, soft English skin, he fried to a crisp.
We were not together then anyway and I think the trip finished us off completely. I just didn't fancy him. He was a kind hearted beautiful man but he had no backbone and was taken advantage of by his kids. I had my own kids to worry about at that time. We ended it agreeably a few months later.
But while we were in Tugun the mouse came.One night we were all joking, alughing and watching sport with a few drinks and sudddenly there was a mouse. It ran across the room. Ash and I screamed and we both jumped up on the couch. So did Andrew and Howard.
"You cowards," I said, "Go get him, I'm terrified of mice"
"So are we" both men replied.
I ignored them and Ash and I stayed where we were and the 2 men jumped down and grabbed bromms and they screamed, yes screamed every time the mouse came near them. Ash and I were falling baout laughing and screaming at the same time. It was like a Billy Connolly sketch. The one with the mayhem at a party of too many. the fish supper one.
They finally were able to chase the "wee timmering, cowering beastie" out the door and Andrew slammed and locked it. I had never seen men scared of mice like that. I thought only women were scared of mice. I have never ever been able to fathom why we are scared of mice, women, that is. I am terrified of them and spiders and Jackie my sister hates birds or any small animal. One of her boyfriends once presented her with a baby possum and she sobbed and shrieked for hours and she was 16.
My family first came to the Gold Coast when I was 10. Mum and Dad gave David and I a holiday up there after I was in the National Swimming Championships in Sydney. I didn't come anywhere and was sick with nerves before the swim. I did my best but I was no match for the others, but I did gain a scholarship to be trained to swim by an Olympic Coach in Sydney. I thought I could swim until I met him.
I had no idea of form or power and had to learn from scratch with kick boards. My sister Jackie has the most graceful style, much better than mine. But I am fairly good. I have my Lifesavers cert and all that.
I love my Family with a passion. Who would have thought how rich and successful they would become. Mum and Dad wouls be open mouthed. They did a good job my parents, we are all well and happy and living the sort of lives they wanted for us. I am a writer now and get paid to do it. What I also wanted when I was little girl.
I love the weather in Summer in Melbourne and the winter in Queensland and I will just write and write. Sitting in the sun on my Ipad. Looking out over the water or the hills. What I would really like is to sit on a balcony in Surfers and face the sea and enjoy the sea breezea. Surfers a great place to be. Jackie and Winn had an apartment there. Right on the beachfront almost. They cooked their Wagyu steaks there on the balcony and Jac and I were cleaning it when we heard the news about Steve Irwin.
We blubbed at the funeral it was so tender and so moving and we just sobbed. When the played True Blue with the empty ute I couldn' stand it and had to leve the room. Jackie and Winn also have an apartment in the city, right on the river, that they rent out all year around. Winn my brother in law is one of life's true Gentlemen. He is sort of dapper for a tall man and drives an MG, new one and old one. I've driven both and love them. He and Jackie used to be in the MG car club and met some of the nicest people ever.
I love spending time with just Jackie, or Just Helen, or Just Dave or Just George. Dave insisted on it last time we sitting in the hot tub and talking of many things. Our parents, marriages, divorces, kids. He's so inspirational Dave, he's like Donald Trump or someone and has been to all the seminars and positive lectures. They sure as hell work for him and he passes them all on to me.
I love to remind him I am his OLDER sister and changed his nappies when I was a little girl. I was so in love with him as a baby, Jackie and I, we were besotted. He grew into a quiet and shy little boy and then he was all legs and shockingly thin. George, David and I were all like little scarecrows when young. I was in the doctors once with Dave and he was a bout 13 and an old lady asked if she could touch the bump on the back of his neck.
Dave gave me a look like,
"What the Hell ?"
So she did.
"Oh it's bone", she commented a bit disappointed.
She thought he was there to have the "lump" removed, that would have been funny, seeing as it was the top of his spinal cord. Last time I saw him he said before I got there that he now looked like he had swallowed a wheely bin, and he did.
When lauren died they were all on planes by 9am the next morning, Ian, Jackie, George, Dave, Helen. Dave's wife had a newborn as did Helen and we had Kyle as a baby. My niece Melissa, nephews, cosins they were all there the day after she died and they took over. george ran the business for two weeks as he had worked for us in our Business and knew the ropes.
he and Jackie did all the organising, they dressed Lauren for me as I couldn't. Just couldn't. And when we went to see her at the Funeral home, my sister in law Kerry Cue, Dave's wife at the time said she had never heard sounds coming out of Human beings like the sounds we made as we her family went in to see her. Inhuman sounds, like animals terribly injured. They pulled me away from her then.
I wanted to stay with her, just me and Lauren but it wasn't to be/ I kissed her and stroked her beautiful hair and felt her legs, newly shaved. My little girl had been growing up that year, going from Barbie Dolls to Guns N Roses and Poison. We had been to Bali in the June and she earned the nickname Otter.
My family have to the best family anyone could hope to have and I am going up there in Winter as soon as my great granchild is born and we have had Alena's birthday, earky May. Jackie is 64 on the 12th May and so I hope baby and birthday out of the way that I can take off for the winter until October, bet I get homesick within 3 days.
Love Janette
I havr to escape the Winter in Melbourne. I have S.A.D. which is governed by the right amount of light. I find it easiest to go to Qld instead. Dave my younger Brother has a business up there. He's quite well off and lives in a 3 story home right on the water at Redcliffe. Redcliffe used to be a little old fishing village. Full of returned servicemen, retirees, big on bowling greens poor on crazy night life.
George my older brother runs and owns a business too and buys and sells machines, most of them brake presses, lathes. He loves it and lives just a stone throws distance from his business. Jackie my older Sister lives at Ormeau Hills in a gated community with her hubby Winn. Winn was going to retire a couple of years ago but I am not sure Jackie was ready for it.
So he goes into his business, every day and is as happy as you could ever expect a poor boy from Yorkshire, a canning engineer, turned rich to be.I stay with them and I love it, I get to live the rich luxurious lifestyle for a while. I also have an immesnsely hard working pretty and patient younger Sister who is a senior Nurse and lives near there at Beachmere. Bechmere is like Redcliffe used to be but much smaller.
And my genius brother Ian, lives at Darwin River and is married to one of the nicest women I have ever met.
I often question myself as to why I don't live there permanently. All that sun and sea and humidity. But my family lives here in Melbourne, my 3 girls and their 13 kids. I suppose if I had a place up there for Winter they could all come up, bringing babies and kids. Yes, I would love that.
We stayed at the sweetest little house up there one September. Four steps to our own private beach. Golden Four Drive Tugun. Tugun being out of the mainstream Gold Coast toursit mayhem. At Tugun, the 50's style house was surrounded on both sides by 3 story apartment blocks. No one in them in Winter.
We had the best fun, we were up early every morning straight on to the sand. Swim, sunbaking, watching the strolling traffic of tourists and permanents as they walked or ran the beach. One older lady of about 70 strode along topless, her breasts no more tha a mans. And brown all over like a well polished leather handbag.
We went to the Surf Club at Kirra for breakfasts, looking out over the beach and sea. There was my boyfriend Howard and my Son in Law Andrew and his daughter, my grand daughter Ashleigh. The men would go off and do their thing later in the day, (pub) and Ash and I were free to do what we wanted.
There was a tiny verandah on the front of the house where you could sit at night and hear the waves shushing on the beach metres from where we sat. We drank lots of wine and laughed a lot. Andrew was wickedly funny and have us in stitches all the time. My fella was english, bald and hated the sun. Ash and I had gone to the beach early one morning and the sun was already fierce.
Howard came down and stood watching us frolicking in the sand and sea.
"Get out of the sun", I called.
By that night he resembled a matchstick, red head, red face and very very burnt feet. We had to get him to soak his feet in condy's crystals the chemist said and it turned his toenails a peculiar shade of brown purple. I called Ash into the room the next morning.
"look", I said, "he looks like a red head match"
He did too, Howard snored for Australia and head back and snoring with a white neck and red face he looked like a matchstick. That was it Ash and I couldn't look at him for the rest of the trip without cracking up. Brown nails, red feet and head and face. Silly bugger shoudn't have gone to the beach uncovered with skin like he had, soft English skin, he fried to a crisp.
We were not together then anyway and I think the trip finished us off completely. I just didn't fancy him. He was a kind hearted beautiful man but he had no backbone and was taken advantage of by his kids. I had my own kids to worry about at that time. We ended it agreeably a few months later.
But while we were in Tugun the mouse came.One night we were all joking, alughing and watching sport with a few drinks and sudddenly there was a mouse. It ran across the room. Ash and I screamed and we both jumped up on the couch. So did Andrew and Howard.
"You cowards," I said, "Go get him, I'm terrified of mice"
"So are we" both men replied.
I ignored them and Ash and I stayed where we were and the 2 men jumped down and grabbed bromms and they screamed, yes screamed every time the mouse came near them. Ash and I were falling baout laughing and screaming at the same time. It was like a Billy Connolly sketch. The one with the mayhem at a party of too many. the fish supper one.
They finally were able to chase the "wee timmering, cowering beastie" out the door and Andrew slammed and locked it. I had never seen men scared of mice like that. I thought only women were scared of mice. I have never ever been able to fathom why we are scared of mice, women, that is. I am terrified of them and spiders and Jackie my sister hates birds or any small animal. One of her boyfriends once presented her with a baby possum and she sobbed and shrieked for hours and she was 16.
My family first came to the Gold Coast when I was 10. Mum and Dad gave David and I a holiday up there after I was in the National Swimming Championships in Sydney. I didn't come anywhere and was sick with nerves before the swim. I did my best but I was no match for the others, but I did gain a scholarship to be trained to swim by an Olympic Coach in Sydney. I thought I could swim until I met him.
I had no idea of form or power and had to learn from scratch with kick boards. My sister Jackie has the most graceful style, much better than mine. But I am fairly good. I have my Lifesavers cert and all that.
I love my Family with a passion. Who would have thought how rich and successful they would become. Mum and Dad wouls be open mouthed. They did a good job my parents, we are all well and happy and living the sort of lives they wanted for us. I am a writer now and get paid to do it. What I also wanted when I was little girl.
I love the weather in Summer in Melbourne and the winter in Queensland and I will just write and write. Sitting in the sun on my Ipad. Looking out over the water or the hills. What I would really like is to sit on a balcony in Surfers and face the sea and enjoy the sea breezea. Surfers a great place to be. Jackie and Winn had an apartment there. Right on the beachfront almost. They cooked their Wagyu steaks there on the balcony and Jac and I were cleaning it when we heard the news about Steve Irwin.
We blubbed at the funeral it was so tender and so moving and we just sobbed. When the played True Blue with the empty ute I couldn' stand it and had to leve the room. Jackie and Winn also have an apartment in the city, right on the river, that they rent out all year around. Winn my brother in law is one of life's true Gentlemen. He is sort of dapper for a tall man and drives an MG, new one and old one. I've driven both and love them. He and Jackie used to be in the MG car club and met some of the nicest people ever.
I love spending time with just Jackie, or Just Helen, or Just Dave or Just George. Dave insisted on it last time we sitting in the hot tub and talking of many things. Our parents, marriages, divorces, kids. He's so inspirational Dave, he's like Donald Trump or someone and has been to all the seminars and positive lectures. They sure as hell work for him and he passes them all on to me.
I love to remind him I am his OLDER sister and changed his nappies when I was a little girl. I was so in love with him as a baby, Jackie and I, we were besotted. He grew into a quiet and shy little boy and then he was all legs and shockingly thin. George, David and I were all like little scarecrows when young. I was in the doctors once with Dave and he was a bout 13 and an old lady asked if she could touch the bump on the back of his neck.
Dave gave me a look like,
"What the Hell ?"
So she did.
"Oh it's bone", she commented a bit disappointed.
She thought he was there to have the "lump" removed, that would have been funny, seeing as it was the top of his spinal cord. Last time I saw him he said before I got there that he now looked like he had swallowed a wheely bin, and he did.
When lauren died they were all on planes by 9am the next morning, Ian, Jackie, George, Dave, Helen. Dave's wife had a newborn as did Helen and we had Kyle as a baby. My niece Melissa, nephews, cosins they were all there the day after she died and they took over. george ran the business for two weeks as he had worked for us in our Business and knew the ropes.
he and Jackie did all the organising, they dressed Lauren for me as I couldn't. Just couldn't. And when we went to see her at the Funeral home, my sister in law Kerry Cue, Dave's wife at the time said she had never heard sounds coming out of Human beings like the sounds we made as we her family went in to see her. Inhuman sounds, like animals terribly injured. They pulled me away from her then.
I wanted to stay with her, just me and Lauren but it wasn't to be/ I kissed her and stroked her beautiful hair and felt her legs, newly shaved. My little girl had been growing up that year, going from Barbie Dolls to Guns N Roses and Poison. We had been to Bali in the June and she earned the nickname Otter.
My family have to the best family anyone could hope to have and I am going up there in Winter as soon as my great granchild is born and we have had Alena's birthday, earky May. Jackie is 64 on the 12th May and so I hope baby and birthday out of the way that I can take off for the winter until October, bet I get homesick within 3 days.
Love Janette
