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Published: July 27th 2008
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Dinner at the Captain's table
Lorenza's family recently celebrated 40 years since they arrived in Australia onboard the SS Himalaya. We travelled to Bargo to attend a great celebration with the family. The theme "Dinner at the Captain's Table". The party area was decorated in a nautical theme and looked great. Lorenza made two speeches during the celebrations, one to present her parents with a certificate that gave the details of a plaque we had purchased for them that will be installed on the Welcome Wall at Darling Harbour in Sydney. The Welcome Wall celebrates the contribution that migrants have made to Australia and families can buy a plaque to be put in the wall - a very appropriate gift.
It was a fun after and night with the family and Pa sure looked the part of the Captain.
Semillon rushed to the bottle
As part of the 40th Anniversary celebrations I had promised to present all the family with a commemorative bottle of wine, complete with special label. I got busy the week before the party and bottled our 2008 Semillon. It was a bit of a "rush it to bottle" scenario as I would have
preferred to let it age a lot longer before presenting this wine to the public. To my relief it made for good drinking and each family member got a bottle or two to take home and age before opening, perhaps on the 45th anniversary? A good testimony to this very young wine was the fact that the family managed to drink a dozen bottles at the party and I noticed that no-one changed wines, otherwise I would have noticed other bottles empty in the bin. Yep, one way to check if people like your wine is to take a peek in the garbage bin - a bit strange perhaps but a good way to see if people drank it or not!
Couchsurfers from ... Spain ... Germany ... Poland ... Ukraine
Kinga and Anton came and surfed our couch after some hiking in the Blue Mountains. Their last known address was Valencia, Spain ... before that somewhere in Germany ... prior to that Kinga came from Poland and Anton form the Ukraine. They were an interesting young couple and we enjoyed sharing some wine and travel stories with them. Hopefully they will return one day or we may
Oscar WW1 photo
My Grandfather Oscar, sitting on the far right, with Gurkha's from WW1 surf their couch somewhere in the world in the future.
World War One Snaps
My father found some photos of Oscar, my Grandfather, taken at the time of World War One. I scanned them all because the originals are starting to age and fade. I posted just one example here, which is Oscar with some comrades and also some Gurkhas in Cairo, the caption on the back said
"the Sgt with troop mates and me with the Gurkha's we were with at Gallipoli, we met up again in Cairo where this photo was taken. I often wonder what became of them". Looking at the photos made me wonder how much of a shock it would have been for this 18 year old who had spent so long working on a remote Australian farm to find himself in places like Alexandria, Cairo, Turkey and of course the horrors of Gallipoli. I still remember Oscar being such a calm person and spending time as a child with him having no idea what he had been through in his life.
The Chapelle St Wendelin
I just added some new photos to the website I maintain for my friends from
Alsace, France. I added it here simply because I think it is such a beautiful chapel. Hopefully, Lorenza and I will be able to return to Alsace in 2009 - we miss our family and friends there now and then and wish it was a short drive away rather than a 24 hour flight.
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