Poppa

Sunday:

We visited Poppa yesterday, my mother's father. He turned 100 last year, and still looks after himself in his own home. His son does live across the road but he still does most things for himself. Amazing! We didn't see him at Christmas so a few cousins and I arranged afternoon tea. It was nice to see them too. I wish I'd tried for a better shot of Poppa.

As well as Poppa and my husband, it was four women and eight children so it was a bit of a mother's group! This is some of them (mine are the older ones):

Of the other husbands, one was working and dropped in briefly, the others were at the cricket (separately) which wouldn't have been very nice as it went from scorching hot in the morning to a big storm in the afternoon.

I do wish my cousins wouldn't give all their boys almost the same name: Jake, Jaxon and Jordie. And one who wasn't there called her new baby Jack. How on earth am I supposed to remember which is whose, especially when I only see them once or twice a year!

Every time I go out there the landscape is so different. It used to be country, a few houses amongst paddocks. Poppa and his son each had a five-acre block (a normal suburban block here is usually 1/4 acre). But Sydney keeps growing and now it is a rabbit warren of houses everywhere. Poppa sold most of his block a few years ago and now so has my uncle - each has been subdivided into little lots with hardly any backyard. I wouldn't want to live there, it's really crowded.

On the way back, Tim worked out that as I am currently 48, I will turn 49 this year and therefore next year... 50. I am turning 50 next year. My goodness.

We've been spending a lot of time in the pool. Lovely. And we've finally had some passionfruit from the rampant vine over the shed, it is covered in fruit but they all stayed green for months. The cockatoos were eating them anyway and it looked like none would be left to ripen for us. But we had two each today.