A little bit of schmaltz...

The Bridal party with Kissing Cousins.

Blame the schmaltz on Scout who asked me how the Wedding went.
It was a fantastic afternoon and evening. There is nothing like having cause for celebration and then celebrating!!
I read a Traditional Apache prayer before saying some personal words. Here is the prayer...

Now you will feel no rain
for each of you will be a shelter for the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be warmth for the other.
Now there is no loneliness for you,
now there is no more loneliness.
Now you are two bodies
but there is only one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place
to enter into your days together
And may your days be good and long on the earth.



Dancing Girls

Wedding Day

Just a quick thought, as I am trying to get some much needed sleep tonight before my sister's wedding tomorrow.
All roads to love tend on the rocky side and my sister has had her fair share of difficulties (including just recently getting through cervical cancer). She has met up with a man, who seems, at least to me, to be a very good hearted and wonderful person. And I will be wishing them both all the very best tomorrow. My post is about the difficulties of saying all I want to say succinctly in the few minutes that I will have to fill, in the middle of the ceremony. Which, in itself, will be brief.
Anyway, I only hope I can rise to the occasion. After that I will very merrily celebrate!

The old shell...

“If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”
Gaston Bachelard

I am saying goodbye to a house (which I have just sold) that has sheltered me and many friends over the last 20 odd years. I do not live there now and left it a few years ago but it lives inside me as a treasured repository of many memories good and bad!
The house has a distant view of my old State School and is near a bridge which spans the Yarra River. This bridge was one, I and my adventurous friends, used to scramble under to find the most dangerous way possible to cross the river. It is near the site of my first smoke (I have since given up tobacco) at the age of 12. A parkie, sitting on a bench near the river helped us kids light our first pipe! It helped fund my studies in England and Germany and has held many a fine party.



I managed to renovate the back of the house and transformed it (with help from an Architect friend) into a kind of teahouse space. I found all the recycled wood to build it with and had a lot of joy directing the building. The house always resonated with me and I found it very difficult to make the decision to sell. As I thought about it I realised I had owned it for over 20 years which, is a far longer connection with a house than any of my childhood abodes. I had found my base there in more ways than just physically in space.

So, farewell old shell, and thankyou!