The view

Pine plantation near Oberon

Down a dead end track

Brumbies, Kosciuszko National Park

dead trees just so beautiful

one of the many dams in the park

After yesterdays words only post I thought I would share the view from the car as we drove back to Melbourne the other week. We decided to not just drive down the Hume highway, the road between Sydney and Melbourne,in fact we tried very hard not to but you have to get on it somewhere and we managed to not join it until Wangaratta. Having left the southern highlands we drove and spent the afternoon with Lily and Violet (granddaughters) at various parks around Camden ending up at McDonalds at Narellan for afternoon tea. Leaving them at home we headed to Penrith and up Hawksbury Road and through Yarrimundi  and Winmalee where the bush fires were recently. We drove down to where we had lived 30 years ago the other side of the ridge from where many of the fires were and then onto Katoomba where we stay the night.
We visited Leura school markets before heading over the mountains and through pine plantations, there was a tree fallen on the track so we had to turn around before heading onto Oberon, from here we drove to Goulburn, Braidwood, Cooma, Tallangatta out to Wangaratta and home.

Do you have.......

a family secret or a mystery or something that is sort of legend but not real sure if it is true or not. We have a few, my grandmother was married before she married my grandfather actually both my grandmothers were married before they married my grandfathers, weird hey! My mothers parents lost their spouses, my grandmother Florence Evelyn Allen (nee Rushworth) lost her 1st husband to war injuries from WW1, my grandfather Andrew James Frankland lost his 1st wife to Spanish flu. They married and added to their 7 children between them, my mum, her sister and 3 brothers. My fathers mother Edith Lepine Gray was married to  Apcar Leslie de Vine before she married my grandfather Percy William Ford. The rumor here is that he ran away from England with their son and she followed him to Australia. I have found on ancestry.com their marriage certificate and Acpar's marriage to someone else but nothing that tells me if they had a child or not, but I am still looking into it. When your grandmother is 72 when you are born 1956 it make doing family history in 2013 a little difficult. My sister in law Shirley has added some history for me......she wrote

 "Grandfather Frankland served in British Navy WW1 and paid his way out of service whilst in Australia. He served as a Warden in WW11 which meant he had to walk around the streets of Sans Souci checking blackout curtains were closed properly.Grandfather Ford was a cabin boy during Boer war served at Gallipoli where he was wounded evacuated to Lemnos and returned to Gallipoli. Then went to Africa where he lost his leg when the camel he was riding was killed by an artillery shell. He died when his appendix burst shortly after having had one of his numerous operations on his stump. Two operations was too much for him to cope with"

Steve has always had rumors that one of his ancestors was aboriginal but given his dad died 40 years ago it has always been just a rumor until recently when his uncles granddaughter Kym was researching her great grandfather that the truth has come to light. A great read and some really interesting history, we have discovered that where Joshua and Jaclyn got married at the Colebee Centre in the Nurriagingy Reserve is where the family was granted land. We have always wondered why the Penrith NSW district was so familiar to him now we know why, this also means I'm married to a one eighth aboriginal.

This post is all about today Remembrance Day 11.11.1918 it got me thinking if my grandmothers first husband William Allen hadn't died of his injuries and Steve grandfather was a Boer war soldier as was my grandfather Ford or so I am led to believe (another mystery to solve). My dad served in PNG in WW2 and my eldest brother was in Vietnam when I was in high school. My brother in law has also served overseas more recently.

For those who served and continue to today...............Lest we Forget 

A wedding quilt and some other sewing

Add caption

Elizabeth sent me a link to this quilt and said she would like it made in red and blue, following the instruction I ended up with more diamond than I needed, so I have done a complete star below and added an extra point when we got back from our 9 day trip to Sydney and surrounds. The sewing was done at Clare's (no blog) while Steve spent the day at meetings and at Capernwray while Steve was at the board meeting.

 I joined the QCA hand made swap - a  needle case this time. I posted it to its new owner on Friday so it should be there soon