Walking in her ancestors’ footsteps

Today Sharon paid us a visit. And she came bearing gifts. Wonderful gifts including a beautiful red scarf for me, hand-knitted and perfect for a chilly house. She also knitted a lovely shawl for Mirinda but needs to finish it off, so she took it back. I refused to take my scarf off.

After some lush brownies, Sharon took Mirinda off for a walk while Fi visited a friend then spent some frustrating time with the RMT, or whatever it’s called, sorting out vehicles.

I spent the day with Archie.

Not to say it was doggie fun and games. No, I scanned many more photographs and put more furniture up for sale on Gumtree. On the completely other hand, Mirinda and Sharon walked a section of the Old Convict Trail, which, I’m overjoyed to say, is a World Heritage site. Or, more accurately, part of 11 sites in Australia.

Built between 1826 and 1836, the Great North Road is 240km long and was built by convicts as a route from Sydney to the Hunter Valley. These days, one can walk sections, admiring the work that convicts slaved over, sometimes wearing leg irons and, no doubt, getting a bit of the whip to gee them up a bit.

Our two intrepid walkers managed three hours with a few stops for leg resting.

I’m not sure what the photograph above indicates but I have one of Sharon in the same pose – see below. Maybe it’s a James Ruse salute to the early labours of HM prisoners. Though one imagines there probably wasn’t a lot of smiling during the original construction.

Of course, Mirinda has convict blood coursing through her veins, so she is probably feeling the pain of those far off days. Sharon, on the other hand, has no excuse.

As well as the high kicks, they had a lovely time just being together, and didn’t get back to the house until quite late, though not so late that we didn’t all have dinner together.

We knocked up a decent quiché and chicken (Shaz) with salad (Gaz), which we all sat around eating. There was also a lot of laughing well into the night, in front of a wonderfully warm Fi built fire. Poor Shaz left quite late and couldn’t have got home before midnight. But it was great seeing her and, of course, my scarf is superb.

Also superb were some of the photos I scanned today of Angledool. I particularly liked this one of three of the chaps who helped build the house.

We couldn’t work out exactly when this was but it would have been the early 1970’s. I do know you can’t get Toohey’s Flag Ale anymore. Particularly in steel cans.