This is really only a domestic update. Autumn is here, shorter days, and just lately much colder nights. The sun is still warming but is strong for a shorter time so I love to spend time in the garden when I can. As usual there is much to do, just the usual jobs like repotting, weeding, resettling plants to maximise sunlight to keep them going through winter so there will be blooms in Spring. The weeds are still growing after all the rain we had in March and April so still a lot of maintenance. With the wetter soil conditions there is a chance of frost this winter, something that rarely occurs now.

I have just had a good weekend spending time with my daughter and her family, it is always great to catch up with the grandkids and their doings. I had a full day course for the church on Child Safety in a nearby suburb so I was there most of Saturday. By staying for a couple of nights I still had plenty of time with the family. I find that although the grandchildren seem eager to talk to me what is said is all said at the last possible time, so late Sunday afternoon. The conversation with my grandson was about school and his commitments there and with my grand daughter about her coming party ( she turns 13 on Wednesday). If I am lucky I also have some time to talk to my daughter.

I enjoy the fact that when I am away from home I don't have to cook, it is someone else's job. My son in law did a BBQ on Saturday night, it is great to smell a BBQ cooking, really make you appreciate the good fortune we have in our country with a ready supply of quality meat. I appreciate it more because now I am home alone that doesn't happen here. Just sitting around the table with the family laughing and talking together is a real treat for me. It is also sad in a way as it reminds me that Ray was a great BBQ cook and we had a lot of good times not only with family but with various gatherings of friends prior to his strokes.

But now it is meetings week, so I have reports to write, information to take in. When outside the sun in shining, the birds are singing and I would rather get out in the garden. But there is always work to do in the church. For the uninitiated there are just a handful of workers in any church and however many sit in the pews on Sundays that always applies. I love the work I do but sometimes I just keep adding a job here and there until I reach overload. This year I am trying not to do that. But I did volunteer to help with Welfare again this year at our Parish Council meeting today. This is because of course our good volunteers are getting older, less able to do the many tasks they did previously so those who are left step up to fill the positions. It is the same in all organisations unfortunately.

I am still trying to live out each day to the standard of my word for the year “enjoy”. Some days it is easy but others it is hard to see where that fits in, so a cup of tea on the verandah watching a fly past of parrots, the riot of flowers in a garden I walk past, a friend sending a message on Facebook or by email is what lifts my spirits. It is better to remember what life used to be like when I was a 24/7 caregiver compared to what it is now and relish the freedom I have now. We all live lives where things could be better but they could also be a good deal worse so that has to be in the forefront of my mind. My pity parties are few now as I have so much to be thankful for.

My little next door neighbour,who is aged five and just started at Big School is earning pocket money and one of the things be does now, with the help of his father, is put my bins out. The children over there call me Nanny Sue and so this is his “good deed for the week”. It is good to have neighbours who like you. My neighbour on the top side just invited me in for scones next Sunday afternoon, he makes lovely scones, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, it is a great treat. I would much rather have that than a fashionable High Tea in some restaurant. I think I am reverting to the country ways I lived in as a child, a simpler way of life, now. For me it is one of the advantages of growing older.