January

In the past week I have managed to locate another French cousin named Claude, well at this stage we think we are cousins. Claude has been kind enough to locate some French records to help establish our potential relationship. It always amazes me that people I meet through genealogy are so kind and so helpful, even people who are not even related. This says a lot about the fact that the vast majority of people in this world are good and very kind. It's reassuring to know that in spite of all the negative reports we hear in the news about human behaviour, the vast majority of people are civilised and responsible. We only have to look to the events surrounding the recent floods in Queensland, northern NSW and Victoria. The response by people to these events is heartening.


During the past three weeks I have been going through some old photographs and loading many of them onto my flickr site. Many are not my photographs, some belong to my mother Jeanne, who would have to be the world worse photographer - renown for disembodying people and managing to capture ceilings, blank walls and the like in favour of the totality of the subject. There is a classic Jeanne photograph where the head of my brother Ross sits at the bottom of the frame and a vast expense of ceiling fills the field of vision. If I can locate that photograph I'll post it here. You'll need to have an invitation from me to see my personal photographs, but the vast majority are freely available at my flickr site.


During last year my best friend and his wife Asia (Joanna) visited Australia from Poland. Here are some photographs from their visit. I put up the Polish and Australian flags to signify welcome. L-R Myself, Julia, Asia and Kevin's mother Margaret outside my home. We all went up the coast to visit Margaret's rural property at Pacific Palms. It was good to catch up with some of Kevin's family, many of whom I've not seen for some years. While there Kevin and me got busy trying to remove the dreaded lantana as this shot indicates. Lantana removal is like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge, once you seem to have finished, you have to start all over again. It's a never ending job - thanks Mrs MacQuarrie!!! L-R Kevin and me. We could have spent the entire time at Pacific Palms cutting down lantana.

Going through these old photographs I found some from my graduation so I thought I'd post one here. Photograph by Anthony Steklenborg. L-R my sister Yvonne, my mother Jeanne, myself and my good friend Barrie Jones, at the University of New South Wales, Kensington.