Tonight I am wishing tomorrow away. It’s a day that I’m expecting to be difficult. One I never could have imagined would ever happen.
Tomorrow is the funeral of my stillborn grandson, Samuel.
Samuel’s other grandmother has arranged the day, and I know that my son needs me to be with him on the day. He needs the support of his family, to know we are there for him to lean on while his heart is breaking. To comfort him as he bids his son a final goodbye.
Life will go on, just as it should. The trees will continue to sway in the breeze and the birds will sing, assuring me that the world has not stopped spinning, yet for one small part of tomorrow, time will stand still for me. The clocks will stop ticking. I will be with my son. My heart will break for my boy.
And the day after tomorrow we will move on again. Life will begin again. The ticking of the clocks will resume. My son’s heart will mend, but there will always be a scar, a scar which he will wear with pride.
Baby Samuel will never be forgotten.
“Samuel Christopher ~ Always on my mind, Forever in my heart”. ❤
Occasionally, I’m asked by my overseas blogging friends whereabouts I live in Australia. If you are anything like me, you have to Google a map to see where exactly the place is, and even then you are not completely sure you have it right.
So, when I came across this lovely old map of Australia recently, from the early 1900’s, I decided to leave an “X” on the spot of the map to show where I live, so that you can see my location, right on the coast of New South Wales, and bordering the state of Queensland.
The lovely blog where I found this map, “Knick of Time” has a huge number of gorgeous free printable downloads, and so much more including DIY projects! I haven’t had the time yet to wander through the whole site, that will have to wait until after the wedding we are having here in the garden in September, but I’m really looking forward to whiling away some time at “Knick of Time”, when I have the time!
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Just a brief update before I go, I spent the day with Adam and Mary yesterday, and they are doing much better now. There were still a few tears of course, but I think that they have reached a small turning point. We shopped for the wedding and they were even able to joke around a bit, and there were also some smiles. And thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the kind messages you have been leaving for me. You will never know how much your loving words, virtual hugs and support have meant to me during this sad time. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to every one of you for the kindness you have shown. xxx
Isn’t Miss Tibbs clever? Planted all those seedling herself…. 😉
“In the garden I tend to drop my thoughts here and there. To the flowers I whisper the secrets I keep and the hopes I breathe. I know they are there to eavesdrop for the angels.” ~ Dodinsky
I don’t remember all of the names of my new plants, so I call this one “Tiny White”.
Little Miss Tibbs loves gardening. She thinks she is in seventh heaven when she’s sniffing the stories of the breeze, rolling in the freshly laid mulch and basking in the sunshine amid the colourful flowers. 🙂
Under the watchful eye of Miss Tibbs, I planted Cornflower and Foxglove seedlings, the whole way along the line of the fence. I haven’t tried out either plant before, so it will be very interesting to see if they grow well. Both are classed as old-fashioned flowers, and I’m an old-fashioned person, so we will be very happy together if they like their new home. Just imagine the cut flowers I could be bringing inside in a few month time!
My pink Poinsettia spent a number of months in a small pot, now look at it!
My son and his lovely wife-to-be will be married in our garden this September, so the rush is on to have the whole garden looking just right. I’m planting seedlings and flowering shrubs, weeding and mulching, whilst husband takes care of the heavier work to be done.
Husband is tackling the biggest job of all right now by replacing a retaining wall, which holds up our paved area right behind the house, where the main events of the wedding will take place. Over the years the wall had moved and the paving dropped ~ cracks were beginning to appear throughout a whole section of the area, and now, with the wedding imminent, the rush to have it repaired is on!
An all-time favouite edging plant, Alyssum.
Little Forrest puppy, my son’s dog, and a little adventurer, had discovered how to escape out of the back yard, so my son has begun to fence the back garden into two sections, the upper section will be for entertaining, gardens, and the swimming area, whilst the lower section (where the escapee likes to break out!) will be known in future as the food area. This is where we have our fruit trees, the pecan nut trees and vegetable gardens.
The food area is also the area where my future chook pen will be positioned. safely away from bouncing dogs, and I’m hoping that my future chooks will oblige by fertilising my fruit trees in return for a large run. 🙂 But they will have to wait until after the wedding.
A love of Fuschias.
I have planted three fuschias in the garden this year, and so far, all three have survived, which is a first for me. Previously, I have tried to grow fuschias in hanging baskets and have lost them all, so I’m hoping they will continue to flourish in the flower beds.
Fuschias bring back happy memories of my very young days, living in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. We had a beautiful fuschia bush, and my “middle” sister (she’s 13 years older than me) would help me to lay the cut flowers between pieces of blotting paper. We would then carefully place heavy books on top of the flowers to “press” them. The same method of pressing worked very well with pansy flowers.
Last week I asked our local stationer if they had any blotting paper and they unfortunately didn’t. He told me they had been trying to get it in stock for some time now, without success.
Sniff, sniff…
I wonder what Miss Tibbs could smell here? We hear the occasional possum or bandicoot out and about at night. Perhaps they have ventured along this fence at some stage, leaving a scent for another, more curious feline-type animal to investigate.
New Snapdragons.
My daughters loved snapdragons when they were little, so when Emma and I saw these at the garden centre, we had to bring some home for the garden. They are so colourful, and another flower that brings back happy memories of years gone by.
With my first grandchild due in November, I want to have a happy garden in which they will be making their own new memories.
A beautiful climbing shrub, Duranta.
I found a climbing shrub, Duranta, about a year ago. I hadn’t heard of the plant before, but the flowers looked so pretty, so I thought I would give it a go next to the chainwire fence. I think it likes growing there, it has grown substantially bigger since I planted it, and has started to flower again this year. Happy Plant ~ Happy Gardener!
Another favourite, Dianthus.
I never seem to go wrong with either Dianthus or Alyssum as edging plants for a flower bed. No matter where I plant them in the garden, sun or part shade, they grow well, and continue to flower, year after year.
My faithful little garden helper.
Well, that’s the latest of my plantings in the garden for this week. I thought it might be fun to try and keep a journal of what I’m planting, and when they are planted, and if the plants I choose are successful or not, for future reference. It also may be of interest to my overseas friends to compare the difference between the plants we grow in each of our countries.
Fingers crossed, I’m hoping that all of my choices grow well in my sub-tropical climate. The harsh summer time will be the biggest test for them all, but we have a wedding before the heat arrives, and all being well, I will have some beautiful flowers to admire come September, which will double as backdrops for the wedding photos. 🙂
On the corner of MacLean Street and Marine Parade.
Wouldn’t you know it, when my eldest son asked me if I could drop him off in Coolangatta today, to attend a mates wedding (he’s very responsible, you know, planning to drink the odd one or two, so will catch a cab home) I forgot to take my camera! All of the beautiful scenery, the beaches, the people, just begging to have their photo taken, and I forget my camera. Geez!
Heading home, I stopped at the traffic lights of a busy intersection, and with a clear road all around, and lights on red, I grabbed my iPhone and took a quick photo looking towards Coolangatta beach, which actually turned out rather well, I thought.
I would have put my photo on the blipfoto website, but the site is down, and “blippers” from far and wide are discussing what could have possibly happened. In the absence of any news from the hierarchy, the simple fact of the matter is that we don’t know what’s amiss, so I’m adding my photo for today here instead.
The advantage of having a blog site is that I can add as many photos for today as I desire, so I have played around with Picasa, coming up with four different variations of my photo.
The first photo, above, is the original, and the photo I would have chosen for blip today.
A sepia corner.
The sepia effect turns my original into rather a different scene. Not such an inviting beach scene as the original though, as the narrow horizontal view of the ocean is lost, without the definition of colour.
The mono corner.
I quite like the corner in black and white. The definition lacking in sepia returns in mono.
A pencil sketched corner.
And finally, just for fun, I used the Pencil Sketch effect. Does anyone remember the painting books of years ago, which simply required a coating of water to make a slight hint of colour appear? (Are they still around?) I thought the pencil sketch photo looked like a page in one of those books from my childhood, which I enjoyed so much. 🙂
In My World 