Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

[tawnyfrog]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

What a lovely Reggie post first thing in the morning! Have a wonderful day. Can't think of a better place to be on what's bound to be a hot one.

Hello all to come.

[stirly-girly]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

Good Morning Tawny and Underoonies.

Hope you all have a fabulous Sunday doing what you like best to do....inkele:

[tawnyfrog]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

Further musings ...

Reading Fick's post regarding her part Aboriginal gran made me wonder how many of us have been subjected to the Big Family Secret, where history has been sanitised or re-arranged through some misguided sense of 'decency'. Years after my father died my mum told me he'd spent six months in jail when I was two. She has never gotten over the 'shame' of having a husband who was in jail.

What makes me terribly sad is - on learning the facts, I applaud what he did to land himself in that position but was never able to tell him so. I'm proud he stood up for a principle which, through suppression of the facts, became meaningless. Part of my heritage was denied because "people would talk".

Hate those bloody skeletons.


Beags & Mish in W.A.. and all our Qld peeps - stay safe with nasty weather.

Hiya Stirly - have a wonderful sleep.

OK - outa here. Catch you this arvo.

[byebyebridgetjones]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

Morning folk.
Dreadful night here, I'm afraid.
The boy complained of a headache all day yesterday, and (right in the middle of my most excellent chat with Fickle) began to vomit copiously...poor kid...and continued most of the night....(where does it all come from ?)
So ... a huge apology to Fickle for disappearing ......I'm so sorry my dear. I was worried about the boy as it was and decided not to sleep yet....was indeed looking forward to that chat......
And what an amazing day you did have !!!
Strange the kind of secrets that families guard, reflected shame and all that.

Greetings Reggie veg :goodjob: on the sailing adventure. You people make me feel that I am so boring sometimes :H

[Rags]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

"Morning Reg,
I'd have loved to have been on that trip! Talk about running out of fuel. Mr Rags was helping bring a cat from Whitsundays back to Sydney and the skipper didn't top up with fuel as he was owed $800 at a marina further south, so said he'd get fuel there. Well, first a hand who knew nought about boats managed to wrap the headsail sheet round a winch into a tangled mess, so skipper said use motors and sort it out in the morning, but at about 11 pm off 1770, splutter splutter goes one engine followed 2 minutes later by the other engine. Then a bit of a southerly came up. Mr Rags was able to sort the ttangle by taking the sheet to another winch and using brute force untangled it. He thought the winch would come away from the deck. And Mr Rags brought it in to Bundaberg at about 0545 single handed under sail as the skipper was seasick. There's a couple of morals to that tale.

Bridge and Tawn, thanks so much for last night.

Bridge, Tawn and Miss, sorry for swearing last night.


I think our biggest family secret was about me, and it wasn't till I was 30 that I found out I was adopted.
That was a huge bombshell for me at the time.


Bridge is your boy OK?

[Rags]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

Reg,
Additional news.
To-day I'm sanding the washboard (with belt sander I got for Chrissy) and re-varnishing it.

We're going to tidy up Spinifex have a few more sails probly round Lake Illawarra, Lake Macquarie and Pittwater, then sell her. I said to Mr Rags selling her in winter is not such a good idea so we'll hold on to her probly till Sept then put her up for sale. Will look for something a little bigger and a bit lighter.
The all up weight is about 1700 kilos, but she's very stable in the water due to the heavy keel. And she flies through the water with the right wind and sails set correctly. (Well, 6.9 knots)
Still undecided whether to go for another trailer sailer or not. Geez, and I remember writing posts on here a couple of years ago about selling the house and getting the big Lightwave to sail round the world ! Circumstances make for huge changes at times.

[Miss Behaving]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

Afternoon undies!!

Hope all you Victorians are coping in the weekend temps. Is a lovely 23 here and with a gentle breeze .......

Well, Mr B left this morning to take his boy back to his mum's, and the last 24 hours has been a hive of activity, getting things done that needed to be done. Brunch cooked, school clothes bought, stationary supplies sorted, basic bicycle maintenance done, secondary schools for next year visited, cakes made and eaten, and above all the last game of risk played ........ I managed to knock Mr B off the board in the final minutes of the game :H:H Mini-B has finally learned to ride his bike after much anxiety and fear and discussions about strategies for how to face that head on ("feel the fear and do it anyway" has been a bit of a catch phrase over the last week!!) so he is going back feeling proud of himself and standing tall which it just fab as he has a few self-esteem issues.

It now seems very odd to have the house tidy and quiet again!!!! But it has been awfully nice to have a chance to read back and catch up with everyone!!

Beagle - will be thinking of you for the 17th and will give you a call before then!

TF - hadn't seen that clip before ..... I loved it!! (On the way back from Oamaru, the person driving the car put on a CD of Pet Shop Boys of all things, but there was a great trace with them doing a number with Dusty!!)

Ficks you reminded me with your post that I bought a Lotto ticket with the last of our holiday money (in an attempt to kick start savings for the next holiday) but I cant remember what I did with it. I bet its a winning one too :H

Reggie veg - hope you enjoy your days fishing. I also love that peaceful sound of oars on water in the early morning.

Family secrets ....... boy are they toxic!! We also have our fair share of them - all the alcoholics, the wayward uncle who gave us lots of Fijian and Fijian Indian cousins, the American air force pilot who my mother was engaged to before she met my dad (and married him on the re-bound), sexual abuse (wont go there). I think of it as all part of the great tapestry of life, and I truly find it hard to fathom why people were so ashamed and scared of them in the past. Mr B's dad was a conscientious objector in WWII and was imprisoned throughout - he suffered terribly for it, but his kids and grandkids are all so proud of him for maintaining his beliefs.

There are interesting parallels in NZ to Fick's story in terms of realizing that her grand-mother was probably part-aboriginal. A lot of NZ troops in WWII were stationed in Italy, including the Maori battalion. Many came back to NZ, joined the post war process of urbanization and passed themselves off Italian (because of course they could speak the language, some had maried Italian women, quite similar facial features, and shared a common expertise in the fishing industry). I have several friends that I grew up with who got into doing their family trees who have discovered in the last two decades that they are of Maori ancestry rather than Italian, as they had grown up believing!!!

anyway, that's me for now. I am going to clean out the fridge of left-overs, and get ready to get back onto the exercise and food wagons tomorrow! Have a shit old of work to get down over the next couple of weeks, so I am going to be head down, bum up!

[fickle]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

Thanks for the lovely boating tales Reggie and Rags!
Boaties are special people. I have a mate who's been regaling me with tales of the Artic trip he's just come back from and he went to Patagonia before that. Quite an inspiring chap. But messing about in boats anywhere sounds beautiful. Love those old wooden boats Reg
All this talk of secrets has got me thinking. Specially about how it can upset your life and image of yourself and how somehow our parents lives almost belong to us.
Jeez Bridge I hope the boy is feeling better today!

[Ringing Cedars]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

OI skeletons and family secrets so says descendant of Atilla--that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Hey Undies--we all have them. We can pick and chose how they may resonate/define us. Right??

[Ringing Cedars]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

Holy Ficks-do you ever sleep??:H:l

[fickle]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

Bewdiful newsy post Miss B! I think there are wonderful stories buried in all families. So glad you are making progress with Mini B

And it has got me thinking a lot about my own kids - what and how to tell them about some unpleasant things. I had almost talked myself into not telling my eldest about her dad's life... thinking it might be kinder to spare her. But now I'm not so sure.

On a lighter note, it has got me thinking about my own mum. I was born into the era of the white australia policy.. so no wonder she was such a snob always going on about mixing with 'the right kind of people'. She must have spent her whole life feeling like she was on the back foot. So I feel more forgiving towards her now.

[fickle]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

Hey RC!
Not a lot of sleeping going on lately

[Ringing Cedars]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

I love that you are enjoying being with your child Missy. So truly glad. xo

[Ringing Cedars]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

What time do you have Ficks?

[Miss Behaving]

Underoos and Friends Jan 2011

fickle;1050690 wrote: Bewdiful newsy post Miss B! I think there are wonderful stories buried in all families. So glad you are making progress with Mini B

And it has got me thinking a lot about my own kids - what and how to tell them about some unpleasant things. I had almost talked myself into not telling my eldest about her dad's life... thinking it might be kinder to spare her. But now I'm not so sure.

On a lighter note, it has got me thinking about my own mum. I was born into the era of the white australia policy.. so no wonder she was such a snob always going on about mixing with 'the right kind of people'. She must have spent her whole life feeling like she was on the back foot. So I feel more forgiving towards her now.

Ficks - when I heard about the hard things that both my parents had had to face - both when they were growing up and when they were adults - it really helped me to understand why they were like they were. I ended up with lots more compassion for them at a time when I was very angry and resentful. (I was mid-to-late teens at the time)

My sister and I, and one of my SIL's also decided that we would not continue keeping secrets from their kids. Particularly about our family tendency towards addiction. That has been such a good decision - they are all more aware of their heightened risk, and two have sought help early on when they thought it was a problem.

When I was a teenager I briefly went out with a guy who was a warehouseman. My mother was outraged and told me I was of "better stock" than that. I fell about laughing at the time but also found it completely unbelievable that people still had those sort of atitudes. I suppose it is our colonial history which reflects the vestiges of the British class system.

Hope I'm not offending any of our Army mates here!! .