Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Let's walk

I love to walk early in the mornings, I've said it before it's my little bit of the world all to myself.  Lately more and more people are joining me on my morning wanders.  It is hot now and if you walk much later, it's too hot.  This morning though oh I loved this morning, it rained.  I am excited, it has been a long time since it rained and a little while ago I would have put off the walk in case it rained on me, but not today.  It was wonderful, cool, damp, the air still moist, the road puddled and washed a little cleaner.  This tree is across the road from our house, it flowers for a long time throughout summer and it's flowers have carpeted the footpath this morning, such a lovely sight.

I love these little puddles of red, washed along by the rain.















Truly so excited i have to take a picture of the tiny puddle left in the road, oh I wish we saw more of them.  This gorgeous Bouganvillea brightened up our walk also.
Last weekend Adrian and I went to the cemetary, not to mourn for anyone but to take photos, sounds kind of ghoulish doesn't it?  But cemetaries have such great things to photograph.  Oh and the history there, the stories waiting to be told of lives lived and lost.  I am going to go on one of the cemetary walks the local council runs next year, our big old cemetary  has so many old grave sites.Some beautifully carved headstones, rich with history and tales of days long gone.  We found it so interesting, sad, beautiful, ugly all wrapped into one.

The ornate decorations on some of the graves are quite amazing, this lovely angel keeping watch over the sleeping occupant.


Markers to make sure you can find the plot you are looking for.

I love these keys, plot markers, there are hundreds, thousands probably of them, old rusted, broken, clotted with dried earth.

Row upon row piled high.


And then we stumbled across this grave, a 24 year old man speared by the aborigines back in 1843.  I wonder what happened, why they killed him, what was he doing that, that happened.  I know there was a very turbulent time in Toowoomba back in the early years of settlement.  This was a very well populated site for the aborigines of this area.  When the white man came there was an incident where rat poisoning was mixed with flour and given to the local aborigines, with the sole purpose of ridding the area of many of them.  There as another incident of fighting on Gowrie Mountain, the story is taht many aborigines and white men were slaughtered there, the ground was red with blood.  This apparently happened as little as 100 years ago, amazing how could anyone do that?  Then of course we have what is now known as the stolen generation, a whole generation of aboriginal children who were taken from their parents and sent to live in homes for children of black families and orphans.  Some were sent to live with white families, for no other reason than the authorities and churches of the day thought they would be better off.  I cannot for the life of me imagine what it was like for the mothers to literally have the children taken from their arms and watch them driven away by the whites.  Horrific. There are still some aboriginal families living in Toowoomba, unfortunately they have not the best reputations around the town.  Many of the men find it hard to find work, the children are difficult at school and I am generalising which I hate to do.  But it does seem to be the way for most of them.  I can imagine that for them it is still very painful as some of these people are the same ones taken from their families and their lifestyles as littls as 40 years ago.  So the cemetary is an interesting place and I look forward to wandering around again and finding more stories to ponder.

Now here is my little Christmas spot for the day...

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer


A Russian couple was walking down the street in St. Petersburg the other night, when the man felt a drop hit his nose. "I think it's raining," he said to his wife.

"No, that felt more like snow to me," she replied. "No, I'm sure it was just rain, he said." Well, as these things go, they were about to have a major argument about whether it was raining or snowing. Just then they saw a minor communist party official walking toward them. "Let's not fight about it," the man said, "let's ask Comrade Rudolph whether it's officially raining or snowing."

As the official approached, the man said, "Tell us, Comrade Rudolph, is it officially raining or snowing?"

"It's raining, of course," he answered and walked on. But the woman insisted: "I know that felt like snow!" To which the man quietly replied: "Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear!"
 

5 comments:

  1. Have to tell you that first shot is my fave yet:)

    And I too like the markers..I have a cemetary close by..I like to go there also~

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a wonderful walk.love all the photos, Not sure about cememtaries, I can kinda freak myself out. I know that sounds odd.

    ReplyDelete
  3. wonderful story Kim, Last time I was at a cemetery was down in Portland looking for my mum ancestors. I found myself reading and looking rather than taking photos, intrigued by peoples stories. I was sadden at some sites of poorer families that cold afford proper headstones but then I realized no matter how much or little money we have we all end up equal.

    ReplyDelete
  4. These are so beautiful, my friend.
    xo

    ReplyDelete
  5. Beautiful picture and that headstone does provoke a lot of good questions. Don't ya just wish you could find out? I do genealogy, I love old stories...

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting and leaving me a message it's so good to know you were here.

Like Me on Face Book

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails