Introduction and bygone memories..

I recently turned 60 this year and cannot believe that I have got to this age especially since I am busy with the Genealogy of putting together our family tree and when you see how early our ancestors died.

I was born in an era where we had to use our imagination, no television and doing chores was all part of growing up. Friday nights we did our queueing up to get castor oil or Epsom salts (we all look forward to Fridays now as adults but never as a child) to clean us out so that there were no excuses about going to school the following week. Tying knots in long grass, playing tok-tokkie, playing in the streets was all par for the course. It was safe, front doors were never locked at night and all our friends lived in the same street.

My mother, bless her soul, died suddenly just before I turned 15. My whole world changed in that instant. Schooling did drop a bit as I sort of stepped into her shoes, had a family to take care of and a house to manage. My day generally then started with getting up early, making lunches, breakfast, getting father off to work, kids out of bed, dressed and ready for school then off to school myself. Homecoming brought new chores of tidying up/cleaning the house, washing, preparing supper, doing homework - although I must admit I was a bit slack in that department - but felt I had a good excuse.

My father decided that it would be best if the two younger children went to live with my half-sister and she and her husband took on the responsibility of bringing them up with their two boys as their own. To-date we are, all five of us, still getting to know and understand each other without taking offence at what might be said or done. Currently, I am the only one of the five of us who is still living in Johannesburg, Gauteng. I have decided that it is now time to move out from the big city and would love to live by water. Either a river or the ocean.

I must admit there have been hard times but overall good times and to this I must add I have a lovely daughter and she, in turn, has blessed me with two grandchildren. And so, life goes on.........