In March, the Fesitval and Fringe provided us with plenty of opportunities to distract ourselves and spend money on live performances. We saw Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen (as reviewed below). We got to listen to Jazz in the Botanic Gardens and we got to see the Big floating stuff at night. It was pretty.
March was also quite warm. Felicity found her Japanese Fan print Jimbei and put it to good use. I just moped about complaining about the heat. Here's a tip for travelers planning on visiting Adelaide, March is a very busy time of year and can be hot! I don't think I'm fully describing fully how hectic March was, but remember I'm leaving out all the developments on the house for the moment.But it was not all happy times. On the 25th of March my Nanna, Maisie Millard, passed away. I am truly glad that Felicity and I were home at the time my Mother got the news. We all cried but at least she didn't have to deal with it alone. Nanna Maisie achieved her wish to look after herself for the whole of her life. She raised six children, each of whom had three children. That's a lot of grandkids! The entire clan gathered in Heywood for the funeral, and pretty much the entire town turned out to see her off. She was buried next to her husband Jack (Shakey) and the cemetery has spectacular views of the sea.
I had hoped to make all that a special post, but I could not leave it forever. Nanna was a great and kind person, and was the person I wanted to see most whenever we came to Australia. Bill said all these things much better than I can. The most lasting memory I have of her is arriving at the farm at night, in the cold, after driving for four hours from Melbourne airport, and flying for over 30 hours before that, and feeling super excited that we were back to see Nanna.
The visit to Heywood also reunited us, miraculously, with Luck Monkey. Felicity gave me Luck Monkey way back in 1998, when I was looking for work. I took him with me in my pocket for an interview and got the job. He went everywhere with us. Then, in Christmas 2000, he went missing. We figured that he fell out of the car when we unpacked and got left on a driveway somewhere. So, for 6 years he was lost to us. On the day of Nanna's funeral we were in her house getting ready, and I looked over at the display of things from her grandkids that she kept on the heater and there was Luck Monkey. I like to think that Luck Monkey was keeping an eye out for her for the last few years and that she somehow knew we would find him when she was gone.
I think I'll wrap it up there for now, but take this image as a preview of our Easter. I've also removed the 'puresento' section from the sidebar and thrown in a link for my DeviantArt page, where I'll put our artsy stuff.
