Withywindle Wanderers

...camping at Lake Ozette on the Olympic Peninsula, three miles hike from the Pacific Ocean! We're excited! We love you all!! The sun is shining... Please say a prayer or good wish for Kerstin, J, Daniel and Paul. It's a year today since their baby Ani died. I talked to Kerstin just now, and she's having contractions - baby Tori is due today. It's hard for Kerstin, going into labour having the knowledge and experience of how fragile life is. Love and thanks, Megs

You're invited to our Summer Solstice party at 8pm Thursday June 21st, here! I'm just dusting off the ol' fondue and gathering some chocolate, cream and vanilla vodka to bubble in it... YUM

...pics coming to this spot soon!

My brother Tom and I watched this episode of 'Moonlighting' in a Westmead Hotel, the night before we moved into our Parramatta house. Watching it evokes memories of 17 year old me and 16 year old Tom, and how much we liked this!

This song reminds me of my family. Rachel used to play it on the piano, and we'd all sing along, getting more and more and more intense. I love it. And them. (Letterman is incidental to sentimental family memories. It just so happens I like this rendition best!)

A lovely element of our lives is our friendship with our bus buddies the Stauber family at whose home Eowyn catches the yellow school bus! Now that school's out for the summer next week, I'm going to miss conversing with Mary. Here are some pics she took of Aidan, Keean, Eowyn & Cosette, who have alot of fun together!

This time exactly twenty-three years ago, my siblings and I snuggled next to a roaring fire, one cold wintry night, very early in the morning on June 13, 1984, as we awaited news from Kyabram Hospital about the birth of Jones #6 ... It's a boy! Stephen John Jones!! We were all over the moon!!! And what's more, he had brown eyes, so now there were three girls, three boys, three blue eyes and three brown eyes. I didn't go to school the next morning - i went to the hospital, to gaze reverently on my new, beautiful brother Stephen. He was a delightful little boy, with a shock of thick blonde hair which he would rub my tummy with to tickle me, or bury in the crook of my neck to hide from the world and feel safe (just as my girls do now!) I remember once being in a thunder storm at the farm, out in the fields with god, rain absolutely drenching us, Stephen snuggled safely under my jumper, his head in the crook of my neck, running like mad to get out of the rain. We were chanting ...

Cosette and I had a lovely time at our park today, whilst Eowyn was at school. The sun shone the whole while we were there, and now soft raindrops are drenching the earth. My novel is up to page 82! I'm posting it on Cerin Amroth, my other blog, at the end of each day's writing - it's very raw at this point, though if you would like to read it and make suggestions, you're welcome! I'm going to make risotto for my little family - a combination of Rachel and Philippa's recipes, with a few additions of my own. I like cooking! Wish you could be here to eat it with us!!!!!!!!

The water surrounded me, touching my skin as if it, or I, were invisible. Salt tingled in my nose and mouth, leaking into my body like a Bedouin disguised as a sand dune. Light daggered down towards me, shards of sun drowning the ocean. Surf invaded silence as my head broke the surface. The lovely, familiar saline smell of the sea filled my nostrils, satisfying them, consoling them. Australia ensconced me again. I was home!

Hello! Sam dug up this photo from long, long ago! It's (right to left) my brother Tom, cousin April, me and cousin Jim!!! Eowyn is overjoyed - she's found her lost ukelele! Coco saw a photo of Emmadog and said: “He didn’t die anymore!” “Yes he did, but he’ll be up in heaven now!” replied Eowyn Bens is reading the girls 'Sloth's Shoes', a lovely gift from Uncle Sam (who's hot!!) Coco and I just had a conversation which was healing for me - we were talking about Madeline's appendix scar, and I showed her my appendix scar, and my Caesarean scar, and told her the story of her birth, and how the doctors took her away from me to intensive care, and Daddy and Eowyn were with her. I'm sometimes irrationally afraid for Cosette's wellbeing, and realised the root of that lies in my sorrow and fear when she was taken away from me moments after her birth. She and I are cuddling right now. I love her smell. Coco says: "I want to say HI. Can I say HI? Can I s...