Legacy

 Many many years ago when Mum and Dad were hale and hearty but thinking ahead, Mum asked me what I would like her to leave me in her will. I was horrified.

"There's nothing you have that could ever replace you and Dad" was my reply and at the time I meant it.

As the years passed and my beautiful Mum succumbed to Alzherimers and my darling Dad to heart disease, somehow the things that they owned, that had graced their walls and mantlepieces for years, began to take on more meaning.

In October 2024, when I went over to help my fabulous Middle Sis start the heartbreaking task of emptying out their home, I was encouraged to choose the things I wanted to take back with me to remember our beloved parents. There were some weird choices.

These are my Dad's academic caps, from Grammar school to PhD.

This is his university football team photo. That's him front row right.

I rescued a piece of rock from the garage, kept in a plastic bag marked Dive 2, which I knew had come from his submarine dives on to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in 1994. It's a piece of the infamous Black Smokers that spew out molten rock to create the ocean floor and continue pushing the continental plates apart.

Image Credit: https://www.le-comptoir-geologique.com/black-smoker-glossary.html

Here is my piece of the ocean floor, retrieved by robotic arm for my Dad as he watched on from 3000m below sea level. Now on my fireplace....

And of course there are the sculptures from Zimbabwe:

All these pieces surround me with the sense of my childhood and my oh so loved parents. They have little value except to bring back the memory of the days they arrived in our home, the stories told by Dad of their acquisition and the delight (and sometimes otherwise!) displayed by Mum as she found places to locate them.

Of course there are Mum's things too. She loved art whether it was paintings, photography, ceramics or unusual jewellery. She loved to visit galleries showing local artists and on one occasion she fell in love with this oil pastel picture she called 'The Three Ladies'. 

I couldn't get a good photo of it at night sadly, the light and the flash are reflected, but you can see the three faces all peering down at....what is it? What are they doing?? 

Mum loved to challenge her guests to speculate about what they were looking at so intently. I love to remember this and hear her mischievous suggestions. Are they telling fortunes? Playing cards? 

Not to be left out, my Dad found an artwork by the same artist. He was learning classical guitar at the time so of course he chose this piece. Again, I haven't been able to capture it well, it's now in my music room...

They're not marvellous pieces but the sense of home and love and life they evoke cannot be measured.

And just for good measure, here is one of Mum's originals gracing the stairs into my sewing room...

I remember when she brought it home from painting classes. It hung in our home until they moved to the UK, was passed on to my Bestie's beautiful Mum who passed it back to me when she down sized and I moved back to Australia. So much life it has witnessed.

Well that's enough nostalgia for now. I have Mum's table cloth on my table, I wear her jewelery constantly and during the last show, my make-up scarf was one gifted to me by Dad.

I am surrounded by the outward physical reminders of their extraordinary and enduring lives and love. That's some legacy.

My Darling Dad Continues to Give

All my life my dad has given me significant 'things', things which have shaped my life. From a typewriter when I was a budding author at 11, to my first camera, digital clock radio, my first car,  an answering machine, a prototype word processor when they were not much more than glorified electric typewriters, my first digital camera, kindle and all sorts of upgrades to my computers as technology advanced. Of course the most significant thing financially was the deposit for my first real estate purchase in Sydney all those years ago. 

He didn't spoil me though. Alright, maybe he did, but I was always grateful and aware of his generosity. I took nothing for granted. The flat we bought in Sydney benefited us both. He maintained an interest which multiplied many times over in the short time before we sold it.  Many years later we did a similar thing in the UK with similarly pleasing results.

When my life crashed down a marital roller coaster in 2014/15 Dad was there to catch me again. We bought a house together again, this one suitable for regular parental visits from overseas. Sadly, there were only two visits before Mum's Alzheimers had progressed to a stage which meant that she couldn't travel.

But I digress. 

When we bought the house in 2015/6, the building inspection report man had a lot to say. The house was pretty 'run down' in terms of maintenance, but I was pushed for time. My marital home was already sold, I had parents and a child to consider and we just needed somewhere to live. 

I loved the house. I loved the split level, the cathedral ceilings, the western red cedar paneling, the mid-century modern features so reminiscent of my childhood and the location close to shops but down a bosky hill which made it feel as if we were in the country.

We moved in during the summer of 2016, hot and dry. A few months later we experienced the first rain and suddenly I had twelve bowls out catching drips in the dining room. I consulted a roofing man. His verdict? "You need a new roof".  There was no way at that point in time that I could even CONSIDER a new roof. Patching began.

Over the next eight years no less than 4 roof repairers told me the same thing. Unfortunately, I still did not  have the wherewithal to undertake such a mammoth effort. With enormous debts of gratitude to the Bank Of Georgia (see my previous post) I was able to keep it patched but the night I woke up with water dripping on my head marked a turning point.

So the devastating loss of my dad opened up a few doors.

I got my roof replaced :-D 

This was step one. 

Since that post I have also had my fence replaced!

 

 

A quick reminder....

 

 And then we moved on to the windows.

 The original windows were  trashed when I moved in. There was rot in the corner of all the timber frames, so significant that geckos could get in! Here is a sample....

 In addition, the windows were designed with the opening section near the floor. Useless when hot air rises!!

So I got new windows <3 I Love them so much. AND they're double glazed!!!

 So the next step was window coverings....

It was not easy. The configuration of the walls and previous window openings meant I couldn't get the curtains I wanted so I went for blinds...and since I was restricted to blinds I thought I might as well get the luxury of MOTORISED!!!!!

Meanwhile back in November, when I had flu, I had dropped glass onto my bathroom floor. Of course it smashed on the tiles but, the devastating extra consequence was that the tiles also broke!! 

 It was such a tiny break but it was visible and annoying so I called the insurance people. Yes, they said, you need a new bathroom.

???????????

Apparently, if you lift floor tiles in a bathroom you damage the waterproof membrane so the entire thing had to be ripped out and re-waterproofed and re-tiled!!! It seemed a good deal. I dutifully picked my tiles, as close to the originals as possible. and prepared to be without an ensuite for a few weeks. 

Work started a few days after my return from Christmas in the UK.  I was back at work already and the weather was fierce. The skip had arrived, a number of preliminary things had taken place and we were preparing for the big 'rip out'. I lay in bed, on top of my covers (it was hot) checking my phone at 6.30am, before getting up for work, when a strange noise outside caught my attention. A few beeping noises. Sounded like a reversing truck. Hard rubbish removal maybe? Unperturbed I went back to checking my phone. Some 5 minutes later a man, large as life, walked into my bedroom! 

May I help you? was all I could manage! 

The poor fellow was SO embarrassed. He had decided to start early to beat the heat and had asked the office whether the property would be vacant. They had (erroneously) said yes. I said ' maybe at 7:30 I'd be on my way to work...but not at 6:30!!!!! hahahahah

I laughed and laughed. I'm not sure he was as comfortable about it.

At the end of that day the bad news was delivered. The original bathroom had been installed incorrectly and instead of rendered walls I had gyprock glued to brick. It all had to come out. THEN they had to apply to the insurance company for permission to re-render the walls. Three weeks later work started again. There were many knock on effects from the rendering: sink in wrong position, needed moving, mirror now in wrong position, needed resizing.....

The previous photo was taken on the 30th of January. They finally signed off on my bathroom in April, but it is done.

 

Meanwhile.... I had organised for my hideous walk in wardrobe space to be reconfigured.

Here's before...

 I get a bit tingly when I look at the refurb. I LOOOOOVE it.

 Oh my G...everything is behind doors!!!!!

 Oh my WORD how good is this??????

 Even with things in it!!!! love love love

So the last thing to happen in this part of the house is the flooring. Decisions have been made this weekend so fingers crossed there will soon be a finished product to reveal.

 

The biggest heartache is that I can't show it to my Dad.