New Year's Eve Celebration

We went to a New Year's Eve party at Eden Park near Whittlesea, where families dwell on large properties like 4 or 5 acre lots. It was a very nice drive to get there with the setting sun colouring the rolling grassy landscape with a golden hue. Barb's singing group friend hosted a party with a difference: life music to help chew up the time till 2016. There was a wide genre of music played. Peter loved the Blue Grass stuff. We were enjoying the music so intently that we almost missed the critical moment of calling in the New Year. Wonderful night with lots of good conversations. One minute of one of the many songs was recorded to remember the atmosphere and can be viewed HERE.

Driving home...

Christmas 2015

Christmas 2015 is passing for us. Barb is still making a few more 'pan fortes'. Peter is blogging this. We had three fun Skype chats with family on Christmas Day. Phil and Mon were particularly funny. Mon knows how to make a "strong" ginger drink and they could have been affected by a few glasses of that. Tasty too. Below are other images of our Christmas season, taken from shopping centres, church, and our own home. A more subdued Christmas than usual.

Dinner in Lygon Street

We had a lovely meal in Lygon Street, Carlton with good friends last weekend. The menu was half in Italian but we managed to order both a very tasty pasta and shaved meat plates and a sensational red which seemed to be of the very highest quality. And the bill confirmed it!

Dragon Builders Tallarook

This term another group of boys came together under Peter's guidance to make a 1:20 size house, a scaled version of a 'granny flat', with one room only. The project went very smoothly and concluded in the last week of term. Furniture was added the interior as the building progressed past wall and window stage. The group met five times to do this. 'Dragon Builders' was their group name. Peter hopes that the experience inspires each boy to greater self-belief and confidence, especially in model making.

Plant Boxes Tallarook

Peter was very encouraged at the cooperation of the Tallarook students when it came to making plant boxes for the upcoming market in the town. This was the result of the school's Parents and Friends Association request the school's woodcraft club to make something 'sell-able'. For Peter, this seemed to best way to go about it. The timber was docked and drilled garden stakes and these were held together with tie wire. It was a manageable project even for Preps. One grade two child carefully market his plant box with a small dot and promptly purchased it at market time. A teacher's father contributed the plants for twenty of the thirty boxes that were made. The hanging plants looked very nice in their boxes, hanging at the school stall.

Dinosaurs at Tallarook

In response to the wooden dogs project a week earlier, a grade one girl suggested that dinosaurs could be made in the same way. True. So Peter developed a version that assembled fairly easily at the skill level of the participating kids. And that's how it turned out. The pens were provided because there was adequate time to add colour to their creations. The Bondcrete glue was sensational. All thirty-nine dinosaur sets were used. Biggest number yet. No one who joined in missed out.

Complete with Redback Spider

Funky Christmas

Because the Funks were travelling to Canada for a family Christmas there we squeezed in an early one the night before their departure. Our family came together for a very special reunion and opps we forgot to all get together for one of those memorable photo shots. Oh well. We must make a better effort on it next year. We had a delightful meal, in three stages and were able to give some gifts out. We wish the Funks travelling mercies to the other side of the world and that their white Christmas is positively memorable. There was even a bit of dancing... Funk style HERE.

Funky Overnighter

We had the pleasure of having our grandkids overnight a whole day before their overseas trip. At night we shared a massive "add in" story. It started in a bull fighting ring with a spiky pig and it escalated into mayhem with a huge cast of weird people, animals and situations. It was fun and showed just how creatively the imagination can be pushed.

Family History

It seems nice to share an 'ancient' family snap, taken when we were on a holiday and very young and happened by one of those photo places where they dressed us up in costume to pose for their camera looking like we were early Australian settlers. It was fun but for a long while the photo was lost. It was nice to see it again. What beautiful kids we had then. And still have now!

Here is some historical stuff for family tree buffs. The Sixteenth Ackland party arrived at Melbourne in 1862 from Liverpool on March 31 aboard the “Star of India”, 1697 tons: Henry, wife Jane (nee Greedy), and Harry aged 2. Henry was a brother of Eliza (arrival No.7, 1853)*, and he and his family started out in the Mt. Moriac district near Geelong. Henry was a bootmaker and carried on his business there until 1875. After that year, Henry went to Masse, near Donald, in the Eastern Wimmera and selected land there. He retired in 1905 to live a Cremorne, Sydney, where he died on November 28, 1917. Henry and Jane’s children were: Francis b.1853 (died on voyage), Harry b.1859 d.1912, Elizabeth b.1860 d.1900, Mary Ann (Polly) b.1861 d.1953, Robert b.1863 d.1928, Thomas b.1865 d.1866, John b.1866 d.1866, Frederick b.1868 d.1944, Herbert b.1870 d.1920, George Henry (Peter’s great grandfather) b.1872 d.1940, Albert b.1874 d.1960, Ellen b.1877 d.1967, Ada b.1883 d.1958. The last two children were born on the farm at Masse, near Donald.

*A note about seventh arrival Eliza Ackland: she arrived as a single immigrant in Geelong in 1853 and was not long to remain a spinster. One January 13, six months after her arrival, she was married at Geelong to John Francis. Many of her parent’s family and cousins eventually settled around Geelong, and this group represents about one-third of all Acklands in Australia (according to an assessment made in 1969).

Dogs, Houses and Things at Whittlesea

At Whittlesea PS Woodcraft Club, Peter provided 12 dog kits, 3 house kits, and loads of blocks for making what ever came into the students' minds. This provision turned out just right and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and leave with something. That is always a super outcome for an often very intense and popular event.