My Grandmother

it is with great sadness that i dedicate this post to my late grandmother, jean florence vincent. we held the funeral this week and i was so touched by some of the people who came along to be with my family. it was a beautiful service. my cousin (her grandson) couldn't be there as he's in afghanistan but he was able to send through a video of himself in uniform, playing the bagpipes which was so moving for me and i'm sure for the rest of my family as well.

she was a beautiful woman. she taught blind children sewing and swimming and other life skills for over 30 years. she liked tennis and swimming and flower arranging and crosswords. she was a fantastic cook who has left behind some cherished family recipes. my middle name is her name. for my birthday in 2011 she gave me her engagement ring, her mother's engagement ring and her grandmother's wedding band and they are the most beautiful things i own. i was the last person to be with her before she passed away. i accept that it was her time to return to the universe and i'm thankful that i got to say goodbye to her, but she will be sorely missed.

Family History II

i've posted some old family photos from my mother's side on this blog before, but during a recent trip to canberra to visit my dad's side of the family, i managed to borrow and scan some old photo albums from the other side of my family. above is my aunt on her wedding day, my pop (my dad's father) and my pop (third in on the left) in poland just after the end of WWII (1945).

it's a little known fact about me but i am actually half polish, though i've never been there and my nanna is the only member of my family who can speak polish (my pop passed away when i was 12). my grandparents migrated to australia with their three young children after the war and started a new life in australia. i don't really have a strong sense of being polish, but when it comes to filling your plate up even when you refuse seconds, my nanna is definitely european!

while looking through the albums, i found almost an entire album filled with photos of funerals. some were in poland and some in australia, and almost all of them were open casket, including my own pop's funeral. it's know it seems like such a morbid thing to take photos of and it would seem out of place if someone did that at a funeral in australia, but we asked my nanna and she said people took photos of the dead to send to family who couldn't be at the funeral. i find the photos fascinating aesthetically and i really liked looking through them. i thought they might be a bit confronting for this blog so instead i've uploaded a few here, here and here if you're interested in taking a look.

i assume the above photos probably have family members in them somewhere but i don't really know who anyone is, i just like the photos. below is my dad with my cousin and again with my pop (please note my dad's awesome beard), my aunt again on her wedding day and my nanna just being a general babe.

this year more than any before in my life has made me realise how important spending time with family is, because one day they're in your life and the next they can be gone. i know it's a cliche, but eventually it becomes a reality and there is nothing you can do go back.

below, my nanna with a corgi, my nanna & pop together and my uncle and my dad on a birthday. most of the rest are the tame funeral photos (i believe the second one has my nanna and pop in it at my great grandmother's grave). and just for something cheery the last one is my brother and i being cute in the snow when we lived in england.

Family History

a little while ago my nanna (my father's mother) decided that i should have the family's beautiful old camera and all the accessories that came with it. unfortunately i don't think it's still working, but it's a lovely old thing to have and to keep.

my other grandparents on my mother's side also decided they wanted to have all their old slides scanned, and my parents suggested buying a good quality scanner rather than paying someone else to do it. of course, i jumped at the opportunity and offered to scan all the slides if they would pay for the scanner since i have been wanting a really good one for a while but i couldn't justify spending a few hundred dollars on myself for something that's just a hobby. how fortunate that our needs should come together, because the scanner that we bought came with 35mm, 120mm and slide scanning frames(!!) so i'll be able to use it for all my film photography in the future. and of course i am finding great pleasure in going through all the old slides and scanning them when i have some free time.

i haven't even scanned half of the slides yet (there are a lot more than what is pictured), but here are some of my favourite photographs so far! they are mostly my grandparents and my mother and her bother as children. also, might i take this opportunity to say that particularly in the last two photos, my grandma was a babe!