This was a hard one

My Uncle on Dad's side married a Kiwi.  Grandad lived in Dululu but Dad got him over there to visit a few times.  I remember seeing Grandad off from the Rocky airport with its corrugated iron terminal that would give today's anti terrorist scouts an instant migraine.

Unlike my own children, we were given very few presents by our Grandparents thus the presents we were given meant a good deal to me.   This Maori doll came back with Grandad Bill from that first trip and I loved her instantly.  I was devastated when one of her eyes fell out so I found a piece of bitumen and stuck it in as a shiny if jagged replacement.  I wore her hair thin in patches playing with her.  

How can you miss a doll, I wonder.  I do know I miss my Grandad Bill.  

Facing up to it. circa 1987 (!)

In year 10 art we had to do an art piece about ourselves.    Dad spent a long time helping me with this one.   He used plaster bandage to cast my face as I lay there with straws up my nose so I could breathe, getting hotter and hotter as the plaster set and the vaseline on my face oozed.  He showed me how to draw ovals using a string and drawing pins and had already taught us how to use the darkroom so I could print out the photographs.  First pic, baby in Ferny Hills before we moved to Rocky.   About 2 years old with two favourite dolls, dressed in my skirted togs.  With one of the cats, perhaps Tombo.   As I appeared in the local paper, dressed as a clown and on stilts after a drama workshop.  Made the wig I was wearing out of wool, took forever to sew together. With one of the chooks.  We used to tie a long piece of string to one foot and the other end to a tent peg and they happily pecked away on the grass before going back into the coop.  Aged about 14,  posing so that my brother  could practice his photography for school.   I did well with my art and it was difficult to choose between art and drama when it came to university preferences.   Now I wish I'd stuck with journalism or chosen architecture.   Pity I don't believe in re-incarnation.