Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Flowery


The children and I went to the Botanics today and, among other things, admired the wild flower meadow.



Even though there were no traffic lights or road signs in sight, Grandson seemed quite taken with it.



Granddaughter was wearing a matching headband. It didn't actually match her outfit but it certainly matched the flowers.




After a while, they decided to roll uphill towards the way out.



It turned out that this was more difficult than rolling downhill. It's all education.



Then we came home and Granddaughter immersed herself in books, as usual.



Last week, Mr Life's cousin's son and his wife (for whom the grandchildren were page boy and flower girl at their recent wedding) were coming home from a delayed honeymoon on the island of Skye. Rather surprisingly (to me) they decided to drive by the house where Mr Life's grandparents (and thus the young man's great-grandparents) used to live. They could see people inside so rang the doorbell to ask if it was all right to take a photo of the house. They were asked in and given a cup of tea. Amazingly, these were the people to whom Granny had sold the house in the late 1970s. Even more amazingly, on renovating the house, the new owners had removed the mantelpiece and found this photo, which had slipped down the back. And they'd kept it. And now produced it. You have to admire their filing system.

We had never seen a copy before. It's of Mr Life's granny and her four sisters. Granny is second from the right. She was not, it must be said, a great beauty. But she was a jolly soul, lived to 99 and enjoyed her life. I don't think that any of her descendants look like her.

Never throw anything away, in case the great-grandson of the owner should happen by forty years later... .

12 comments:

  1. What a wonderful find and story! I'm finding cool photos of my grandparents (and parents) at their house. I love hearing the stories.

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  2. What a lovely thing to do...I never get rid of pictures even in this digital age. The children and growing like weeds aren't they? all that feeding watering and love I guess...that's lovely too.

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  3. Gorgeous pictures of the children and the wild flowers, all clearly flourishing. Love the story about the long lost photograph.

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  4. Such an abundance of flowers in the meadow!
    I may not have thrown out the photo, but I'm not sure I could produce it on a moment's notice after forty years!
    How fortuitous that they thought to knock on the door. (I also might have just surreptitiously taken a photo, then wandered off)

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  5. I love seeing photos of your darling grandchildren who are growing up so nicely!And learning about gravity! What a wonderful story of the photograph! Amazing. And if the young couple had not had the initiative to knock on that door they would never have discovered this family treasure.

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  6. Ooooh, aren't those wildflower a beautiful! And made even more so by the presence of the children! And, as always, you have the perfect last sentence which made me laugh - but what an interesting story!!!

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  7. A wonderful story. Beautiful Grand kids and wild flowers. What a happy post. I'm off to visit my Grandson in Auckland, today so excited! ( he is 9.5 months old now )

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  8. Anonymous6:47 pm

    Another interesting and picture worthy post. Thanks again.

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  9. We found photos down the back of a removed fireplace too and a cheque! We sent them to the son of the family but never heard back from him. Your grand daughter was very beautifully co-ordinated with the meadow and grandson with the sky.

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  10. I don't think you are doing Granny justice. When I saw the photo, before I scrolled down and saw which one she was, I had already identified her as by far the most interesting looking one of the five. She has a bit of a spark about her - I bet she was fun to know.

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  11. I'm one of those people who love old photos of people I don't know. I've stood sometimes for an hour in the antique store, looking through every photo in a box of old random photos... looking for someone I "know", or would have liked to know? Someone that looked just like me? Someone to write a story about? Maybe all of that.

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  12. What a wonderful story!

    Perhaps you should hide a photo of Granddaughter - even if no descendant calls by many years hence to be given it, her idiosyncratic style of dress and headgear may give some future fashion historian pause for thought......

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