Our veggie garden is coming along lovely. Hubby has been working so hard at getting the backyard just right, and he transplanted the chili bushes over to a more sunny area (hmm that didn't sound right).
Today was a public holiday in lieu of ANZAC day. I slept, because I worked last night and am working now. It was freezing cold this morning, I think April has finally begun!
I was sad to hear of the diggers involved in the accident at the Melbourne ANZAC march. I sincerely hope they make a swift recovery.
I have been doing alot of digging about myself... not in the veggie garden... in regards to my Nan's heritage. It seems I am finding out bit by bit about where she lived, where she grew up.
I just finished reading My Place by Sally Morgan again. I read it in year 7 at High School. But I had forgotten alot of the story, the thing is, there are so many parallels in it to the life of my Nan that is is just uncanny. The difference being that she grew up in rural New South Wales in an orphanage, and the lady in the My Place book grew up in an orphanage in Western Australia. Their treatment was the same as per my nan's anecdotes over the years.
I guess that is why my nan may have been perceived as hard and stand fast in nature, and sometimes secretive in her thoughts. To speak out about adversities was not in her nature. In fact, my learnings are that it is what was taught to you when you lived in such an orphanage. And then, to protect your own family as they grow up, deny speaking about your culture, just in case basic rights are pulled from under your feet.
The book My Place portrays the de- culturation to which Aboriginal people have been subjected, but which has been omitted from official white Australian histories. Sally's Nan, Mum and Uncle tell their story with so much feeling, you cannot help but get choked up.
I wish I had spoke to my nan more about her life as a child. She did share with me and with my son Tomas (he was a baby when she lived with us) quite a few funny little nursery rhymes the Nuns taught her at the home. I used to laugh and Tom used to smile at her and play with her spectacles and poke her in the nose, lol.
Sally's dedication at the start of the book reads :

To My Family
How deprived we would have been if we had been willing
to let things stay as they were. We would have survived,
but not as a whole people. We would never have known
our place.

That is enough to spur me on a pilgrimage...back to Nan's place.