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My age is easy to work out. I have dark auburn hair, brown eyes, fair skin and lots of freckles. I am 5'8" tall
and of course elegantly spectacular as befitting a woman my age. Well someone has to tell the truth here.
I was married
when I was 20 to my first and only boyfriend who I met when I was 16. Like a lot of girls those days I was 'up the duff' when
I was married, an embarrassment for my family and no white wedding although we were married in our church. Not a good way
to start out on a new life but that was how it was then. I had 3 children before my 24th birthday, I often wonder how I managed
them but I am fortunate they all grew into decent young adults.
Although we managed to secure a mortgage and buy a
new home (fibro, 3 bedroom) we had a hard life with little money coming in. My husband worked hard and we did the very best
we could for the children and gave them most of the necessities if few of the extravagances. They were all involved in competitive
sports which gave them a great background for their lives, learning team spirit and friendly competitiveness and mateship
and also discipline.
Our family stayed together as a unit until 1988 when my eldest son, my daughter and I moved away
to start a new life. My younger son remained with his father but moved away often to try and find where he belonged in this
world. He worked hard when he worked and then when he couldn't stand it any longer he would leave his employment and
take off. When he was in Sydney he would usually live either with his father or with his brother and me (my daughter
had married and moved into her own home in 1992).
In 1994 my grand-daughter
was born and it was a time of great excitement for all of us. I had left my job in the city in December 1993 and my
youngest son was living with us then. I did temporary work and secured a good temporary job in March 1995 that ended
up being permanent after 2.5 years. Late in 1997 my eldest son moved to the central coast of NSW for work and he lived
there for 2 years. I drove up and down the coast regularly and spent at least one weekend a month on the coast with
him. During this time my youngest son had moved to North/West NSW to a family owned farm with 18 dams. He wanted
to try his hand at fish farming. I also drove out there on a few occasions and spent time with him roughing it in his
camp. It was a very enjoyable period of my life and my greatest memory is taking a shovel and a roll of toilet paper
behind the hill when toilet duty called!
The fish farming adventure
didn't work out and my son moved back to Sydney to live with his father. Some time later he moved back out with me.
My eldest son had by this time moved from the central coast to live and work in Orange, about 3 hours drive west of
Sydney over the Great Dividing Range. He lived and worked there for 7 years and returned to Sydney in 2008 for work.
He worked for the same company for 17 years.
Things didn't
work out so great with my youngest son living here with me and eventually he moved back with his father. He then met
a lady who was 11 years older than he was and they formed a unit. They decided after some time to move to Western Australia,
a long way from Sydney, and my son began working in an open cut gold mine after securing a licence to drive those huge vehicles
they use in the mines.
Before he left Sydney, my ex became ill
and my son had a hard decision to make as to whether to move away or stay and look out for his father. He realised that
he had a life to live and needed to live so he made the hard decision and left. After a year away his father's health
worsened and he was gravely ill in a hospital in Sydney. I flew my son home to see his father because things were not
looking hopeful that he would survive long. Coming home was extremely hard on my son and he returned to Western Australia
with a heavy heart. His father had both his legs amputated at the very top and was now in a nursing home. The
long distance away forced my son to move back to Sydney with his friend and they moved into his father's home to look after
it and to spend every day visiting the nursing home.
My eldest
son was now back in Sydney so both my sons were back in the family circle. Life continued and the job I had taken on
in 1995 had become permanent in October 1997 so I was employed and happy to be able to pay my way without too many problems.
My father had passed away in 1990, 2 months after we moved into our new home so my mother then became a priority to
look out for. She lived alone in Merrylands, about 23kms from where I now lived, and was able to stay there for about
5 years on her own. Things deteriorated and we talked her into moving near us and were able to buy a house 8 doors down
where we moved her to. Then came the hard slog to empty out the house she and my father had lived in for 30 years and
put it on the market. Eventually all of that was done but my mother wasn't fairing well and was showing signs of dementia.
In
2001 I asked my brother to take our mother home to Brisbane with him and his wife because I knew that she would be better
off with them than here in Sydney. While we did everything we could for her, I couldn't have her live with me because
we didn't get on together and it would have been a bad move for both of us. She did however love my brother dearly and
her eyes would shine whenever he was around. He agreed and eventually I flew with Mum to Brisbane and she settled in.
She started to improve and to actually get around doing things like bringing in wood for the fire at night, peeling
vegetables for dinner, going through her photos and sorting them out. Then she had a stroke and had to go to hospital
where she had more strokes and was assessed 24 hour care. Sadly she had to go into a nursing home but fortunately it
wasn't that far away from my brother so she had family to visit her. I flew up there at least 4 times a year until she
passed away in December 2005.
My ex passed away in November 2007
after a very sudden illness. After all the pain and suffering he had to endure for the time while his legs were amputated
bit by bit, he was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer that has spread to his liver. He was given only a few weeks
to live and requested to be returned to the nursing home where he passed away early one morning. It was a sad time for
all of us and I had made my peace with him in those few weeks, visiting him and holding his hand. We said little; we
didn't seem to need to say much to each other. He told me that he was happy that I visited him. Too little too
late, as usually happens. We never had closure when our marriage ended. I chose to walk away from a situation
that I couldn't fix after many unhappy years and I turned my back on his memory for all those years until just before his
death. If only .... how many of us think that?
So here it is now.
2010. Amazing! I am retiring from the workforce on 16 July 2010 which means I only have 7 more working days
to go as of today. Whilst I'm looking forward to being at home and not having to get up in the cold, dark mornings anymore,
retirement brings with it a lot of unknowns that I have to face. I am so used to having money to spend as I want to
and that isn't going to be the way it will be after the next couple of pays. But as I will be 65 this year, I know that
it's time to get out of that penned in office life and do something else for as long as I am able to do that something else.
I
was born at Harris Park Sydney in 1945 after the end of the Second World War and my family was fairly poor like most families
then. My life continued on in this vein all through my marriage with money short always. At this point in my life I'm
probably better off financially than I have ever been, but only just.
My heritage is Irish on my father's side, hence my colouring I guess, and German/English on my mother's side.
So I'm a irish/german/english/australian. Mixed breed. However, I like to think I'm more Irish than anything else and in 2006
I actually made it to Ireland for 12 days where I found the most beautiful country. Each day was more beautiful than
the one before and I will always cherish the chance I had to go 'home' as I call Ireland. Strange I guess, but I have
this very strong feeling that tis where I should have been born. I also visited London and was impressed with the little
that I saw in a few days. After Ireland I went to New York and San Francisco but they didn't impress me much at all.
I was ready to come home and glad to be back when the plane landed.
For the first 12 years in the job I secured
permanently in 1997 I worked about 17km drivetime from home. It was great and such a break from driving to the city
every day and spending 3 hours a day in the car. I now had about 40 minutes a day driving to and from work. In
2008 our department was moved to a new area in Baulkham Hills and the drive to work increased in kilometres and of course
in time spent driving. It's not too bad but I won't be sad to say goodbye to the hassles of driving in Sydney every
day to make a living. It would be impossible for me to work where I do if I had to use public transport so fortunately
I have a car and can afford the fuel and toll fees to get there.
And
the next phase of my life begins soon!
When I was 3 years old my family moved from Harris Park to a close by suburb called Merrylands. My father had worked through
the war at the Ford Motor Company as a motor mechanic building equipment for the army. When the war was over he secured a
job as head mechanic for a man who was quite well off and owned a fleet of taxi cabs. This man owned almost the whole street
of houses and we rented one of them and lived very close to the workshop where my dad worked. We lived in the scrub, hard
to believe now if you saw Merrylands. My brother and I had a great life really, we had a place to ride our bikes where we
could have adventures, safely, off the roads, although not many people had cars then. My father being a mechanic of course
had a car, always. I never remember not having one. We couldn't afford to have a television set but my dad's boss had one
and we were allowed to visit once a week and watch Lassie. It was the highlight of the week.
I went to a local
school where I walked each day until I went to primary school then I had to walk further. While I was still in primary school
(my brother had gone on to high school by then) my father decided he was tired of working for a wage and would try to go into
business on his own in our area. He negotiated with the Shell Company and bought a local service station, an old tin shed
on a huge corner block on the main road, some 2km west of the small township of Merrylands.
My parents bought me
a bike and I used to ride to the service station every afternoon after I had come home from school. I did my homework there
and my mother had set up a kitchen in the service station where we ate dinner every night, except on weekends. We didn't
get home at night during the week until about 9.00 pm, all tired out. Of a weekend the place closed at 6.00 pm, so the days
were a little shorter. Our life of weekends spent out and about abruptly ended as my dad and mum worked every weekend. I
of course had to spend a fair amount of my life there too in the early years as I wasn't old enough to stay at home alone.
I learned how to use all the equipment, and by the time I went to high school I was already serving customers, pumping up
their tyres, checking their oil and water and using the till to give change etc.
In the couple of years before
I went to high school the old service station had been demolished and replaced by an ultra modern one (for those days - early
60s) and my father had also purchased a block of land from the Shell Company, next door to the service station, and we had
this super duper home built on it. We even had a loo inside, in the main unheard of in those days. I remember it was like
a palace after the old house we had rented for all my life that I had memories of, and we had oil heating and electric hot
water instead of gas.
I had to travel by bus to high school as it was at Parramatta, too far to walk from home.
I left school at 15 with my Intermediate Certificate under my belt and went to the local technical college and did another
year of slog to learn to be a secretary. I excelled in shorthand and typing and those skills have seen me always being able
to get work if I needed to. When I left college I worked for my father for a couple of months while I went for interviews
for jobs. They were scarce to find, probably because I was trying to work local and there was little offering locally in
the type of work I wanted. So I went to the city to the Public Service Board, sat for an exam, had an interview, medical
examination, and 2 days later commenced my first job as stenographer with the Police Department at their head office in the
city. I started my first job when I was 16 and travelled to the city each day by bus and train. In those days I used to leave
home at 7.00 am so as to get a seat on the train. They have not improved in all the years since then.
I met up with
a friend I knew in school one morning at the station. We had never been great friends at school but knew each other. We
got into the habit of travelling together to and from work and became fast friends. We must have looked funny together she
was 4'11" tall and so skinny, weighed 6 stone. My friend eventually introduced me to her older brother and he became
my steady boyfriend and eventually my husband.
My job
I work in an ideal location, on acreage, in a building that only has ground floor accommodation. We have about
120 people working in the office although a lot of the men are out on site most days. The number of women in the office is
small compared to the men due to our type of work. I am team leader for a small team of 3 which includes myself. I have
a receptionist and administration assistant I am responsible for, both women, both younger than myself.
I never
chose to be a supervisor, it was one of those jobs I inherited. However I have taken the bit between my teeth and we have
a fairly stable team. I grew up with my kids so I seem to get on with the girls without too many dramas. I'm probably just
as kinky and silly as they are but I have to sometimes come across as the boss and usually by talking things out together
we work any problems out without hard feelings. That part of my job is probably the least attractive to me.
The
best part is the building maintenance because I get the chance to put on my steel capped shoes and wander around the acreage
inspecting the gardens with the contract gardener, inspect any drainage works etc going on for safety aspects etc., scavange
around in the joinery shop/come storage area searching for all manner of things, organising electricians, air conditioning
works, painters, having shelving built, choosing designs for a revamped canteen area including new benches, safer areas for
cooking appliances etc.
I do a reasonable amount of computer work as well and organise functions, lunches - all
boring stuff. I am fortunate that I work for all males and I keep them on their toes. They are a great group of guys and
put up with my antics, in fact I think they like having me around for my entertainment value and my stories of life on the
internet which when I was a player were the high point in their day. In all I have a great job, I am very lucky to have had
the luck to temp there for 2.5 years before I finally secured the position permanently in November 1997.
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Favorites
Here's a list of some of my favorite movies:;br>
Any StarTrek movie, Stephen King's unforgettable all-time great novel
made into a tv movie 'The Stand', The Deer Hunter, 2010, The Game, Dr Zhivago, Christine, The Silence of the Lambs, Titanic,
any Sean Connery James Bond movie, oh the list could go on for ever.
Here's a list of some of my favorite music:
Beatles, Rolling Stones, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Cold Chisel,
INXS, Elvis, Guns N Roses, Bette Midler, Men at Work, Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Air Supply, George Michaels, The Fureys,
Savage Garden, Elton John, The Carpenters, George and Ira Gershwin - anything except head banging music
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