Sunset

Just glanced up and saw this wonderful sunset, so dashed outside and took some pics. The tall flower is on one of our

xanthorrheas. It came out white because I used the flash.

It's been cloudy all day, so this evening effect is completely unexpected. Winter tomorrow. I think in the northern hemisphere you wait till the solstice, but here we start winter on the first day of June.

My problem with music is that I can't sing a note, have no sense of rhythm, and can barely tell one tune from another!
Playing the piano is like climbing Mt Everest - extremely difficult.

It's so hard it makes me want to cry

I find understanding different keys in music almost impossible.  I've tried and tried to read about it, but nobody seems to get down to my low level of understanding - not understanding.

When I listen to a piece of music I can't tell what key it's in.
All pieces sound the same to me.

And when I'm told that A minor is relative to C major, I don't have a clue what that means. To make it worse, there are two minor keys to each major. With the harmonic A minor scale, for instance, there are two sharps on the way up but none on the way down. How, I ask myself, can you compose a piece of music in this key with sometimes sharps and sometimes not??? 

Not only do I not understand the theory, my fingers get all muddled up when I try to play the scales. It certainly doesn't come naturally to me.

Oh, I just found a whole book online and free that might help: http://www.monarchknights.com/teacherwebpages/halladay/documents/BasicMusicTheory1ed_000.pdf

Yes, Winifred, I'm with you on 'the good old days'. My heading on that blog was highly ironic.

My first convict

1832.  23-yr-old Robert Brown stole some tobacco in Colchester and was transported to Australia for 14 years! He was my great-great-great grandfather (by marriage) on my mother's side.  Once he was freed he stayed on.

I was really interested to read about toilet and washing facilities on board ship. Apparently some people wore the same clothes the whole voyage. Toilet paper hadn't been invented, so a piece of rag was hung on the lavatory door for everybody to use. It was washed now and then in vinegar. A shower was having a bucket of cold water thrown over you. People seldom, if ever, cleaned their teeth.

Olga, your comments about me playing the piano at the concert made me smile. I'm absolutely hopeless and will be VERY nervous. I hope I don't go blank!

The good old days...

Have been on my feet all day (since I stand at my computer), deeply into Ancestry.com. Winifred, you say your ancestors were all poor - well, you ain't seen nothin' yet!!! I couldn't find any actual photos of where my maternal grandmother, Florence May Allen, lived in Scone, but the above pics are typical of her time. She was the first of 14 children, born in 1885. Her mother, Kate Sweeney, was pregnant over 22 years!!!!!! What do you suppose they used as nappies in those days?

Her father, Ralph Dodds, was one of 12 children. He worked as a Bailiff for the Small Debts Court and a Lamplighter, among other things (like making babies).

Nanny got a job as a live-in housekeeper for an unmarried father in Muswellbrook, about 20 miles away. Can you believe, the parents of the pregnant woman would not let her marry the father, so he took the baby home from the hospital and cared for her himself. That was in 1905! Not too many men would do that today.

In 1916 Nanny married this man, Joseph William George Allen, and they had one child, my mother, Ida Rose, the following year.

Concert coming up!

Oh dear, what have I got myself into? My piano teacher is having a concert in August and she wants Emma to play, which is fine, but also me!!!!!! Emma will play Arabesque and a duet with me, then I'll play Amazing Grace and Chopin's Etude, Optus 10, #3.

Between now and then I'll have to practise for hours every single day. Hope my paternal grandmother, the piano teacher, doesn't turn over in her grave! I have not inherited a single drop of talent.

Wetlands walk

I parked the car a few streets away before lunch today and wandered off, admiring the beautiful homes and gardens. A man walking his grandchild told me about a wetlands walk at the bottom of the hill, so I meandered along this most delightful path. (I admit I didn't take this pic as I had forgotten to take my camera with me, so borrowed this one from the web.) All this in Sydney's biggest city, and just a stone's throw from home. Wonderful.

Now I need to get on with Ancestry.com. It's absolutely mind-boggling finding I have relatives all over the world, with their email addresses right there! Last night I emailed a previously unknown family member in Israel and am waiting for her reply. No convicts apparently. My ancestors on both sides all seem to have come from England in the late 1800s. Children out of wedlock very common.