Lilian's Tree

It has been an interesting week, with most of my time spent indoors due to the cold and windy weather that has arrived. I've spent the time reading, organising the next two subjects and balancing the family history books, for the end of the financial year. We have also had the painters, painting the outside. It looks stunning, with soft grey walls and the darker guttering and new roof. Today we have spent time changing the back door handle to a modern one. One down, six more  internal doors to go! I been knitting socks and have a new pattern for another lovely scarf/wrap to start. Have a great week!

Yesterday the Royal Australian Historical Society, in Sydney had a series of talks on the topic, Place Names as Historical Records: An Open-Air Archive. There were four speakers, Dr Joshua Nash, Dr Terry Kass, Angela Phippen and Bruce Baskerville and they covered a range of topics. Bruce spoke on place names as historical records. How there are layers of names for places and how they evolved. Angela's talk was on houses with names of First World War battles. Who built them and the how to search to find them. Both were very informative. Dr Joshua Nash spoke on the different names that are used on Phillip Island in the Norfolk Island Archipelago. This lead to a lively discussion on wether 'unofficial' names should also be listed with gazetted names. Dr Terry Kass spoke on Official Histories and Records of Place Names: The NSW Geographical Names Board. This talk also spoke about how areas are known locally as one name but gazetted as another. An example of this is Mosman...

Here are some random photos I've taken two weeks ago, in the Hunter Valley. Beautiful sunrise, with balloons. Roses near our room. Fog on our last morning and a magnificent Giant Egret.