My Pa is selling his house soon. Selfishly, I am very very sad at the thought of him not living there anymore. This is the house in Geelong I have been going to my whole life. It's where my mum, aunt and uncle grew up. It's the house my Nanna passed away in. And when it sells it will probably be demolished to make way for flats.. the same thing that is happening in almost every city around the world.
Of course it makes sense that he moves somewhere more manageable for him and his wife Leila. But I struggle to think of him living anywhere else. He has been there 62 years. The bird cage out the back, the back room where his train set is, the swing in the back yard that I remember from my childhood, and even from my mum's childhood (seen in photos) - it's all a part of my memories visiting as a child and as an adult.
I luckily got the chance to take a few photos when I was in Australia a month ago when I visited for a couple of days. These will help me never forget the front room full of family photos, the spoons that my Nanna used to collect and the cabinets in the kitchen full of fancy china never used.
So it's been two years since my last blog post. TWO YEARS! I'm a little sad that I let the blog go. When I look back through my year and a half of posts I realise how great it was to have an online diary - a place to display images and events, instead of them being forever lost to my terrible filing system on hard drives never to be seen again!
I stopped blogging for a couple of reasons.. the first was that I lost sight of why I was doing it in the first place. The second was time. My work started to get very busy just as I stopped blogging and in the last two years I have travelled extensively for work all over the UK, to the States twice, back to Australia twice and to Holland and Ireland as well.
It's been a great two years, with lots of ups and downs and with some nice photos taken along the way. To catch up I think I'll do the odd retro post so that I don't forget some of the places I've been and people I've met.
I have decided to start blogging again mostly because I loved that this blog made me concentrate on taking photos. I have been in the UK now for almost four years and I don't want to become complacent, as I have in the last few months.
Life in Brighton is busy and full and wonderful, but living here has become normal. I don't want to take it for granted! And one way to make sure I don't do that is to keep exploring and taking photos and enjoying every moment.
So, I'm back. And I'm looking forward to getting back to it!
ps. The above photo was taken at the top of the The Monument in London. It's not the best photo as it was taken on my phone but I wanted to use it for this post because it is a photo of me doing something in London I wanted to do for years.
