Reminiscing in Auckland
By traveltripz on Sep 14, 2007 in Auckland, New Zealand
Today we decided to visit my uncle and aunty in Kelston. Uncle Vic is now 82 and has a heart condition. He is an amazing man, having only just given up running marathons in the last couple of years. He still works as a gardener and looks after a couple of young children for a family he has known for some years, getting their breakfast and taking them to and from school.
Beryl asked us to wait in the lounge as she wanted to surprise Vic. Well he certainly got a surprise alright and it was just wonderful to see him in such good spirits and looking so well considering his heart condition.
We had a great time reminicing about old times and my cousins Deborah, who never married and is now 54 and her brother Andrew who has 5 children. So lots of photos got passed around.
Everyone says I look like my mother who passed away 10 years ago and Vic called me Gwen a couple of times, so maybe I do, personally I can’t see it. Maybe it’s as we both got older that we grew to look alike. This seems to happen in families
This is my mother when she was 18 or 19.
This is me aged 14
Vic and Beryl own a property on Waiheke just down the road from where I lived in Surfdale. Waiheke Island has become a wine and olive growing area and is quite the place to visit these days. Growing up on an island of beautiful beaches was an awesome experience and one day I will go back to see how much the island has changed. But I am not ready for that just yet.
When we left we headed of to MOTAT ( Museum of Transport and Technology) and spent a few hours there. However, on the way we went to see the area where Val and I grew up, he for all his childhood and me until I was 10. After we married we lived in Newton and Mount Roskill until moving to Australia in1981.
I lived at 5 Takau St and we had an orchard at the back of the house, which had really old plum, apple and peach trees. There was an arbor with a grape vine trailing over it and the grapes were large, black and juicy.
My mother was a fantastic cook and would make fruit preserves and jams for the coming year. No tinned stuff in our household. She also cooked the most amazing meals, cakes and bread in a coal range. The women of her era were truly amazing with what they accomplished without the modern conveniences of today.
I remember the neighbourhood kids would climb the trees and pick the fruit before it was ripe and my mother would catch and scold them. She tried to get them to understand that they were more than welcome to the fruit once it was ripe and picking it when it was green was not only wasteful, because they didn’t eat all the fruit that they took but that they would get a bellyache from eating green fruit.
Still it was to no avail because the kids, Val included, did the same thing year after year.
Well the house that I live in has been demolished and both the house and the orchard are now a motorway.
Here is where the orchard used to be.
Takau St as it is today.
The house in Haslett St that Val grew up in has been demolished and turned into 2 townhouses. His family had a Damson Plum tree in the yard. Damson plums are very bitter and do not make nice eating but they make the best jam ever.
Driving into Haslett St
Vals mother Frances was not a good cook, but she did the most beautiful embroidery and she also played the piano. She was offered the opportunity as a young lady to become a concert pianist and travel to America, but she lacked confidence in herself, a trait that seems to have passed down to a number of her grandchildren, talented children who lack confidence to pursue their dreams. Hopefully this trait will die out as it is frustrating to watch children push aside their dreams because they doubt themselves or don’t seem to feel they have the right to succeed.
