Pansies, lavender, sunsets and two cats

This is my sole pansy flower at the moment.

Hopefully they'll be blooming in profusion within the next few weeks.

Pansies are my favourite flowers.

This collage is the same photo with four different edits

courtesy of PicMonkey

I just love the way this lavender photo

has turned out.

I'm having lots of fun with my new Canon 600D DSLR camera.

The sunsets here at this time of year are spectacular!

These were taken on the shortest day of the year

otherwise known as the winter solstice.

My female manx cat

Her brother Gordon...

They look nothing alike but are from the same litter.

They're just on three years old now.

Thanks for visiting.

Hope you all like my new blog design.

I've had lots of fun this week as

the wonderful Karen Valentine brought my blog design to life.

Thanks Karen

A job well done!

My Great-Grandmother's Vintage Postcards

I recently learnt about a collection of postcards (still in existence) that were sent to my great grandmother in the early 1900's.

My grandmother (who was her daughter) was about to burn them with the rubbish and my aunty saved them from the fire.

She has had them for decades

 and

I had never heard about them until 12 months ago.

I have been trying to scan them so I have them for myself forever.

They have to go back to my aunty as soon as I get this job done

but

I'll admit I like having them close to me.

I have received so much pleasure from reading them and

gaining a little insight into how much my great grandparents

must have loved each other.

Many of them were sent to my Great-Grandmother by her future husband.

They are indeed very lovingly written.

I never knew anyone related to me could be so 'smooth with words'...LOL

I love the way so many of the postcards were addressed...

seemingly so loosely,

as though everyone knew who lived in the district,

which indeed they did.

I'm talking about country folk.

My relatives were not big city people.

Simpler times and simpler lives.

My great-grandmother's name was Anna but this was only discovered when her death certificate was sighted.

All her life she went as Annie.

Annie is also one of my nicknames.

This postcard was from my GG's cousin Rachel in 1911

Rachel was trying to organize meeting up with my GG

and suggested they may meet up at the local country show.

It must have been hard with no phones etc when you lived a good horse ride apart from each other.

Love's Victory...a postcard

from my great grandfather William known as Bill,

 to his future wife, Annie.

I love the address on this postcard

Miss Emma Janke

C/o Mr Janke,

The bootmaker

...love it!...

Don't know how my GG had this one, maybe she never got to post it

or

maybe

she collected her friend's used postcards.

Who could blame her?  

They're so lovely.

To Greet You on Your Birthday

Best wishes for your birthday

Here again not sure why she had this postcard in her collection

maybe she had a friend called Annie, maybe she never posted it

We'll never know now.

Christmas card by Beagle's Postcards

from my GG's friend Mary Jessop

to

Dear Annie

Hope you've enjoyed looking at some of my family history

through

these

beautiful old postcards

that are now mostly just over 100 years old.

I knew my Great grandmother well.

She died when I was 20.

I never knew my Greatgrandfather as he died before I was born.

Thanks for visiting

and

please leave me

a comment, I'd love to hear from you.

Linked to

&

Tuesday's Treasures at Uncommon Ground

&

Twelve months of blogging and I missed the anniversary

                                

I thought I'd share some winter photos with you.

We're in the middle of winter here in Australia.

These photos are a couple years old

& were only taken on my old samsung mobile phone

but

certainly capture the frost in the garden.

By the way the above plant did not handle

the frosts here on the Darling Downs.

This was the 1st year we had lived here & weren't sure what would survive the bitter winters.

Who would have thought that snow peas love the frost?

(Maybe their name should have given us a hint)

We got a bumper crop that year!

These photos were taken at 10am so I was amazed

that the icicles were still intact,

even with the sun on some of them.

I love this shot with the white frost on the log

& the rusted garden ornament.

I love this photo too.

I have an old hollow log in the garden & here you can clearly see the cat's paw prints in the ice.

Thanks for visiting me.

Please leave a comment

I'd LOVE to hear from you!

To all who have supported my blog in any way in the last 12 months

Thankyou!

I started twelve months and 2 days ago.

I have loved every minute of blogging.

Meeting new friends with similar tastes and interests.

Being inspired etc

It's something I'd been wanting to do for years

and when I finally found Google Blogger I knew I was ready to start blogging.

Apart from the time I got a new 'Smartphone'

and

it decided to commandeer all my Picasa photos

and then delete,

my time in blog world has been such fun.

Anyhow thanks once again.

Hopefully another 12 wonderful months lie ahead.

It's Wednesday so I'll try being wordless...some pics from around the house.

Some sights around my sewing room

Just thought I'd share some views

from around

my

sewing room.

Hope you're all having a great week

wherever you may be.

I'd love to hear from you

so

please

leave me a comment.