I am sitting here at Glenelg in Adelaide where I have been for the past week. My niece was married last Saturday so it has been a major family event - or more correctly a series of family events. My two older grand children were lovely flower girls at the wedding, and all went very well.
We've had a couple of days to look around but always every day end up with family. The weather has been cool, in fact some days downright cold. The wind coming of St Vincent's Gulf had a feeling of South Pole in it!
I had an awesome meeting with an author and expert on Obituaries in Adelaide, but other than that it has been all family, with little "me time". It's OK.
I gave the two grand daughter's a $25 book voucher to spend at Dymmocks, so we headed there yesterday. What a hard task!!! It seems they've read almost everything in the book store! In any event, we did manage to spend the full $25 and all was well.
I've not reported yet, but I had my medical for China, and am due back in Shaoxing in Feburary 2010 ready for teaching on March 1st!! Yeehaa!!! I'm quite looking forward to it.
I remember the "old" Glenelg tram that used to go from the centre of the city (Hindmarsh Square I think) down to Glenelg - they were green, timber trimmed trams and rattled along the tracks. Quite romantic in a historic way. In recent years the tram track has been extended to near the Adelaide Railway Station on North Terrace, but it was on King William Street that I joined the tram.
Strangely we were offloaded at East Tce, as unbeknown to me and other passengers we had climbed aboard a "shuttle tram" so we had to wait about 10 minutes until another tram arrived to take us to Glenelg. The new trams are modern air conditioned models, but many lament the passing of the old trams.
Soon I was at Glenelg and I alighted at the Brighton Road end of Jetty Road, and slowly walked along the full length of Jetty Road, popping into shops occasionally, but just enjoying the walk.
At Glenelg there is a jetty - I think for most of my childhood I recall that there was none, as the original jetty had been washed away in a storm very early in my childhood. It was rebuilt in 1969. I stood at the jetty and looked back - to see great high rise apartments where once there were parks. Still standing though is the old Glenelg Town Hall - where as a teenager I attended the regular Saturday night dance. I don't recall how I got there - but I do remember my father always waiting for me at midnight as the dance finished. Not much chance to play up!!
Beside the old Town Hall is a huge monument to Governor Hindmarsh and the first settlers that arrived on the good ship Buffalo way back in 1836. Strangely not only my ancestors (the Abbott family) but my husband's ancestors (the Broadbents) were also on board, and were obviously part of the first settlers to Adelaide.
Strange that years later descendants of two families on board would join in marriage. I had lunch at a little restaurant near the end of Jetty road - enjoying some calamari and a glass of wine. Then I tried to catch a bus back to Marion. I'd been given information as to where I could catch the bus, but when I arrived a fellow traveller disputed my information, so I phoned the information centre. I was in the right street, but on the wrong side! In any case, just after I crossed to the correct place a bus came along and I climbed on board.
The bus wound round and round the back streets of Glenelg, Somerton, Brighton, Hove and Seacliffe on a long route to Marion. I often remember my struggles with travel sickness as a child, when I could not go very far in a car without being overcome with nausea etc. And so it was with the bus trip! Perhaps I should have got out and caught a taxi, or when near a railway station, the train, but I endured the suffering, hoping that my stomach contents would remain in my stomach until we got to Marion. I really suffered, but luckily got to Marion and quickly got off and walked slowly in the fresh air to my sister's place and quickly recovered.
