My mother loved flowers - pink roses especially - but I'm sure she would prefer any money you might be tempted to spend on them in her honour to be donated to the Cancer Council:

Janet's marriage to Geoff in London in 1968 (with her parents Harry and Kitty)

With her beloved first dog: Penny

With me as a baby - the Rag'n'Bone man would swap clothes baskets like this one for old rags (and presumably bones)

With her parents

On my 18th birthday - truly days best forgotten.

In February 1983 my mother and I became Australian citizens.  At the ceremony we were each presented with a tube-stock tree.  The very colourful Tasmania-less cake above was baked by Barbara Hayes, our next door neighbour at the time. 

My mother's parents moved to Australia to join us in the late 70s, into a house only a street away from us in Bass Hill.  My mother was there for them whenever they needed her.

In Burradoo (about 2002), with Jayne

Before the Great Coming of Billy (see below) my mother was known as the Kookaburra Lady of Burradoo

Trip to Egypt and a Nile cruise - with Geoff in 'Sheik of Araby' mode

Janet spent a large part of her life looking after other people - including being the (geographically) nearest relative to Maisie and Keith Barcham (Geoff's parents) after his death in 2004

The Swinging 60s - in particular a job at Butlins holiday camp at Bognor Regis! 

The secret of her always wonderfully smooth and soft skin was ... staying out of the sun and quitting smoking (a little too late as it turned out)!  But, for the record, her favourite skin care product was:
Favourite restaurant:  Biviano's at Dural, in particular their Veal Oscar:

In early September 1939 the UK government evacuated 100,000s of women and children from areas around London in danger of bombing, in an operation called 'Pied Piper'.  This included Janet's mother Catherine (Kitty) who gave birth to my mother a week or so later (on 24 September) far from home 

With her father (Harry) on leave during WWII.  Janet very proudly translated Harry's war diary from it's original Utter Scrawl into a typed-out version I could read

Billy the Cockatiel.  Hatched 15 March 2009.  Escaped through the back door in Burradoo at 4pm Wednesday 11 August 2010 - found by Janet two days later, down the road in a tree at the Monastery.  Still going strong, now in the tender care of Georgia Mitchell. Long may he squark!

In the backyard at Bass Hill


Sitting here again -
These clank and clatter people
And the singing sky.
What to do about it all?
Drink orange juice and whistle.
(Thomas Gurgal, 1973,  in the Japanese Tanka style)

I shared the above with my mother last year, and she replied with, to my knowledge, the only poem she ever wrote (supposedly to the beat of Sinatra's My Way):
Oh for orange juice I cry,
grape will not suffice
My tears falling sight unseen
as Bill looks on
with wistful stare.


On behalf of my mother: Good luck and a Long Life to you all!



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