Back to my roots

You may recall back on October 12th, I wrote about visiting a house at Mt. Barker built inside a former water tank and called Tickletank. This tank was at the top of the street where I grew up. (See 2 photos here in my Blipfolio)

By chance and a lot of good luck, we met the current owner of our old house at this Open Garden. She kindly invited us to visit her for lunch, a tour of the garden and house, plus of course much taking of photos.

Today was the day and what a step back in time it was. We spent a most wonderful afternoon with Jocelyn, the present owner of the house. She had greatly expanded the garden, increased the size of my tiny former sleepout bedroom and fully maintained all of the wonderful art deco touches of the house.

My parents built this house in 1940, and they married and moved in as soon as it was completed. I spent the first 19 1/2 years of my life living in this wonderful home. We had driven past a few times over the 52 years since our family left the house, and never ever expected to set foot on the property again. It was a nostalgic and exciting experience and I relived so many good experiences and told many of the old stories. It was simply the best time.

Better view of the front garden.

And much chatting and many photos, we took our host for a walk around the wonderful Mt. Barker Laratinga Wetlands. There we met a very friendly guy and fellow bird photographer and exchanged email addresses.

He put us on to a wonderful bird app designed by Michael Morcambe It features hundreds of bird songs, wonderful images, and the distribution patterns of the birds in Australia. Apps are also available for other countries as well.

Paladian got a brilliant image of a Musk Lorikeet, and naturally went with a blip of my former home. What a day! In two weeks' time, Jocelyn and the owner of Tickletank will be our guests for lunch, and a walk in our nearby Belair National Park.