Reflections

Some Of My Reflections

Southbridge

This weekend 24 - 26 October 2015 our small town of Southbridge celebrates it's 150th year anniversary.  Our family roots go back deep in this town, in fact to the days when there was no real road to Southbridge from their farm called "Bridgefield" at Lakeside.  To get to Southbridge my great grandparents had to follow red ribbons tied to bushes to find the track.

This was a wonderful town to grow up in.  It's population now is still only 720.  There are around 260 houses.  I've always enjoyed the fact we are close to the Pacific Ocean, Lake Ellesmere and the mighty Rakaia, one of Canterbury's braided rivers.

This is a photograph of the corner of Southbridge Park which I took a few years back.  It was this very corner where my friends and I used to come as teenagers and hold birthday parties for our horses!

 

Below: The fields around Southbridge are golden in Summer and Autumn. 

Below : Southbridge from the air, Lake Ellesmere in the background

Below : Looking towards the Southern Alps

Back at an earlier Southbridge Centenary in the 1960's Uncle Ron (left) and Dad (right)

did a re-enactment of my grandfather's transport firm,  later merged into Ellesmere Transport.

Below: the main street of Southbridge.  Yes it really is often this quiet! 

Blackboy Peaches

The blackboy peach seems to be mainly found in NZ.  It is delicious. Lucky us!

Mum And Dad - Edna And Keith

Happy Times :
Mum and Dad below at my cousin's wedding at Killinchy, near Southbridge, in the late 1980's.

Helping out at a dog show:

Below : Mum and Dad's wedding in 1952 in Christchurch, New Zealand. 

 

Baby Apple Trees

The last baby apple tree for 2015 has been planted, in this case a triple grafted Splendour - Royal Gala - Granny Smith.

Favourite Videos

I love this photo of my mother as a child back in the late 1930's.  Mum is on the left and her younger sister, my Aunty Eileen, is on the right.  The photo is taken on their small farm at Milltown, near Southbridge. 

I love how they look like wild little ragamuffins!  These were free range children out on the windswept plains.  I think Mum had a mostly happy childhood full of horses, dogs, cows, cats, hens and other critters - rather similar to my own!  

1971 - a devastating time for my family when my elder and only brother Allan Alexander died of a brain tumour when he was 14 years old.  I was 12 years old.  The photo above shows my sister Shirley (on the left) and myself (on the right) standing by his graveside on the day of his funeral.  We are in the Presbyterian section of the Ellesmere Cemetery where we have family graves going back several generations.