Happy endings

Two 'Hilda' posts in one week!

When I was about nine and my sister seven, our uncle gave us poetry books for Christmas. Mine was 'Hilda Boswell's Treasury of Poetry'

My sister's was 'A Child's Garden of Verses' by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by HB.

The fanciful pictures captured my imagination and brought the poems to life.

When we left home the books went their separate ways with us both. Mine was a firm favourite with my children, their dad read the poems with funny voices - The Mermaid by Alfred Lord Tennyson in a posh falsetto, 'The Spider and the Fly' with an enticing, chocolatey  voice for the spider and a squeaky, anxious voice for the poor fly. A second lease of life for the poems.

When our eldest girl went on her travels I photocopied 'The Jumblies' for her, because it reassures: travelling can be frightening but exciting, makes the traveller grow. 

She was in Australia when it was her birthday and I found the book on ebay, from a seller in Melbourne. I was lucky enough to win it for a fantastic bid. The seller was a lovely woman - she put in a birthday card and dispatched it to my daughter in Brisbane. So of course, I had to get another copy for our other daughter. This time I had to pay four times as much to win the auction! I will acquire one for our son in due course.

Last Sunday in an idle moment, I checked ebay to see if my sister's book was available. It was! £3.99, 0 bids and 54 minutes till the auction was over. Happy ending - the book is on its way to me! After all these years, my book will soon be joined by a copy of its old companion.  

Flying the Flag

Chris at Lazy Swimmer drew my attention to Australian women swimmers at the turn of the last century. I had to include the photo of this feisty pair on my blog. They are Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie, the first women to represent Australia at swimming in the 1912  Stockholm Olympics. Initially they were refused permission to attend, but after some wrangling they were allowed to take part - on condition they paid their own expenses. They organised their odyssey to Europe and went on to win gold and silver medals for their country. 

Mina's love of swimming was obviously a family affair - her father Henry Alexander Wylie was a champion swimmer himself and established Sydney's well-loved ocean pool - Wylie's Baths - in 1907.

http://www.wylies.com.au/

Shark wrestler woman

No swimming today. Good job I hadn't planned to be up early, as technical difficulties with yesterday's post triggered my obsessive tendencies and prevented me from turning in last night till way past my normal bedtime. Just before I hit the 'publish post' button, I decided to adjust the time setting to bring it in line with the actual time here in the UK.

Late night meddling never pays off. Somehow I put the post on hold and scheduled its publication for some point in the future. I also managed to alter the datelines on recent posts as well. I was unable to leave this chaos and sleep on it. I reached a kind of resolution by setting my time zone to Alaska. I can't fathom how to correct this, so I hope my son will apply his teenage genius later in the week.

Today (which incidentally is Sunday) my sister in Australia phoned. This prompted me to think about significant swims which I had in Australia when I went to visit her with my husband and my other sister, long ago in 1987. I dug out our old photos and found this one, posed by me and my sisters, which is a particular favourite and a reminder of that incredible summer, the year after we got married.

For part of our visit we took a road trip from Brisbane up to Cairns, staying in some spectacular locations. We snorkelled over the coral reef and swam in the clearest water with beautiful fish and sea creatures.

A few years later when we had children, they loved this picture. I lied to them that after it was taken, I had to wrestle off a troublesome shark which attacked me while I was swimming. At school they told their friends about my exploits. When they got older they frequently challenged my veracity, but I always felt compelled to stick to my guns and insist I had carried out the feats as described. Now I hope they can cope with the truth and not be too disappointed in me. Sorry, kids.