Apology to the Stolen Generations

Dear Gran,

this morning we jumped on our bikes almost as soon as we woke up. As we cycled down northbourne avenue, we saw other friends on bikes too. At a red light, the passenger in the car full of people next to us wound down the window and asked "Which way to Parliament House?" "Straight ahead--- you can follow us!" I replied.

It felt like all Canberra--- and even more people from across the country--- was going to see the apology. The lawn in front of Parliament House was full of people, come to look at the big screen. People waving flags--- the Australian one, the Aboriginal one, and the (lesser known) Torres Strait Islander one. (I joked that it would be one of the few times we'd be encouraging Ruthie to wave the flag).

On the screen we could see members of parliament filing into the green chamber. The Speaker declared the session open, said "First item of Government business" and then Kevin was on.

I found his speech really moving; especially when he said that his apology was "not qualified"--- after all the years of hedging, legalisms and so on. People in the crowd were clapping, crying, hugging, but mostly listening silently. I think almost half the crowd would have been indigenous; the rest of us ordinary Canberrans, schoolkids in their uniforms, mums and dads, public servants all suited up for a day in the office. After Kevin Rudd announced that he would be coopting the Opposition leader to be part of bipartisan taskforce, the camera switched to Brendan Nelson's face--- with a look of sort of wooden horror on it. That got a laugh.

After he finished the Speaker said "Righto" (he must be new in the job!) and moved on to the reply. After that people started drifting away, off to work, started talking. I listened until I realised that Nelson really wasn't into the "unqualified" thing; it seemed mean-spirited. Some people booed him. We walked over to the side, among the gum trees, to eat a little breakfast-picnic.

On the one hand, the apology was a totally straight-forward simple decent thing to do; to acknowledge that people had suffered as a result of government policies. But it is a sad thing that something so obvious felt so special, so amazing: we have become used to the denial and ungracefulness of the last decade.

Here is a photo (that someone else took):



On Monday, Ruth, Sean, Sam and I went up there to help put up this candle sculpture:


It says "sorry, the first step".

all in all, today was a good day, one long overdue.

Hope you're well,

Julie.

November photos

Dear Gran,

Now Ruth has had two sets of grandparents visit in two weeks. Colin and Lorraine were here last weekend--- they parked the caravan in our backyard, to the delight of the kids.

And Mum and Dad left this afternoon. They spent a bit of time taking Ruth around--- they looked after her on Friday while Brendan and I worked, they took her over to Sean and Sandra's yesterday afternoon, and out to breakfast with Ian and Lesley this morning.

Later this afternoon we went to the pool. We arranged to meet Nathalie, Joseph and Momo there. We didn't arrange to meet another three sets of friends (and their kids), but we did anyway. This way Canberra feels like a very small town.

Ruth had a good time in the baby pool, walking around and playing with her buckets. Later we went for a second swim, in the big pool. What joy! I think she squealed for the whole 10 minutes. She loves jumping into our arms off the side of the pool, being thrown up and down, going underwater.

Came home, had dinner, ran around in the rain for a while. Gran, the weather these last weeks has been lovely. Not too hot, and with fairly frequent evening thundershowers.

Anyway, here are some photos from the last month.


Firstly, from the trip Ruth and I took to Bairnsdale on cup weekend: Wendy took us to Raymond Island, which is overrun with koalas. Here are two of them.

The next night we stayed at Cape Conran. We have a new tent, a spacious THREE person tent. It seems to do the job.




Ruth and I balancing on the edge of the garden.




Finally (I include this photo just to disgust the more sensitive members of the family) Ruth after eating several cupcakes made to her friend Vida's special recipe.





We're really looking forward to seeing everyone at Christmas.


Much love,

Julie.

Back to the garden

Dear Gran,



I have been meaning to show you the new garden bed for a while. It is a (so called) no-dig bed: which means it is made of newspapers and cardboard boxes laid flat, then peastraw, then some horse manure from the race course and cow manure from Joan's place, then finally a layer of dirt. You can also see the black porous hose, which will eventually be completely under the mulch.




In this photo I took a few weeks ago you can see mostly lettuce and silver beet. There are some very small tomato seedlings, some potatoes (Royal Blue). Today I planted some bean and physalis seedlings. Physalis is a yummy fruit, like a yellow cherry tomato wrapped in a husk. It was fashionable in Berlin when we were there.

In the middle of the garden there is the replacement lemon tree that I bought when I thought the one you had given me died. But it hadn't really! I cut it back and it resprouted again.

The other bed--- in the ex-sandpit--- is a jungle of peas with a few broadbeans (not doing too well, I planted them too late). The peas are partly intentionally planted snow peas, and partly ones that have come up from the pea straw. Ruth helps herself to the peas--- she is delighted at seeing them in the pod.



Finally some photos of Ruth cooking. I have found the last couple of weeks, while Brendan has been working on his thesis and I have only been having two days a week at work, quite hard. Too much being mummy! However Ruth and I are always good friends when we cook together.



Much love,

Julie.

ps. Brendan has asked me to tell you that Ruth has many smocks, she just wasn't wearing them. Plenty of smocks.