Family Tree Frog

  From Edward Lear's limerick There was an old man of St Bees    You'd better get a cup of coffee.  This is going to be a long one! This past week has certainly tested South East Queensland residents. (Pun unintended) In one week we went from 37 to 169 cases of Delta in the community.  This probably seems a laughable figure to the rest of the world and indeed parts of Australia like Sydney but it does demonstrate how quickly the virus can spread.  And the fact that contact tracing included at least half a dozen schools, a university, at least three major shopping centres and a couple of hospitals did tend to put the wind up us.  I was very sorry to see my first library listed.  Til now I've been rather foolishly reassured by the fact that no bookshops or libraries have been listed to date . Here's a map of the close and casual contacts close to where I live.    I've included Ipswich as well as that is where my daughter and I were on Thur...

Shirley, Belle and Kit outside DJs Elizabeth Street c. 1930s Like David Jones Elizabeth Street. Here are the twins. And Belle's daughter Shirley.  Sorry Shirley - there's a bit of dust or summat caught on your eye. Kit being my maternal grandmother who I never knew.  Belle being her twin sister. My daughter Isabel Kate being named after both of them. Ah yes, shopping. I have fond memories of my mother and I picking up cousin Joy (Shirley's sister) who seemed to have an endless cycle of DJs bags of stuff that needed to be returned and stuff that needed to be bought.   Who else remembers the ker-clack-hum-ker-clack of the wooden escalators in DJs?   Now that's something that should have been captured on audio archives for posterity. I think I have a DJs creamer from their dining room somewhere in a cupboard - or is that a fantasy?  I do remember my Mother being very keen to purchase one when they decided to close it ...