Friday, 16th February 2018
While I am writing up today’s journal, I am very saddened at the news I received this evening from my sister Liz, from back home in Malta. Our oldest brother, Hubert, had passed away exactly on his 73rd birthday. I was actually waiting till it was nearly 9 a.m. local time in Malta to give him a call to wish him a happy birthday. These last few years he wasn’t well and he was in and out of hospitals and especially after his wife Mary had passed away last April, he was devastated. But he got through somehow until now. May he rest in peace.
My son Martijn, sent me some beautiful words which I would like to repeat here:
“ we are all made of stars – our elements were created in the furnaces of the first stars, and when they exploded, those elements found their way to us, to briefly make up our human bodies.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only change shape and form. This means that the warmth that flowed through him (Hubert) , throughout his life is still here among us and a part of us.
Every photon of light that bounced off him is still travelling through the universe, hundreds of trillions of particles, their path forever changed by him.
According to the law of conservation, not a bit of him is gone. Just less orderly.”
Strange that Martijn should have sent me this quote as yesterday evening both Gerry and I were sitting outdoors and appreciating the clear night sky – the milk way was very clear and many other stars twinkling against the velvety dark background – we were in awe of all that is mightier than us poor mortals!
Although our day ended with sad news and tears in my eyes, we had spent a lovely day – I guess that’s why my life’s motto is: Live every day to its fullest.
We started the day by going down to the beach – we were up quite early as actually round about 4.30 am I needed to go to the loo and as it was still dark, Gerry came along too. And that was good too as outside there was a whole family of kangaroos – some grazing others just standing up and looking at us and others just lying down relaxing. And they were blocking the entrance to restroom facilities – so you can imagine I was ever so glad that Gerry came along with me!!
Anyway down at the beach it was still high tide so we had to walk quite a distance to get down but then it was really fantastic, sitting under some shady trees and watching the waves. After some time, we did actually get into the water – it was not so warm as the day before but it was still lovely and refreshing. We spent quite some time on the beach and even went for a beach walk till we could not walk any further as the tide was still high.
Then it was lunch back at our campsite – as the people in front of us had left, we took over the picnic table and enjoyed our salad and the view at the same time.
Our plan was that we would visit the Gaol House, which was the starting point of our campsite. Actually we were leaving our sightseeing till the wrong time of the day – the hottest part of the day!! Anyway hats on and we walked up the hill.
Trial Bay Gaol is an imposing building built between 1877 and 1886 to house convicts brought to this prison to work on the construction of a breakwater just off the headland where this Gaol House was situated. However although so much time and money was spent, Nature decided otherwise and the initial structure was washed away. The prison then fell into disuse when the breakwater project was stopped, however it was then used again as an internment camp for German and Austrian detainees during the Great War of 1914-18. The only occupants right now are kangaroos!
Once we got back to the campsite, we thought we’d take a stroll to a kiosk/restaurant situated out of the nature reserve grounds. We were lucky that it was going to open at 17.30 but that was too early to have dinner and we just wanted to have a drink first. But that seemed impossible so we headed back to our campervan via the beach and as we had enough food to get a meal going later on, we decided to spend the evening at our campsite and watch the sun go down into the ocean.
That’s when I received a call from my sister, Liz , sharing her sad news about our older brother, Hubert departing from this world exactly on the day that he entered it 73 years ago.
May he rest in peace!
MORE PICTURES TO BE ADDED ONCE I HAVE A BETTER WIFI CONNECTION – APOLOGIES!
