Well My favourite childhood memory...Wow there were so many from riding my horse all day and playing on the grassy hill with a piece of cardboard sliding down the grass into the river with mates all yelling a screaming in glee..But my favourite childhood memories would have to be the ones I have from going to my grandparents on the christmas holidays as kids...

My grandparents lived in a place called Jackadgery...Which is between Grafton and Glenn Innes on the Mann River in NSW...They lived on the largest property...There was no power..No flushing toilet...and no dramas at all...I remember time spent with my pop going for walks with him and looking at things us city kids knew nothing about...Him taking us camping on the river and telling us the sreams we heard were ladies being eaten by the yowie hehe(peacocks) ..Him taking us riding in the rapids on tyre inner tubes...Taking us gold panning as this bush man stood with us smiling all the time in his bush clothes and his Akubra hat ...my memories of him are so vivid and wonderful...Then there was my nanna...Going back after a day of fishing with pop or builing a dam in the river and smelling the wonderful feast she was cooking up wafting through the air...And my favourite saying she used to say to my pop as I dobbed on him for all the little stories he told me...The words ring in my ears as she gently turned to him and said oh Eddie... with her lovely friendly smile...We used to sit out on the verandah at night and watch the sky on the seats my pop had made with his own hands form the wood in the bush and watch the night sky so peacful and un iterupted by the city life....My times in Jackadery were wonderful....

I look back now and think of things that were so wonderful there and all the smells are still very vivid in my mind and I always smile at the thought of that place...My poppa Is gone now he died in december of 1993...I always thought the old bushie would die in the paddock leaned up against a tree somewhere and I am sure that is the way he would have liked to go...he was such a bush man...My Nan is still around she lives in a granny flat on my mums place now...She just celebrated her 94th birthday a couple of days ago and she is still going strong....

Sometimes when times are hard or I am feeling blue I turn in a room and I swear I can smell that smell of my pop like he is standing right there with me next to me....

Cheers
Angie