Well the Ekka certainly brought back memories on Thursday - going with my parents as a child and also taking my son when he was little. There are a few changes (Sideshow Alley rides certainly look more scary) but mostly it was the Show as I remembered it. We ended up spending about 8 hours there and saw just about everything. A great day and after a little rain/cloud in the morning it turned into a wonderful winter's day.
Friday I went and collected my grandfathers' replica military medals from National Medals and I am so pleased that I have finally done this. Now I want to write up their stories - Henry Price in WW1 and John Martin Gunderson in WW2. Perhaps that should be a Remembrance Day target as it is closer to November than next April for ANZAC Day.
On Saturday I was pleased to hear from Hazel Edwards who I had heard speak at the Family History Feast at State Library of Victoria in early August. Firstly she advised me that emails were bouncing from my website (Shauna Hicks History Enterprises)which was good to know and is now fixed - but I do wonder what I missed out on for the almost four weeks that I was unaware of the problem. At least in the old days of snail mail, the letterbox managed to hold all your mail even if it did get damp when it rained.
Secondly Hazel informed me of the increased traffic to her website (Hazel Edwards An Australian Author) following my review of Family History Feast and I also mentioned her book How to Write a Non Boring Family History during my Toowoomba talks recently. It is always good to get feedback and to know that people read my blogs and follow up on links from both my blogs and talks. It makes all the hard work of writing blogs and preparing talks all the more worthwhile.
Thirdly it reminded me that I had said in my Researching & Writing History blog that I would blog my 'how to write' talk following the Unlock the Past Researching & Writing History two day seminar in Adelaide back in May. It's now back on my 'to do' list and hopefully in the coming week I will be able to cross it off the list.
As we are heading back to Melbourne on Monday we have been doing some sightseeing around Brisbane and to be honest, the weather has been so great it is a shame to be indoors. Plus the internet connection at Mum's is not the best and it takes so long to do anything!
Today we are having another family gathering as it will probably be Christmas before we are up this way again. Having said that, where did this year go?
I have some exciting talks/events coming up in September and it will be much easier to maintain this Diary once I am back home and no longer in tourist mode. Most events I am speaking at are day trips or only one night away so it will be good to have all my usual research resources around me. It's definitely not all online!