a year later... or thereabouts.

March 1, 2024

So, it's been a year since Mum passed. Well, kind of.

I mean, she died at 06:10 on 1 March 2023 AEDT, but for me, that means her time of death was actually 19:10 GMT on 28 February 2023.

So, for me, that should mean the anniversary of her passing was on 28 February 2024.

Except that this year is a leap year, so 06:10 AEDT on 1 March 2024 was 19:10 GMT on 29 February 2024.

Confused yet?

If I base the anniversary on the date she passed away in Australia (as that's where she was), then I'm posting this late. But it's still only 1 March 2024 here in London, so I guess I get longer to mark the anniversary.

Has anyone noticed I possess a certain sentimentality and a penchant for marking such important dates at precisely the right moment?

Though I didn't have a chance to post about it at either of the potentially recognised moments, it's been on my mind for some time, particularly during the evening on 28 February when it felt like I should acknowledge the passing of a year since her death.

Dad and I acknowledged the anniversary within the hour of her passing on 1 March 2024, his time, in our family WhatsApp chat.

Yesterday afternoon, a little before and a little after my day's sitting with Francois ended, and before I left for my first sitting of the year with my regulars, I edited these two photos to share with this post acknowledging the anniversary.

Although I don't think she had any particular preference for daffodils (I don't remember them appearing often within bouquets she bought or received), her death will now be inextricably linked to them in my mind because of her passing on St David's Day and, in particular, because of her Welsh ancestry.

So, I was already thinking ahead to today when I photographed these two specimens in Frank's backyard the last weekend I sat him in mid-February. Knowing there would be photographs of daffodils as part of my tribute to her this year, as I have access to very few photos of her, and most I've already shared. While thinking ahead to the date and time conundrum as the impact of this leap year had already occurred to me by then.

One thing I didn't get to do while I was visiting Dad was to pore over their photo albums. Two weeks isn't a long time when you're working part-time, sorting through your deceased mother's personal effects and catching up with family you haven't seen in person in about three years.

I didn't know how I would feel one year on. If I'm honest, I still don't.

I mean, there's definitely been a sea of emotions surging around me for the past week or so.

I initially hoped to write my thoughts on the "exact" anniversary (for me). But practical matters had to be dealt with. So, instead, I sort of softly welled up thinking about it without having the time or capacity to put the feelings into words. But knowing I would when I could.

I know it's cliched to say it feels like less than a year, but in the same breath, to say it feels more than a year. But it does.

It's been less than a year since we said goodbye as a family and scattered her ashes.

It's been more than a year since she and I last spoke. Or rather, I spoke to her, as she didn't have many words left by then.

So, the passing of time since her passing has been warped and bent. Though that's not uncommon. I know others feel similarly about the passing of their loved ones, even without the added confusion of leap years interfering with their marking of time.

I wrote a lot about her last year. And I don't doubt I will write more in time. I took photos while visiting my family in Australia that triggered memories, anecdotes, and so forth that I hope to capture in words. Some I'll capture for myself. Others I'll share.

In the meantime, as Spring drags its feet returning to England, the daffodils rush in and bloom on the verges and traffic islands, in suburban gardens, central London parks, cemeteries, the local supermarket, the vase in the entry to our building placed there by my Welsh neighbour who lives downstairs. And in my mind.

For Mum. In her memory.

hyde family © early 1980s vogue photo (not that vogue…)

loss, family, friends, photo walks, cats and dogs

December 31, 2023

It seems odd to say 2023 was one of the better years for me recently, despite Mum passing on 1 March.

Realistically, I’d probably started mourning her loss in March 2018, when I believed that would be the last time I’d see her in person. It was a mixed blessing to have one more opportunity in October 2019. But I knew when I left Tasmania at the end of that visit that would be the last time.

By the time she passed, we hadn’t even been able to have Skype calls for about a year and a half. And our calls hadn’t involved actual conversation for a long time before that.

So, her passing was more of a continuation and perhaps the closing chapter of my mourning.

Don’t get me wrong: I still semi-regularly well up and have a good cry while thinking about her. But it’s not been as intense as it would have been without her prolonged descent into dementia and multiple false alarms to prepare me for the final eventuality.

her final destination [buttons beach, ulverstone, tasmania, australia, 2023]

We said our farewells, and Mum set off on her final journey on 18 June 2023, when Dad, Robert, Peter and I could finally be in one place.

An old friend, Dee, messaged me soon after to tell me the ocean currents may have taken her to New Zealand.

dad reviving his david bellamy impersonation [tasmanian arboretum, eugenana, tasmania, australia, 2023]

It was the first chance we had to be in one place as a family to say goodbye to Mum, but it was probably also the first time the four of us had been together since early 2007.

john hyde [sunnybank hills, brisbane, queensland, australia, 2023]

With family, loss and the passing of time on my mind, I predominantly spent my month in Australia catching up with family, especially those I hadn’t seen in far too long.

My uncle, John, is one member of my extended family I’ve managed to see on all of my visits since leaving Australia in January 2011. But I enjoyed spending another few days of quality time with him, talking about family and family history, debating politics and catching up with his partner, Verna. And I managed to set him up on WhatsApp so I can call him regularly at no cost.

with the lodwicks © 2023 rhys lodwick [booragoon, perth, western australia, australia, 2023]

My Mum’s side of the family has been harder to catch up with over the years, mainly due to geography. For most of my childhood and teens, they lived in Calgary. And when they returned to Australia, they settled in Perth.

I met Rhys (pictured at left, taking the group selfie) when I was about 11, but I didn’t meet my other cousin, his twin, David (centre back), until Rhys’ wedding about ten years later, in 1998.

I’m ashamed to say that was the last time I’d seen Rhys and my uncle, Graham, until this year. Although, I stayed with my aunt, Patricia, in 2002, when I returned to Australia after my first stint of living in the UK and caught up with David then. Christopher (back right) wasn’t yet born.

So, it was lovely to spend a couple of days getting to know Rhys better while he played tour guide, to spend a few days with his family, and to spend an evening with Mum’s family.

I would have liked to have spent more time with them, but I had so much to cram into just a month. Hopefully, I’ll be able to spend more time next time.

And I caught up with Rhys, his wife, Jenny, and their daughter, Georgia, for an evening when they were in London a few months later.

untitled #20 [sunnybank hills, brisbane, queensland, australia, 2023]

In addition to spending time with family, I was pleased to catch up with my first-ever best friend, Narelle, for the first time in around 39 years. And to spend time with Lisa and Sarah.

untitled #40 [west ulverstone beach, ulverstone, tasmania, australia, 2023]

It was a pleasure, as always, to spend time talking and dining with Victoria while I was in Tasmania, including a rain-sodden wander on West Ulverstone Beach.

untitled #89 [tasmanian arboretum, eugenana, tasmania, australia, 2023]

We wandered around the Tasmanian Arboretum with Cheryl after scattering Mum’s ashes; just what I needed.

I did spy a platypus and took some photos, but they may need quite a lot of enlargement to confirm that!

frilled neck lizard [mindeerup, perth, western australia, australia, 2023]

I took many photos of Perth in the glorious weather as Rhys played tour guide.

Here’s one of a frilled neck lizard sculpture in the Mindeerup section of south Perth, part of Karl Kep Ngoornd-iny (Fire and Water Dreaming) by Yondee Shane Hansen.

In addition to my family, who offered up beds and couches to me during my stay, I want to thank everyone who could make the time to catch up during my (relatively) short time in Melbourne.

It was lovely to catch up with Jess, Preethi and Feih for drinks one night. Ian, David, Pete and Corey the next night. Brunch with Richard and his daughter, Sienna, dinners with David and Anthony, and a pint and chips with Jason.

(I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone!)

anthony horan [springvale botanical cemetery, springvale, melbourne, victoria, australia, 2023]

Special thanks to Amy and Chris for shuttling me and Richard to Springvale Botanical Cemetery to visit Anthony Horan’s grave and to Richard for the engaging natter on the train (and apologies for getting us on the wrong train!)

sunshine on grief [brookwood cemetery, brookwood, surrey, england, 2023]

Usually, my visits to cemeteries are for purely photographic purposes. But this year, I found myself in cemeteries to visit friends.

That’s how I came to be in Brookwood Cemetery, the largest cemetery in the UK. It used to have its own dedicated railway, including first-class carriages for the dead, running direct from the London Necropolis Railway Station in Waterloo.

The same station still serves it. But now it’s just the living commuting by train from the main Waterloo Station.

(I knew about the cemetery and the railway well before my visit because of Catharine Arnold’s book, Necropolis: London and its Dead, which I read many years ago. I’ll return for a more leisurely photo walk in future).

I did, of course, also visit cemeteries for purely photographic purposes.

In chronological order, I wandered the following cemeteries:

untitled #48 [plaistow cemetery, bromley, london, england, 2023]

Plaistow Cemetery in Bromley (on my birthday)

untitled #180 [brockley and ladywell cemeteries, brockley, london, england, 2023]

Brockley Cemetery (part of Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries)

untitled #277 [brockley and ladywell cemeteries, ladywell, london, england, 2023]

Ladywell Cemetery (part of Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries)

untitled #63 [london road cemetery, bromley, london, england, 2023]

London Road Cemetery in Bromley

Bromley Hill Cemetery

untitled #66 [paines lane cemetery, pinner, london, england, 2023]

Paines Lane Cemetery in Pinner

untitled #199 [pinner new cemetery, pinner, london, england, 2023]

Pinner New Cemetery (probably the worst maintained cemetery I’ve come across, and I include those maintained within the concept of ‘managed neglect’ in that comparison)

untitled #116 [hither green cemetery, hither green, london, england, 2023]

And Hither Green Cemetery, which I’ll have to revisit in 2024, as I arrived about 15 minutes before they closed for the day.

All this talk of death and loss may have you concerned. Never fear: there’s life in the old girl yet.

untitled #115 [birmingham, west midlands, england, 2023]

I didn’t travel as far afield as I’d hoped this year, but I did spend a day wandering Birmingham, its canals, and marvelling at the city’s Spaghetti Junction with fellow photographer Phil Ivens one Sunday.

henley bridge [henley-on-thames, oxfordshire, england, 2023]

I spent a lovely weekend with my distant cousins in Uxbridge, including a day in Henley-on-Thames.

hambleden cinema [hambleden, buckinghamshire, england, 2023]

And Hambleden.

the ashley-joneses and bevans [uxbridge, london, england, 2023]

Once again, it was lovely to spend time with family members I don’t see often enough (though there’s less excuse with these guys as, apart from Malcolm, we live in the same city, albeit on almost opposite sides!)

untitled #104 [new river path, palmers green, london, england, 2023]

I topped and tailed the year by continuing my photo walks along the New River Path.

In February, Sarah joined me to walk from where we left off last time, in Bowes Park, to Palmers Green.

untitled #45 [new river path, palmers green, london, england, 2023]

And in November, Scott joined me for the next stretch from Palmers Green to Enfield.

untitled #35 [grove park nature reserve, grove park, london, england, 2023]

And, on Boxing Day, I took what I thought was a scenic shortcut through Grove Park Nature Reserve, aiming for Hither Green Cemetery, only to find the footbridge as part of the Railway Children Walk was closed for maintenance.

And now, the part of my annual wrap-up you’ve all been waiting for (drum roll).

Here’s the roll call of the new kittehs (and doggos!) I sat this year.

I sat 17 cats, 11 of which were new clients (though two were new kittehs for existing human clients).

I sat three doggos, all new clients and all lovely beasties. Unfortunately, Dougal (pictured above) has now crossed the Rainbow Bridge, passing around the day I left for Australia.

I sat ten fish, four of which were new clients. Six have now gone to fish heaven (only one on my watch, purloined from its pond by a cat or a fox).

Jilly arrived in Bounds Green as Lottie’s successor.

Oscar joined my three regulars in Bromley.

Frank, who loves to cuddle (which is a good thing, as he’s so smooshable!)

Pebbles, an old soul.

Treacle, who is as sweet as…

Milo loves a good game of tug-o-war.

Mango can be entertained on a shoestring (literally) and loves a lap.

I visited her four times over three days in the summer. She knew exactly when I was about to leave and when to curl up cutely on my lap.

Bobby with his “come hither and rub my belly” gaze.

Cino, Bobby’s less aloof brother.

These two were hilarious to listen to when they chatted while they played with their toys.

Bobby and Cino had some fishy friends (two of the three pictured).

George, a cheeky tabby who lives next door to my regulars.

And Lottie, George’s housemate.

I visited these two thrice daily one weekend while sitting my regulars.

And my newest and youngest clients, at 14 weeks, David.

And Stevie.

I slept in someone else’s bed for 160 nights this year (no, not like that).

Between pet-sitting, a weekend visit with my cousins, and my visit to Australia, I was away from home almost 44% of this year!

I loved it, but I will admit I missed my bed, iMac and my own room (though not the scaffolding surrounding our flat for about six months).

The coming year looks quite busy already, but it will be interesting to see whether it will be more or less busy than this year. I already have four new doggo and two new kitteh clients scheduled over the summer.

Before I wish you all a happy new year and the best of everything for 2024, I want to thank all my friends and family who have been there for me during 2023 when I really needed it (and, in many cases, every year before that).

I hope I have been and/or will be there for you when you need it.

Love to you all for 2024 xx

rocket

August 15, 2023

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 August 2023].}

If you're an Australian of a particular vintage (specifically, Generation X or Baby Boomer), I challenge you to tell me you're not thinking of Mr Squiggle's 'Rocket' while looking at my photo of Perth's Bell Tower at Elizabeth Quay.

I took this while on a whistle-stop tour of Perth with Rhys, one of my cousins.

While Kings Park was quite familiar to me, including the vista from the war memorial (which I had captured on at least one previous visit), the view had markedly changed in the roughly 20-30 years since I'd last photographed it.

This building and other high rises have since populated (and are still adding to) the skyline on Elizabeth Quay.

Although the architecture is vastly different: The Bell Tower is on a river, while the National Carillon is on an island in a manmade lake, and they are on almost direct opposite sides of the big, brown land we call Australia, I couldn't help but think of the near-annual visits my brothers and I took with my Granddad to the National Carillon on Queen Elizabeth II Island in Lake Burley Griffin as kids when confronted with The Bell Tower.

Perth was the city my grandparents moved to after decades lived in Canberra, and it was while visiting them in late high school that I first saw Perth.

I still feel I've only scratched the surface of Perth after about four visits, but there's something comforting about the same-same-but-different elements of the city to Canberra.

I'm sure that if my brothers, cousins and I were kids now and my grandparents were still alive and living in Perth, my Granddad would take us to The Bell Tower annually.

water of leith

July 18, 2023

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 13 July 2023].}

It may seem like I just came back from a holiday.

And I'm not going to lie: some parts of my time away in Australia were definitely a holiday.

But I worked part-time in my "day job" while I was away. And a lot of the time I was away was hard, emotional work.

Attempting to regain control of my finances, I've had my annual leave accrual paid out in cash for the past year and a half. So, though I was effectively paid for my leave, it wasn't money going into my bank account while I was away. I didn't have the luxury of being on an actual holiday.

There were some beautiful, wonderful times with family and friends during my time in Australia.

My visit with my Uncle John was far too short. I wanted to talk with him more. About him, about family. And, yes, even perhaps have another 2.5-hour debate about politics ;)

Despite having a two-week stay with Dad, I left knowing there were more things I wanted to help him with. Conversations not yet had.

A whole room of Mum's stuff left to sort through.

And more games of Scrabble to play, Canasta to learn with him and Cheryl, and even lazy afternoons spent together watching 'The Chase' (both the British and Australian versions) or evenings watching nature documentaries and eating ice creams.

Melbourne was crazy. I spent more time with friends and family in six days than I would generally spend in a year.

It was amazing, as someone who values the people I spend time with. As an introvert, it was exhausting.

And my time in Perth was far too short.

Though my Uncle Graham and I may have different views on many things, I would like to hear his.

I presumed that Mum - as someone so absorbed and obsessed with family - would have held all the family history. And that, with her parents, aunts and uncles and her gone, a lot of that would be lost.

But a short period with my uncle demonstrated he was just as attentive, though maybe attentive to different things. I would have enjoyed talking with (or just listening to) him more to try to piece together more of the family now that Mum's gone.

Dad wrote a long and lovely piece about Mum before she passed. If I recall correctly, I asked him to, as I should have asked her to do decades before. An extended biography that I still need to edit for him.

I've asked him to do the same, but I presume (and hope!) I won't read that for quite a while still.

While in Brisbane, I asked that Uncle John do the same. About him. And in partnership with Dad, about my grandparents, about their uncles.

I didn't ask Uncle Graham, but I would like him to and will email him to ask. Because Mum told me all the family stories, but I never asked her to write them down.

She told them to me as we pored over her family photo albums after dinner and red wine. I lapped up those stories in the moment. And I still savour them, but the reality is that I absorbed only morsels compared to the complete tales.

During this visit, I spent quality time with a cousin I had previously been mere acquaintances with. Perhaps not enough to feel we truly know each other. But we connected more and for longer than we ever had before.

I would have liked to spend more time catching up with my other cousin, who I had connected with previously. But we only briefly caught up during this visit, and our time was full of food and family chatter.

But at least, after this visit, I felt more connected with my Mum's family than before.

And I'm grateful to my cousin Rhys for playing tour guide and taking me to calm, picturesque places, which allowed me to wind down after such a hectic time in Melbourne (and provided me with plenty of photo opportunities).

All that to say that, after not having had a holiday in the true sense since October/November 2019 (and it's debatable it was even a 'holiday' for various reasons), I have, of late, been plotting and planning a return to Scotland.

It will hopefully take place in late September. And the plan is to visit two friends I met in 2000 in Reading while living there. Who I haven't seen in person since about 2002 and 2009, respectively. And who I've had intermittent contact with during that period.

And having actual paid time off to do that. To see parts of Scotland I've not previously seen (ooh-er!) and to spend time with good people. And, of course, to take copious amounts of photos.

It's all still very much to be confirmed, but to say I'm excited at the prospect would be an understatement.

To celebrate the possibility, a photo of the Water of Leith, near Dean Village, that I took in August 2011. The last time I was in Edinburgh.

the hardest button to button

July 9, 2023

Whilst I was visiting Dad last month, we tried to sort through Mum's belongings to work out what to keep, what family or friends might want, what to give to charity, and what to throw out.

We didn't get to her sewing room at all, but we did at least go through her wardrobe, jewellery, bathroom items and some odds and sods. In short, the items in Dad's bedroom.

Before this visit, I probably wouldn't have even vaguely entertained trying on her clothing as we were vastly different in size, shape, and style for most of our lives.

This visit, I'd put on weight, so I wasn't quite so dismissive. Though I knew our sense of style was quite different, and there would likely be few, if any, items I would retain.

I wasn't wrong.

In the end, all I brought back to London was a white shawl (I don't know if it was handmade or bought. It doesn't have a label, but that doesn't prove one way or another), a cream and a royal blue scarf (both bought). And her wedding dress which was tailor-made for her, my Dad thinks, in Sydney.

I spent AU$50 on dry cleaning her wedding dress in Ulverstone before I left as it had rust-coloured mould marks on it from being stored in their walk-in robe in a corner with poor air circulation.

Despite not being kept in any protective plastic covering, it had endured well and came up beautifully from the dry cleaning.

Although unfortunately, at some point, over the years, Mum had unpicked all six of the Marabou trims that encircled the bottom of the dress.

Dad remembers seeing her doing this but doesn't recall what she gave as the reason. We don't know if they may be stowed in her glory box in the built-in robe in their front room (the room Mum used as a sewing room, where my piano also lives) or if she threw them out at some point. Hopefully, next time I visit, I can investigate that.

I remember Mum asking me, around age 18, to try her wedding dress on. She had been 24 when she and Dad married in 1970. The dress fit my 52 kg body perfectly. Except that my bosom was too small, so the bust was loose.

I remember at the time being astonished that my Mum had once been my size as most of my life that I recalled she had struggled with her weight, and in terms of body shape, we were different.

However, when I tried the dress on again at 21, it fit me perfectly.

Now, not so much.

But I love the dress, and even if I never fit into it again and never get married, I would like to keep it. (If I'm honest, marriage hasn't been high on my list of life goals). Maybe, at some point, it will be handed down to someone in our family to use again.

Meanwhile, there was no urgency to go through the things in her sewing room, so we focussed more on working through her clothes and personal effects in their bedroom. We knew others could reuse many of the items in there. And Dad's bedroom needed a thorough clean-out (which he and Cheryl did after I left).

I did try on a few things out of curiosity.

Mum had worked out her style quite early on in life. Though her dress size and shape may have changed over the years, especially as she put on weight, she knew that store-bought clothing was never as suitable for her as homemade.

She made my and my brothers' bathers when we were young.

She made my first collection of knickers with cute elastic and patterned stretch-cotton material. I'm sure my brothers' knickers were also of her making.

She made us vests (singlets for those of you in Australia), the odd t-shirt, many dresses for me, and trousers. I'm sure Mum made many of my brothers' shorts.

She was also a keen knitter and made me various vests (sleeveless jumpers) and jumpers over the years.

Looking at what we took from her wardrobe, she'd probably narrowed the patterns for her clothing down to about 5-6 styles of tops/shirts. And one set of more formal clothes, comprising a suit jacket, trousers (dressed up or down, depending upon the material) and a skirt (also mostly one style, with material variations). She knew what suited her shape and size and worked with it.

She taught me from a young age to shop with the thought of how an item would work with what I already owned. If I were buying a top, trousers or skirt, how many items of clothing already in my wardrobe would it work with?

She wasn't a big dress-wearer as they didn't suit her shape.

But as a dress-wearer, that translated into ensuring my jumpers, tights, shoes, etc., would match any new dresses I bought.

She also taught me when contemplating buying clothing, "If in doubt, don't," e.g., if trying on an item of clothing and I'm unsure, don't buy it. It will just sit in my wardrobe, ignored.

I may have applied this test to other elements of my life over the years (specifically, relationships).

But, pulling out all her clothing, checking it for marks and cleanliness before donation, and reviewing anything that I might try on, over and over, it was evident to me how talented a seamstress she was.

Very little of the clothing we took out of the wardrobe had been made by someone else. All were well-made, well-kept and, in some cases, quite elaborate in their design, including a series of shirts made with fabric button-loops, as shown in this image.

Many would have avoided this type of work, but Mum had numerous tops with this buttonhole style and was quite confident in executing this sort of work.

She also chose some beautiful materials and colours for her clothes.

Dad split her clothing between a few charity shop chains in Ulverstone. (He was aware they often refuse to sell clothing to people in the same town where donated. Thus the decision to ensure they were a chain). I hope other women get a lot of wear from her clothes.

She made them with love and a passion for dressmaking. One she tried to instil in me but for which I had far less talent.

she ain’t heavy, she’s my mother

July 5, 2023

The one thing no one tells you is how much human ashes weigh.

The first night I was with Dad in Ulverstone, we were seated at the dining table after dinner. I don't remember if we were talking about Mum at the time or something completely unrelated, but seemingly out of the blue, Dad said something like, "I have something new to show you, but it's maybe not the right time."

I didn't know what he might mean, so I responded that now I was worried.

He said it was on the piano, it was Mum's ashes, and he wandered off to get them.

At the time, even if we'd been talking about Mum, it felt a little out of left field, and I'd not been thinking about such things, so it was a bit of a shock to my system.

He returned with a navy blue presentation box. Inside was a plastic container like those you'd use for protein powder. There's no better way to describe it.

There was also a plaque that might have been suitable to affix to a cremation plot in a cemetery, but it was light. And, for some reason, Hyde was engraved with a lowercase 'h'. (I can't help it, I always spot those details).

None of these things mattered because we knew we would scatter her ashes. So, the only thing that mattered was having her ashes.

Not the receptacle that contained them or the never-to-be-used plaque.

Dad handed me the box. The first thing that hit me was how heavy she was.

That immediately brought home how real this was.

The soul may weigh only 21 grams*, but the ashes of human remains are much heavier than I would ever have imagined.

The realisation made me quite emotional, and I admit, I was a little in shock. The wine we had with dinner and the ciders I'd had probably didn't help.

I sat at the table with Dad and Mum and let the emotion wash over me. The idea sink in. I handled the container, felt its weight in my hands and made some flippant joke that no one would ever have thought Mum would fit in a box that small.

Later in the week, before my brothers arrived, I made time to play the piano for Mum one last time.

It was terrible. I hadn't played since October 2019, and though I thought I played surprisingly well then after an excessively long break, I was seriously struggling to identify the right notes this time. What had previously come back to me, like riding a bike, felt almost alien.

I think that was the first time I appreciated how much I had previously learned. Like learning a foreign language and then realising how hard it must have been to pick up when you lose the words through lack of practice.

I would go through moments when everything flowed through my fingers, and then a bar or two would completely throw me off. I swore. A lot.

But I wanted to play to Mum that last time because she played a large part in my learning piano in the first place and would often ask me to play while she prepared dinner or did some other chore around the house all through my time growing up and when I lived with my parents on and off as an adult. She didn't mind what I played. She just loved to listen to me play.

Before I played to her, my curiosity was too much. So, while alone, I took Dad's kitchen scale to the dining table. I placed Mum's ashes on it and took this photo. I presumed the container probably weighed less than a kilogram, so her ashes weighed about 2kg.

I contemplated keeping some of her ashes. I thought about bringing them back to London with me.

Some companies claim to be able to make diamonds from human ashes and/or hair. That appealed to me as diamonds are my birthstone.

But in the end, the sceptic in me researched such claims and couldn't verify them, and the process would have been hugely expensive, so I decided I would rather all of her be scattered together.

^{*The theory that the human soul weighs 21 grams has been rejected.}

love letters

July 2, 2023

When we were kids growing up in Brisbane, my parents, brothers, and I used to record audio letters to our grandparents who lived in Canberra every so often.

I remember the four or five of us sat around the dining table in our house in Aspley. Passing a microphone around that was plugged into a radio/cassette player to record updates on our lives.

When I stayed with my grandparents in Perth in 1998 for my cousin Rhys' wedding, my Granddad put his headphones on me to play me part of a cassette. I heard myself talking to him and my Grandma at around six years old.

It was surreal.

The disconnect to how I sounded then, but knowing it was me, blew my mind.

first tape from margaret and children from brisbane

When my grandparents passed away, I asked Mum to ensure she salvaged the cassettes. And she did.

But only one of the four cassette cases I found in my parents' house had a cassette inside.

They may still be there, but Dad and I didn't have a chance to properly go through Mum's sewing room, where I found them.

Pete took the empties and the one cassette home to digitise it for us. His bands still distribute their music on cassette.

While visiting my family in Perth this visit, Rhys told me they did the same growing up in Calgary, and he'd asked for those to be kept, too. I would love to hear them someday if I could.

Hearing yourself on tape as a child when you're an adult is a form of time travel.

margaret hyde [redland bay, queensland, australia, 2009]

memories of you

March 15, 2023

I started writing about Mum about two hours after I learned she had passed away. My Dad had shared the news with my brothers - Robert and Peter - and me about 10 minutes after her official time of death.

Through tears, I just started writing. But it was hard to organise my thoughts.

And, as Pete and I had shared photographs of Mum on our social media accounts after we got the news, family and friends who knew about her long battle with frontotemporal dementia realised what had happened, despite our lack of words accompanying the images.

I was overwhelmed with so many kind words that I couldn't focus on writing.

And it felt too raw anyway.

I needed time and space to come back to it. Which I've been kindly given.

So, the thoughts, memories and feelings I've pushed down in my heart since that Tuesday evening have been able to bubble back up, and I could finally allow them to play around the edges of my mind.

margaret hyde by malcolm or eunice lodwick [batemans bay, new south wales, australia, 1966]

Memories of a woman who was creative and resourceful.

Over time, after Mum moved into the nursing home, her clothing gradually needed replacing. When it did, my Dad struggled with finding replacements from clothing shops. She had made her own clothes for most of her adult life. Very little of her clothing had tags inside the collars, along the side seam or at the waistband telling him what size she was because it had been stitched together using her own sewing machine and overlocker, using fabrics she selected herself and patterns she'd perfected over many years, sometimes decades.

She didn't care for passing fads or seasonal styles. She made clothes she felt comfortable in, both formal and casual.

peter and bronwen hyde by margaret hyde [aspley, queensland, australia, 1980]

As we were growing up, she also made most of my and my brothers' clothes. I probably didn't own any store-bought knickers until I was almost a teenager. The bathers we wore in our kidney-shaped swimming pool in Aspley were all made by her.

bronwen and joshua by margaret hyde [aspley, queensland, australia, 1982]

Growing up, I had a favourite plum-coloured dress with floral-patterned panels, which she made.

As a tween and then a teen, I finally owned my first pairs of denim and corduroy jeans, and I went through a phase of wearing hand-me-down surf wear Rob had tired of. But often, these were paired with knitted vests my Mum made for me.

When I moved back to Melbourne to go to college and spent many a night out on dancefloors of indie clubs, I must have told Mum about my habit of putting my money in my socks by my ankles. And about the loose change bruising my ankles as it banged against my skin while I danced because none of my club clothing had pockets.

She quickly produced a solution: a collection of small "pockets" made from off-cut material with a strip of velcro across the top. She sewed the other half of the velcro strip (the soft side) into the inside of the waistband of polyester trousers I wore under skirts at the time, so I could wear the trousers with or without the pockets. When I danced, the pockets held my ID, bank cards, notes and loose change. When not in use, I could pop them in the washing machine to clean them of the sweat I produced over three to five hours of dancing.

When I could no longer get the trousers and skirts I liked in the shops, and other people's cigarettes had left burn marks in mine, we found almost identical material in Spotlight. And Mum made new trousers and skirts for me, using the originals as a pattern.

Many years later, she used the same skirt pattern (a simple A-line) to create a range of skirts I could wear in a business environment, complete with lining. I picked out the colours, and she did the rest.

I still have all those skirts though they don't currently fit me. But I wore a different colour almost every day of the week, matched with shirts and tops bought new and secondhand, along with matching tights and shoes. They served me well for many years, and if I could fit into them and had to be more corporate again, I would return to wearing them.

I lost count of how many dresses and skirts she took in, took up, or redesigned for me. I would buy brightly coloured and boldly patterned dresses from charity and vintage shops and take them with me when I visited for her to adjust. She was more than happy to, in most instances. Though, when I was a size 10, and I took her a size 16 dress, after wrestling with it for a time and finally successfully transforming it, she told me never to bring her anything above a size 14 again.

When we lived in Darwin, she took up screen printing and would decorate her homemade t-shirts with distinctive floral designs.

She embroidered clothing, cushions, and pictures that hung on our childhood bedroom walls.

She taught me to knit as she made jumpers and knitted vests for herself (though I barely remember how to do such things now).

She explored and took me through almost every late '70s and early '80s crafting trend: macramé, papier-mâché, tie-dye, patchwork, crochet, découpage, etc.

She even made a doll's house for my Littles using patterned contact paper as wallpaper.

She also loved to take photographs. I don't think she ever saw it as more than a hobby (though she and Dad both sold prints, postcards, etc., on RedBubble), but there is at least one photo of her with a telephoto lens in her 20s.

bronwen and robert hyde by margaret hyde [aspley, queensland, australia, 1983]

She was always armed with a camera during holidays and whenever one of us kids had a dress-up or other important event. And, over her life, she captured so much of her time living in various parts of Australia and Papua New Guinea and her extensive travels before marriage and with Dad and us kids.

When the letter arrived to tell me I had been accepted into the Diploma of Illustrative Photography course at Photography Studies College in Melbourne, she called through the bathroom door to hurry me out of the shower as she was possibly even more excited than I was to find out whether I had got in. (Mum would never open other people's mail without their permission, even when we were small children, so she had to wait for me to dry off to find out!)

Memories of a woman who encouraged my creativity and learning.

Before I fell in love with photography, my Mum was enthusiastic for all three of her kids to learn an instrument. She researched and tried to find musical instruments matching each of our temperaments.

She had learned to play the piano growing up but would honestly have admitted she never grasped it that well. She loved the sound of piano music, so I think she was thankful I took to it and played for so long.

She bought me a piano when I first started learning around four years old with the idea that if I didn't take to it, she would play it. I don't think she ever really had many opportunities, as I often sat on the piano stool practising, even during the week after I said I didn't want to play anymore when I played even more than usual.

Every time I visited after I moved out, she would encourage me to play. She would listen to anything I wanted to play while she made dinner around the corner in the kitchen. She was as happy to listen to me playing hits by Madonna from the 1980s to Radiohead songs she probably had never heard the originals of, as well as classical and modern pieces I learned for various exams over the years.

It was like an extension of our time together when I was in late primary school and sat at the breakfast bar in our kitchen as she prepared dinner and read to her whatever book I was devouring. I honestly couldn't tell you what I read to her, but I presume at least some of it was Judy Blume's novels. I'm sure I didn't read any of the terribly saucy Jackie Collins novels I used to borrow from the library or the Sweet Valley High series I was prone to reading in grade six. But I'm sure the content wasn't even that important to her.

It was initially a way to encourage my reading and help me with new (to me) words. But it would also have been a way to relieve some of the tediousness of making dinner for five most nights of the week and to feel less alone and like a servant to her family. I know Mum enjoyed cooking, but I'm sure there were days when she would rather have had a break. I probably never thought of it that way at the time. In retrospect, I was an analogue version of Audible for her.

Memories of a woman with a wickedly impish sense of humour.

It's probably safe to say I got my dirty mind and love of double entendre from Mum. Possibly my love of puns. And she, in turn, probably got her sense of humour from her parents.

When Mum and Dad ran a motel and restaurant in Stawell, a small former gold-mining town in Victoria, she loved to pick up dirty jokes from the sales reps who regularly passed through. She relished retelling them to anyone who would listen. I rarely had the talent for joke-telling, but Mum truly enjoyed sharing those jokes with the staff and guests and the belly laughs or groans they inspired.

When we were kids, Mum never seemed to shy from causing controversy in the neighbourhood. She raised a bit of a stir roaring down the incline of our suburban street in the billy-cart my Dad made for us kids (using the wheels from my pram to my initial mortification but then enjoyment). Apparently, that was a bit much for our north Brisbane neighbourhood.

To this day, I don't know why Mum put a pig's head in our oven (maybe pig's cheek recipes were popular in the '80s?), but I do remember finding out that several of the neighbourhood children's parents expressed their horror that Mum gave their kids the teeth of said pig to take home.

That was one of the hardest things to grapple with when Mum's dementia took hold. She literally lost her sense of humour. Her laughter was almost entirely absent for much of the time after she was finally diagnosed.

There were exceptions: the day I arrived in Tasmania in October 2019, mere days before her 74th birthday, she knew me. She was pleased to see me. She proudly told anyone who would listen who it was that had come to visit.

Though her recognition of me slipped away within a short while with the distraction of being in a hospital and her confusion about the various things attached to her body, every now and then that day and the next, a wry grin would sneak across her face. And we poked our tongues out at each other playfully on one occasion. They were the last moments of humour I shared with Mum in person.

margaret hyde [meercroft, devonport, tasmania, australia, 2020]

There were the odd moments on Skype calls when I returned to London where I would see glimmers, but they were 'blink, and you'll miss them' moments.

I was wearing a summer dress with thin shoulder straps one night when one of the carers helped Mum and me have a call, but my long hair obscured the straps causing Mum to think I was naked and to make a cheeky joke about it. And another time, when the carer told Mum she was talking to her daughter, she made a self-deprecating joke that I was too pretty to be her daughter.

margaret and peter hyde by peter hyde [devonport, tasmania, australia, 2020]

Pete took two self-portraits of him with Mum in the last few years that capture her true essence in what I imagine was a brief moment of her old self re-emerging. I will forever be jealous of that moment and that he managed to freeze it in time. But happy for him that he had that moment and caught it for all of us.

Memories of a woman who exhibited endless affection.

Those self-portraits also capture Mum's all-pervading affection. Another aspect of her personality that was all but obliterated by her dementia. She went from being one of the most affectionate people you could know to someone who often seemed repelled by human contact.

Mum was always giving hugs, asking for hugs, kissing all of us on the cheek, and open to us kids curling up into the crook of her armpit or sitting on her lap as we watched television or when guests visited. Her family was like that, and she encouraged that environment in our home.

Dad and his brother had grown up in a loving but not physically affectionate family. My Mum gradually and proudly brought the affection she was accustomed to into their lives.

When I was a child, my uncle would shake the hands of my brothers and me as a greeting and on departure. As we grew older, he had been so well trained by Mum that hugs replaced handshakes.

margaret and bronwen hyde by graeme hyde [rivett, australian capital territory, australia, 1977]

Memories of our ever-changing relationship.

My almost 46-year relationship with Mum went through many stages.

Almost without fail, she was an encouraging and supportive guide when I was growing up. She saw my potential in many areas and nurtured it. She encouraged my love of reading, music, photography and learning, even if she didn't always approve of what I read, the music I enjoyed, the photography I created and the beliefs I earned through my learning.

In my teens, she was protective and supportive but let me find things out for myself. To forge my own way. Maybe she figured she had no choice, as I was often headstrong and stubborn. But she would also have known she'd prepared me well for those years. In my formative years, she was always open about puberty and sexuality. And tried to reinforce common sense and self-worth.

When I left the family home, she took me completely by surprise by saying goodbye through tears. I had presumed she would be glad to have another child out of her hair, and I was excited about what the future held and looking forward to that. So it had never really occurred to me before that moment how this event would affect her.

But in those next few years, I saw Mum as my best friend. We spoke on the phone for hours at least once a week. I knew I could ask her about anything. I gave her updates on my life, and we talked about everything and nothing.

I called her each time I realised I hadn't been paying enough attention to what she'd taught me about cooking, laundry, or whatever. Despite my parents giving us plenty of guidance on cooking and implementing a monthly meal where the three of us prepared a three-course meal, I had forgotten even the basics of boiling water. And I sought her advice on methods to know if my eggs were safe to eat because I'd taken them out of the carton, put them in the fridge door, not kept the use-by information and couldn't remember when I bought them.

In my late teens or early 20s, I spoke with her one evening to say that I'd often felt she was there for my brothers more than me as we grew up. It wasn't recrimination. Just telling her honestly how I felt.

She took my comment as intended and told me honestly that she had often felt I didn't need her as the boys did. That I always seemed to be so self-sufficient. I never really seemed to need anyone, as so much of what I did and enjoyed didn't require anyone else. That I always seemed to enjoy my own company.

Our strong relationship was based on our ability to talk honestly like that. As I moved into my thirties, we seemed to lose some of that and grew apart.

Memories of a woman with insatiably itchy feet.

When I moved to the other side of the world for the first time, I gave my parents another excuse to travel. So I was able to see them and travel with them in 2001.

My parents shared an insatiable passion for travel. They travelled a lot before they met but even more together, including with us kids.

We also moved so much during my childhood and adolescence that people would ask if my parents had been in the RAAF, especially having lived in Darwin and Stawell. At the time of Mum's passing, my parents had lived in five of Australia's eight states and territories.

margaret and graeme hyde [london, england, 2017]

Mum's last international trip was in 2017 to the UK and Ireland, and I joined my parents for a road trip around mainland England for some of their time here. It was a difficult trip.

I'd had difficult holidays with Mum before because we clashed more often than we agreed by about 2010. And, on some trips since then, I'd felt like an interloper.

But 2017 was harder as her (as yet undiagnosed) dementia was evident. It caused stress for my parents as Mum frequently put valuable items like her passport in unexpected places. So there would be frantic last-minute searches for the item with the possibility that she had left it somewhere (thankfully, she hadn't).

When I was travelling with them, Dad and I would discuss our hopes for the next day (we knew they would often only be hopes as we didn't know what Mum might cope with, how far she could travel, and when she might suddenly change her mind and refuse to do something she had been enthusiastic about earlier in the day), and Mum would often become paranoid. As though she wasn't entirely sure who I was or why I was there. Or that we were talking about her behind her back (which we were, but only because of our love for her, trying to figure out what would be manageable).

Despite how difficult that trip was and how far dementia had already impacted Mum's memory and personality, I loved seeing moments like the one I captured between my parents in the photo above as they walked through London: still reaching for each other's hands after 47 years of marriage.

One of my strongest memories of Mum will always be her love for Dad and their love for each other, though dementia obscured her feelings for the last four years of her life.

margaret hyde [lamington national park, queensland, australia, 2010]

Memories of a woman who was quite different to me.

Despite my grandparents being quite progressive in many ways, Mum grew up in a home where you didn't talk about politics or religion in polite company. So over the years, as my views on both became more outspoken, particularly about politics, Mum and I often clashed. I would have healthy discussions and debates (though quite heated at times, I wouldn't have called them arguments) with Dad and my uncle that Mum found quite stressful, which I, in turn, found hard to understand.

Despite the conflicts that arose from those exchanges, when the conversations turned to her family, the places we'd lived together, and so on, we would find common ground again. And we would pore over her photo albums, and she would tell me stories of her family.

I wish I'd encouraged her to write down those stories and experiences. Some of them stick with me still, but as I only have two cousins and she had 36, keeping track of the who, let alone the what and the when is hard enough. I don't know that her brother carries those stories the same way she did, and with most of her cousins passing before her, I fear many of those stories are forever lost.

I think Mum and Dad's overarching hope for all three of us kids was for us to be happy, whatever that meant for us. But I think Mum also struggled with the fact that the paths each of us took were quite different from her own. And maybe different from what she would have wanted for us.

I know, for example, that she would have loved to have been a grandmother. But, for various reasons, that never happened.

Now just memories.

We knew this day was coming for years, but it still feels unreal in many ways.

It's been about five months since things started to feel imminent, but I've been grieving since the last time I left Tasmania on 31 October 2019. Knowing it would be the last time I'd see Mum alive and hold her as we hugged in the Devonport airport. I couldn't contain my tears as the stewardess went through the safety instructions once we'd boarded the plane and taken off.

We managed Skype calls here and there with the help of the supportive staff at Mum's nursing home and Dad when it timed in with his visits. But we'd had to give that up when it became evident it was too stressful and confusing for Mum.

Our last Skype call was in early October 2021, and I couldn't return to visit since.

When the nursing home advised in early to mid-February that Mum had lost the ability to swallow and hadn't eaten anything for two days, we knew the time for false alarms had passed.

Her time of death was at 06:10 AEST. With the time difference between Tasmania and London, she passed away at 19:10 on 28 February GMT. But, in reality, she died on 1 March. For the evening, I could almost pretend her death hadn't yet happened.

Before she passed, I asked Dad in one of our Skype calls if he could take a photograph of her after she passed when the time came. He did and sent it to my brothers and me via WhatsApp when he was with her for the final time.

As you'd expect, it's a hard photograph to see (and I'm obviously not sharing it here). But it was a way for me to acknowledge her passing fully and for the reality to sink in as I was so far away for so much of her illness.

Although the grief has come in waves for so long, and things became "final" two weeks ago, I'm still not sure it will hit me fully until I can visit Dad in Tasmania and be in their house and feel her permanent absence.

Rest in peace, Margaret Alice Hyde.

24.10.1945 - 01.03.2023

I love you,

Miss Mouse.

bosham

February 14, 2023

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 10 February 2023].}

I've been working through my photographs of Bosham in West Sussex from a visit there in September 2021 since mid-January. Hoping each week to share a batch of the images with my patrons on a Tuesday as part of my Travel Tuesday curated series.

untitled #236 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

I finally finished this batch (edited down from about 21 photographs that would have worked together) last Thursday evening. And I finally shared them with my patrons on Friday evening. So, not quite as planned.

untitled #197 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

I'm trying not to be too hard on myself about it.

untitled #213 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

October last year was a tough month.

Sitting a gorgeous but poorly kitteh proved to be both stressful and therapeutic.

untitled #194 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

My day job involved long hours in the lead-up to go-live of the rebuild of the organisation's website.

untitled #195 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

Amidst all that, there was worrying news coming in about my Mum. News that settled again, thankfully, but there was a lot of heightened emotion and stress to deal with until things seemed to return to her version of "normal".

untitled #241 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

Once all that died down, I still found myself feeling fatigued. My sleeping patterns were erratic. Getting out of bed was really, really hard. Staying out of bed during the day was just as hard. But in the evenings, I'd find my second wind and could make-up day job hours and work on some creative things.

untitled #215 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

In early November, about a month after my fast-track round of B12 jabs ended, I felt like the effects had already worn off.

I was still going through the process of elimination with health issues (technically, I still am, but the worst options are, thankfully, off the table). So I put some of it down to that but had my B12 and vitamin D tests redone in early January to check those hadn't started to backslide.

I had my next B12 jab a few days after the results came back. And though my vitamin D levels are still "insufficient", they're not terrible, and my B12 levels were back within an acceptable range.

untitled #206 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

But I didn't feel any better. And not knowing why was more frustrating than anything.

untitled #228 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

That is until a couple of weeks ago, at 05:00. As I lay there in the dark, unable to sleep, it occurred to me that I was suffering from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) again.

Although knowing the cause doesn't mean the issue immediately resolves itself, it does help me feel less uneasy. I know what to focus on until the weather changes and that many symptoms will subside with time and by taking specific actions.

untitled #201 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

But then another bout of worrying news came in from Dad last week. We don't know if it will prove another false alarm or if it's the beginning of the end. And that almost makes it harder somehow.

untitled #237 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

All this to say that, right now, life feels a bit like wading through molasses. And it could get worse before it gets better.

untitled #196 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

But I have good days when I spend hours lost in ideas for new projects, instalments of existing projects, writing and planning and editing, and I'm excited about everything. And I try to hold onto those thoughts on the days when I lose hours lying in bed feeling emotionally paralysed.

I also have many sessions booked with my therapy kittehs and soon-to-be therapy doggos this year.

untitled #216 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

This past weekend I was with my regulars in Bromley for the first time this year after a break in January, and I hope it was as therapeutic for them as it was for me.

I hope you'll stick around to see the fruits of the good days as I have the chance to share them with you. And I will continue to share them with you as often as possible.

untitled #193 [bosham, west sussex, england, 2021]

jazz at 11 (accidental portrait of the artist’s parents)

September 14, 2021

^{[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 September 2021].}

graeme and margaret hyde (photographer unknown)

fifty years

August 14, 2020

It’s still an hour or so away from 15 August in London, but it’s already my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in Australia.

Unfortunately, my brothers and I can’t celebrate the day with my parents in person. My parents are in Tasmania, my brothers are in stage 4 lockdown in Melbourne, and I’m on the other side of the world.

They may not even be able to celebrate the day together after all. Though it would be hit and miss as to whether my mum would know my dad today if he can visit her in her nursing home.

So today is bittersweet. But still cause for celebration of the half-century of love, laughter, family, travel and more that my parents have shared and that I’ve been a witness to for 43 years.

Unfortunately, I don’t have access to any of their wedding photos here in London. My brother, Peter, snapped a pic of this photo from their albums a couple of years ago.

If I recall correctly, it was taken at a dinner party while they were dating or around the time they got engaged.

My dad appears to be in mid-blink, but it captures their happiness for all that.

Happy 50th anniversary Mum and Dad

I love you both xxx