Marg, Trish, Sue,

I was talking to sue about the book that she gave us ( you went without yours trish) . It is not immediately apparent to us just how we do this. Some of the questions are quite individual some would work better with group answers. Some of our answers would best be prompted by seeing others. So I thought the only way to do it is to dive in at the deep end. I'll answer or give facts to the first few questions and send them to you guys and the you can try them as well. I'm a bit loathe to write in the book till I really know what I am going to write.

The first question is What was the house you grew up in like ? How would you describe it ? Was there a place in it that was special for you ?

Not an easy question, I lived in two houses in Washington , of which I have some memories, and then we moved to Croydon, many memories of Croydon. Then we moved to Epping, now I think that that would be the house that we grew up in, apart from our years in London. Probably need to answer it for each house that we remember.

The next question asks if we moved a lot and how we felt about it. Could probably include that in the previous answers. I could probably write for pages on these two questions. I have vague memories of Washington. The two storey house we lived in was huge, set in large grounds. Well it was until I went back there with Josh and found if had almost no garden at all. Where the surrounding houses built in the intervening 60 years ? Or am I remembering the first house ? I think I remember running thru the grounds, falling and putting a paint brush through the palm of my hand. I remember the basement of the Star's house, they had a fridge like a cool room. The lady over the road had a policeman as a husband, when we left he took me down to the station and showed me the cells, scary. I remembered the smell a knew the taste of Halloween candy.

Back to Australia, vague memory of the boat trip home. Brand st. First memories, the house was full of furniture still packed having come from Washington, we crawled in and around this. When unpacked, the packing causes were stacked around the side and we used to play on it. We were there when mum knocked down the front fence, she want a very good driver. Marg and I share a double bed for a while, we had a candle on the end of our bed. We often had blackouts. When trish needed a bed I was moved out to the back verandah. Ice man delivered ice for the cooler. A soft drink man used to sell door to door, like a Mr Whippy van, we never had any. The lady next door used to give us lollies , if we didn't ask for them. There was a shed and an old outside dummy down the back with a big tree growing over it which we used to climb. There was an old brick pit in the next street and we weren't allowed to play there, but we did. The queen went last the end of the street in her train when she was out here on her big world trip, the women's weekly covered nothing else for months. Marg and I went to Croydon school, we used to walk. We went to the cong church, in the Main Street if Croydon. The minister, Harold Roland, had a car with a bucket seat in the back. The police found us at a family picnic at burwood to tell us that auntie Elsie's husband had died. We had our first pet there, woggy, he used to eat chooks, one day he did not return from his morning raid. The kid over the road was crazy.

When we moved to Epping dad had bought some beer for the removal it's to get the job done quickly, he wad cranky when he saw them parked again the Eastwood pub. Epping, obviously we all have huge memories, many, many pets( a later question), lifelong friendships, school. This may well be covered in later questions.

Forty door salon, door to door groceries, thr brush man, hope , Hendy, 89 bus. Eastwood, Epping. Epping cong church. No tv. Meals. Manor fields, wild croft manor, again, lots of memories, leonne, hamsters, freezing, the chev, Sunday church, European hiolidays. Pool table, tv, drying cupboard, servants bells. Etc. etc.

Back to Epping. Who slept where when, the cubby. As you can see, this could get rather large and incredibly boring. Given the size of this, the whole thing is daunting, which means won't get done, to get it done we would need pressure to keep us doing it.

How would we go if we tackled a question or two like this, via email , I could cut and paste peoples comments onto the new web page that I am about to set up - thebadgerisananimal.info . What do you reckon?