Seven Things…

Skip Zalneratis tagged me for a meme that’s going around.

Here are seven things about me that would help my Personal Learning Network friends know me better: 

1. Simon is 186 cm long and 102kg wide.
2. Simon’s paternal grandfather was a woolclasser, operating a shearing contracting and woolclassing business (Brown & Brown) from South Australia to the Gulf, and later, a sheep and cattle grazier in south west Queensland. Simon was determined to leave school at age 15 to become a woolclasser like him, but instead carried on to finish high school and then learn stonemasonry.
3. Simon’s brother is also a TAFE teacher, who possibly inherited his passion for horticulture from their paternal great-grandfather Ambrose Neate 
4. Simon’s maternal great-grandfather was an engineer or “iron turner” from Scotland who emigrated to Maryborough with his parents in the 1860s. When he was picking up supplies at the wharf for his parents’ hotel, he met his future wife who has just arrived from Ireland. She was waiting for her brother who had instead gone to the goldfields. Simon’s mother encouraged him to join the local pipe band and carry on the Scottish tradition.
5. As pets, Simon prefers cats to dogs.
6. Janet and Simon were married in Wynnum by his uncle, a Uniting Church minister.
7. Simon’s parents passed to their children their loves of working hard, and reading books. His dad is a self-published author of two family history books, one of which is titled “A Strange and Distant Land : The Story of the Brown, Herdsman, Neate, Edwards, Giblett and Moss Families.”

 To continue the meme, I’m tagging:

1 @cdltoz

2 @siralmo

3 @loonyhiker

4 @timholt

5 @catspyjamasnz

6 @twocrowsdown

7 @marragem

To participate, each person that is tagged should list seven things about themselves that would help their Personal Learning Network get to know them a little better.

They should then link back to this post by leaving a comment here, which links forward to their own update.

Childhood things

 

childhood things…

Originally uploaded by st0nemas0nry

Operculum
Seven years old. Walking behind my sister along Moreton Bay’s shoreline at Margate, I picked up an interesting stone. My lucky stone. I asked my Science Master in high school about it. No answer, until weeks later when I had an appointment with his dreaded cane. “Did you manage to identify my stone, Sir?” I asked hopefully. “Ah! Yes – an operculum.” Reaching into his pocket, he told me a little about gastropods. His cane rested that day. My lucky stone.

Leprechaun soccer booties
Eight years old: revisiting western Queensland after some years away. We had learned to swim in the city, living near the beach and St Bernadette’s “Olympic” swimming pool. Roma, halfway between the coast and my first home. I still have the trophies I won that day, in the country town with dangerous beetles in their pool. I stayed with the sporting goods shop owner, opposite a vineyard. The nights were crackling cold with frost. He gave me a tiny pair of Adidas boots, fashioned for the little people.

Flying Arrow
My American aunt – born in Halifax, raised in England, resident of Florida – and her US Coastguard husband gave me this keepsake after a swimming carnival. Flying Arrow. I was a little embarrassed to think that they had given it to me out of pity, instead of to my sister, who was by far the swiftest.