My Friend Nan

I've not seen her since I was 4.  We (Mother and Daddy and I) stayed with Nan and Don and their two sons, Hugh(ie) and David in Tasmania when we were traveling around Australia, and Daddy was doing evangelistic meetings.  We had been summarily booted out of China where we were missionaries -- the communists came, and foreigners left -- us among them.  So we went to Australia and moved around a lot -- Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne...Tasmania.

I don't remember much from the two years we were there.  I remember going to kindergarten with Heather, one of the children of one of the families we stayed with -- actually, Jean and Lyall Lush ended up moving to Seattle and our families stayed friends for many many years.  And I remember staying with Nan and Don, and playing with Hughie (also age 4), and not being very nice to David, age 3. 

And of course, there was (and is, and always will be) Vegemite.  (I'm on a CS Lewis listserv, and whenever things get a bit slow, it's time to bring the non-posters out of the woodwork by having the Vegemite-Marmite wars as we have an equal number of Brits and Aussies on the list.  But I digress).

Anyway, Hugh "found" me when I was in nursing school, and we corresponded for awhile, but then lost touch.  However, in this day of electronic communication, Nan found me several years ago via the internet.  How she did that, I'll never know as of course I'd been married for many years, and don't use my maiden name on much of anything.  But find me she did, and we have corresponded rather irregularly over the past 8 or so years.

It has been wonderful "meeting" someone from my past that knew and loved my parents and loves Jesus so very much.    It brings back a whole part of my life that I hadn't really thought about for years...I mean, I was FOUR, after all.  But we've exchanged pictures, and she has/had a blog -- and I had mine (Mother of the Bride) and now this one. 

Nan caught up with me again recently -- she saw the pictures of the newly painted house from my last post and wrote, this time to "Jan of Blue Gables."

I name everything as anyone in my family will tell you.  This computer is "Big Mama", the middle sized laptop is Harry Potter (it's an HP), and the really little one is Miss Minnie.  My car is JanzLmo (which is also the license plate), and Bob's is Frank Sonata.  The GPS is Nigel, as he's a Brit, and I'm thinking the iPhone will be Ima.  (Ima iPhone).  The iPad may or may not be Iva.  Haven't decided if Iva iPad is just a bit over the top.

In the nearly 30 years we've lived here, I've never come up with a name for the house.  But Blue Gables resonates with me...and as a Lucy Maud Montgomery fan, "Jan of Blue Gables" resonates even more.

Thank you, Nan!!