Alone on a windswept hillside

This is my first serious go at Blogging, now that I have broadband. This Blog will be a place to write prose and poetry and philosophise about matters of interest, at those times when everyone I've emailed lately has not yet gotten around to responding.

For the last couple of years or so I've been looking into family history, having reached that age where a lot of people become interested in where they've come from and what might be left behind after they're gone. It happened to me after my first grandchild was born. [I suppose I've given it away, so I'd better admit to being a Baby Boomer.]

A while back I started a blog that I haven't used since, called "Greenlees". I didn't really know what it was or what I was doing, other than hoping that someone researching the Greenlees family might contact me. The surname was passed down from my ancestors who a few hundred years ago were living in and around Ayr on the West coast of Scotland, however it has ended in my branch of the family when there were no sons to carry on the name. My original Greenlees ancestor in Australia was a joiner who died falling off a roof. Once I get the hang of blogging I will put some family history on the Greenlees blog.

I live on a thinly populated apple shaped island South of the Australian mainland, a location sometimes referred to as Down Under Down Under. It's quite often cold and windy here, especially on the hillside where I live, hence the name of this introductory piece; and tonight is no exception. Still I love the weather here; being cool temperate it's a great place for bushwalking most of the year.

Where I live is also a place where blackberries grow, in abundance. If I didn't keep wresting (there's more to it than simply "pulling weeds") them out of the garden regularly they'd have taken over the whole yard by now, and they have taken over in parts of the nearby bush, although local Landcare groups have been clearing some spots in recent years.

Another thing about where I live is that, as with other island economies, most of the young people leave to find work and better lives elsewhere, so it is an apple shaped isle in more than one sense. The population profile looks like an apple core, where someone has taken a big bit out of the middle. My own children are no exception. I went through a period of standing in the supermarket comparing notes with peers whose children mostly live elsewhere too, although we've all become used to it and it's not such a topic of conversation any more.

I suppose that will do for today. I'm not sure where or when this blog will end up or who will read it or whether they'll ever get to find out my real name. My pseudonym is pretty special though, as it's the name my mother used to call me when I was a young child and perhaps there's mystery still to be uncovered there.

Jane Agatha