Sightsinging

My grandmother was a fine pianist and played accompanying the silent movies in the cinemas in Sydney when she was a girl.Her first husband was a veteran of the Gallipoli Landings during WW I and after being widowed she married the only "grandfather" I ever knew…a blind piano tuner. They played the most wonderful fun duets together to which my aunts and mother sang beautifully. They, with my mother , taught me to sing and it became something I needed to do to feel whole, eventually spending nearly 30 years singing in a fine Baroque choir.
She and my father taught me to look at the world around me too and gave me my first simple instamatic camera on my 10th birthday which encouraged me to see and appreciate my surroundings even more.
This modest little fireside chair started life early last century and belonged to my beloved grandmother. It has seen many makeovers , including several by my parents and in 1970 by my father again , this time adding castors to the legs so he could move my dying 49 year old mother around the home to a place where she could be comfortable and see her beloved garden. Since the nineties it has been (sans castors) at Hermione Cottage on the shores of Lake Tarawera and has once more been stripped and painted by my dear husband and reupholstered in yet another charming fabric . It now sits in the corner of our bach where the sight of it( and the memories it evokes) makes my heart sing.