"The Christmas Hamper" ...

...Living not too far away from a Dried Fruit outlet, we often buy Christmas Hampers for family and friends...all different sizes and prices they are and all different dried fruit and chocolates and candies are packed within, to make up a Christmas Hamper..

...So pretty they make them and a lot of the fruit would be from local crops both here and in the Barossa Valley where this particular company began many years ago..

... We love to go into this particular shop which is not far from where both John and I both worked many years ago..John as mechanic in one of the dried fruit packing sheds, just a few hundred yards away, and me, just across the road in an office as receptionist..a job I loved..as well..

... In fact, this building, was a dried fruit packing shed, ofcourse now closed, like the one John worked in for many years..so many memories these Sheds bring back to us..

...Busy days at the height of the seasons of trucks bringing in their picked dried fruit, and moving to the big doors, the grading of the fruit - sultanas, currants, raisins, the noise of the big machines whirring, the fruit moving along the conveyor belts, the packing of the fruit into boxes, a lot of it for Export -the smell of the grease, the hum-drum of people moving around avoiding the machinery, and generally doing a darn hard day's work, no air conditioning, only the open doors...the shouting to each other above the noise of the machinery, the relief of the 'knock-off' whistle - all gone now, gone forever in this building too, and as well, many others in the district..

...But we have our memories, John and I..we used to sometimes meet for lunch, which wasn't for long - and then back to the Shed once again until the end of the long day..

...And now, many years later, we have this pretty display in here, a coffee machine, tables and chairs, ornaments, and pretty things all together with the lovely dried fruit...all packed into Hampers for Christmas, who would have thought Christmas Hampers would have been sold here, looking so pretty in this now quiet little room, one of many within the old Packing Shed...