Ruby Tuesday – Knitting & Reminiscing

I love turning up five minutes after Ruby & Margie have had a baking afternoon!!  Poor Ruby. I didn’t let her cut that beautiful cake until I had gotten the photo I wanted so I could share it here 🙂

The weather has been continually filthy. Although I won’t complain about the rain – we needed it badly. We woke to no power for a few hours this morning – so I went on my walk. It must have been a wild and woolly night as there were branches and bark strewn everywhere and I counted 16 trees down across the pathway, or nearby.

Jeff was sleeping off a nightshift, and Mana & I mostly knitted. In the end we decided to pop over and see Ruby & Margie, have a cuppa, hear some stories and brush up on our crocheting skills.

While Margie taught Mana the basics of crochet, I sat with Ruby on the couch and asked about her early life in Natone – about 10 miles from Burnie, the ‘major’ town.

Even though your nearest neighbours were a mile away, people helped one another. If someone did a beast, all would often share. Meat that wasn’t consumed within a certain time had to be salted or kept in brine. It was better if people took turns to provide fresh meat.

The post was delivered to the shop about a mile from the house. Whoever went up to the shop collected all the post and left it in a box that was set up outside Ruby’s family farm. It saved a lot of people a long walk in a hilly area. Not many used bikes, the horses were mainly work horses & there were no cars.

Ruby’s father was the first to own a car in that district.

He had a large wagon (they called it a truck) a big flat affair that was about 5mt in length. He would load it up with produce (usually potatoes) and drive the horses into Burnie, where the produce would be put on the ship and sent to the mainland.

It was an all day trip – he mostly walked to spare the 3 or 4 horses that pulled the load.

On one of these trips in about 1924, Ruby’s Dad met a car salesman. The salesman offered him a car, and Ruby’s Dad said, I would buy one if I could drive it! The reply was “I’ll have you driving by this afternoon”

Would you believe it, he was! Got his licence that afternoon as well from the police station and drove it home!! Ruby, who was 8 at the time, said they couldn’t believe their eyes!! She can’t remember who brought the horses and wagon home!

Despite Ruby’s almost total lack of sight, she continues to knit. Bright colours on grey needles help.

The cooler, darker (& decidedly wetter) weather will prevent a lot of time in her beloved garden, so she really needs something to be doing. She is not going to let a little lack of vision stand in her way!

These strips, Margie will sew into rugs when done, and very smartly, Ruby has three on the go at once. So that way if she makes a mistake on one, it can be put aside for Margie to sort out in the morning, and another one picked up to continue knitting!

Mana leaves us in a couple of days, so its nice to have some family snaps (& cake) before she heads off to the Big Smoke (er – Melbourne)

And the cake was good – better than good. I was so engrossed in eating it, writing stories & relearning my crochet that I forgot to get the recipe!  I will have to make Note To Self and post it at a later date (it had a pound of apples in it!!!!)

Have a super day!

Cheers