Important matters

I regret that I've not replied to quite a few old comments here, when I said that I would. I spent quite some time today trying to find very old ones to reply to, but, frankly, my eyesight is so poor, and the Almanac office in my bedroom under a corrugated upstairs room, like all of Bellingen Shire, so hot lately, and as I believe that no one has made a complaint so far, I decided that I'll leave them. (It would help if the footer of each post told me how many comments were on it, but unless I can improve the template somehow, my blog doesn't show that, and that's no good for very old posts. I'll see what I can do about all that, and readers' advice is welcome.) I'm now of a firm intention to post on the Blogmanac each day if I can, and comments are not only welcome, I intend to reply each day.

The other important matter is that my uncle, Raymond Bowles Hillis, died in Sydney two days ago. That's him pictured on his 90th birthday, several years ago. (I'm in the red T-shirt.) Uncle Ray was an incredibly important part of my life. As I've mentioned at other Wilson's Almanac-associated pages, Ray and his wife Norma, beside him in life and in the photo, also deceased in recent years, were childless, and "almost adopted me". By that I mean that they holidayed with my family when I was young, took me on an important holiday to Dalmeny, on the south coast of New South Wales for a weeek or more, and never forgot my birthday, or failed to chat with me about my interests, whenever we met. They were a big part of my Christmases as well.

I have a number of times been told how much I look like Ray, as many have told me. As you can see, he was thin, as I am, and like me he had blue eyes. Some have noted that I'm like my mother's brother in other ways. An avid gardener and bird lover, some of his traits affected me greatly. It's a very, very sad time for me in many ways, but I'm happy that I'm able to travel by train on Tuesday night to attend his funeral in Sydney, where I've been invited to address the congregation. So I'll be offline for a few days.

I'll be back later today, I trust, then gone for a short time while attending Uncle Ray's funeral. Seeya.