Musings on a Monday from Murwillumbah

Welcome to my weekly Monday Musings coming to you today from Murwillumbah.  My Monday Musings post is where I mull over the week that was.

Murwillumbah is the town where I was born and where my parents returned to live many years ago when they retired.  Dad grew up here and moved away as soon as he could!  Thankfully he did move away, or he wouldn’t have met my mother. Dad still has many school friends living in the area and mum and dad have made many new friendships during their years here.

Murwillumbah is a small town on the Tweed River in the far north of New South wales.  It is very close to the Queensland border, Coolangatta and beaches of the Gold Coast. It is a place of natural beauty, has the awesome Mt Warning watching over the area and is surrounded by 5 World Heritage National Parks.

I can remember how my sister and brother and I would be put on a plane in Sydney to visit our grandparents for the school holidays. We have such great memories of these trips, the sunshine, the beach, the fun with our grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins. Other years we would drive up the coast on a family holiday.

So it’s always interesting when I come back here.  I have written other posts about my times in Murwillumbah, how I love checking Mt Warning (Wollumbin) each day and remembering the good times.

Now it’s a different feel as most of my relatives here have moved away and mum is living on her own as dad suffers from Parkinson’s Disease and is in an Aged Care facility 30 minutes drive away.  My sister and I overlapped on our visits and so dad got to hang out with his main women.  This doesn’t happen very often as we both live a long way away.  Luckily our brother is closer and keeps a check on things for us.  We’re all in constant contact thanks to the technologies at our fingertips these days. 

This time I arrived in Murwillumbah just two weeks after Cyclone Debbie had been through town.  The first thing I noticed was all the cleaning up being done, the rubbish on the roadside to be collected and the general incidence of destruction as a result of one of the worst floods of the Tweed River in many years. This shot was taken under the bridge and the water was up to the 5 metre mark at its highest.  It’s hard to believe that it has settled down after so much water pouring through it just a short time ago. Many houses and businesses were flooded but the main levee bank held.

Mum, dad and I enjoyed a seafood lunch in the sunshine on Easter Sunday.  It’s great that we can take dad out as he loves looking at the beach, checking the swell and reminiscing of the days he was a lifesaver at these very beaches.

I’ve been taking mum for daily walks and despite her telling me she’s 20+ years older than me, she manages to keep up pretty well.  We enjoy getting our walks in while the weather is a bit cooler of a morning.  She’s keen to get back into the habit of regular walking so we are checking out a variety of routes she can take.  It’s been interesting seeing the residue of the flood damage along the river and the height of the debris in the trees!

Blogging updates:

I enjoyed participating in the weekly photo challenge with this week’s theme of Surprise, and another favourite this week was my 52 word story in which the prompt asked for an advert for your mother – what fun that was, considering I’m staying with her at the time! This was my photo for Wordless Wednesday during the week.  My mother, sister and I spent a few days together in Scarborough before heading back to Murwillumbah.  It was a real treat for me to wake up and go for a walk along the beach with mum at sunrise.

I’ve found some other great posts and blogs from all the wonderful bloggers I follow.  I’ll make a list for next time and share some of these with you. I’ll leave you with my sister’s take on our visit to see dad – suffice to say she’s the middle child!  Sharon’s post.

Mondays are for musing and mulling over the week so feel free to join me. What have you been up to? I’d love to hear from you

Deb 🙂

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