Miss Footy, 1969

I've been feeling Mum's absence these last weeks, especially as we approach her 80th birthday without her this weekend.

We had a lucky thing happen in relation to the 80th celebration itself. Because it was Dad’s 80th in January, we decided to have a whole of extended family Labor Day long weekend celebration together at the RACV club in Torquay where we toasted them both, and did speeches for Mum, and generally made a fuss.

Mum died suddenly five weeks later, and we mis…