21st October - 89th birthday

Monday 21^st October

Happy birthday Adrian Harmsen!

An auspicious day…

My father’s 89^th birthday! We went out to dinner last night, with two thirds of Dad’s offspring.  He had a card from one of his Sydney grandchildren, 15 year old Tim, wishing him “a long and happy life.”  Well we all agree with that sentiment! 

Dad has taught his numerous progeny many very important lessons:

Tasmania is the best place in the world and aren’t we lucky he and my mother decided to bring me here in the early 50s.

Education is important – nobody can ever take it away from you.

There are two sorts of good music: classical (especially Mozart) and trad jazz.  (Well…most of us agree with his musical choices but have spread our tastes a bit further…)

Family is important and aren’t we fortunate indeed to have such a harmonious and diverse lot of relations.

Travel as much as possible – I don’t think he actually meant for his one and only daughter to vanish for such an extended period of time but he is always wildly enthusiastic and supportive of any of our adventurous endeavours.

There are in fact quite a few more enthusiasms and bits of advice but I will leave these for his 90^th birthday, when I will write a much more detailed blogpost re our darling father/grandfather/ greatgrandfather. 

We are very lucky to have him, and Fleur.  They join in every activity and are always ready for a chat with any age group of friends, family, toddlers, teenagers. 

Just as an example, on Saturday we had a family gathering in Cremorne.  All eight great-grandchildren were there, and we all went down to the beach after lunch.  Wee hee!  Everyone under fourteen went straight into the icy ICY water, accompanied by two brave fathers.  Dad was all in favour of getting into his shorts and wading into the icy ICY sea… We did manage to dissuade him; he blinked, a bit bemused – why ever not?  Surely if the children were in, he should be in??