Hello again from Weimar, where we all enjoyed a great show last night, but sadly I awoke this morning to some terrible news from back home, and that's what I'd like to write about today. In Australia, we often see fires in the news, but fortunately precious few of us ever have a personal connection to the people affected. So we watch from afar, feeling a sense of empathy for the people whose lives have been forever altered by a tragic turn of events, but also feeling fortunate that we still have our friends and family around to share in our lives, that we didn't have to experience the loss of life or property that many have to deal with in these times. I'm glad to say that once again, despite the proximity of the current bush fires in the Blue Mountains, our family remains intact today, and my heart goes out to all those people who have lost loved ones as a result of the current devastation.
Sadly however, Sonter's Fern Nursery in Winmalee, my grandparent's pride and joy, the business they started from scratch and have since operated through good times and bad for over 40 years, was not so lucky. My Uncle, just as much a part of the Sonter's story and the current Managing Director, somehow survived in the residence on the property, but could only watch on helplessly as the nursery was incinerated around him. Literally, within a matter of hours. One can only imagine how he felt, or for that matter how my grandparents felt hearing the news, but in any case to see so much hard work disappear is truly heartbreaking for us all. Everyone in our family has been involved with the business in some way over the years, and in a sense the nursery has helped make our family what it is today. Needless to say, it's hard being on the other side of the world when something like this happens, I guess it makes you realise how far away you are...
I wanted to leave you with a story about the nursery, something my grandfather related to me earlier this year when we were doing some renovations to my mother's back porch. When he was 7 or 8yrs old, he told me, he was walking in bushland near his house and stumbled across a natural grotto, surrounded by the most beautiful ferns he had ever seen (I guess similar to the picture above, it's the best I could find online...). Eighty years on, he still remembers how he felt that day, such was his connection to what he saw. And so it was, he told me, when he started the nursery, there was an added motivation involved. He wanted to grow enough ferns that, one day, everyone in Australia would have a chance to buy a fern of their own and feel the way he did when he first stumbled across that grotto. And, he continued, "I did that. I grew enough ferns. And I'm proud of that".
Some motivation indeed. It seems an injustice that the nursery should be taken away in such cruel circumstances, but I'll always be eternally grateful to my grandparents for the lives we have been afforded and the opportunities we've had as a result of the little business they started out of the back of a van all those years ago. It's a story to be proud of, and a journey to aspire to.
My thoughts are with you all back home. Lots of love from Weimar xx
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