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| "Best Christmas Wishes" A pre-1914 New Zealand Government "Tourist & Health Resorts" postcard sent to my Uncle by "Larry" [Source : GenFram Image Archive] |
Christmas Day 2024 is almost upon us and I would like to take this opportunity to wish my readers the Compliments of the Season. The colour photographs shown in this post are from my family collection and celebrate Christmas Day and the great New Zealand Summer Holiday break.
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| The After Lunch Christmas Day Family Photo, 1965 (Photos always taken before opening the presents) |
After a hiatus of over five years, during which time I eventually completed a large and positively daunting image cataloguing project, I recommenced posting to this Blog in March 2024. While I have a fair bit going on into next year (the New Zealand summer) I should be able to continue posting from Autumn 2025.
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| Al Fresco Afternoon Tea with Pikelets & Xmas Cake, Christmas Day 1958 |
While readership for some of my new posts has remained on the lower side, this appears to be due to Google not yet indexing all my posts although previous posts continue to have a surprisingly high readership uptake. Anything I have tried to have individual posts indexed by Google have failed and I can only hope that the whole site will be re-crawled in the not too distant future. Other search engines continue to index my new posts as normal. The best thing that anyone can do to assist is to link to or share any posts and / or my site in order to improve my Google rating.
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| A Summer Sunday Family and Friends Picnic Day at the Beach, Riverton Rocks, 1959 |
I do, however, appear to have a hard core readership and the 'Blogger' Stats Counter at least registers each 'hit' on individual posts although I have no way of knowing who or where these readers are. My Blog 'point of difference' remains that I am inspired by images or objects in my own personal collections (however tenuous, on occasion, that may be). Many times though, inspiration has simply come from nowhere, but these posts have always proved very enjoyable to research and write. And, as I have noted before, I often feel that people want their stories told and the idea just won't go away until I have acted upon it. Invariably, these posts (which involve people) often prove to have the most fascinating stories to tell. Appreciative feedback, especially from family members, makes the time and effort spent on these posts all the more worthwhile and even more so when unexpected and hitherto unknown information comes to hand at a later date and which might never otherwise have seen the light of day.
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| Summer by the "Pool", 1961 |
But of all the Blogs I have written, I am most proud of my "Turret Clocks and Bells" series, being the history of time keeping in Dunedin. While not perfect, this took by far the most research time and effort and I still hope that someone will seriously take up this subject (i.e., relating only to Dunedin) for further research with the eventual aim of a publication.
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| Summer "Camping", 1962 |
I do, however, have plenty of ideas for next year but time is, at present, a factor in getting these researched and written. I will be enjoying the New Zealand summer which includes a February holiday break and during this period I just prefer to be outdoors as much as possible. I will also, from 2025, commence progressively scanning and cataloguing my own post 1974 colour photos and negatives which I am also looking forward to and which will be a real trip down memory lane. This is a task that needs to be completed before time takes its irrevocable toll on this fragile medium. Colour prints fade over time and the the colour dyes in the original negatives become inherently unstable. And software restoration tools can only do so much.
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| A Family Summer Holiday at the Crib (Bach), Te Anau, 1975 |
Finally, if you're travelling, camping, caravanning, or simply spending time at the pool or the beach, I wish those readers in the Southern Hemisphere a happy and safe holiday break. Again, thank you for following my Blog and I hope to see you again in 2025.
