'I'm not going to slide night', my husband said, determinedly. I knew he wouldn't want to. I used to cry and shout about his reluctance to go to family events like this but now I just purse my lips.

'Fine, don't come. I'll go on my own.' says I, slamming some plates in a typical annoyed wifie way.

But he came anyway, and ended up working the 50 year old projector for us, as it kept sticking. And like everyone, he enjoyed himself. I mean, how could he not, seeing such adorable pictures of ME? I was a sweet kid - easy going, affectionate, loving. I had a tendency to cling on to strangers legs like a koala. I wonder what happened to this little girl. Life, as it does. But still, everyone says I'm exactly the same. There's an essential nature to all of us that doesn't change a lot as we grow up.

I'm reminded of how lucky I am too. Here is evidence that my family was loving, together, blessed, in a way so many families aren't. The way my mother looks at us with love. The slide of the two of them noses touching, or kissing at the beach. How lucky I am to be born from love. And - my Dad's sideburns are cool.

There's places in the photograph that I still see now, althoough the trees are grown and the playgrounds replaced. No wonder my heart belongs here - my memories are here, the good ones. My Tigger top and Dad's hands holding me tight. The sea air, the heat of summer. Icecreams and salad rolls. I feel a lot of gratitude for the universe giving me this family, in this place.

And I wonder how I'm here at all. Here's my parents when they were quite young. You can see the love between them, and the newness of it.

But it wasn't long before that that Dad was in army training and sent to Vietnam. Here's my folks at a visit before he left.

And here's Dad 'checking weopons' - there's a ton more of slides like this that are yet to be seen, but it piques the curiousity of his son in laws to see them. Vietnam was a very long time ago and it's so strange to think of Dad there, only 21 years old, drafted. He laughs that he was 'in intelligence' for some unknown reason, and we all joke 'well, that went well - they sent you home after five months'. I'm not clear on the why. I think the boat was empty and they needed people on board. He was lucky enough to never fight. Years later of course the effects of that war would be literal cancer in his bloodstream - the potable water was drawn out of the estuaries that were full of agent orange and other chemicals of war. The army wuld admit it and pay for his treatment entirely. But many men died of it before Dad was lucky enough to get Car-T treatment. Good timing, perhaps. But fuck war.

I love this photo, well composed from above. Dad was into photos even back then, having bought a camera in Vietnam which I'd drown years later walking through some water at incoming tide. I wonder how many of these men are alive now?

What gets me in the feels is this photograph, where the family are visiting Dad at Puckapunyl before he was shipped out. I immediately recognise the faces - aunties and uncles from both sides, both sets of grandparents, now dead, an uncle, now dead, and his best mate at the time who he'd go on to have a business with for many years. I can see my grandpa, the one I know very little about, in Dad's slouch hat. It strikes me that this could have been a final farewell, had Dad's tour of duty gone another way. But here I am, and he has a great grandson too, when other families would be torn apart by the loss of their sons at war.

And off we go, after Vietnam, through the years - my sister and I born, their first house, family pets, Dad surfing, Dad skating, his old car, the beach holidays. One day these stories will be all we have of them, in slides we can only guess at the memories and the life they shared together. But it's cool, none the less.

We spend a lot of time in hysterics over my sister, who often cut a funny pose and looked like a mad orangutan or baby Hitler. When I was a kid I just loved my baby sister and wanted to hug her but she wasn't having it. Any picture of the two of us is a lie - the embrace is me holding her tight for the photo and my sister about to fling my arm off. That was her nature as much as mine was to hold tight.

The photograph above amazed us all - the background here is all houses now. It seems terribly dry too, and we know this dry is about to hit us again. It's at my uncles block - the three brothers bought it and he bought them out, and they went on to buy blocks just down the road. Don't you love the terry towling shorts and Holly Hobby socks?

We spent a lot of time joking. In fact, by the time we left, our sides were hurting from laughing. My sister did look a little like baby Hitler.

'I had a great time tonight', Jamie says as we drive home.

'I knew you would' I say. 'Are you coming to the next one?'

I'm only half joking. And I know that next year, in England, I'm going to be tortured by photographs of a family not really my own. But you gotta do these things, and half the time they're more enjoyable than you expect.

With Love,

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