Family Matters – a photo essay

Canberra December 3 to February 15, 2023.

Including all the halfs and steps, but not including Don’s family, I have, I think, (sometimes it’s hard to keep track):
three sisters,
one brother-in-law,
sixteen nieces and nephews, some by birth, some by marriage, one sadly no longer with us,
ten great nieces and nephews, some by birth, some by marriage,
four great great nieces and nephews,
and there’s also a greyhound, a kelpie, a cat, and I’m sure sundry other pets that I’m unaware of.

Which makes me a great great aunt, and Don a great great uncle.

The play on words for the title of this post was an obvious choice, but to add to that, one of my nieces married a man whose last name is Matters. I mean really, under the circumstances, why would you not change your name? So of course she did.

Most of this enormous clan gathered for a big family reunion last (Australian) summer. Also, two cousins who I haven’t seen for thirty or forty years, visited Canberra with their spouses and children. What follows is a visual tribal record. Not everyone is here; some managed to get in front of my camera more often than others, some not at all. Still, it’s a true account of a big family connecting, reconnecting, enjoying each other, talking, laughing, bickering, playing, loving; four generations walking in the footsteps of my parents. Inevitably, with this many people, we all get on better with some more than others, but that’s not important. What matters is that we are  family, and that trumps everything.

 

 

Canberra is situated on what was and always will be Aboriginal land; the lands of the Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri peoples.





Next post: All about a couple of brief trips to the big smoke, aka Sydney.







All words and images by Alison Louise Armstrong unless otherwise noted
© Alison Louise Armstrong and Adventures in Wonderland – a pilgrimage of the heart, 2010-2023.