I was surprised that I had lasted into another century and the next few years proved to be busy ones.   I had bought the computer mainly for the purpose of doing genealogical search and writing my autobiography.    The former led me to using email and I was fortunate enough, by chance, to make contact with a third cousin of whom I hadn?t known existed.      I had planned to make a trip to England in May to visit Liverpool and do further search of ancestors and arranged to meet him.   The plan became even more exciting when I received an invitation to a garden party at Buckingham Palace in June which had been arranged to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of Prince Phillip becoming Colonel of the Grenadier Guards.

 

An interesting and productive time in Liverpool obtaining more of the family history and meeting the cousin.  More time would have been useful but my cousin Kathie in Stevenage 30 miles from Londoon had invited me to stay and I was taking her to the garden party

 

     

 

Time appears to pass very quickly as I get older.  

It is hard to remember all that has happened in the past 8 years.

Limited medical facilities in Bowen meant a few 200 Km trips to

Townsville sometimes with an overnight stay due to poor public transport and the non use of my car for medical reasons.   A trip to Port Augusta in 2001 was followed in 2002 by a visit from the cousin I had stayed with in 2000 and her daughter Sarah..   In 2003 I took a P & O cruise to New Caledonia.

Late in 2004 my son Peter was flown from NSW to the Brisbane hospital with leukemia and he died in April 2005 a month after his 58th birthday.    It was followed a few months later by the death of my ex wife.

Late 2005 I became tired of cooking for myself which I had been doing for 30 years so decided to move to a Retirement Village in Wynnum/Manly that provided meals.

A useful move with Redland hospital close to take care of skin cancer operations I needed and frequent visits to the Mater hospital in Brisbane for eye problems.

The quality of meals became so bad that I moved again to a Veterans Retirement hostel in Burpengary which proved to be excellent with gourmet meals and a swimming pool.

 

I was able to teach myself a lot more about computers and built four websites - addresses on the first page - and one for a club.               

               

 In 2000 my sister Sheila died and then my wife in 2005 followed a few months later by my son of cancer..

Eulogy by AlbyFalzon - Publisher and Film maker.

              Click on documents and photo to enlarge

                                          

July 2008    Still alive but beginning to feel my age.   Sleep Apnea is my greatest problem.  No matter how long I sleep I remain tired.

I have been giving computer lessons to a number of people and I find a lack of courtesy in many.    Despite not charging a fee they show no appreciation.      In one case I was abused for being late.

Next month I will be running a workshop for six people teaching them how to build and publish a website.    

This was successful and I have now developed an eight page guide which I have been supplying to people overseas as well as in Australia.