Rosa 'Princess Alexandra of Kent' & Alexandra Elizabeth Waterhouse-Hayward

My Rosemary and I were awfully lucky to have two daughters, Alexandra Elizabeth and Hilary Anne. We had no idea what we would have done had we had a son. When my daughter Hilary became pregnant 26 years ago I told her, “If you have a son I will disown you.” She now has two daughters, Rebecca Anne and Lauren Elizabeth.

Both our daughters have made a success of their life and when we had problems they were always there to help.

Alexandra (we called her Aleh) will be retiring on August 31st as a teacher. She lives on a one acre property (with garden) in Lillooet. She has started an organization (there is no SPCA there) in Lillooet that spays, and neuters stray cats and they find homes for them and for dogs.

I am writing this blog today August 29. Ale is driving from Lillooet to celebrate our birthdays. Hers is August 27 and mine on the 31^st. It will be nice to have some sort of family dinner which I hope will include Hilary’s daughters.

Living alone with my Niño and Niña, while pleasant, can never replace the presence of my Rosemary. But they give me affection and attention. I must add to that the help and the phone calls of Ale and Hilary.

This scan is my recent technique of using my scanner as a table top camera.  The rose is an English rose called Rosa ‘Princess Alexandra of Kent’.  Rosemary insisted on buying it because of the name. It quickly became one of our favourites. The photograph I took sometime in the late 70s when we were in Vancouver. I printed the colour negative sandwiched to a texture screen.The portrait and an equivalent one of Hilary hangs in what used to be our bedroom and is now mine (also Niño and Niña’s).

Ale, gracias por ser la mujer que eres. Y feliz cumpleaños.