Cleaning can be fun! I came across these old photos in the storage locker… maybe fun only for me, really, now that I think of it. However, I do love the old European photographs.

(I don’t really have any progress on Icarus to show you, which is why you get to see old family pics instead. Managed a big four rows on the second chart last evening… after more tinking. This seems to be my “How to Knit Backwards” project. I suspect I’m getting a bit bored with it, which is usually when I start to make stupid mistakes. Oh well. Hopefully I’ll manage to make some project over the weekend…).

This is an old photo of my father’s family. Very old. My father is the little boy sitting on the guy’s knee on the right, as befitted his vaunted status of Only Son In The Greek Family:

And here is the engagement photo of his parents. It is one of my favourite photos, and I have a copy hanging in my office. I’m named after one of them.

Now, have you ever noticed in old photos that the people never, ever smile? They always seem to look as though they’ve just come from a funeral. I mean, they were getting engaged!!! Was it such a bad idea?

Maybe it’s just a 20th vs 21st century thing. I mean, the only time I’ve looked like this in a photo was when I had last to get my picture taken for my passport:

Enough said.

Then again, maybe the grandparents were just posing for some joint passport photo or other! And yes, such a thing does exist, although in early Canada days apparently the guy got to stand alone. Check this out:

A separate space for “wife” (and by association, kids)? How interesting. We’ve certainly come a long way although you’ve got to love the hat my great grandmother is wearing, don’t you? (The little girl is my mother’s mother. She is still living and is in her 90s.)

Then again, this photo was taken a very long time ago. Here’s the proof:

God Save the Queen! And this is the piece of paper which made my great grandfather a British subject:

(or was it a Canadian citizen?!? I’m so confused…)

And now for another deadpan “happy occasion” photo…

This is a wedding photo taken at my mother’s parents’ wedding. The guy standing behind the bride is my grandfather, in case you were wondering.

This is him having a good time with the boys well before the wedding (he’s the guy with the goofy straw hat):

Finally some people are smiling!!! And here is a photo of the one of the restaurants he owned in Kingston, where I grew up. This one was called the Superior.

I kind of miss those grandiose old names that they used to give restaurants. “Denny’s”, “Kelsey’s” “The Keg” just don’t cut it, somehow. If I’m ever fool enough to actually own my own restaurant, I’m going to name it the Fabulous. You heard it here first…

And finally some cute kiddie photos (I know you’ve all been waiting for those!). First, here is proof that the Brouhaha predilection for goofy hats has been passed down through the centuries:

My father and his sister. And until I saw this photo, I never knew they had Shriners in Greece!

(This is one of the first photos that came up when I googled “Shriner photos”. Seriously. I don’t get it… can anyone explain this to me?)

And here is a collage of photos of my mother that I made some time back.

I bet you didn’t realise that I was related to Shirley Temple! This is where I get all my yarn money from – royalties.

And finally, yours truly, back in the day before I developed an arbitrary hatred of pigeons…

Well, time to get off to work now. It’s meant to be 23C today and I would like nothing better than to stay home and knit on the balcony hit a patio sit at my desk and slog through a memo, really.

Happy weekend!