Diana Norman was born in Jersey, where the cows come from, and migrated to Australia for ten pounds in 1968.  Landing in Sydney she lived for five years in Balmain working as a Occupational Therapist until, sick of the big city life, she moved to Mapleton in the Sunshine Coast hinterland where, in 1975, she began her very successful involvement in German Shorthaired Pointers under the prefix "Edelhof". Although only a small kennel "Edelhof" GSP's have excelled in all fields of competition during the years since then. Diana's aim was to strive for the perfect GSP and to live up to the Edelhof motto "Beauty, Brains and Birdsence". Her last hurrah was the day Aust Grand Ch Edelhof the Vespers won Best in Show at the GSP National in 2006.  Although her passion continues to this day for this breed, Diana's life has now taken another direction, and so she has handed her prefix to her daughter Jade who also shares that passion.In 1996 Diana bought her first Griffon Bruxellois from Mollie Grocott of New Zealand, he was Aust Ch Moerangi Dragonfly (imp NZ). "Dragon" was Diana's loyal friend and protector for the next ten years, during which time the Amate Park Llama Stud, and The Cria Cafe at Ocean View in the Brisbane hinterland, were established. Diana lived at Amate Park with her two daughters, Zoe and Jade, where she cared for a herd of around forty long wool Llamas, thirty head of cattle and of course the GSPs. At this time  Jade joined her mother in partnership with Edelhof and took on responsibility for showing the GSPs as Diana was too busy to show dogs at this time she did continue her education as a Trainee Judge and qualified as a All Breeds Judge in 2002.Diana has judged extensively throughout Australia and New Zealand, as well as overseas. In 2004, following treatment for breast cancer, Diana realised that she could no longer manage her 85 acre property alone and reluctantly she sold her beloved farm and moved to Twin Waters on the Sunshine Coast. All but six of her favourite Llamas were sold. The six went to join a friend's herd in Geelong where the focus was on producing true Suri Llamas. Soon after her move to the Sunshine Coast, "Dragon", her little Griffon who had been in poor health for several years had to be put to sleep.  He developed a scoliosis in his neck aged about two and there were intermittent periods during his life where he would go very quiet and seemed to be in pain. We now know that he had all the symptoms of Syringomyelia.Then along came "Daisy" the Australian Silky Terrier, who was given to Diana by her very good friend James Camac of "Balkana" Australian Silky Terriers. James gave her the little dog "to cheer her up" and "to get her interested in showing dogs again. "Daisy", Aust Ch Balkana Opening Night, certainly did that and before long Diana was back in the show ring with her Silky. Then in March 2005 she met Tim Mills through the internet, and as you do these days! They were married on the 20th June 2006 at our beautiful Twin Waters home on the waters edge surrounded by family and friends. It was a ceremony ending in the release of several dozen beautiful Monarch butterflies.  They spent their honeymoon touring in DAISY, our rather flamboyant mobile home which is of course named after our little Silky Terrier. Accompanied by six dogs, three Silkies, two GSP's and a borrowed Griffon we set off to do the show circuit from Alice Springs through to Darwin for the Royal. Not the sort of romantic honeymoon either of us envisaged but it was fun and we were certainly kept fit walking all those dogs.The Griffon, Aust Ch Shigriff Wyld Fig Jam, who was borrowed from Caroline Elder, who was soon joined by another, Shigriff Storm In A Teacup. Having owned "Dragon" and then "Billy" and "Tettles" too we, became very passionate about these special little dogs, so passionate about the breed in fact that we decided to get serious about owning some of our own. As we can only have two dogs at our Twin Waters home we decided that it was time to move and so we bought 10 acres at Ocean View, just five minutes down the road from Amate Park. The views of the Glass House Mountains from this property are stunning and we are currently in the process of designing a house with of course room for our growing family of Griffons and of course Daisy our Silky too.  I've said very little about the four Griffon bitches that we have purchased from Hans Bleeker and Jan den Otter, that is another story which I'm affraid I don't have time to do justice to at the moment. We are extremely fortunate to have had this opportunity to obtain these four gorgeous girls from the leading Griffon breeders in Europe. Hans and Jan have been breeding Griffons under the prefixes of Leo Belgicus and vd Platte Belskes for 32 years.And so our story continues... |
