Lovely sociable day

I woke this morning with no real plans for the day.
The early morning was thick with fog as I enjoyed my morning walk through the fields with the dogs. By breakfast time the sun was out and feeling quite warm, first time in ages.

So I went out into the garden and started a bit of tidying and weeding, but it was still too damp to tackle the grass.
I thought I better give the Courtesy car a good clean as it will be going back very soon, now we've been paid out for the total loss of Bex vehicle, mind you , you might think why bother cleaning the car as Bex has wrapped it round a post and we have to pay the huge excess anyway, but I don't want to be clobbered with an additional valeting fee as well. So I dutifully hoovered and polished it.
Some of you will be thinking why isn't Bex doing this herself? My thoughts exactly, problem is, she is off sunning herself in Turkey and I think they will collect car Monday.

After that Lucy and I popped into our local city for a quick shop. I had to drop bex hair extensions into the hairdressers, they keep it there for when she next wants them. feels slightly seedy carrying someone elses hair in a plastic bag, but the hair salon didn't blink and eyelid and happily took the hair from me to a place of safe keeping!

The joy of text communications! Lucy hears that her new friend from school is alos in city and they arrange to meet in WHSmiths. I'd never met this girl before nor her mum but they live in our village, but had attended a different primary school.
We meet up and go for a coffee and have a great chat and getting to know each other time. Meanwhile Lucy and her friend go off to buy me a birthday present. Yes, it'll be my special day very soon.

Back home, I cut the grass, it is still damp and the sun is shining and I do the best I can. then walk the dogs again.

On my return i hear voices in the drive and see my hubby talking to some good friends of ours. They've just popped by to bring a pressie for Bex, belated birthday gift from their daughter. Bex's oldest best friend. This is wonderful. We have a cup of tea and a good long chat. So nice seeing friends. I like it when people just pop by unannounced, but they take us as they find us, usual mess on kitchen table. Quickly pushed to one side to make way for cups and plates!

Nearly time to prepare dinner but will just tell you I found out one of probable origins of "Raining cats and dogs" ( see yesterday):
is the prosaic fact that, in the filthy streets of 17th/18th century England, heavy rain would occasionally carry along dead animals and other debris. The animals didn't fall from the sky, but the sight of dead cats and dogs floating by in storms could well have caused the coining of this colourful phrase. Jonathan Swift described such an event in his satirical poem 'A Description of a City Shower', first published in the 1710 collection of the Tatler magazine. The poem was a denunciation of contemporary London society and its meaning has been much debated. While the poem is metaphorical and doesn't describe a specific flood, it seems that, in describing water-borne animal corpses, Swift was referring to an occurrence that his readers would have been well familiar with:

Now in contiguous Drops the Flood comes down,
Threat'ning with Deluge this devoted Town.
...
Now from all Parts the swelling Kennels flow,
And bear their Trophies with them as they go:
Filth of all Hues and Odours seem to tell
What Street they sail'd from, by their Sight and Smell.
They, as each Torrent drives, with rapid Force,
From Smithfield or St. Pulchre's shape their Course,
And in huge Confluent join'd at Snow-Hill Ridge,
Fall from the Conduit, prone to Holbourn-Bridge.
Sweeping from Butchers Stalls, Dung, Guts, and Blood,
Drown'd Puppies, stinking Sprats, all drench'd in Mud,
Dead Cats and Turnip-Tops come tumbling down the Flood.

So now you know!

Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening

We've just had a massive thunder storm. It's been threatening it all day.
It started to rumble as I was out with the dogs, so I scurried along in order to get home before the rain started........Just made it, then the heavens opened and it was pelting down with rain. "Raining cats and dogs" I wonder where that term comes from. I must find out.

My cat was not impressed I had just let him out after sleeping indoors all day. He hates the dogs so has to be shut in one of the bedrooms. when my daughter came home from school she let him out, there's a terrible caffuffle as dogs realsie cat is on the move. I quickly took the dogs out and then Lucy let the cat out . Hence cat being out once thunder storm started. I could see him hiding under the garden table. None to impressed, but not keen to come back indoors!

It's eased off now and feels very chilly.
Won't be long before we'll need to light the log burner, can't afford to use the gas boiler, or so my hubby says ( I'll have it on when he's not here) Do you know he's made me turn the hot water off so I can't have a bath when i like, have to plan ahead or shower.Shower is fine in warm months but I love to bathe in the evening to warm up to go to bed. How will I cope? It's going to be a long cold winter with lots of hot water bottles I guess.........or maybe I should trade my old hubby in for a new model that is happier to be warm!!

The amazing black box widgit!

I've not written on my blog for months, due to being busy with work, life and chaos. BUT today I discovered the joys of the black box and I couldn't resist joining in and now I'm addicted.
Fortunately, I've a quiet day tomorrow so I'll be able to visit lots of blogs by black box. It sounds a bit like time travel and very Dr Who, don't you think!!

For the uninitiated all you need to do is click on the word "decide" in the black box, it will give you a series of options and you chose one of them by clicking on your choice. After a few you will have the chance to add your own choices and your blog address. Your reward is a visit to a mystery blog of someone who's answers coincided with your own (I think). So many choices, so many blogs to visit. Have fun travelling round.

Fruit Picking time

This time of the year always takes me back to my childhood and the long hot summers of child labour in the Strawberry picking fields of Norfolk.( They start working young there) I think I was about 8 the first time my best friend's mum took us fruit picking. I carried on doing it every summer till I was 16, then I could get a proper job! We did all kinds of picking, starting with strawberries, on to Goosberries and Raspberries and finished with Black currants, this would take us almost through the school holidays, usually finishing in time for family holiday at the end of August.

There were several big farms in the area and they all relied on casual labour to get their fruit picked. The biggest farm was an international employer, they had students from all over europe, they put them up in old converted chicken huts, fed and watered them and they would pick from dawn to dusk to make a few pounds to take back to their home countries. Very reminicent of the "Two Caravans" by Marina Lewycha, which I read recently. we only went to that farm when all the others were done.

We would make our sandwiches, I can still smell that awful sandwich spread stuff that looks like vomit, take a few biscuits and a bottle of pop and an old transistor radio. We'd jump on our bikes and ride off to the nearest picking field, could be up to 5 miles away. There was usually a group of women plus us few children.

On arrival at the Strawberry field we'd search out the boss man and ask if we could pick, usually this would be ok and we'd be found some rows to get started on. We'd take a handful of punnets , wrap plastic bags roundour knees and get down in the straw strewn rows. We'd pick and pick till we filled our punnets, usually the first day of the year we'd eat loads too, but to be honest after that the smell and thought of strawberries becomes repulsive so you don't need to eat anymore. If the strawberries were going for jam we'd have to tail them, but if they were going for sale to the public then the stalks are left on. It's harder to pick them taking stalk off as you end up squidging them!


The frustrating thing about being a child picker was they often put you on a row that had already been picked recently, so there are fewer strawberries and you are scuttling up the row on your knees. I'd get home and my knees would be red and sore! We'd always have a radio on and listen to Radio One as we picked, though one year at the International Place I left my tranny in the bush and went to get my fruit weighed when i came back someone had pinched it, I never got it back.

Money wasn't good, but when you were young any money was beter than no money. Some of the women were amazingly fast pickers and they'd earn a fortune. I'd make a £1 or £2 if I was lucky! In later years on a good day I could make about £5-£10 depending on crop. I kept all thr totals in a ledger, I still have it somewhere, I must get it out and have a look!

As a teenager Fashion was all important and impressing the boys a must! Mid 1970's halter necks were very in, so I remember going fruit picking in my old jeans, wearing a black halter neck top and a red and white spotted scarf, thinking I looked "the business"!

One year I had a huge crush on my friend's brother. He didn't usually come picking but this year he did and for whatever reason, I cannot remember my friend wasn't able to come so me and Paul went together. We biked there together, we shared a row together, we had our lunch together. I felt so sick with fancying him, I couldn't eat a thing! I nearly swooned when our hands touched through the black current bush!

The next day my friend was back and she could see there was "something going on" between the 2 of us and she was understandably annoyed. For a few days I was totally besotted with Paul, but then he stopped coming, slowly the sicky feeling subsided and I started eating again, I got over him and moved on!

Fruit picking fields and Love seemed to go hand in hand. I remember my other friend's eldest sister used to come , she never did much picking as her motorbike boyfriend used to come too and they just find a quiet place in the field to make out! Till the boss came along and shouted at them to get back to work!

The sun always shone every summer I'm sure of it. I guess if it was raining we just didn't go. But it did always seem to be hot and I'd burn myself specially wearing my halter neck tops!!

One summer '76, was extrememly hot, but then '77 was loads of thunderstorms, so we'd go picking but end up having to shelter as the rain pelted down. I must admit by '77 I was finding it all rather a bore and was desperate to get a proper job, so that year, we did skive off , just me and my friend Sally, we'd go off on our bikes and go to the beach or visit churches, we liked churches, we'd go round the grave yards reading the headstones. didn't earn much that summer. But I didn't have a great need either, two years earlier I'd worked really hard to save money to buy my pony a new saddle but on 31 December 76 he died and my life as I knew came to an end.

But as my uncle said at the time " You'll have more time for boys now" and of course he was right, but it didn't take the pain away.

My garden in June

Here are a few photos of plants flowering this month:

What kind of a proposal was that?

How I met my other half Part 2 The Proposal.

So you've heard about how Stan and I met. When I moved to Surrey and became JK's bridesmaid and Stan was PT's Best man. Our first date was to a pub in Richmond and then the next day I was taken to meet his mother as it was her birthday. They seemed to like me. Soon Stan and I were seeing each other regularly, I'd spend time at his house in Reigate and he'd come to Richmond and stay with me. We'd both visit PT & JT every Sunday evening for a drink as Stan had always done. Because they were now married PT was determined that Stan should get married too, so on New Years Eve of that same year after their wedding, we were all at a party celebrating the New Year, when suddenly PT leaned across to Stan and said " Have you asked her to marry you yet?" To which he replied "No, not yet" and PT said "Well are you going to?" and Stan said "Er, yes, I s'ppose so", then PT learnt over to me and said "Stan 's got something to say......" to which Stan shifted slightly in his seat, he was rather drunk and leant over to me and said " Er Well Will you marry me?". I was to say the least dumbfounded, but rather stupidly , as I should have given it a lot of thought said "Yes".


PT jumps up and shouts to the bar man, "These 2 have just got engaged!!", The Bar man hurried over with a bottle of Champagne, Then they started playing some music and wanted us to dance, and join in with some game.Suddenly Stan was gone.........................................................

You would have thought he could stay to celebrate his own engagement but no, it was all too much, he drove off into the night and didn't come back for several hours.


I was beside myself with worry, he'd been drinking and could have had an accident. But he did eventually come back and I wondered if it had all been a dreadful mistake. He wasn't ready to propose, he only did it because of PT. But in the cold light of day we talked it through and agreed it was what we both wanted. We married 13 months later, tried for Valentines day but had to make do with 21 February! It was a very small wedding because Stan couldn't face a big do with lots of people looking at him, so closest family and PT & JT that was all.

It wasn't all plain sailing as we had to endure one of Stan's ex's constant bombardment of telephone calls day and night, usually when she was drunk, begging Stan to go and see her. This went on for several years. Even when we moved house she found us, thanks to the lodgers in our old house telling her the new number.
Sometimes he'd talk to her , sometimes he'd not, I used to get so cross.

But I had my own issues still as I was still very attached to Sam, (See much earlier blogs) and couldn't get him out of my mind and really felt I had been wrong to get married so quickly. But Sam was 500 miles away in Scotland and my life was here. So I just had to get on with it.

After we'd been married 6 months I decided I wanted a baby. Stan didn't. However, I got pregnant and Emma was born on June 21 1987, so she is 21 this weekend. I endured Stan's annoyance throughout the pregnancy. He felt we'd never be able to go to the pub again and I was ruining his life. Turned out we were in the pub as I went into labour and we were back in the pub 5 dayslater with baby Emma. It took a while but Stan got to love having children, so much so that he wanted to go on to have number
4, I said no more after number 3. Couldn't face another stint of post natal depression.

So here we are 22 years married and about to celebrate our eldest's 21st and middle daughter's 18th on 21st and 22 June! How about that?

How I met my other half

As seen in the forum of Purplecoo:
The quick and easy answer is “At a wedding” but that doesn’t explain how I happened to be at that particular wedding. To explain that I need to take you back to 1972.

Thelwell

In 1972 I was a pony mad 12 year old living in Norfolk. My whole life revolved around my friend’s stables, every weekend and straight after school I could be found cleaning tack, mucking out, grooming in order to get a ride of my favourite pony, Trigger. He eventually became mine but that is another story.

My other joy was writing letters and receiving letters so I had numerous penpals scattered all over the world. But I was keen to have a pen pal who shared my interest in horses. I regularly read a Pony Magazine which had a Penpal section each month. So I wrote to a girl in Surrey. She wrote back explaining that she had had lots of responses and her twin sister would like to write to me. Her sister was JK, she lived in Epsom Downs in Surrey.

For many happy years we communicated by post sharing our joy of horses ad other animals. Then when we were 16 , JK announced that she was in love with a man called PT, she left her home and went to live with him. Being rather innocent I was shocked and stopped writing to her.

Fast forward to 1984. I am just completing my Social Work training. I’m up in Leeds. I need to find work. My thought is to try and get back to Norfolk, but there are no vacancies in my chosen field of Learning Disability, so I have to look elsewhere in the country.

I spot an advert for a Community Care Post in Esher, Surrey. It sounds perfect. So I apply. I am offered an interview, my first ever proper interview, so my mum and I travel down to Surrey. The interview goes well, there were only 2 candidates, but I’m convinced they will offer it to the other young man. We all had lunch together and he was much more outgoing. However, later that night I receive a call from the Director offering ME the job. I was over the moon. My first interview gained me my first proper job!!

Then the panic set in, I knew nothing about surrey, I knew no one in Surrey. Why was I going to a place where I’d be totally alone? I should try for a job where I knew people. But then I thought of JK, it’d been several years since our last contact but I still had her parents address. I wrote to her. Within a week I had a reply from JK herself. She was still living in Epsom , in her own flat now, but still going out with PT and they were getting married in September. She was delighted to hear from me and told me to ring her as soon as I arrived in Surrey and we would meet up. I’d never met her before, but I’d had several photos over the years.

August 1984 My parents helped me move from Leeds down to Surrey. The Council provided me with a little old house in Ham near Richmond Park. Then I was on my own.
Ham House NT

I rang JK and she asked me to come over on Saturday for evening, which I did. We got on like a house on fire, then I met PT too and he was so lovely and funny, I could see why she loved him. I stayed over and the next day we went to Camber Sands, it was a hot, hot, day and I got sunburnt. Back in Epsom PT cooked us a Roast and then his friend Stan turned up to go for a drink with PT. I didn’t take much notice of him to start with, but I needed his assistance quite soon afterwards.

Stan did car repairs and shortly after arriving in Surrey I had a minor collision damaging my front bumper. PT told me that Stan could repair it for me. PT and Stan were best friends. Stan was to be PT’s Best Man at their wedding which was only a few weeks away.

JK and I were by now firm friends and she suddenly asked me if I’d be her bridesmaid, one of her so called friends had suddenly dropped out and she was stuck. So I agreed.
It was all a bit of a rush because I was being bridesmaid to another friend the week before in Norfolk. But I managed to get to the rehearsal taking my boyfriend from Leeds with me, who’d come down to see me to celebrate my birthday. I’d already decided there was no point in continuing the relationship. His life was in Leeds and that was another lifetime. After the rehearsal we all went for a drink I found myself chatting to Stan thinking what a witty, chatty person he was.

At the wedding itself I spent most f the day with Stan and another his friend’s AK, who I must admit was gorgeous, but out of my league. At the wedding I met Stan’s parents, his dad danced with me. Stan attempted to dance with me too, but was rather the worse for wear for drink, but as we were leaving he asked if he could take me out the following week. I agreed and gave him my number.

I think it was only Monday evening when the phone rang, it was Stan asking me out for a drink Saturday evening. Saturday evening arrived and Stan turned up in his old blue escort van and we went into Richmond. He spent to evening telling me all sorts of funny stories and I was smitten. There ensued the beginnings of our courtship. So that was how I met my other half.

I received the weirdest of proposals, if you could call it a proposal, but that is another story and I’ve already written far too much! So I’ll save that story for another day.

Though, isn’t Fate strange? A chance response to a Pen pal advert lead to the most important relationship in my life.