General Chat

Oh Berona..........I was in Sydney in 1962 for six weeks, a fresh faced 21 year old. We could have gone dancing - I was fitter then lol.

Tec.

My dad's side of the family were cobblers, boot makers etc. My great aunt's husband was a boot maker and my grandfather worked for him. My dad told me that he would put the skins into vats of chemicals to remove the hair. He said grandad always had a horrible smell to him because of the chemicals. Apparently my great uncle Joe had a window at the front of his house where he would work as a cobbler. My uncle told me that the cricketer Len Hutton's sister would bring around her brother's shoes including his cricket shoes for repairs. Len Hutton was born in Farsley not far from where me and my family came from.

Sue xx

Sue.......That's interesting - my Gt, and Gt Gt Grandfathers were shoe and boot makers. I have an old photo of them outside the family shop, taken about 1895
When I think of Len Hutton I remember all the ads and posters advertising Brylcreem hair styling with him on them.

Tec.

Tec, the small village outside Leeds where I was born - Bramley - was famous for it's boot/shoe making industry. In fact people all over Yorkshire would apparently send their boys there to do their apprenticeships.

Sue xx

Boot/shoe making must have ben quite a skilled trade in the days before mass production. I should think they were always relatively expensive.
I have always loved new shoes, and have always bought the best quality I could afford.
I still have a pair of winkle picker, cuban heeled shoes that cost me a fortune in the 70s.
They are so old fashioned, I can't wear them, but can't bring myself to throw them away either. Three times OH has thrown them in the bin, and I've fished them out again lol
Appreciation of good shoes must be in the genes.

Tec.

Well I have to climb the wooden hill now - not much sleep last night, so might stay in bed 'till Sunday at least - only joking.

Enjoy your day down under...........
sleep tight up top.

Goodnight
Tec.

HI SuaMaid/ Tec/ Berona and anyone else
just popped in to say hi before I go to bed, very late I know but have been on friends reunited. All the talk of roast dinner's brought back a lot of great memories of my childhood and the roast dinners on sunday's, we would start the meal with home-made soup then the roast which was usually lamb and then we would have a pudding, either sponge with custard or home-made rice pudding { loved the skin on the top } then we would finish off with coffee made with milk.. In the evening we would have a salad for tea with tinned fruit and evaporated milk for after's.
By the way thank you all you aussies who sent the sun-shine to us today, it was a lovely sunny day here for a change.

Hope to catch you all again tomorrow

goodnight/ goodmorning all

Diane x

Oooh Diane, I forgot the tinned fruit with evaporated milk - and just as nice as the jelly with the evap. milk too.

Sue xx

Hi again

Well we definitely have lamb (the real thing) over here, come Christmas time and for dinner at night we have roast lamb & mint sauce which we refer to as Colonial Goose but it is not a term bandied about by the younger generations.
Naturally enough, it has nothing to do with geese, but is an ironic term adopted by British settlers in New Zealand – and Australia – for a roast boned leg or shoulder of mutton, its cavity filled with the type of stuffing used for poultry. Mrs Beeton has a typical recipe. The term colonial goose must already have been in common use in the 1890s, cropping up in Casual Ramblings, by A Tramp Esq, and even a story by Rudyard Kipling

Christmas lunch is usuall cold fare with cold ham and salads followed by Sherry or port trifle. (my mum used to make condensed milk dressing for the salads - it was so sweet)

I always liked Oxtail and I remember when I was a child staying at my elderly Aunts and she served up what I thought was oxtail and I did not like it at all. Went home and told my dad that I did not think much of Aunty's Oxtail and he said what you would've had was boiled mutton.

Cheers

Persephone

Hi all!!!

All this talk of food is making me sooo hungry :-))

Christmas lunch at our house was always Yorkshire puddings, followed by a roast usually lamb. I must get my mums recipe for Yorkshire Pudding because Ive never tasted better than hers, it was my Grandma's recipe, my dads mum taught my mum to cook, my mums mum never let my mother into her kitchen!!! Roles are reversed now as I sometimes cook for my mum when she needs a break from the meals on wheels.
Now my Christmas lunch is always seafood, roast lamb, baked ham, jacket potatoes, salads and we always have Christmas pudding and custard. Yummy roll on Christmas!!!!

I have a mental picture of our Tec running around in his wellies trying to catch a lamb for his Christmas dinner, That would be priceless!!!!

Enjoy the rest of your day down under/ have a great day up top :-)))

Carole x

Hello everyone,

Well, roast lamb seems to be a winner with everyone here. Maybe we should put it on the menu when Tec gets the winning ticket and we go on the cruise! My mum used to make ice cream from evaporated milk, whipping it up with vanilla essence, sugar etc, and freezing it in trays.
The bricks of vanilla or neopolitan ice cream, (it was in a cardboard box-like wrapping) were special treats. Saturday afternoon the ice-cream man came around, ringing his bell, selling the ice creams out of big thick padded bags with dry ice inside.

Here's a little joke sent to me by my brother:

The 84-year-old Bride.

The local newstation was interviewing an 84-year-old lady because she had just gotten married - for the fourth time.
The interviewer asked her questions about her life, about what it felt like to be marrying again at 84, and then about her new husband's occupation. "He's a funeral director," she answered.

"Interesting", the newsman thought. he then asked her if she wouldn't mind telling him a little about her first three husbands and what they did for a living. She paused for a few moments, needing time to reflect on all those years.

After a short time, a smile came to her face and she answered proudly, explaining that she first married a banker when she was in her early 20s, then a circus ringmaster when in her 40s, later on a preacher when in her 60s, and now, in her 80s, a funeral director.

The interviewer looked at her, quite astonished, and asked why she had married four men with such diverse careers.

"Easy, son", she smiled.
"I married one for the money....two for the show....three to get ready...and four to go!"


Bye for now,
Susan....

Good evening/morning everyone:))

SusanWA - that was a good one. Watch out Allan we have a new resident comedian:)) I was talking to my mum today and she reminded me of evaporated milk ice-cream. How funny that you've also mentioned it.

Persephone I've heard of Colonial Goose although I'm not sure I knew what it was. I have to say I've never had oxtail although our local butcher stocks it. I must look up some recipes. Is that what Osso Bucco is?

We also have a cold Christmas lunch - ham, turkey, salads and a trifle which my mum makes by popular demand. That's a sit down meal with the best china and all the trimmings including bonbons. In the evening we have a seafood bbq with left-over salad. It's open house in the evening and whoever calls around is fed. Boxing Day is whatever is left over in the fridge - usually not much:)

Carole I too had a mental picture of our Tec looking for his leg of lamb out in the fields:))

Sue xx

Yes, my Mum made a nice ice cream with evaporated milk and we, too, had the canned fruit with either evaporated milk or Nestle's cream. I loved the cream so much as a child that my grandmother once put two cans with my Christmas present - and I don't remember what the present was - but I do remember the cream!!

Why is that when I think of Tec chasing the lambs with a hatchet in his hand, that I want to sing "Once a jolly swagman....."??

Well I guess that Tec is a honorary Aussie - so it's not so strange after all:))

I wonder how Linda is going - I hope she has been able to get some rest while away. If you are looking in we are all sending positive thoughts to you and your mum.

Sue xx

"You'll come a-waltzing Berona with me"

Tec. (The jolly swagman)

Goodevening / goodmorning
Hi everyone
how are you all today, well I hope?
Here's another one we had for a sunday tea, mixed fruit and sterilised milk, it was so creamy and thick but to buy it now is expensive and not many places sell it. For christmas in our's as a kid at dinner time we started dinner with home-made chicken soup then had roast chicken, roast potato's, carrot's, cauliflower, pea's, chipalater's, mash potato's, stuffing and chicken gravy. For after's we had traditional christmas pudding with white sauce { white custard to some folk's } with a touch of brandy in it, another name for it was { brandy sauce } but not brandy butter.
Now if I have christmas pud I like it with vanilla ice cream, YUM YUM.

PMSL at the thought of Tec running round on christmas day morning with a clever in his hand in his wellie boot's trying to catch that Lamb for his dinner, freeze the b.....s of a brass monkey are weather in winter. LOL

Diane x

Good morning/evening everyone:)) Hope everyone is well. Looks like blue skies here today.

All this talk of food makes me want to go in the kitchen and cook.........no it doesn't - I lied:))

I'm not an enthusiastic cook although I like having the family over for meals. We don't have dinner parties - we're more likely to have a bbq. I'm lucky in that my OH and son are happy for me try something new otherwise cooking the evening meal can be tedious. OH cooks at least a couple of times a week and I enjoy that.

I hope all our Aussie friends have a good day and our Poms enjoy the rest of the evening.

Sue xx

Good Morning - Evening Everyone,

I can't really see myself running round the mountain like the mad axe-man after a lamb. If it stopped, looked at me, and bleated, I would be more likely to give it a cuddle and bring it home as a pet.
I'm a meat eating hypocrite - will buy it in the shop nicely presented, and enjoy eating it, but don't like to think about the rest.

The weather has been atrocious today, lashing down all day with gale force winds.....BUT....There a big high pressure area heading this way from the Atlantic from tomorrow - sunshine for days to come. Whoopee.

Tec.

Hello, Tec. I'm a bit like you - I like meat on a tray in the butcher's shop. Especially lambs - I don't like to think of legless ones:-)

Sue xx

Good evening/morning to all pommies and Upside-Downers

You lot sure can chat! It has taken me an age to read through the posts.

My OH is lamb mad but I prefer pork or chicken.

I also have a great recipe for a 'traditional' Christmas pudding which you can cook in the microwave. Saves all that boiling particularly in Spring or Summer.

Sue I enjoy cooking!

The trip was fantastic, although Monday was cold and wet. The canola crop is beginning to ripen and the paddocks were a blaze of bright yellow. Then the view of the Stirling ranges, blueish but with the higher peaks disappearing in the low cloud.

I gave the Shires notice that next month will be my last visit. I've been going there for 14 months now and the constant travelling has finally caught up with me.

Tec, hurry up and hijack that cruise ship, i feel a need for a bit of R & R


Allan