General Chat

My other question I decided to answer is about what I would like people to remember me as or by...or something to that wording !!!!!!!!

I would like to be remembered for being a good wife mother and friend. One who has time to listen as well as talk, kind and considerate, I always try to think of others before myself, sometimes to my detriment ! A good cook, fanatical about reading and words having started to read at 3 I can honestly say I have never stopped.! A person with diverse tastes in music and reading, with an open mind and not prejudiced, at least I try not to be..we all have our lapses. But most of all I hope I will be remembered for just being me..not perfect..slightly flawed but always just me...I believe everyone who knows me could not say..well you never know where you are with her...what you see is what you get..just me

Hope you have all had a lovely weekend, its been very misty here, the first time this year..had our daughter, son in law and step grandson here for lunch.

Regards Jan

My Most treasured item.

As I wrote those words I realised how hard it is to choose just one item. So, being rather naughty I have chosen my Photo Albums, which are all kept together in a book case.

My earliest photos are of my great grandparents on my maternal side and everyone looks so stern, and yet they must have been sitting for a while waiting for the flash of the light from the camera. The amazing thing is not only how well they have kept but also how the genes have passed down so that the facial similarities are still within the family today.
I am not sure how expensive it may have been in the 1800 hundreds to have photos taken but judging by the clothes and the number of photos they must have been reasonable well off.
I have some very interesting photos of my grandfather when he was serving in the Army in India. The sad thing is that I do not know who the people are who are also in the photos. None of them look underfed, or tired and are being kept cool by Indian boys using fans.
I have photos of all my uncles and aunts again from my mothers side of the family, my husbands family going back to around 1910, but only family photos for weddings etc
At last count I have about 2000 photos, and wonder at times what will happen to them when I am no longer here.
Someone once said to me that as the photos are only one moment of a persons life why bother keeping them, well maybe they were right,I would certainly have more space!

If I could only take one item it would have to be a set of photo albums in a box with just one picture of everyone in my family, which I copied a long time ago.

Bridget

Sorry, I will try to come up with something else later. Interesting though Bridget. I love photos and have hundreds of them as well including a few albums of my fathers, he was always taking photos with his concertina fold Kodak. But of course all the photos are quite small. He did name a lot of them which is a help. Maybe, if you don't think your family will take them you could leave a note with your will to ask them to take the collection of old photos to the Family History society that the people are connected to. Or, if they are really good photos with dress worn of the fashion of the eras, to a local museum in UK.

My most treasured item:
There are lots of items around the house that I wouldn't like to be without, a car, the PC, the TV and etc., but all of them are replaceable and not treasured. I have a giant box of photographs too, but any or all of the ones that are really wanted to be kept are on disc or on the PC.

It is a silver serviette ring, given to me over 64 years ago as a christening present, I have just given it a bit of a clean, and realized that it was in constant daily use for nearly 20 years. I found it again a few years ago, when I cleared mother's house, following her companion's death. It can't be replaced, in these days of paper serviettes, it is not likely to be used again. Looking at it brings back happy memories of family meals when I was a child. I certainly wish I had looked after it better, there must be at least twenty dents in it, some of them not so small, but the memories it brings are making me smile right now.

Gerard :-)

Gerard

May I suggest that you buy some linen serviettes, usually they are for sale in the second hand shops. I have about two dozen of these including six which came from my mother. Now of course we do not use these everyday but when friends come to dinner, or on a special day, or if it is wet, cold and miserable weather, such as today.
Maybe you will by now have learnt that we are not take away foodies, or eat from a tray people.

Ann, I am delighted to find someone else who is interested in keeping photos.
When my mother in law died we found several albums that we knew nothing about, these are very precious now and include pictures of her with her Land Army friends, a delightful baby album with photos and comments of her son, her only child. Interesting for family history including names of people that I had not heard of before.

I will write again in about 15 minutes, just have to decide what to write!

Bridget in very wet, very dark, and rather cold Spain.
:-(

Bridget - I have some linen serviettes about six and a beautiful linen table cloth, which I got from my mother's house, what I meant was that people don't give silver serviette rings as presents any more!!
Gerard :-)

OOPs Gerard

I apologies, in fact I profusely apologies, I should have know that being "connected" member of the family you would indeed have such good table linen.
Maybe you are correct about the silver serviette rings and now I have a good idea what to buy my next grandchild, a silver serviette ring with a box containing the first knife, fork and spoon.
All my children had these as gifts from their Godmothers and I still have them. One day when I know that they are living somewhere permanently I will give them to each one to keep.
I used to trawl the secondhand shops when living in the UK and go to Car Boot sales, sometimes one could find several wonderful things and on other occasions there would only be rubbish.
In fact once about 16 years ago i was at a car boot sale not far from where we lived and I found some books which I thought I would enjoy, then my eye caught a beautiful vase, had a quick look at it and hastily paid the full £4.00, yes it does say £4.00 not £400.00
I then took it to someone in the antiques business and it was exactly what I thought, a very old piece of Moorcroft........it has been authenticated and now is just one of my 40 or so pieces.

Sorry to ramble on. OH is watching yet another TV programme about the first world war!

The weather continues to be very very white and cold, the down stair part of our house which is self contained had water enter through the door, so we have put sand there and large towels on the inside. This has only happened once before so not bad as we live on the side of a mountain and considering that the water has to find its' own way down.

So good night everyone

Bridget

Four pounds for a Moorcroft vase - well you lucky lucky person!!! I have watched Flog It! on BBC2 and Moorcroft vases go for about eight or nine hundred pounds. Don't tell me - yours was perfect, no cracks or chips either!!
I have some Encyclopaedias from around 1935 (No mention of Hitler) that my dad collected weekly. Later when you had collected them all you sent them off and they came back bound in three volumes. I also found in a sale three bound volumes of the Spectator, which had belonged to Sir Robert D'Arcy and they are dated MDCCLIII (1753) for 10 pence each - It is fun trying to read 250+ year old printing. I also have my Mum's Singer Sewing machine from circa 1935 - I have no idea if it still works, or if it worth anything, but I kept to remind me of my Mum, who used to make all of her own clothes, curtains and etc. Treasures!!!

Regards
Gerard :-)

Gerard

You are of course quite right, the vase is perfect and when the rain gives a little respite I will go down stairs and check all the details. We fell in love with Moorcroft and everywhere we went we would search second had shops, car boot sales, etc and soon had quite a collection. Of course now and again we had to pay a pretty high amount but it was always worthwhile. In the last couple of years in the UK we bought some of the more modern Moorecroft as well.
We also collect Waterford Crystal, and I have many happy memories about our trips to Ireland and in the last few days going to the factory / shop to see if anything caught our attention.
You have now given me a new idea of what to write next, about holidays...thank you.

Your finds also sound very interesting, especially the encyclopaedias, and did you manage to read any of the newspapers ?
My grandmother had a wonderful treadle sewing machine and I first learnt to use it from the age of about 4 when staying with grandma. Only caught my finger once!

Daily report from Peniscola.
It is raining, in fact it is torrential rain, the palm trees are swaying, the sound of water cascading down from the roof, is almost musical, we do not have gutters as in the UK, the water flows over the roof tiles straight down to the ground. The rain is not deterring some building work somewhere to the west side but I have no idea of what or exactly where it is coming from. In a way it is rather like music, the dripping of the water, the rorential noise from the sky, the swaying of the trees, the occasional bird song..all coming together, and in the background the sound of the pool water being emptied to stop it from over flowing......a whimsical thought no doubt.

Ann, thank you for your ideas re the photos etc I will keep this just in case.
I also have a large amount of original birth certs, wedding certs and army papers. I thought that if my children really do not want them then I will give them to a school or museum.

I wonder if anyone else we be on here today? I hope that everyone is well.

OH abpnd I are trying to loose weight, and so far it seems to be working quite well as several people have commented and I have two pairs of trousers which simply do not stsy up!! Now, do I dispose them or should I keep them?? I hate wasting anything. We are trying to eat healthily and with smaller portions. Truthfully it was the amount of food we were eating that caused the problem. We have found that what suits us is two meals a day, and plenty of fruit. We still have one or two glasses of wine on most days.

I need some more slow cooker recipies, so praying that some are added to the Culinary delights.

One thing we are enjoying is making our own smoothers. I had forgotten all about this piece of equipment and found it down stairs in the china cupboard.
Even OH is enjoying these and normally does not eat fruit apart from the occasional apple.

Time for a coffee now,

Bridget
:-D

OH NO!!

We have now been flooded in the ground flor part of our house. OH is down there sweeping out the water and he assures me that there is no long term problems. Our home is on the side of a small mountain, the road is right at the top and then we walk down about 10 steps into our main living quarters. We have a large dining / sitting room, a medium size kitchen, a small store room where the cleaning materials are kept, a special cupboard for veg and fruit and various bits and pieces. Two large bedrooms, ours with the fairly new extension for my computer etc and almost like a garden room out side the sitting room is the Veranda I often mention with the wonderful views.
Down stairs, wher the rain has penetrated is another ful living area with one bedroom with double and one single bed, can also take a full size cot, has built in furniture, a shower room and a large sitting room with great view of the garden and pool, and another computer. We have two book cases down there as well and a decent size settee and a couple of decent chairs.
This is where the water has penetrated.
Thankfully OH copes very well but ........

Had to stop there as OH came up went into the computer room and called out that water had also penetrated in there...not much but some chair seats now have to be dried. The water came through one of the joints in the ceiling.
All sorted now, so hope that the rain stops soon.

Bridget


:-( :-)

Do hope that your rain stops soon Bridget It sounds as if it has the potential to cause a lot of problems.

And Wow!! £4 for a Moorcroft vase, what a bargain. How many years ago was this? Don't drop it.

I will try and get around to writing something again later.

Oh Bridget please send some of the rain our way, cannot remember when we last saw some
Hope everything dries out OK

I am afraid that I can’t for the life of me say what my most treasured item is. I have so many. I am like Bridget in that I value my photos, some are in old type photo albums, some in modern memory books (scrap books) and some, the digital one, are on discs/memory sticks and in the computer. If I had to choose to save just a few I would choose the two small albums containing my daughter and son’s baby photos, the three that contain our grandsons’ baby photos and a disc with younger Grandson and Granddaughter’s baby photos plus family history photos. If I just had to choose one I would choose the large 12x12 scrap book that is the Family history scrap book with photos from Frat Grandfathers through to youngest member of the family.
But I have many other things I value. In no particular order as they say: A Newspaper from about 1937/8 I can’t check right now, it is in a trunk. Then there is the gold rimmed glass tumbler that was from the Golden wedding of my Grandparents. A Captains chair belonging to my Grandfather who died in 1947, a dining room chair that belonged to my Mother’s older sister and given to her by somebody (my sister has its twin and they are beautifully carved). My Mother’s wedding ring, my aunt’s engagement ring which I am wearing at the moment with my mother’s wedding ring. The family bible from my mother’s side of the family with my Great Grandfather’s writing in it. A letter written to my Great x 3 Grandmother from her employer in 1832 telling her that her husband, my Great x 3 Grandfather was seriously ill in Brighton. They lived in London and he was a coachman who had taken his employer to her Brighton house from London. I think he subsequently died from this illness but I can’t find his death anywhere.
I think that is enough to be going on with. If I had to save everything I valued at any time I’d need a pantechnicon

Good morning, the sun is back, the rain has stopped and everything is drying quite fast.....yippee

The birds are twittering, Jet and Joe are running around the garden and up and down the stairs. OH on my desktop so once again gphaving to use iPad.

The slow cooker is on cooking the beef casserole and I have a saucepan full of cooked mince with all sorts of odds and ends of spices etc, I will divid this into three bags and freeze them.
My sister in Bath wants the recipe for the Christmas cake I made and has already been eating and OH wants some more made so looks as if I will not be bored!

Has anyone used the new rubber type "tins" to bake cakes, I have bought them but nervous about using them.

Hope that you all have a great day and I will have a look in later.

Bridget

Well I wish the rain would stop in this part of Spain - like Bridget we too have leaks - the joys of living in a house with a flat roof. Annoying part is we have done a fair bit of decorating and the damp patches have started to appear. This does not happen every time it rains it seems as if it depends on the wind and which way the rain comes down - if that makes sense !! Oh well no dount we will dry out soon. You can have 2 showers in my bathroom - the warm one and the one that leaks !!!! Must remember to keep my sense of humour going.

I have some of the rubber type baking tins Bridget - I made my mince pies in them last uear and they were fine. The problem I have is trying to keep them straight when taking them out of the cooker - I have visions of them falling on the floor. BUT they are so much easier to clean.

My favourite possessions - well my grandma's engagement ring means a lot to me - my mom gave it to me about 3 years ago and I wear it all the time. I too have got an old Singer hand sewing machine which I just about managed to stop my SIL taking to the tip when clearing out M-i-L house after she died. It still goes like a train.

Well must go and do some cleaning up - although mopping floors will have to wait along with the washing - until the rain stops - now that is a good excuse !!

Take care all and enjoy your day

Mary xx

Made my saus rolls and mince pies for Christmas yesterday, and open froze them, I love them freshly cooked....we have finally finished cutting down our privet hedge, and are now awaiting the fencing people to come along. It is a shame about the hedge but it was badly diseased. I feell that as we have planted so many trees and evergreen shrubs in the garden for the birds etc, we are entitled to cut down what is ill....we do hate doing it but sometimes it is necessary.

Dry but cold here in Norfolk

Hope you have dried out Bridget

Regards Jan

Busy again Jan. Glad you have got it finished. Hope you don't get any more rain Bridget and that yours soon stops Mary.

I have been industrious the last few days, gradually wrapping the presents for the ones that have to be posted, those for delivery this weekend and non family. Just got all daughter' lot to do now plus OH's. I used to enjoy wrapping up the presents but do find it tiring these days, my own fault as for the younger children I always buy several small presents and wrap them all separately so they have more to open.

Well it is a long time since a day went by and no one went on this thread - so here I am today on Friday early in the morning, planning what to do with OH on our Friday jaunt. The last two weeks we have been to the British Museum, extremely interesting, but after OH working from 5-9 in the morning we can't get to see too much. Last week we went round the Africa exhibition - amazing, and the week before we went round the Americas and the Enlightenment exhibitions, lots of statues and collections. We hoped to go to the London Transport Museum, but it doesn't open until 11 am and cost nearly thirty pounds to get in (although that does give you free entry for the rest of the year!).

This week I have decided on the V & A in South Kensington.

Bridget - having worked for Weightwatchers (UK) for over 20 years I could give you some advice on losing weight - but I think your plans, if you are happy with them, should work for you, specially as you have your two dogs to give you exercise each day.

Yesterday at my voluntary work the director told us the community centre would be closed for 2 weeks because she is having surgery on her knee and won't be at the centre. This is sad because at this critical time we needed to get all the revenue we could. I just hope we can survive until the new year. OH has put my name forward for a job at her place of work and there may be a place available in the new year - fingers crossed!

Jan should be pleased this morning as it has rained, mizzly at first, but now I can see the blue sky at dawn, here's hoping for a nice day, it was surprisingly warm this morning at 4 o'clock.

I trust everyone is well, I shall light my candle at church on Sunday and say some prayers that are needed, and wish everyone a happy and fruitful weekend.
Gerard

:-)

we too had a little rain, but now the sun is shining tho it is quite cold.

We have had a heavy week, taking down the privet hedge, waiting for people to ring you back with their quotes for fencing...and now the expense of taking down a tree, which has decided to push its way through our fence, and it is also lifting our decking...more expense. Fortunately we have a lane at the side and the tree surgeon will be able to take the tree down from there.

Its the clearing up which is a pain


Have a lovely weekend everyone

Have you any favourite recipes Gerard, if so go on Culinary Delights...it would be nice to have a mans point of view

Jan

My day has flown past and I am not sure why?? Does this ever happen to you??

Magnificent sky this morning, even OH comented on it. The whole of the sky was red and very slowly as it moved south so the blue sky started to show it's self.
Sorted the kitchen cupboards, and then released that I needed a few bits and pieces so off we went. Bought more items for cakes, the dried fruit eggnog could not buy marzipan anywhere. So have decided as neither of us actually like marzipan we will not decorate the cake.
Cake seeping up the brandy, orange and lemon juice, ( from our own fruit trees) so will put in the oven in the morning.

Trying to think of a good meal for Boxing day. We are out for Christmas day so decided to have a special meal at home on Boxing Day.......all suggestions will be greatfully received .

Noticed on another thread that the annual money for the winter months, to allow pensioners to have a bit of help has not yet been received by everyone.
This is for people in the UK. Hope everyone gets it soon.

Well not a lot more to tell so will leave you in peace,

Goodnight

From Me

Bridget