Past Times week at Lucky 7's

So I set a 'past times' challenge over at Lucky 7's and as has become the norm I am busy writing my offering all in one go on a Sunday evening.  

It is Father's Day here in the UK, we have not done much. Colin celebrated by doing chores in his own Dad's house for most of yesterday and part of today... and also by showing what a great Dad he is by sorting out the double puncture Jordan got less than a mile form home before we had even got out of bed!

But with the prompt as well it has been a bit of a Nostalgia day for me.... and you know how I love a bit of 'how it was, way back when...'  My Dad died when I was only 8 and half years old so my memories are few and quite hazy really, though made vivid by the number of times I have recounted them and by my Mother's own translation of how Dad was, and remains, in my mind as a consequence.  

(No thoughts of my dad are ever not followed by the satisfaction that he and my Mum loved each other so much that little money, a simple existence and a cantankerous father-in-law living with you could diminish..)

My cousin Neil met me at his own Dad's funeral about 10 years ago. We were both in our late 40's and Neil observed that when my Dad died at 47 ('our age') he seemed old then, but there we were almost 40 years later at his own dad's funeral, my dad's best friend, and we didn't feel anywhere as old as we thought my Dad had been.  

Do you ever feel the age you are? 
Do you get stuck in an 'age' and is that dependent on the life chances and changes you have? I for sure log most events in my life as before or after the prime dates in my life : 1969 Dad died, 1973 we moved to Mousehole, 1992 Zac was born, 1997 we moved to our current home with all our family, 2008 Mum died.

So.. to my Past Times offering for the week:

A wedding (or two) of the past

Mum & Dad 1946

Joe & Leo Warren
Mum's parents
1916

Cars of yesteryear

We didn't have a car in our family until my brother had one when I was about 8.  I think it was like this one.. >>>

My Uncle was the family 'driver' and would do the honours if anyone needed to go anywhere. He was a mechanic and always had a car with leather seats, but certainly not a new one. It would squeak as you drove along and the indicators were orange wing lights which came out between the doors!

It was about 15 miles to the nearest town, a bus journey of almost an hour so you had to be content where you lived. But we were, we didn't know anything else. that's why today we all want more, because we know about it and we 'can'

Toys & hobbies

Banana Box cooker

My favourite thing to play with was a large banana box which on the odd occasion Mum would get from the Grocery Van which used to come by our house twice a week.

I had a plastic cooking set and tea set and would play for hours with a few rings drawn on top and the door on the side. 




Clothes we had to wear

Pinafore & pretty blouse
had been for Ken's wedding

1969

Just about whatever we got given.. 

..usually something Mum may have bought at a jumble at school, sometimes it came from the girls up the road and had been donated!

 If we had new it was for best and probably too big at first, then once it fitted or got too small it was for every day and you finally loved it!  




You can see knitted jumpers and short second hand bits in all these pics.. sometimes I got boys things.. and shoes.. as in the 60's somehow they seemed much harder wearing!

How towns change
I have really enjoyed looking at some of those Ghost pages you get on facebook, especially the ones from D-Day where they ghost old images in the context of the new.
I especially wanted to share this old footage of fishing life in Mousehole in the 1940's.
Thought it might be interesting. My step-dad would have been in his 20's then and a local fisherman whilst many men went away to war, fishermen did not have to as they were part of the home front war effort.

Mousehole archive

Vintage look

This is a cravat I have in my drawer which Mum gave me, it belonged to my Dad and I think it would look just fine if I wore it now.

May even try it tomorrow..might look good with a navy dress?






A new picture vintage-d

23 years on.. mine and Colin's wedding, pictures at the Minack Theatre which doesn't seem to change .. ever!

Doesn't feel vintage to me ;-)

Colours :Blue

These little dishes were in my Mum's cupboards and I don't really remember them being used much...but now they are in my crockery drawer and we seem to use them all the time..

..cute and blue xx

I looked after Lyla this afternoon..part of a new plan for the New Year .. we watched the Hungry Caterpillar ..several times!

 She likes to play with a bunch of beads I have in a dish, sadly they won't all thread very easily so we played marbles with them..I picked out some of the blue ones to show you..

Precious? Well I kept it 35 years.

So it's Sian's Story Telling Sunday again, you can join in over yonder! at High in the Sky!

This year Sian has asked us to story tell our precious items, and today she herself has chosen a postcard she received aged 10 years old, not depicting a momentous event today, but most precious at the time and obviously something she has never felt she wanted to be without.  I have something similar. I don't feel hugely strongly about it, but it is a small reminder and there doesn't seem any reason to not leave it in the little jewelry box with the charm bracelet from being a bridesmaid age 6 and my first signet ring.

As you may imagine there is a back story or two!

I was christened Kathryn and pretty much always called that by family and friends until I was a teen.  One of my first boyfriends, a lad from Mousehole had a Mum who's sister was called Kathy. She was a fab lady from Leicester and although she suffered with horrendous arthritis, to the extent that she could ride a bike more readily than walking, a\nd as a 15 year old I really loved her.. she called me Kathy and my Mum became 'Kathy's mum' to him and history was written. 

Now this is the bit I cringe about... I must have been a pretty pretentious teen in my own way (though on looking back I am sure I was pretty square.. but weren't we all in 1975 compared to pretentious of the 21st century?) because I kind of didn't like 'Kathy', especially 'Kathy Thomas', not sure why, it just didn't run off the pen, so I must have tried it out a few times and with the flourish of a teenager who was fairly academic (and in those days that meant being a pretty good essay writer as much as being a smart-ass!) I finally decided that it I was going to be stuck with Kathy, then I would make it a bit different and Kathi was born!  It ran off the pen nicely when I signed it and I liked how it looked on cards and stuff.

What I didn't expect was how stupid it looked when written by friends with tidy oval handwriting and the people who still practiced that joined up stuff we learnt for the 11+

Even today I use it still but have people apologising for spelling it wrong when they have sent me an email. When people ask if I am Kathi with  K or a C I take a breath, sigh and say whichever, then agree it is a K... then send one back and they must wonder.. why didn't she say it ends in 'i' but no 'e'... and if they do I just say, oh well I must have been a pretentious teenager.. and hope they smile too!

So, then there's KathiJo.. I know it sounds like a gingham-skirted-cookie-baking-southern-mom from Texas or somewhere, but it's actually just the first name hotmail would accept that didn't require a load of numbers too... and so Kathryn became Kathi became Kathi Jones who finally became KathiJo your blogger pal!

... and you may wonder, what precious item prompted this explanation?

(which in the true reason for my blogging, will one day explain in my usual protracted way,  to my nearest and dearest should they be ever wondering when I have long forgotten..why I was called Kathi..)... this necklace a(nother) boyfriend had made especially for me in about 1977. 

I think he had worries about how I actually spelt it.. but at least I knew it was made just for me because how many others were about just then!   Every now and then I find this in the little box and tell the story of how we had a whirlwind romance during my second year of A levels, prompted by his Dad (on holiday in Mousehole) suggesting he send him to take me out! He arrived in his Dad's car, took me to eat somewhere proper and even got out to open the car door for me.. well, we just weren't used to it in these parts were we.

Sadly a year on we had done it all, planned our lives, got engaged, he moved from London to live here, his family were moving here too anyways... and then the rot set in.. life was real, I was way too young, he liked his beer way too much and I got three good 'A' levels and realised that there was more to life than being a wife waiting at home until the pub called last orders! 

My darling Mum never judged for a moment, sat by, quietly not saying much at all, supporting during the high days and the low days, I bet she lay awake a good deal at night wondering just what would happen... but I made my own choices, eventually the right ones and it was over. She didn't say I told you so because she hadn't, but I knew she had thought so..... and about three years later the same guy was lost on the Penlee Lifeboat in 1981.. it was a strange thought, I saw his Mum and she said she was glad we hadn't worked out as I would have been a widow that day and probably had lost a father to my children. 

Truthfully the whole disaster was such a sad time for the village, I didn't feel worse about him than any of the others I knew and my step-father probably felt worst of all because he lived with and saw raised several of those guys in 1960's Mousehole.... but maybe there is a little more to the story of the necklace than I realise and maybe why I kept it longer than I may otherwise have done....a kind of a symbol of the innocence of a young romance in days when no-one can have predicted what would happen in the future... and now that little bit of story has been told..

Funny too, as I feel sadder writing about this now than ever before..xx

Picking My Precious..

Well it's definitely a blogging Sunday. Catching up on my view(s) for January to kick start the LuckySnapping challenge and now joining in with Sian's Story Telling Sunday here! It's a great idea and this year we are finding our most precious keepsakes and story telling around them.

So I set off for my special places.. a few drawers and little boxes in our chest of drawers. I pondered a few items and finally I knew which was my most cherished item.  There are lots of things I would be sad to lose, but this is the one I would be bereft if I lost...My Mum's engagement ring complete with a little brocade box in a heart shape which she always kept it in.

We were talking this morning about the tradition that you should spend three months salary on an engagement ring... yeah right! Somehow I think that should be filed away with the same box of things like not living together or having children before you are married..it just seems outdated for the 21st Century.

But way back in the 1940's it must have been such a big deal to get engaged and then plan the wedding and live together for the first time.

For Mum it meant leaving her Mum and her brother and sister (both older), leaving her Mum who had been suddenly widowed nine years earlier and moving down to the cove to live with dad .. and his Dad.. mmm, from what I hear maybe not the most special aspect of the deal!  (My Grandad was a bit of a miserable old thing, didn't take very kindly to my Mum doing his washing and generally making life a bit more homely and comfortable, you know sometimes you just can't help some people!)

Mum & Dad married in 1946 and her wedding ring was 22carat but only had '22CT' stamped inside it twice, no Hallmark, apparently that was the way just after the war (?)

She believed you should never take it off and in 1955 she had to have it taken off to have an operation and the first thing she asked for when she came round was her ring (now thy tape them over I think..)

Once married the engagement ring was a special occasion item and Mum only wore it when she was going out.. in fact as a child I remember coming home and asking her where she had been as she was wearing her ring.   After 23 years of marriage dad died and I think Mum wore her ring more, less working on the land and risk of losing it I suppose.  

Then in 1973 when she remarried she gave me both the rings. I have worn the wedding ring ever since, so it has been on her or my finger every day since December 1946 and you know, it is still a perfect circle, never dented or bent even with the lives we have led.  The engagement ring had become very thin on the underside so I only wore it on special occasions myself, usually to bring me luck in exams and I guess it did!  It's kind of cute too because it is very very simple and really a reflection of the life and times of the post war years..

.. so there we are, my most precious and not much of a story but a nice memory.. I wonder where they will go next..!

(and you know, that Jewellers, EJ Hutchens in Penzance is still there in Causewayhead, our cousin Penny used to work there in 1970's and now it is called Spiegelhalters, but I reckon lots of it is just the same.)

365/330 Forgotten

At least it had stopped raining when we ventured out for an hour this afternoon.  I had forgotten how much I enjoy seeing the angry grey sea as much as the calm blue millpond in the summer.  I am wondering too if the Mount should not be one of my views for next year as it is so close and the panorama changes with the weather... so that is three views so far.. sounds like a daily pic Jen! So much for going weekly as I had planned!

The seagulls are amazing creatures (well I think that when I see them flying, not so much when they are in a seaside town!) just playing in the wind.  We had a lazy day again, Ross & April tidied the sitting room, got the fish tank out of the alcove and made everywhere feel 'ready for Christmas', we even put on some Christmas music.. heck, if you can't enjoy it before then come Boxing Day it's done.

This evening I weighed and wined the fruit for two cakes, one for Pops, a special cake this year as he has to have gluten free stuff now, but hopefully it will make him feel better.  April and I lined the cake tins.. my Mum always had a tin ready to go, so I know I am the grown-up now!

As a side story I had a fabulous dream last night, it seemed to go on for hours, lots of different people at all different stages of their lives, but I woke really happy.  I had met my dad again, but he was now my age (I guess he hadn't aged) and I kind of fell in love with him even though he didn't really say much, I just knew that I could see all the reasons my Mum had loved him... a bit of a Benjamin Button type scenario...very strange but beautiful and as I grinned when telling a bemused Colin about it (he says he doesn't dream..) but a little tear trickled from each eye as I lay in bed.  Wishing I could bottle it up so I don't forget it, it really made me think of a fab book I once read, I think it was a teenagers book, called Elsewhere, you should read it!

365/312 Creature.

Well this isn't a word I use very much but I notice that Lilly likes to use it, I think because her Dad refers to her as his little creature and also to the living things you find in gardens and stuff as creatures. Funny how some people use a word a lot while others don't, I think the things you find in the garden are what my Mum would call creepy crawlies; my favourite was the wonderfully but locally called 'Grammer-sow'. 

Now my brother was just starting secondary school when I was born, the story goes that Mum had put his new Grammar School uniform out before she went off to hospital, that was a Wednesday, just after she had burnt her arm with an iron and everyone wondered if that would set the wheels in motion and the new baby would finally make an entrance...well I finally arrived on the Saturday, late in the evening after Dad had hung around every evening hoping something would happen.. they almost sent her home at one point, not like today when if they get you in they fiddle and interfere til the darned baby is here and you are on your way home pronto!

Anyways, as ever I digress, I grew up thinking that the 'Grammer-sows' were named after the kids at Ken's school, as that was what the kids used to call the children who went on to Grammar...little did I know, and even when I discovered it I didn't want to change my lovely nickname for them.. yes, they were 'woodlice'... somehow not half as romantic a name.. they were so cool, they lived in rotten wood, of which there was a lot in the hedgerows and even better, if you played with them they rolled into tight little balls..

More recently these are the Creatures that spring to mind, Zac used to love these characters..hope it plays okay..

.. and here for good measure is our lovely Harvest Mouse creature..I so love her!

365/280-281 Peak or valley & natural framing

Apologies for the blogless weekend, I have been kind of in limbo, not really much to report and hoping some photographic opportunity or inspiration would come to me, though I do have a couple of ideas of pics that came to mind as soon as I saw the prompts! (incidentally neither of which I have ended up using!)

Yesterday we did a trip out with JB, previewed her some kitchen and bathroom ideas and changed her laptop without hassle at Tesco (luckily she got it less than 30 days ago and it has a shutting down thingy going on..) 

We also went and paid for our new sofa which arrives tomorrow, we have arrived in the land of desiring sensible seating as Col suffers with quite a lot of back trouble, a nagging ache really, not the awful sciatica he had before his two ops back in 2008.  We had two sofas about three years ago but he soon had to lie on them as they are too soft and he just gets sore straight away.  So we are trying out a nice Stressless sofa and if it goes okay we may get another. We tried a chair out too at the shop and to be fair they are actually more comfy than the sofa but somehow we seem to favour two sofas these days rather than single chairs (a remnant of nightmare Sundays spent at my aunties with no sofas or TV!.. God bless the Methodists and their curled up edged sandwiches and brimless hats.. sorry, but that's the stereotypical views from the eyes of a reluctant ten year old staying with me!)

Still every cloud etc.. the sofas move down the line, as is the way, and was the way when I was a young newly wed.. the spare sofa will go to our eldest girl's tomorrow night.

I have browsed my gallery and found a couple of pictures fit for that Sunday storytelling that Jen is so good at doing..as well as our prompts..

As the guys I work with know (as I ponder and mumble about it on regular basis), I grew up in a small fishing cove, at the bottom of Penberth Valley, just a valley or two east of the more famous Porthcurno, where the Transatlantic telegraph cables originally came ashore a hundred years ago. 

My Dad was a small cove fisherman and market gardener as was his Dad before him and my brother after, (though he hated the land work and managed to make the sea his home year round as soon as he could). We lived a simple quiet life (quiet as in no TV, telephone and very little radio.. can you hear that quiet.. not even the humm of a fridge, just the crackle of a fire and perhaps a sigh from my Mum as she wondered if the fish would bite or the violets would make a good price at Covent Garden next month..oh, and the Archers.. and the Fishing News.. Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, and a hush as we got to 'Plymouth'..)   I know I guild the life with a sheen I am sure would be more tarnished if we were living it ourselves, but they were happy and the material world of the 1970's was but a wonder of the future..

Sundays were a day of rest, they probably really needed it, even if money wasn't plentiful it was unlikely that a day's extra fish or hoeing or picking flowers would make the books that much brighter to make a family day worth missing.  If the boats went out it was to take old friends out who came to visit and the women and children went along, it was a rare event and I cried a lot with fear as the few fish we caught beat themselves against the fish rooms doubling up as seats.. would I ever make it as the daughter of a fisherman I bet they wondered..

Sundays then..  My Dad always shaved in the mornings (he was a stubble sporting man again by teatime and it felt strange to ride on his shoulders and feel his face smooth and try to avoid the Brylcreem hair..), sometimes we went out on the cliffs for a walk, perhaps up to our friends at the farm a couple of miles across the fields or perhaps to my Gran's at St Buryan, but this was a decent walk and it would have been when I was in the pushchair. 

The cove always got its fair share of visitors, usually someone we knew, in the photo below I am in my pushchair with Dad and his cousin's wife (Auntie June) is talking to me, I think showing me some shiny necklace, not sure if you know them.. a string of cut glass beads, all the fashion in 1962 I guess and I called them 'Johnny Noddies'.. don't ask as I don't know!  

I found a site called Dear Photograph here a while ago which is worth a look and this picture is a quickie attempt to make my own.. a picture of the past, in the same place in the present .... me and dad with Auntie June, in Penberth Valley, in 1962, in 2011.  (ideally it would line up better and be focused so the common areas look seamless, but JB was impatient and I was agreeable!)

And here is the end of that same valley last year, in fact if you turn 180 degrees from the site of the first picture, I love crabpots, though to be authentic I want mine in whithey but hey..and the lichen on the rocks, they reckon it only grows on housetops and rocks where the air is so very clean..  is that good enough natural framing I wonder?

(and there I was, again, with nothing to say..)

PS I have added this to Sian's Story telling and realised there is a theme.. ahh well, we did always dress up a little for a Sunday..

365/213 Stronger.

Great day today, decided last night to take Lilly over to the Minack for a kid's show, just an hour long, puppets and stuff.. local guy, really fun and boy, what it takes to roll with the punches as a kid's entertainer!  

We also took flowers to the church for my mum and dad and looked in the church, then a little discovery walk where I grew up, quietly tip-toeing along the riverbank in case we could spot a trout, telling her some of the nostalgia stories of when I was a kid...(well she is new blood and I haven't bored her with any of it yet... hahah.. Lisa will laugh when Lilly starts telling her my stories Lisa thought she had heard the last of!)

We called in on an old friend of my Mum's, she is 89 on Saturday and I wanted to sneak in some birthday wishes before she is inundated with visitors over the weekend. She is very forgetful now but luckily able to stay in her own home, doesn't wander and is always laughing and enjoying seeing people, so that makes this time of their life, caring for her a little easier on her family.

It's an odd thing dementia, takes each person differently and consequently the effects on the family, I often wonder if they one day know they are losing their memory and choose to not mention it, or if the condition itself leaves you in a place where you never actually realise.

Lilly and I had lots of conversation, she has a huge vocab and asks very pointed questions for a 4 year old and I try to answer, but then worry that poor M&D will have to answer even more questions later! Today a big topic was coffee ice cream which I got the drift that she liked but didn't have when out with Mum so I thought we'd go for a small one.. only after she had eaten it and I relayed the story at home did I hear from Lisa that it was 'toffee'.. well, good intentions!

I took a whole bunch of pictures, Lilly mostly, eating or drinking!  then I looked at the prompt..

.. the White Gate bridge is falling down at penberth, huge pieces of granite standing proud where recent rain has put paid to the cement and earth which binds it together.  There is a steel grid there, and  Keep Out sihgn, I guess they are going to make it 'stronger'

Over at St. Levan Church there are some gorgeous agapanthus, loads at the Minack too.. stronger colours this year, maybe the sun / rain combination! 

And the same door handle at the church I can remember as a child.

Every time I use it I remember having to learn that you pull it towards you and turn whilst it is pulled ..always difficult when we were young to master something the grown-ups knew so well..I like going back there, the draw gets stronger and there is something lovely about the familiarity and reliability of the things still being there fifty years on...

365/186 Dangerous.

I wasn't sure what I would photograph today, some of my family and friends grinned when I told them 'my word of the day'.. they know that in the right frame of mind I can be  quite naughty and that is the dangerous they thought of...but it's midweek and I am not on naughty mode just now..

.. had my hair cut today, always nice to go over to Newlyn.. I have loved that place since my Dad used to take fish to market there from the cove when I was a kid. I guess it was like a mysterious place where they had a market, sold fish and gave everyone money.. a bit like the wonderfully evocative 'Covent Garden' where Mum and Dad sent violets in winter for selling on..At Christmas we always went to Newlyn for the Carolaire and the lights turn on (more recently it is Mousehole which takes the attention but Newlyn still boasts some great features at that time of year)

My brother fishes out of there, comes 'home' from France every couple of weeks and does a decent trip. I don't see him a whole pile but when I'm over that way I sometimes get a feeling to go down the quay and have a quick peek for him...

today it was spring high tide, my most favourite state of the tide and his boat was alongside.

There was loads of kit there too but I am so rubbish at remembering which tide they fish (I think it is the neaps) I'm not sure if that is for the next trip or if they are just in.. it looked quite organised so maybe they're off in a day or two.

 And there it was, a small tribute to the work life / place of fishermen now and then...the sea is such a great servant but we all know the risks even in fair weather and whilst we love being close to it and on it, it's sometimes a dangerous place to be..

Ken was at sea from such a young age it must be first nature rather than second to him to be on a boat. I remember Mum telling me that when he was six she had to go into hospital with appendicitis and rather than Dad stay in from sea to look after him before and after school, they took him along, tied a rope around his waist and onto the gunnel so he wouldn't fall in..or if he did they could pull him back quick!!

365/132 Unforgettable..

..the 'unforgettable' things which come to mind when I consider a story and picture for this day are generally some event or another, fairly simple* occasions with food and family and a feel good atmosphere.  I have already blogged those which have taken place since the blog began, but I thought I'd mention my in-laws Golden Wedding weekend which took place over August Bank Holiday weekend 2008.  I only began blogging a short while after this so the event was never quite 'covered' from a blogging / reminiscent point of view... and that is something I should start putting right..(be prepared for some recent nostalgia in coming weeks!)

Col's Mum and Dad were raised in Liverpool and both had quite tough upbringings and they had worked hard to make good lives for the two boys. Ken had been unwell in his younger days, and when attending a Silver wedding party when still engaged Jean said that she wondered if she would ever have her own 25th Anniversary.

Well, their Silver Wedding came and went, they moved to Cornwall in 1985 , celebrated a 40th in 1998 just after we all started living here together and in the run up to the 50th when Jean was unwell it always perked her up to plan her Golden Wedding weekend. 

Plans started for a big meal, but who to invite, where to eat etc etc, and eventually we decided on our favourite.. a Ceam Tea afternoon.. but not just cream teas, just about every cake or dessert you can imagine.  Family came from up north and Jean's brother, the now famous (in my blog) Uncle Bill travelled over from the USA and all their pals from local bowls and village socials came to join the celebration.

Lisa had had Lilly a month previous but she was young enough to just enjoy being held, so she pitched in too and us girls loved running the tea rooms!  The boys did their bit, the infrastructure: gazebos if it rained (or in fact if the sun was too much) and plenty of tables and chairs..it was like a Village Tea Party ..

 Over the whole weekend we also did loads of other things with the closest family, a family fishing trip to give Ken an outing as he was generally so committed to being there for Jean, plenty of 'cupso'tea' visits to friends and in the evening of the party a big fish & chip supper. (* Suddenly on  rereading this I reconsider how 'simple' an event the weekend it was..!)

My scrapbooking had been kick started in earnest for the event as I started classes just before I began an album for their Anniversary.  I had a few great evenings with Jean & Ken looking back through the tin box of photos, big and small which charted the family's history from the early days in Anfield, through the several house renovations to where we were then.

It's evenings like those, with no great plan, but which when they are reflected on are what looking after your elders is all about.. just being there, asking who this one is or that one.. 'you know, the one with the beehive hairdo and the mini skirt'!, sucking up the stories and letting them remember and talk about how it used to be..just like I do now I guess!! 

We gave them the album the day before the party, during a barbecue and outside fire evening with all the visiting relatives and friends, it was so cool.  We photocopied the scrap pages so they could be displayed at the cream tea and I was / still am really proud of it.. as ever for our best days, photos courtesy of Uncle Bill..

(oh dear, this recent nostalgia trip has me not quite able to see the keys..I love these days, these pictures..amazing how in the few short years since then so many people have left us, both our mums and so many of their friends..but boy, great memories..)

365/130 Woolly

.. a little late I'm afraid.. I still love this little hat Colin bought for my Lisa when he was simply the 'favourite uncle', he got it in Bennetton about 23 years ago and just pulled it out of his jacket pocket one day when he came 'round... sadly it's never quite been worn enough, perhaps as it was always too easy for the child wearing it to pull it off!!

... doesn't seem 23 years.. but I guess the pattern isn't quite vintage enough to be recent.. if that makes any kind of sense to you at all!!!

365/106 Alive

Nostalgia for my childhood is alive and well and existing in every rusty bit of chain and every board of a fishing boat.. chaos it may be, but transports me back, right back to those moments.. all I need is a coil of creosoted rope and I'm complete!

365/96 What is that?

Oooohhh, a difficult prompt today. Loads of scope but nothing has happened to make me say this to myself, or anyone else for that fact..so from the comfort of my sofa, after the day is almost done I have chance to consider the options!

You may recall we had a party for New Year and Col and the kids set up a couple of projectors and screens for showing music videos.. it was a lot of hard work for JB and Zac getting all the videos but it made the party.  So, about three months on we still have all the hardware in place and in the kitchen of a weekend we still have our own mini music session!  

Another party is due mid May, with Super Heroes and Rock Stars as the theme.. anyone who is larger than life really! ... so it seems daft to take it all down now...doesn't it?.. heck, I am getting very laid back in my old age, one time I would have been really nagging to tidy the ceilings up, but hey, does it matter... or maybe I am nagging but as it falls on deaf ears it really doesn't count!

The second pic is of a beautiful metal piece of art Col gave me a couple of Christmases ago.. a shoal of metal mackeral, so symbolic for me, the mainstay of my family's income during my childhood..

365/81 An Everyday Sight.

Mmm, not sure what to choose today so you choose your favourite.. both feature several photos and some bits and bibs I have accumulated..

The first is the little area in front of my keyboard, so I guess it is in my sight about eight hours a day..

..there's a wooden frame JB made in school and a tiny paper crane she origamied (if that's a word!) ,

.. a note Kate wrote when learning to write saying 'I love yow mom',

.. a blingy single heart stud,

..some passport and proof school pics of the children

..and a small pic of me and my Dad.. me playing with a banana box aka a cooker.. I love that pic, so rare to have one of my Dad at all and it was such a normal setting, me playing pretend and Dad bending wires for crab pots.

Last but not least is a business card of our American pal Will which he gave us when we met way back when.. 1999 I think! I found it the other day and there is stayed..x

Oh and a hidden fridge magnet which says 'Friday is Casual Sex Day!'... you can see the representation here of our office humour!

The other pic is of our dresser in the sitting room, we walk past it all the time and it is laden with photos.. mostly from when the children were young, but a few newer ones..the fruit bowls and some pot pourri, the growing family of meerkats and general detritis which has to be tidied when I'm on a roll!! At Christmas we swap some of the photo frames for wooden decorations and stuff, a special bit of Christmas.. the net lights stay behind it all year and Ross turns them on now and then when he wants the place to feel cosy..xxx