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 ;-)

Of Mothers & Mothering..

I have written a lot about this... about my Mum and my eldest daughter and how life came full circle when my first grand daughter was born only ten weeks before my Mum died. 

It was a crazy time for me, we were very busy, had a good deal of family stress going on with Colin having back surgery and his folks coming up to their Golden Wedding... it was hard to stand still for long and always something to plan or organise..but also people to care for and that could not be rushed.

I came to scrapbooking in that year, 2008, when Mum  had gone into a residential care home and I was keen to utilise some of the space I gained for myself and not just let life in general suck up the moments I would have been caring for her.  I think maybe the moment was then, for those few years when I felt the change in my family position most strongly, becoming the grown-up, making the decisions and having to be the one who 'knew', that I really appreciated the reflective moments making layouts of the photos which caught moments in what I felt was a lovely life.

When Lilly was small Lisa came over one evening and Kate and her pals, aged about 11 asked Lisa how she knew what to do with a baby, was there a book or something?
Lisa told them there was no book.. 'but I can always ask my Mum', and I really liked that.. whatever differences you have between you now and then, you know that you want to try and be how your Mum was..


and I can feel myself being just like my Mum sometimes.. and not always in a good way... 

..when I fuss about the kids doing up their coat or tucking in their shirt!

..when I make them cringe by telling them I love them..

.. when I try to smooth things over when they give each other a sharp retort

.. and when I get a book out to answer a question long long after they got a 3 word answer from Mr Google!

Love you Mum.. and I see you every time that cloud breaks and shows me a silver lining..xx

Family : Resemblances

You know how it is when you catch your reflection in the mirror and it's your Mum? Or when you hear words coming out of your mouth and they have been said to you a generation before?  I even 'feel' like I imagine my Mum felt, when I do up the baby's coat or put on their shoes etc.

I first noticed the resemblance as a teenager when I was drying my hair and my dressing table had those extra mirrors at the sides, not directly looking in the mirror, you know the way.

This is a picture I took for the no-make up Facebook thing which has been going around.. and one of my Mum..

December Daily : Day 16

So when my Mum was widowed at the age of 44 my godmother, one of Dad's cousins was a good friend to her and as my brother married soon after it meant I had two grown up ladies to hang out with.

On special occasions..I guess probably winter evenings close to Christmas they played Jim Reeves records and had a few drinks..often a Dubonnet and Lime (urghh) or maybe  port. I was sometimes allowed one too.. a lot more lime than Dubonnet.

So when I have a port and bitter lemon I always think of Mum..she would love one too..xxx

West of Hayle River..1 of 5

Well I thought I'd show willing and be amongst the first to share some of my 5 things you may not know about me..  but as you may expect I will make the fact which is actually quite simple into rather a ramble..

I was born in Redruth! 

There , I said it.. I am not proud of it, but the fact remains and I cannot lie!

There is a great book about the far west of Cornwall called 'West of Hayle River' and it says that in some people's opinion you are not truly Cornish unless you were born 'west of Hayle River' ... I quietly tend to agree but then on the same hand disagree as it makes me not eligible!  But proudly I can announce that all my children are.. just!

I grew up, the formative first thirteen years of my life, in my special special place, a fishing cove way out west, decidedly Cornish by this definition.  But in 1960 the nearest maternity ward was in Redruth Hospital. It must have been a busy place as ladies came from as far apart as Newquay, the Lizard and Land's End, in fact Mum made a lifelong friend in one of the ladies, Hazel Broad of Manaccan, she had a son the day after Mum had me... and hey, they discovered that they also had wedding anniversaries on consecutive days..in December about nine months before we were born!

It must have been a trek to visit as well, about 25 miles each way. Dad didn't drive but I guess with the goodwill of friends visited Mum for three evenings after the Wednesday (when her waters broke after a short sharp shock of an iron burn on her arm my Godmother suspected) with no baby appearing, until eventually on a Saturday night he got a call just when he got home to say I was in the world! They say he didn't see me awake for a week until they brought me home, but seems he heard me then pretty good! 

Mums and babies were transferred after delivery to a maternity ward for a few days, Mum told me that they were in a room where they climbed out through a window and handed babies out afterwards, to get to the ambulance which took them.  Not sure why, maybe it was to short circuit the trip through the hospital?
Redruth for those of you who don't know is a more industrial town in our area, the kind of place which suffered a lot of depression in the years when trendy towns were booming and good old fashioned moning and industry was being replaced by service jobs..  the kind of place they joke about having a million pounds worth of improvements after the recent floods..or where they had a proposal for development, bulldoze a local peak called Carn Brea into the town and raise it to the ground!  so you can imagine thta it does grate rather to say that technically I was born there whilst feeling I really 'belonged' and grew up in a picturesque fishin cove.. but hey, fifty-few years later I can live with it... (the hospital is gone now, new housing sits teasingly where the grey dull building once taunted me.. )

Chasing my tail..Views and Laughs

Where did that week go.. STS was busy and I was running about with all kinds of family stuff..

Kate got herself a place for college next year, she is going to do beauty but may venture into Travel & Tourism later if she wants to go travel and work..ahh it all comes eventually. And of course we had to go do a bit of shopping afterwards.. 

Ross went to London on a school trip, he does good on these as he is the 'cool teacher' guy the kids like to have accompany them.  Yesterday I had the girls for Lisa to reorganise things at their house, little Lyla is still under the weather two weeks on from the start. She is perking up a bit but it's never easy having a babe that is poorly.

Col goes away for a few days next week but will manage tea with Zac tomorrow so that makes it seem much less like a trial!  He is sorting his van now while I write and we are going to have an hour in st Ives with a bite to eat to make the 'day before he goes' nicer.

I am so far back on the photos, I even forgot that I usually do a Mount view, but who knows, that may come later today..here for good measure are two of my owings..

Window view... can you see what I can see? Yes, a cement mixer just outside.. and you know what that means..

Ding dong the porch is dead! never to be seen again, our blimp on the back of our house is gone!  The builders are great , the concrete for the slab goes in this week and then some scaffolding up to allow them to work all weathers..haha, maybe that will give us good weather for six weeks because we are expecting rain to stop play!

If you compare the yard pictures you can also see the hard work Ross and his mate are putting into the trees and hedges, we are pretty overdue for a tidy up after ten years of letting everything just grow away..



Anne has challenged us to share some laughs this week..nice to lift the mood and share the things which tweak our own funny bones. 

When I think of laughs I had as a kid I remember being in a cafe in Babbacombe with my Mum, on a holiday staying at a B&B in Torquay. (I realise now that Mum must have worked hard, not only to save the money but to actually take a ten year old who was in between playing with dolls and being a teen on a week's holiday to the English Riviera in 1970!)

Well Mum, being a fisherman's widow knew there was rain coming before long so we headed for a cafe., and rain it did, stair-rods rain, you know the type. We sat and drank tea, watching the less weather-wise rush to get cover. One lady, I guess she was quite old, couldn't walk down the big stone steps with a flourish, she had to go one step at a time, you know, the way little old ladies do sometimes.. but imagine watching her do it, in a rush, as fast as she could to avoid the downpour which was well under way, one foot on step, next foot joins it, next step, next foot joins it.. sad but oh so funny when Mum and I realised we were both watching her.. we cried laughing but I think we didn't miss the point Mum said, that one day it would be her who would take those steps one at a time..awhh, we used to remind each other of it as the years went by.. lovely memories..

 As you know we love stand-up comedy and over the years we have seen lots of the more popular acts doing the circuit. With Dave showing Live at the Apollo almost on a loop and so many television shows having snippets of different routines there are some phrases which as a family we use now on a daily basis! 

Micky Flanagan does a piece about telling the careers teacher he wanted to drive a van.. to be told .. 'nah, no-one from this school ever left to drive a van, this school supplies people to carry stuff to the van...'  Col says this was like his school on the Wirral in the late 70's.

We love all his stuff about dating in the 80's, I guess because we were there...'if a girl wants a wine glass with a bed of lettuce with prawns on top, served with the sauce of a thousand island, then that's what she will get..a prawn cocktail'

I have tried to find a Micky Flanagan video you might like, but most of them include maybe bits you would cringe at.. so here is another classic sketch from Rhod Gilbert..we never tire of this story..he has ways of relating a story about the mundane and making it hilarious.

... oh and as I browse youtube, I just have to share this, Rhod Gilbert did 'Work Experience' as a farmer.. will surely appeal to Janice way up there on her farm..

... and lastly here is my Mount view for March, nice to see some people out and about.. and the pockets of blue sky..

Affairs of the Heart...vintage Valentines

It's my week at Lucky Snapping Over here and I have been lucky enough not to have duplicated anyone else's ideas, it was always a gamble to talk about Valentine's and all things hearty and flowery on week three of February!  But don't worry, as the week progresses I do have some extra ideas beyond the 14th February but wanted to see what everyone thinks first!


Sisters in 1969, in their mid-40's



I have an old story about a secret Valentine. 

 Way back in about 1944 my Dad would have been about 22 and serving with the Royal Navy in the second war. He was courting my Mum, a few years younger, who lived in the village about three miles away. They would be married in 1946.  Now my Mum had an older sister Edna, a brusque busy kind of woman even then, quite formidable to me as an Aunt in the years to come and I guess similar in her ways as a young woman. 

 

She wasn't a very relaxed kind of girl and as far as I know she wasn't really interested in boys, or they in her I imagine, though I may be doing her a great disservice here.
Mum told me that she and Dad used to meet for a walk down the country lanes after Chapel on a Sunday evening and often went along with other couples like Gary and Betty, Mum's oldest friend from school.  They used to keep it quiet and 'don't let Edna know' because she would tell their Mum... ahhh,  life was so risquee in those days don't you think! ;-)

Edna never married and was a stalwart of the village, especially the Methodist Church and the school where she was a caretaker in later years.  I was only talking with Colin about her yesterday and how Mum only knew of perhaps one possible suitor, but somehow that wasn't right, one of them wasn't good enough for the other....or something, the kind of things which bothered people in those days.  I think he may have been a minister's son, or maybe she once 'held a torch' for a minister's son, either way she would have made a great preacher's wife, after all she was kind of married to the Chapel in her own way in any case. 
 
Are you getting a feel of Walton's mountain here, all Mrs Godsey and all that?

In later years she cared for my Gran and kept busy with all kinds of village relationships through the chapel or WI and several part-time jobs working for old people she once worked on the farms for.

Well one Valentine's Day Aunt Edna received a small envelope. Inside was a matchbox with (I think) a heart drawn on a piece of paper, or maybe a note, I'm not sure.   Amazingly the postmark was smudged so she had no idea where the package had originated. Well it was the subject of much discussion, and I am sure even for a 'spinster of the parish' a fair bit of excitement in a world scarred with the War Years.

Well Aunt Edna never knew who had sent the Valentine's token.... not until many years later, the late 60's around the time my dad died, did she find out he had sent it down from Scotland when he was being posted there for trips to Iceland. It must have been quite a lot of fun for him, mum and probably the people around them to see her so bemused as to the origins.

Not quite the big deal Valentine's tease we get these days, but just as effective.

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.)

365/362-3 Special - something I'd change..

Mmm, well it's been like a holiday..well a holiday where you get lots of R&R. We are not known for getting ourselves out of bed early, and with late nights too we have been living a midday to midnight life the past few days.  Not lots to report, just enjoyable lazy days with or without a houseful of various family.   Lovely evening Friday night with a niece and her family, really great, want to do more of that!

I had the children for a bit on Thursday and the docs checked on no3 who is still breech but they are going to try and turn 'it' on New Year's Eve...mm, not an area of my expertise but worth a try to avoid a caesarian they think...if it works she is just back to normal plans for delivery and after two fairly easy ones that would be nice..we will see..

Col's brother arrives for a few hours later Saturday so that will be just right, not amongst the hubbub of young children and some time to just catch up...oh and make a big curry!

Special..this picture a cousin sent me over the holiday, she thought I might like it.. sure do..

it is of my Mum at St Levan sports Day back in 2003. She is third from the left, in the grey lurex type trouser suit (ahhh don't you ove Daxon). I can see her hand movements and imagine her talking about something and listening to Penny next to her (who grew up with my brother) and her Mum Val (on the left)   Gill's Mum Auntie Jean is quietly watching and listening to my Mum, obviously on local catch-up mode!  Funny really as Val, Mum & Jean are the mothers of my core bunch of pals as a kid..we were cousins but may as well have been first close cousins as we spent so much time together..

.....ummmmmm. something I'd change...

Funny really as in life we seem to spend quite a bit of time wishing things were different.. the days sunnier, the weeks longer or the pounds easier to lose!  But then you are asked the question...ummmm...probably for me the amount of time it will take to make my extension, the mud and upheaval..the digger, the skip, the blocks, the days rained off, the choosing of windows and doors and the just watching wishing it would be all done and I could be sitting in there in the summer evening sun...

.. I just asked Zac and our biggest moan in our lives is .. 'the weather'!!!

 swap some of this...





for more of this....xxx

365/349-51 health-blanket-wealth

Well despite my good intentions here I am on catch up again.. but I have been following the trail and sneaking a peek at everyone's blogs even if I haven't managed to comment!  Good on everyone for their efforts, I feel kind of flawed in that I didn't join 365+1 until about day 20 but I think it would be wierd to play catch up now.. (and to be fair I was retrospectively blogging our holiday well into January)

So.. what's new here.. well the health of us all is okay now.. Kate is on recovery mode and will be back at school tomorrow but she has been laid low a bit, sore neck and not much appetite, but no more sickness and hopefully we contained it! (she didn't move off the sofa all day Thurs / Friday so no worries she was trailing it around the house.. that girl knows how to do 'sick' but at least once she is better she gets bored and is up pretty soon!)

I don't have pics of the health or the blanket on the day but here is our Lilly modelling the blanket one day a while back!

April and I were on tidy mode Friday so I have been having a great positive feeling about the forthcoming weeks. It is so nice to have the kids grown up, they all seem to pitch in with plans and chores and getting great gifts for each other, and with JB baking too my pre-Christmas suddenly got a lot more of a group activity than a trial for me alone and then the feelings of martyrdom that used to accompany it! (but none of that, it is for years gone past!)

I have missed the input of our Mums a lot in recent years but now having almost grown women about again, even if that makes me the elder, it is .. all good..xx

 

Saturday was a lazy day, Col in recovery after the long week driving and visiting customers. I was due out in the evening and as everyone was out I languished in a long bath.  JB's chap was part of a group singing the Messiah in Penzance so we went along to watch. It was quite long but lovely, though church seats have not got any more comfortable since I went as a child!  I whispered half way through that at this point my Mum would produce some sweets to make the time pass a little., so Jordan put her hand out.. another time when I realised I am failing in some of the 'Mum' duties my Mum was so reliable for! ;-)

Today we went for lunch in St Ives, Jordan was working so we went there, I had a gorgeous cauli and cheddar soup, full of cheese and milk, somewhat different to my curried cauli soup handed down from his Mum's days at WeightWatchers!

St  Ives was gorgeous as usual, a host of independant and very tasteful shops, though fairly expensive too.. a reflection of the wealth it enjoys and attracts.

the Porthminster Hotel used to have a dreary car park opposite and this is the underground car parking with Spa they have built in its place.. you wouldn't believe they could use the space so well.

 

 And tonight was a wealth of Christmasness for me and the start to our official Christmas week.. carols at St Levan, abley (sp?) organised by Lynne and her posse. I loved being there, seeing so many people I knew and chatted with someone I was at primary with, we laughed and agreed we were still really twenty five years old.. or was that ten!?  I told her about the blog and how I always think of the first (of two) times I ever sat on a horse.. it was her pony and I was about nine.. I never did get the whole pony thing!

The church was lit with candles and fairy lights and we stayed behind a while for mulled wine and snacks. Ross and the others ended up planning a festive get-together in the next few weeks and I came away with a feeling that in the plan of things, in the plan of making sure family traditions and links are secured 'my work is done'.

.. for good measure a healthy looking Ross & April buying into my Christmas magical mystery tour!

365/314-6 Ponder..warm..memories.

Hi.. me again! Just playing a minor catch up. I could post three times and pretend they are daily entries but hey.. I even think the three words work well together as a phrase which fits well to today and this special time of year when we remember all those we have lost, not only the soldiers in the wars.

So, to recap.. Friday.. poor Col, a tough few days driving and spending time with customers, then a day in the office fighting proverbial fires on the technical front as is the case when you make bespoke units from concept to delivery in about 16 weeks!.. he was quite worn out by the end of the day and was in need of a gin or two!  We have been dieting a bit (well eating a lot less bread, very few cakes and loads less wine and chocolates..yes, eating normally!) the last few weeks with some decent results, and me playing teen taxi also helps us drink less of an evening.. but on Fridays we usually do start the evening with something relaxing!

As you know Jen, Anne and I have been pondering the details of the challenge for next year and we know one of the weekly photos will be a view, so we can see how it grows and changes over the seasons.  I plan to use a view across the field at the bottom of our yard, Col has plans to build a new workshop / shed there so he says the view may not be improved, so i hope to include ths ite and some vegetation to help show the seasons..

BUT my main picture will be of my view across Porthcurno bay.  I have often taken the shot from the top of the hill (just by the place where we had outr wedding meal, the hotel is now holiday lets and one of those flats is on my personal 'Iwantoneofthose' lists!

I chatted to the rest of the family about it (the image I should choose, sadly not about buying a holiday let!) and we agreed that we do get up there, about ten miles away, every month or so and the view will change with sea state and tide, as well as the light quality..and what better excuse to get out there for a walk every few weeks. (It is close to where my M&D are buried so it is a cause for visiting most months in any case, what with special days to remember for them throughout the year)



My view for 2013



So, today I went with Ross & April and another of their pals and we did an extended walk there, not very long, but more than the usual trip.. across the top of the beach, up the steps to the Minack, refreshment break and then onwards along to Porthchapel and up to church and back along the road.  It was fab.. great weather, huge waves, sunshine and a great topping of the usual nostalgia..and they all indulged me so kindly! Crazy old lady!

We decided a view from the top of the beach would give us vegetation in the picture to show the seasons too.. I can't see me using only one of these views!  This is the view over the next headland as you walk from the Minack towards PorthChapel, the seas were huge and as it was almost high tide we didn't get down on the beach..



Porthchapel beach

Yesterday I went to town, got my nails done, a vain attempt to make my scuffed up hands tidy for the Christmas season, and did some bits & bobs for stockings.. yes, they still have all those fillers even at 15 to 26 years old!  But it is great having the young ones to buy for, all those Dot to Dot books and stuff..

Later the girls came over so JB could babysit as we went to Truro with M&D to see Greg Davies (the headmaster form the Inbetweeners) do his stand-up show.  We ate first and the show was really good, a full house and he clearly enjoys and is amused by the whole thing he does..xx 

Lilly was very happy with her new jumper and this duck which Dom helped her make a shiny foil helmet for.. but she made me promise to 'fix the red-eye' before I posted this.. Lilly in her warm new fleece.

I just love those fleece jamas too, she loves them because they are more boyish and have dinosaurs!

Memories always feature heavily whenever we drive to the west of Penzance, especially so when we get close to the sea. It's amazing how replenished I feel being there, it's as if the sea is a link to the life we had as kids, as if the same sea touched my family all those years ago..

.. I also loved this shot of the sky as we drove away, towards Sennen, I always love when the sun peeks through the sky, like someone somewhere is saying Hi..

.. it was Mum's birthday last week, she would have been 87. Every day I hear myself say something or I feel something which makes me understand better the way she was..

This is an old layout I did of the Minack which kind of says it all really...

365/297-8 B&W Family Portrait & free choice

Well this will take a bit of nostalgia. This is my Dad's Dad and his brother Uncle Fred, at the crabpot pit in Penberth where the grand work of making withey crabpots went on in the bad weather months ready for the summer crabbing. 

The men in my Dad's line were all called Thomas Thomas, but they had different middle names. Dad was Thomas Gordon, his Dad was Thomas Henry and his dad was Thomas Botterell. In the family dad was called 'Boy Tommy', his dad was 'Father Tommy' and his dad 'Granfer Tommy'... oh such great imagination! 

Neither my Mum or my brother's children have kept it on, no baby Tommy Thomas's since the 1920's., but I have snuck it into Ross' name and my neice has a son Thomas with her married surname. I always fancied Tamsin as the Cornish derivative for a girl but it didn't happen.

Uncle Fred was married to a lovely lady Auntie Elsie who was like a Gran to me, lived up the road, always had time for me and I think she had been a teacher (she was from Northumberland originally, not that that would denote her being a teacher!) and taught me lots of things. You can see a great picture of her here.

My brother tells me Fred loved the ladies, not in a bad way, but if they were going to sea and he was late it was probably because he had stopped several times on the way down cove from his house (about 200 yards) to chat to one of the ladies out doing her chores, putting out washing or something.   They didn't have their own children so were our favourite aunt and uncle really.

I loved him and called a teddy I had after him. I was also impressed to have an Uncle Fred, the same as Teddy Bear from the comics, who had a threadbare Uncle FredBear who always wore tatty clothes but had big cars in his garage!

This is my free choice B&W to keep in the theme. A portrait of my Mum, probably in her late teens, early twenties.  I found lots of these type pictures in her and my auntie's stuff. I guess in those days, like now, it was the thing to go get your photos taken.

 

..and just to see how my dad was around the same time, him and some of his Navy pals, about 1943-5.

Sometimes I try to imagine what courtship was like then. They only lived three miles apart but she heard he was home from sea (during the War) from someone on the bus as she travelled home from work.. so the next time you'buse your mobile or the internet, think on the 40's

Night everyone!

365/282 Overgrown.

There's only one picture I need to show you today (well maybe two).. our house about 15 and half years ago when we first caught sight of it.  We had in mind to buy a place with Col's folks so we could have more space and they could grow old with us, after they had helped us raise the family of course!  I spotted the place in the paper, it was in a village five miles from where we then lived, but not somewhere I knew very well.  We couldn't believe our luck that whilst being on the outskirts of a village (perfect for the social side of things for the oldies) it was also not way down a lane in the middle of nowhere..

My Mum lived near us and came in on it too, probably just as well, I may have been driving to and fro to hers for the next ten years otherwise, and she was an integral part of what we were doing.  She and Col's folks were going to have new accomodation in converted barns and stuff and we were going to live in the house.. we all moved into a 4 bedroom bungalow for ten weeks until the house was gutted and made just about liveable .. oh and the two caravans were ready for the elders to settle into!  What great sports they were, settled into it pretty well but Col's Mum did let on in later years that she and my Mum often sat and wondered out loud if we knew what we were doing!

I just loved the garden, it was overgrown and real old fashioned, little pathways and very mature bushes... oh and ivy a foot deep on the walls and trees with roots pushing up inside the floors.   My heart wanted to maintain it all, cut it back and nurture it but we had five kids under 12 and over the years I understood that making things easy to manage is sometimes the most aesthically pleasing option after all... and the rose bushes were so mature the thorns were an inch ong, not great for kids Hide & Seek!

The place probably looked its best in 2008 when Col's folks had their Golden Wedding and we were sporting a new roof and a grit blasted front...not quite so romantic a look but way less bugs from the ivy and the rooms weren't dark from foliage at the windows! But the monkey tree still stands as you know!

Sad when you think of how our lives have changed since then, but the memories of late nights outside with fires in the barbecues and children playing in building sand and wheelbarrows while we made houses for our Mums, it was all worth it and despite what I sometimes say.. I do realise how much we have done since we saw the lost garden and house above in 1997!