General Chat

I remember playing Blow Football Frank.It was good fun.We had lots of decorations up for Xmas.Concertina paper Lanterns with silky tassles on the bottom,paper chains made and argued over by Janice and me lol.Balloons ,and other frilly things.Plus the tree of course.
You won't bore us Frank.
Phew I'm boiling that sun is really very warm and I have been cleaning windows.Have stopped for a bite of lunch now.

Afternoon Everyone.
we have the same weather as you lot down there , what a surprise, lol
a very cold frosty morning, everything all white. but like you Jane that sun coming through the windows is really warm. but if you put your foot outside the back door you can feel the chill.

Wrapped up a couple of christmas presents this morning, I must remember to buy some christmas bags to put them in. Daughter no 2 wants office stationary and storage boxes to put on her desk, they have made my dad's front bedroom into a study, decorated it themselves . and put down the laminate flooring themselves and they have made a good job too. So I have been looking in Ar*os for boxes and baskets, probably will fill them up with pens, pencils ,paper etc.
Got daughter no 2 boyfriend a dressing gown for Christmas as he says it's freezing getting up these mornings to go to work .

off now to get some lunch,I fancy scrambled egg on toast. great to want to eat something instead of a peice of dry toast.
BBL

You certainly don't bore us Frank, nothing could be more boring than my school uniform!!!! I can certainly remember Christmas's where the presents were home made, clothes usually, and the contents of Father Christmas stocking would, today, be chucked straight in the bin!!! but there you go! just after the war there was precious little in the shops in the way of toys, and anything you DID manage to get had to be looked after with great care, as you knew that if it broke or went missing you wouldn't get another!!! Difference too was, that you didn't get presents during the year except your birthday, so you just had to value what you had and look after it!! I remember being given my father's old Hornby train set for Christmas and I was seriously pleased with it, so, for my birthday which is in Jan, I was ALLOWED to choose a new engine for it, and another family member gave me a station to go with it! I really loved that train set (it was wind up) and added to it for years! Probably be worth a lot of money now! My mother gave it to the local hospital when I grew up!!!!

Afternoon all,
Very frosty here too this morning ,and still is were the sun hasn't been .

I remember the little Lanterns at christmas, paper chains and making streamers with crepe paper in different colours.
Also making Calenders at school ,covering a piece of card with pretty paper and hanging the calender at the bottom ,and having a piece of ribbon at the top to hang it up with .

We off to sons for tea tonight ,DIL has cooked a piece of Gammon, so no cooking for me tonight !!
I didn't get round to making my christmas cakes yesterday ,really must get them done this week.

Liz, My birthday is three days before Chirstmas, it is only since I have know Ros 35 years that I have got B'day and xmas presents.!!!! What a lucky boy I am !!!!

Have just poped outside, the sun is realy warm, and you could bake a cake in the conservatory. Just put a dryer full of cloths from the washing machine in there. They will be dry before you can say "Jack Robinson" Where did that saying come from ????

Lucky ol' Mandy. No cooking tonight. Mines all ready. Roast Chicken, Roast Pots, Runner beans, peas carrots, brussels, and Janes favourites BROAD BEANS. Ros is out getting odds and sods. also going to Sainsbu#ys they have Co#e on offer £1.99 for 12 cans. I tend to drink that now I'm off the BOOZE. Ice cold with ice in.

Just had a coffee and biscuits, will last me 'till dinner tonight.

Boring you are NOT Frank. lol My christmasses were like you say Liz. A stocking with a satsuma, nuts and a few coins in the bottom, crayons, chalks, a sugar mouse, pencil sharpener, sweets, a pair of gloves, game where you roll the silver balls in the holes. Lovely because you could only fetch one thing out at a time. Dad made me a dolls house one year with real lights.......I loved that and played for hours with it. There would be one big present, like my doll's pram, then a few small presents. I was told if I broke them that santa would fetch them all back!! Mum wouldn't have anything that needed drawing pins so the only paper chains and garlands were those I helped make at school. We did have homemade snowflakes that were cut out of white paper and stuck on the windows. The christmas tree was a little table one with bottlebrush effect branches each with a red berry at the tip!! lol Lots of tinsel but I don't remember any lights you could switch on. I didn't have those until I got married. I remember making those calendars at school Mel, and making christmas cards and putting glue and glitter on them. Putting glitter on Holly leaves too.

I got myself a thick plum colour R*gatta fleece from a new T J H*ghes shop at Nuneaton.....only £12.99.......ideal for pottering about in. Would you believe it, got home and OH had been up in the loft and found 3 of my anoraks in a box!!!! I had been asking him for months to go up and look for a black one I knew I had........as soon as I go out to buy one, suddenly up he goes and found them. I wouldn't mind, but it was him who put them up there when we had the porch cupboard built in and who couldn't remember where he'd put the box!!!!!! I now have coats coming out of my ears, but nowhere to hang them all. lol, lol

We are off to the cinema soon to see Let Me In......will try my new fleece out as it can be draughty in there. BBL

Frank, our son's B.day is 22nd Dec, like you, we always made a great effort not to combine the two, but it wasn't easy! Ann, do you remember painting fircones, (I've still got a couple in the Xmas decs box), making paper flowers and paper chains, cut the strips and paint them and then glue!!!!! everywhere! even on the cat! I can remember making a Nativity tableau. Mary, Joseph, Shepherds Angels etc, plus two candles at the head of the crib. I was told NOT to light them till Xmas day under supervision. Well, you've guessed it, obedient old me, lit just one, (to test it you understand! )next thing, it fell over, up went the cotton wool, panic or what! so I used the bedroom curtain to put out the flames! the smell, and the state of that curtain!!! I got in to a LOAD of trouble over that, worse than bathing the dog! No wonder they sent me to boarding school! mind you I'm amazed that they kept me there, some of the things we got up to!! Expect they needed the fees, so soon after the war!!!!

I think Frank was just being humerous when he mentioned Rupert Sheila.He was just saying how many things happen around you just like in The Adventures of Rupert Bear stories.

I just realised the Bird Bath has been frozen all day!.Poor little birdies.I must make sure I thaw it in the morning.I had a wander down to the compost earlier this afternoon and the grass was still frosty.Brrrrr!!

Sheila I really must get a new Fairy or something for the top of my tree this year.The one I have is losing all the fluffy stuff that is on it lolIt will be bald soon!!
I'm glad you had a lovely time with your friends.your picnic sounded wonderful lol

wow doesn't it get dark quick , closed curtains tonight just after 4.30.

Frank , I also wondered about that saying "Before you can say Jack Robinson" Who was Jack Robinson if there was such a person.? I had a great Great uncle John(Jack) Robinson (Robinson is my maiden name) he died in 1916 , and is buried in France.

Ann when I was little my dad also made me a dolls house, it was a bunglow because we lived in a bunglow it's whole roof came off and the flowerpots on the window sills were made from plastic hair curlers and had plastic flowers in even had a toilet paper roll in the bathroom , I loved that house, don't know what happened to it, I think mum gave it to one of my older cousins for her kids,

Hi Gang~~~~~~I'm running away but just poped in--
our Xmas tree had small candles you could clip on and we would light

you had to be very careful didn't set the house on fire,--- My doll was either
knitted or made from a wooden bobbing from the jute mill with knitted head&leg's---
an apron made from some odd bit cloth brother could have
sweater made from rattled down man sweater----

must go taken son to Dr------BBL???????/

Hi Shirl ,,things sound a bit crazy there.Good luck with your son at the DRs

I loved my dolls house too.Dad made it all secretly in the garage.What a lovely surprise that Xmas morning.Real lights too like you Fiona.I think the battery was at the back and had a little switch.I used to like to pull the little curtains ,put the lights on and make it all cosy.

I am hoping Hannah will ring later to say how her first day went and what it's like in the rush hour on those tubes!!! I would hate that bit.

Frank I googled the saying "Before you can say Jack Robinson and here 2 of the answers that came up

1
How Did The Expression "Before You Can Say Jack Robinson" Originate?

Jack Robinson was a man in olden days that became well known because of the shortness of his visits when he came to call on his friends, according to Grose, who has looked up the subject very carefully. When the servants at a home where Jack Robinson called went to announce his coming to the host and his assembled guests, it was said that they hardly had time to repeat his name out loud before he would take his departure again. Another man, Halliwell, who has also investigated the development of the expression, thinks that it was derived from the description of a character in an old play, "Jack, Robes on


2
Several possible explanations are cited:
• Supposedly, an English gentleman of the early 19th century named Jack Robinson was a person who changed his mind often, hence a person had to be quick to catch him in a decision.
• Supposedly, in France in the 19th century, an umbrella was known as a Robinson, and when a gentleman needed his umbrella he would call for his servant (inevitably known as Jacques), hence, "Jacques, Robinson!"
• Between 1660 and 1679 the officer commanding the Tower of London was one Sir John Robinson. It may be that the speed of beheading with an axe, may be the basis, Jack being a diminutive form of John.
• Another version is that Sir John (Jack) Robinson, the Constable of the Tower of London, held at the same time a judiciary appointment in the nearby City of London, and could and did condemn a felon in the City, then have him transported to the Tower where he commanded the execution, the whole process being done 'faster than you can say Jack Robinson'.
• John Robinson (1727–1802) was Joint Secretary to the Treasury from 1770 to 1782 and regularly acted as a Government Whip, responsible for organising elections and political patronage; of his reputation for political fixing, Nathaniel Wraxall wrote that "No man in the House knew so much of its original composition, the means by which every individual attained his seat, and, in many instances, how far and through what channels he might prove accessible". Therefore fixing something "faster than you can say 'Jack Robinson'" was very fast indeed.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Robinson_(mythical_person)

There are many other answers to.

My Granny used to make dolls beds out of shoe boxes. She would make a mattress and all the bed clothes, lining the box and adding curtains round the top. She also dressed dolls beautifully even changed a girl teddy into a boy teddy!!! giving him Scottish Trews, Tam O Shanta, tartan shirt and tie, plus a tartan waistcoat! after that I called him 'Dressed Teddy', original eh?!!! She was very clever at sewing, making bedroom slippers out of old hats, altering trousers to childrens shorts, of course turning collars and cuffs sides to middle with the sheets and mending socks and heaven knows what else! never a dull moment! In my Granny's opinion 'Satan found mischief etc etc! Mind you, I think now that she could have been right!!! You remember I said that I had to take THAT sheet back to school? well, it lasted all my time there, as my mother (Granny was dead by now) sides to middled it! rubbing it in I felt!! mind you I wasn't in any position to say anything on that subject! and it would have been more than my life was worth to comment!!!!

My Dollies had beds from shoe boxes too Liz lol.One of my favourite Xmas presents from Father Christmas was a Bassinet.Oh it was so pretty,with lovely frilly lacy materials.Mum must have made that in the evenings when I was in bed.The sewing machine always seemed to be out in those days.I can just about thread a needle and sew a button on lol

Jane I'm the same,just about sew a button on,and that rather badly!!! my Granny, as I've said,was brilliant, my mother was pretty good. (sewing machine on a LOT)she used to do upholstery as well. Me, I'm useless!! Laura,however, is excellent, and makes curtains, puts in zips and all sorts of other things. The one subject she did really well at was needdlework! I was just AWFUL!!! Have just had some piccys on Facebook (I'm not very good at Facebook, I get a bit muddled!!) from Polly, showing her at a competition; Am really pleased to get these. She's given me a 'Daisy badge'?! any ideas?!!!

Thanks for that Fiona, It's just one of those things we say without knowing why.
Most people in life say things, without thinking, but others make a point of saying things just to annoy others. Have you noticed that.

When my children from my first marriage, wanted a wendy house. I couldn't afford one, so went out and bought a 4 foot x 6 foot, sheet of hardboard, loads of 1" x1/2" timber and built it CHRISTMAS EVE after they went to bed, I papered it all out and hung a small battery lamp from the roof. I could hardley get it into the lounge. Then we filled it with their presents. ready for Christmas morning. Another little thing I always did was to leave the central heating on and leave the lights on, on the tree. Christmas Morning they had a few bits to open in bed. Then it was down stairs into the kitchen for breakfast. When we all went into the lounge their little faces would light up.

Here I go again.

Sorry.

I have no Idea what a Daisy Badge is Liz.In fact I am probably as useless as you with Facebook.I only joined it to follow the progress of a young lad blown up in Afghanistan(Izzy's Son) on Chat.
When my two knew I was on FB they were horrified lol.They don't want MUM on there.I even had a message from my son saying "Go away" lolol.How rude !!
I thought of a saying Dad used to say on a night like tonight.
'Tis a braw bricht moonlicht nicht the nicht.

I was also very good at sewing, and mending,darning socks. In the RAF you had to do any jobs like that on your kit. What was the name of the cotton and neddle pack???? I also had a darning "Mushroom" for my socks. back and forward over the hole one way then the other. Some blokes just pulled the hole together and had a big knot in their toes. PAINFUL

Also remember Mum turning the sheets from outside to the middle, all done on an old singer treadle machine. She still had it up to when she died !!!! Must have been over 60 years old but still working.

Liz, Do put us out of our missery, What is a Daisy Badge. is it a rosette.????

Never been on Face book, Lewis goes on there when he's with us, but only reads what people are saying.