What Grandma does to keep a five year old occupied

On Thursday last week I had Miss Em so first we did the project on the CeeBeebees comic

and then we did some baking.

We made special sugar free sultana cake and sugar free chocolate cake for Grandpa and then we made blueberry muffins.

There was a momentary imitation of a headless chicken when I opened the cupboard and discovered that DD had taken all the muffin cases.

I then found the role of greaseproof paper and cut out circles to line the tins. This gave us some interesting shaped muffins but did not detract from the flavour at all - so I am told.

I suddenly realised last week that I have no sense of smell. I did have a good sense of smell until the really bad cold we all had a month or two ago. I think I can smell some things but I am not sure. I couldn't smell the bacon frying when I made bacon butties for lunch and I couldn't smell the "Good country air" that made Mr M's eyes water on Saturday and meant that we had to have all the car windows open for ten miles to get rid of it. I can taste sweet, I can taste salty but flavour totally passes me by.

This is a problem because I automatically sniff the milk before pouring it into the tea and coffee but if it is off I can't smell it and when I drink it I can't taste it I could be in trouble.

As milk doesn't go sour any more it only goes bad I suspect that at some point I am going to get caught and suffer the consequences. I also cannot smell the eggs. Now this is something that I have always done ever since I first was introduced to cookery, probably because we had free range chickens and could not guarantee that the eggs we found under the hedge weren't more than a week or two old. So we learnt to crack the egg and sniff, the rule being that if you could smell it it was off.

Fresh eggs have very little smell, just like fresh milk. Give them a few hours and you begin to smell them but if you get a strong whiff then don't consume.

I hope I get these senses back really soon because I feel quite restricted by their loss. I suppose there is hope as long as I have sweet and salty but isn't it strange that the cold should have done what a lifetime (until 7 years ago) of smoking couldn't stop.

Go for a little ride

Yesterday we popped out to the Post Office and then decided to go "for a little ride. I had not expressed a preference for a destination so we headed out along the M4 and the M48 to Chepstow and then towards Gloucester. "Are we going to stop at the Silver Fox?" I asked. "I need to get some money if we are" Mr M replied so we stopped in Blakeney to use the cash machine and drove on.

Unfortunately the sign didn't say open it said CLOSED. We drove on.

We stopped at the Severn Valley Smokery just for a cuppa but as always, when you get inside there is always something we desperately need. We bought Kalamata Olives some ginger spice cheese, a black bomber cheese for me and a large pork pie for mr M, just incase he was peckish as we travelled. Then we had a delightful cup of tea and coffee. I was very restrained and didn't even look at the pastries and cakes available - sigh.

Mr M then said he thought we would "have another go at finding the church in Miserden. This kind of makes it sound like a big difficult thing and it isn't. We just kind of misplaced it last time we went. This time was much better and we soon were exploring the burial ground looking for his Painter ancestors. from there to Cirencester was a short hop and we made the mistake of going to Waitrose for a bite to eat. it cost £8 something for a cup of tea, a cup of coffee and two bacon buns. The bacon was cold, there was no butter on the buns and they were dry. They are off the list of places to stop, that's for sure. We travelled on. At one point we thought we had strayed onto the motorway but it was ok we had just manged to find a bit of dual carriageway. Lechlade has a great shop, well it has lots of great shops. Small individual traders with good stuff. As we didn't have a responsible adult with us we couldn't go into the book cave or Arkwright's Hardware because thye always have stuff we desperately need.

Chips in Tewkesbury, not bad either and then home via Ross and Monmouth. I love these special days out because it is just the two of us with no TV and no computers to distract. So special. Now all I have to do is put the pages in the scrapbook

No Going Back

"They" tell you that you should never go back. Well, today I went back to the place I grew up from 9 months old to 14 years. I have to tell you it was great!

My Dad built the bungalow and there were so many 'original' features still there. The light switches my mother chose, the airing cupboard doors that didn't shut properly and still don't. The windows that were put in too high up the walls so no one under 6 feet tall can see out. The tiny kitchen that really should be upgraded. All just fabulous. I wasn't sure if I would like it but I did. There were no emotional strings, I am my father's daughter after all, and places and things do not hold my heart strings. Dad always said "Things are just things and can be replaced, places are just places and can be revisited. People, Ah now there's what's important. People can steal your heart and they cannot be replaced your time with them is precious so use it well."

It brought back a few memories that I will put into the memory books and we took a couple of photographs. Miss Em got to see where Grandma lived when she was a small girl - and that thought alone set her seriously thinking. The first time she has really realised that we didn't spring into existence fully formed.

So a learning experience for all of us. Mr M was able to see where I grew up and the people who live there now were able to dredge my memory for information about boundaries and the history of the house.

Well, It made me larf

Someone sent this to me, I just love it!

A boring mundane life

Many years ago (in the 1970s) we lived in a village that had and still has, a great community feeling. There were many, many organisations that met in the village and sometimes it was difficult to fit everything into life. I ran the Girl Guides on Tuesdays; my boys belonged to cubs and scouts on Mondays and Thursdays and I helped out occasionally. My daughter and I were in the Church Choir so that was Wednesday evening and Sunday every week. Once a month there was WI on Wednesday evening (a bit of a rush after choir practice) and there was Young farmers, Village Produce Association, Junior Football, senior football, Rugby club, Cricket Club, Young Wives, Mothers' Union, several darts teams and The Village Hall association (Bingo every week).

I was not a member of Young Wives but I did get roped in to help with the entertainment they put on every year for the Senior Citizens club. This was always in the summer because there was so much else going on around Christmas time. One of the props for one of the sketches was a log that was thick enough for someone to sit on but, theoretically, was small enough to go in the back of a Ford Cortina - the one with the ban the bomb rear lights.
My friend J, who always managed to persuade me to help her had been clothes shopping in the village and when I arrived at her house for lunch before taking the log to the village hall she had several pairs of jeans to try on before making her final choice and returning the unwanted ones to the clothes shop in the High Street. We had pasta and salad for lunch, together with a bottle of sparkling wine and then she tried the first pair of jeans. Someone had said that if your jeans were tight you could lie on the floor and zip them up so J hobbled into the lounge with the jeans around her knees, lay on the floor and tried to get them on. Within seconds I was crying with laughter as she wriggled and twisted. She decided that this particular make of jeans had small sizes and then attempted to get out of them. I was no help because I couldn't pull the bottoms of the legs while standing on the settee because it was soft and I wobbled. Every time I wobbled I laughed and this made me wobble even more. The wine was having a slight effect on my balance too.
Eventually we lay exhausted on the floor the jeans between us and decided that it would be better to take them all back and try again tomorrow when we had more time. We finished a second bottle of sparkling wine - it is thirsty work trying on jeans - and then went outside to put the log in the car. What we found was half a tree! there were twigs and everything. We opened the back doors and began. First I pushed and J pulled then we swapped. Then we sat on the log while we got our breath back - laughing and pushing is hard. Then we both pushed and then we both pulled and then a friend's husband took pity as he walked the dog and he put the log into the car while we held the leash and stopped laughing.
As we were driving to the Village Hall a neighbour stopped us and asked where we were going. We explained and she sighed, "LIfe is so boring and mundane isn't it?" she asked and then stared in amazement as we both shrieked with laughter.
I remembered this story today because I have spent the last two weeks looking after my DGD who has had Rubella (even after her shots and boosters) followed by a tummy upset and now she has Chicken Pox. I mentioned this to a neighbour and she said "Well at least your life is not mundane". I told her the story of the log and she agrees that my life has certainly never been boring or mundane

what to do when your favourite forum is temporarily offline

I am at a loss, Bejeweled Blitz id being upgraded on facebook AND the British-genealogy forum is temporarily down! Two of my must visit places are off limits, what ever will I do?
I'll go to bed and finish reading 'The Return' by Victoria Hislop. This is such a good book I have been so glad that the eczema on my feet is really bad, so painful that I don't even want to stand long enough to make a cup of coffee. This has left me with nothing else to do but sit on the settee and either read or knit and watch TV.
As I have just started knitting a jumper for Mr M. I can tune in to the history channel or Yesterday or Blighty and happily spend an hour or two knitting away and watching stuff like "The Making of Britain" or "The War" this is a really interesting series about WW2 that has been done by the same guy that did the award winning series about the American Civil War. It is really interesting to see the conflict from the viewpoint of the people who stayed at home in America. Perhaps I am odd but this sort of stuff interests me and to hear people talking about their experiences is just so fascinating.
Tomorrow Mr M is taking me to the Post Office so I can post all the books that people have requested on Bookmooch.com and the Circle Journals that I belong to and the parcel of Christmas presents that were put under the table in the corner, ready for DS1 to collect only he didn't get here because of the weather so the presents were forgotten.
The cold weather is not good for eczema - hot weather isn't much better either. I am fed up with the horrible cream stuff I have to put on my feet to soften the eczema and prevent it cracking because none of it works.
No, No, No, I am not going to go down that miserable road tonight. I am taking my book to bed.

Writing letters, sending cards

I love to write letters. Mostly because I like to talk to people when they visit and when they are far away I like to leep them in the loop of the family. Since my dad died in 2004 we - and by this I mean the relatives from my dad's side of the family - have had the occasional family gathering that wasn't a funeral or a wedding. These have been quite well attended and have given the younger members of the family a chance to meet their cousins and get to know them. We have a family newsletter called the Gibbon Gazette. This is used to tell them all about the advances I have been making with the research into the family history.
The tales of our Actors meeting and getting married while working in the theatre have filled several editions and sometimes cousins who live in faraway plaes have sent pictures of their children and grandchildren so that they will be recognised when we eventually meet up.
I love to prepare the edition at Christmas time so that it goes into the envelope with the card and is soon winging its way across the world.
I try to make sure that the Christmas cards are written and ready to go for December 1st. This year I was just a little bit ahead of myself - I have been a day ahead all week - so I happily posted all the cards on Monday and it wasn't until late that night that I realised that they had gone a day early. Now I am waiting for the phone calls to tell me what I have got wrong in the letter. One day someone will write back to me.