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.

Advent and JYC

I put the Christmas wreath on the front door today. I should have done it yesterday because that was the first Sunday in Advent but I forgot.
I have made the covers and the pages for my Journal Your christmas class and tomorrow the first prompt will arrive. I am hoping it will lift my spirits a little. I am not sure why I feel so down in the dumps, perhaps the doctor is right and I am SAD - or did he mean suffering from Seasonal Affected Disorder. My feet are just as bad as ever and my fingers are going through the "let's-be-painful-and-swell-a-lot" stage -- again. so all in all I am not the person you want answering the question "how are you"
My girls continue to delight me. Noisy has decided that she is going to peck her own feathers out so she is still bare chested. Stephanie McQueen has a complete set of feathers and looks beautiful. I am convinced it is because she is so quick the others can't catch her. Mrs Pecky was scared by the fireworks on bonfire night and for three days she laid eggs without shells. She was just beginning to look a bit better and we had the ceremony for turning on the lights. this had a huge firework display so that meant another four days with egg all over the floor of the hen house.
Now I am worried incase she has egg peritonitis. There are no visible symptoms until they drop dead. She is eating well and scratching about when the weather permits.
Oh how they hate the rain. They stand in the sheltered part of the run or they nip across and stand under the table and they droop. The only thing worse so far is the wind. that makes them wander about like those Chinese ladies in the programme "Above the Clouds" or whatever it was called on Channel four about ten years ago.
Tomorrow I am having another go at baking a Christmas fruit loaf. If the yeast will work.

Photo accepted!

I have had a photograph accepted for inclusion in Schmaps latest brochure about the North-East. I took a pic of Warkworth Castle and put it and lots of others onto my Flickr account and then Schmaps contacted me and asked if they could use it in the brochure. I don't get paid or anything but my name - Ladkyis - is there for all to see. I am chuffed to little mint balls and, of course, I get a widget on my blog to take people direct to the website if they so wish.

Pumpkin Pie!

On Sunday Mr M and I were on our own in the house, a rare ocurrence these days but DD and her family took the opportunity to go out visiting so we enjoyed the peace.


It was also a chance for Mr M to sit quitely and doze - his pulled muscle won't let him lie down to sleep so he has been sleeping while sitting at the table.


He had the TV on quietly so I took the opportunity to make a pumpkin pie. I have never made one before so I had scoured tinternet and found several recipes then examined the contents of the larder to see what I had that fitted the recipes. I roasted the pumpkin according to instructions and then pureed the insides - all the seeds and stringy bits went into a mash for my girls, more of that later.


The pie is gorgeous

a little overdone on one side - that's cos the oven is old and tired. We had some with Frank's icecream and it was delish!

Because there was so much pumpkin puree left after making the pie I also made pumpkin and nut bread. This is really a cake and is also delish. I used fresh eggs from my girls to make the pie and the bread and the rest of the pumpkin puree - and there is still about two pounds left - is in the freezer for the next batch of pumpkin baking.

I made up the mash for the girls with the pumpkin seeds and the stringy bits together with the skin and some of the singed bits. I put them through the mincer on the Kenwood Chef along with a cabbage that had been forgotten and a couple of ropey carrots and some bread rolls that were supposed to be for little Miss to take to school only she wanted "proper" bread. I added a drop of water and boiled it all up then when it was cooled I took it down to see if they liked it. They practically ripped the dish out of my hands! so pumpkin is a hit. They also like sunflower seeds. We have some sunflower heads and I cut one off and hung it on the wire of the run, they love it.

Confined to barracks

The girls are confined to the little run because Slurpy showed off on Sunday and flapped her wings so hard she was able to lift herself up onto the roof of the nest box. From there it was a short hop onto the roof of the hen house and a simple step up onto the wall. If it hadn't been for my neighbour pushing her back across then she would have been into their garden and digging up the flower beds.
We have bought more trellis and tomorrow I will fix the chicken wire to it and then get it up onto the roof of the hen house. I can see that my back yard is going to be like fort knox with Slurpy the fly baby and Stephanie the escapologist.
The don't like being kept in the run but they have produced three eggs every day since Sunday so it hasn't put them off.
It was raining so hard today that I was glad I didn't let them out this morning. They would have got wet and cold so quickly because they are still growing their feathers.
I just hope the winter isn't too wet.