Preparations under way

The washing’s on the line. The only really important things for our holiday yet to dry are my knee braces.

The Goose Nuggets are in their breadcrumb coats ready for frying up this evening. We’ll use up the carrots as veg to accompany them. Since I last wrote we’ve used up a half tin of tomatoes & 4 eggs.

 I’ve thought a bit about what to do with our fresh oddments. I’ve found a recipe that will use up a fair amount of root veg – the parsnip, swede, & any remaining carrots – I could even add some of the celery. I’ve also looked at my freezer list & discovered some braising steak. Perfect.

Now we are into more important things, like finishing novels that are due back at the library this week. We won’t want to take them with us on holiday. Last year we decided to buy a Kindle for holiday use – neither of us want to read it at home. It just doesn’t have the same feel or smell as a paper book. We’ll take a paper book with us so the other person has something to read. I also buy a puzzle book. I can happily pass my time with searching for words, crosswords, Sudoku, matching pairs, joining dots etc. It’s a holiday, & hospital, indulgence.

And above all resting, while contemplating what to pack. We’re hoping for once to pack only what we need & to not forget anything important. We try to do that every time but don’t always succeed. This time we’re giving ourselves more time to think things out.

Tomorrow Linda, our home help, is coming around. She’s rung to ask if it’s okay if she brings a trainee with her. It seems the trainee is one of those unemployed girls who is obliged to do some work for no pay in order to keep her Jobseekers Allowance. I gather from Linda the agency she works for is eager to take on extra staff permanently if any “trainees” show ability. Fortunately this young person is actually interested in doing care work, so who knows it might turn into a job for her. For once this placement might lead to a job, a sort of extended interview, rather than free labour for a company which will lead to nowhere after the requisite number of weeks.

Getting ready

It’s time to go through the fridge & find out what needs to be used up before we go away. I often do a prawn stir-fry just before we go away as it uses up so many veg. However, this time we seem to have a lot of root veg – parsnips, swedes – not quite the thing for a stir fry. A casserole perhaps? That would leave the pepper, spring onions, celery for the stir-fry. I’ve much to think about. The main thing is not to buy yet more stuff that won’t be completely used up. It’s one thing buying tinned & frozen food – that will be useful for our return – but not fresh or opening half tins.

Meanwhile I’ve rung about my cousin Ann. She remains in hospital. Midweek, they thought they’d cleared the fluid from her lungs & were going to remove the drain the next day. By the next day she’s started to fill up once more. She remains in hospital. The outlook does not look good. We continue to think of her, and her husband, & pray for them both. I'll ring again next week to see how she's doing.

Images of the 1950s

I’m in the midst of doing yet another jigsaw, another compendium one. This time the subject is the 1950s.

Central to the picture is the image of a petrol ration book, dated March 1957. That surprised me as I understood rationing finished in 1954. But was that only food rationing? Or was petrol still in short supply so rationed? Or even was it re-introduced with the Suez crisis in 1956? I certainly don’t remember my father having a ration book although as long as I can remember he did drive. Admittedly we didn’t come back to live in England until autumn/winter 1957 so maybe the rationing had ceased by then. I do, however, remember ration books being issued in the early 1970s when the OPEC crisis occurred and there was a risk of petrol becoming in short supply. However, I don’t think the rationing ever began.

Needless to say the highlight of the 1950s portrayed in this jigsaw is the coronation of the queen. I supposed for us Brits that has to be the abiding memory of the time. For many years I had a handkerchief of the coronation with the royal coach going around the edge. My mother & brother were in England at the time & watched the ceremony on early TV. At that time I was a glint in my mother’s eye. She discovered on that trip that she was pregnant with me.

I was surprised to discover I could still recognise the young Stirling Moss, in a hand-tinted photo, in his racing car. I was a big fan of his in the 1950s – my brother backed Jim Clark.

I boggled even more at the image of people sitting on sands with Tower Bridge in the background. Apparently an artificial beach was put on the Thames in London. I would have thought the water of the Thames was so filthy those days nobody would want to go swimming in it.

I find myself smiling at a little girl in what was obviously a home knitted swimsuit. I can’t help giggling a bit over the Fox’s description of the pair of trunks his mother made for him that stretched all over the place as they got wet. His was clearly not the only mother that knitted swimwear in those days.

I’ve just been doing a bit on Anthony Eden. It had never struck me before what a natty dresser he was. The smart, well-fitted, double-breasted suit just had to him, so much smarter than the suit on Winston Churchill stood next to him, or the one on John Foster Dulles, the American Secretary of State, visiting Downing Street.

How times have changed!

Carnival time

Morecambe carnival did well. Over 30,000 people came & stood to watch the parade go by, undeterred by the gentle rain that fell.

When Linda, our home help, came on Tuesday, she was full of it. Her girls had really enjoyed it. They thought it one of the most exciting things they’d ever experienced in their life.

Linda herself is already getting excited about next year’s carnival. Her sister is a cub leader & the cubs have already decided to put a float in then. Linda, an artistic soul, is going to lend a hand with the decorating of the float.

After hearing all her enthusiasm, I showed her some of the pictures we took of magnificent Bloemencorso, the Aalsmeer flower festival as its colourful floral floats passed through the outskirts of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. 

Here's a few for you to see....
 

Even the police get into the mood

What an eel!

It's getting hard to drive!

Even the dead are getting into the act!

And the not so dead

Linda was really wowed! She’s even beginning to wonder if she could afford to take her girls for a weekend away to see it. Her particular love was the “Swan Lake” float.

"Swan Lake"

and its dancers