Christmas Is Coming

“Christmas is coming and the geese are getting fat
Please put a penny in the old man’s hat;
If you haven’t got a penny a ha’penny will do,
If you haven’t got a ha’penny then God bless you!”
Nursery rhyme and Christmas carol (frequently sung as a round)

When I was growing up in London following the end of WW2 we always had goose for Christmas dinner.  Not for us a turkey.  In fact, I don’t ever remember having turkey at home until long after I was married.  Quite late on Christma Eve father would go to the market and buy a goose.  They, of course, were reduced at this time so that’s when he went.

Later, after moving to New Zealand with my DYS (Dashing Young Scotsman), I remember a particular Christmas at home with my family.   By this time, the late 60s, goose had been superseded by turkey and Father in company of his son-in-law, took off as usual to purchase the bird.  Well, these two men purchased the bird and then in a festive mood did a round of various pubs on the way home.

When they did eventually arrive home, much later than expected by Mother for dinner, they were without the bird.  It had been left in one of the hostelries they had visited.  Mother was less than pleased, she didn’t drink and didn’t think it was at all funny.  I had to decide whose side I was on and while secretly siding with Father and DYS I nodded assent and support to Mother.

Some time later, and rather more merrier I might say, they arrived home complete with bird.  Mother was placated, a late dinner was served and much laughter followed  And the story of the bird was told on many Christmases that followed.

What happy memories.

And now, did you know?

• Clement Moore’s 1823 poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” was the catalyst for the reinvention of St Nicholas into the jolly, fat image of Santa we now know?
• Also invented by Moore, Santa’s travels are invariably connected to reindeer.  In the poem, they are pictured charging through a winter sky complete with strong, elaborate horns.  But in winter reindeer lose their horns so are Santa’s reindeer all female or are they castrated males?
• Moore omitted to tell us that St Nicholas was Turkish.  He was real and was born in Patara, Turkey.  He was an early Christian and in the 4th Century, he became bishop of the district of Demre where some of his bones can still be visited.  Little fact is known of him, only oral legends relating to his goodness and kindness to children.
• Another poem, this one by Frank Baum (who wrote The Wizard of Oz) told that Santa lived in a valley called Ho Ho Ho.  American marketers quickly picked up on the poem and Ho Ho Ho became Santa brand’s catch cry.
• The song Jingle Bells never mentions Christmas and has no connection to Christmas.  It was originally composed for America’s Thanksgiving festival in 1857.
• Nobody knows when Jesus was born or died. For many centuries people in the northern hemisphere celebrated the winter solstice, the shortest day and the turning point in the long, often hard, cold winter.  Some 300 years after Jesus’ (guessed at) death date, Pope Julius I announced that 25th December would be the date to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  As Christianity spread around the world, this date took over the existing festivities and became “Christmas”.  The word Christmas didn’t come into being until 1032 AD.
• The bible doesn’t say that three kings visited the baby Jesus but refers to “Wise men from the east”.  They may well have been astronomers (they did follow a star) or Zoroastrian priests and the fact that the three gifts, Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh are mentioned is the possible basis for assuming there were three visitors.
• And the gifts they brought.  Gold and Frankincense would be acceptable but in ancient times Myrrh was very expensive and used in embalming dead bodies and was burned at funerals to disguise the smell of bodies that hadn’t been embalmed.  Why would it be brought to a newborn child?
• And everybody’s favourite – Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”.  There have been 14 versions of this story.
• Four Calling Birds in the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.  Originally it was four colly birds, colly being the ancient word for black (as in collier and coal) so colly birds were blackbirds.  As time went by colly fell out of use and didn’t make sense so people started saying four calling birds.  This doesn’t make sense either.
• Decorated evergreen trees have been part of December celebrations in Europe for many centuries reminding everyone that spring is just around the corner.  The decorated Christmas tree became accepted in the UK when Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the children were depicted in the “Illustrated London News” standing around a lavishly decorated Christmas tree.
• The use of X as in Xmas is not at all invalid or disrespectful.  The word Christ was never part of Jesus’ name, it is a title assigned by later worshippers in Greek meaning ‘the anointed one’.  In ancient Greece, the letter chi was written with a symbol very like an X and the title assigned to Jesus was Xristos and was frequently abbreviated to just X.  So writing Christmas as Xmas has been considered acceptable for some 1000 years.  Note early publications were charged by the number of letters so using X in Xmas was encouraged.
• The wassail ritual was an ancient pre-Christian custom of drinking a toast to the sun after the northern mid-winter approximately 25 December and hopes for a bountiful harvest in the coming warmer months. Hence the song ‘Here we come a-wassailing’ was a gathering of friends drinking a toast.  “Waes Hael” in ancient English means “Be healthy” and the usual drink was a mixture of spices, apple juice and eggs.  (Give me a G&T any time).
• Christmas was cancelled in England in the 1640s when Puritan law forbade churches to open on Christmas Day and banned home decorations, celebrations, carol singing and the creating of Nativity scenes.  December 25 was declared a day of everyday work and fasting.  The outraged populace made Christmas observances in secret until the Monarchy was restored in 1660 and King Charles II restored Christmas.
• And finally, a horse named Santa Claus won the Epsom Derby in 1964.

So there you have my list – as my son always says I have a fund of useless information.  Enjoy it anyway.

 

 

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It’s My Birthday and…

Well, how did I get to be this old?  I think somebody has deleted several decades of my life.  However…

The first email I opened this morning was from LondonWlogger who took me back a lifetime, to a time growing up in London when this area was the playground of three young girls.

We passed this on our way to and from school each day.  Did we really understand or appreciate how magical it was to have such a beauty in the middle of a built-up, town area?  I think not.

The Lea Valley, once a transport river busy with horse-drawn barges and later motorised barges.  It was an industrial area and supplied water for London, sand and gravel.  Now its a lazy, gentle river offering leisure boating.

 

Springfield Park where three little girls were taken by their mother most afternoons after school.  We lived in an apartment building with no green space to play on.  Many happy memories here.  I wonder if my sisters remember the cave where we played for many hours in the sunshine.

Thank you, Stu, at Wlogger for this post.

So now moving on some 60 plus years, I am sitting in Wellington New Zealand in the sunshine and losing myself in so many happy memories of a childhood spent surrounded by love and these beautiful bits of nature in a busy, busy, noisy city.

Off now, to get ready.  My son and daughter-in-law are coming to take me to lunch and then later, I shall have dinner with my daughter, her eldest son and his girlfriend.  How lucky am I?

NOTE:   All photos taken by London Wlogger. © Copyright 2017.  

 

Nostalgia

“Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson:  you find the present tense, but the past perfect! ”
Owens Lee Pomeroy

You have no doubt read about my growing up in the East End of London, during and following the Second World War, and today I am filled with nostalgia for some of the things we had then.

Mother didn’t go to the supermarket for her weekly shopping.  She went to the butcher, the baker, the greengrocer and the grocers for butter cheese etc.  Butter and cheese were cut to order from a large slab that rested on a marble counter.  Cheese was sliced with a wire and butter cut with butter pats.

Model in Nottingham Museum

We were always amazed at the skill of the person cutting the cheese or butter at how close they came to the amount requested.

The shopping was carried in bags and baskets – no plastic bags available then – and taken home to be put away in the larder.  And growing up there were no refrigerators in houses, at least not in any houses near where we lived.

Milk delivered every morning

Milk was delivered to the door in bottles.  These were washed and returned to the milkman the next day; so were our parents engaging in recycling without being aware of it.  In May last year, I wrote about recycling and how we and our parents recycled things without even knowing that was what we were doing  – That Green Thing.  There was no choice; it’s just how it was.

So back to the nostalgia.  Yesterday I was in a local store and espied a butter dish.  This took me way back to my early years.  The butter was brought home from the store in greaseproof paper and immediately transferred to a butter dish.  The one I saw was so like Mother’s that I just had to buy it.

I remembered how on Sundays three little girls would be taken by their Mother to the local sweet shop to choose how they would spend their 20z ration of sweets.  The sweets had to last the whole week.  Having chosen the sweets were then taken home and put into the sweet jar from where we were allowed one sweet after dinner each night and an extra one after lunch at the weekend.  Not for us the extravagance of a whole chocolate bar or bag of sweets.

Inside a typical 1940s and 1950s sweet shop, where most sweets were weighed out for each customer from large glass jars. Photo courtesy of Send and Ripley History Society.

When my children were small I carried on the tradition of the sweet jar; one candy/sweet after dinner each night and an extra one at lunchtime at the weekend.

When Father returned from the war, he would use his sweet ration to buy a Mars Bar.  He would take it home and proceed to cut it into slices to share with his girls.  For years I thought this was the only way to eat a Mars Bar.  And I did the same with my children when they were small.  It certainly made a chocolate bar go far.

Now if I want to I can eat a whole Mars Bar but I always slice it up first.  Isn’t it amazing how things we learned when we were young stay with us through life.

And then after the war when I was a little older I met a young man who was always buying me presents.  How lucky can a girl get?  Perfume, candies, pretty scarves and one day some Max Factor Top Secret.  Do any of you remember this product?  It was the early runner for today’s hair lacquer and we loved it. I remembered it during my walk down memory lane today.  How innocent we all were.

We didn’t have a car when I was young and so we walked, took a bus or the tube (London Underground) to wherever we were going.  Buses were frequent but we always had a fairly long walk to get to the bus stop – well the walk seemed long to young girls.  As a really small girl,  I thought a trip on the tube was the height of excitement.  To get to the ‘local’ tube station we had to walk through the local park AKA London Fields, then take a double-decker red London bus for a short ride to the underground station.  We thought nothing of a half hour trip just to get to the tube.  And later, when I had left school and taken my first job, this trip was done morning and evening each day.

 

What will you leave behind?

“What you leave behind is not
what is engraved in stone monuments,
but what is woven into the lives of others.”
Pericles – Ancient Greek Politician, General and Statesman
495 BC-429 BC

I started blogging on March 1 2011 and for the next 365 days (with one or two exceptions) and well into 2012, I wrote a post daily.  My intention was to leave something for my grandsons after I have left this world.  They would hopefully then, get an insight into their grandmother’s thoughts and experiences through my writing.

I have written about growing up in London during the Second World War.  How could they be expected to understand this part of my life if I didn’t tell them about it?  And they needed to be told about the loving family in which I grew up.  Little money, no luxuries but so much love to spread around.  I cherish those memories and hope that I have passed them on to my children and their children.

I have told about the close relationship I have always enjoyed with my two sisters, even though one lives in London, England and the other in Los Angeles, California.  With my living in Wellington, New Zealand could we live further away from each other if we had planned it?  I told how we used to keep in contact through letters and the occasional (very expensive) phone call.  Now of course, since the internet, communication is mostly via email.

In another post I told about my wonderful Father and his influence on my life.  How he supported his three daughters telling them they could be and do anything they chose.  How this filled us with self confidence that has stood us in great stead over the years.  In fact, because of this grounding I have been able to do so many things over my life.

I have written about meeting my DYS (dashing young Scotsman) when I was 19 and marrying him a few months later.  I have told of following him around the world with two small children in tow as he furthered his career.  Of leaving one set of friends behind and making new ones wherever we went.  And although the boys may well have heard of these travels from their parents their view of this part of our lives would naturally be different to mine.  I have no way of knowing  how my children really felt about being uprooted yet again to move to a new place.  They both did seem to cope very well and have turned into two well rounded adults in spite of the disruptions in their lives.  And in later years when we have spoken of this they assured me that they felt they had benefited from the moving around.  And here I can insert one of my favourite words – They had what could be described as a peripatetic childhood.

I have written about Yesterday when I was Young and some of the happy memories I have of those times when the children were living at home and life was so busy.  And then of the times after they had moved onto the next phase of their lives, and there were only the two of us to move through the next phase of our lives.

I have told about deciding to move away from the city to an idyllic place beside the water far from the madding crowd, and how, when things didn’t turn out as expected, we moved back to civilisation once again.

In my blog posts I have written about my Mother’s death , of my Father’s death and the ghastly time following  the untimely death of my DYS (is any death really timely?)  But life goes on and I have chronicled some of things I have done since being on my own.

I spent several months on three separate occasions playing companion to an elderly English woman.  A great learning process and a fabulous area to live in and explore.  If I win the Lottery I shall buy a ‘cottage’ there and spend our winter months in Sussex.

So while I am not writing a post every day now, I hope that I have succeeded in part in what I set out to do.  The posts recording memories and activities will still continue as and when something comes up that I think somebody may be interested in hearing about.  Currently I am researching how to put the posts into a published book for the boys.   I imagine that will take some time.  And I have just remembered, my daughter always tells friends when I am leaving their houses not to “worry about what she takes but what she leaves behind”.  I hope I am leaving something special.

“To live in lives we leave behind
is not to die”
Judith Baxter, Blogger, friend, mother…
1938 –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

..If you are interested in reading some of the posts mentioned above, here are the links:

• Memories are made of this
• For my sisters
• Ode to a sister
• Memories of my father
• Yesterday when I was young
• The busy years
• Paradise, phones and phrustration
• A winter week in the country

London Calling

If  you haveread any of my blog posts you will know that I am a Londoner and although I haven’t lived there for some 50 years, I still call London home.

And I think I am not alone in considering the place of my birth as home.  No matter how far we travel away from our birthplace, there is always a pull to go back, even if for a short visit.  Over the years I have returned many times and have seen the amazing changes that have taken place in my hometown.

London has always been a great city and even after the devastation of the Second world War the city was busy and alive.   Then with the introduction/influx of people from other cultures, other countries and other religions, London could truly claim to be cosmopolitan.  It is an exciting place to visit and according to my sister and friends, an exciting place in which to live.

And now of course, the excitement has reached fever pitch.  And it will not die down immediately following the closing ceremony on Sunday.  New life has been injected into parts of the East End that were forgotten and forlorn before London gained the 2012 Olympics.  These areas will now thrive following the rejuvenation and the influx of people who will now make their homes there.

A couple of days ago I watched the cycling leg of the Triathlon.  Watching cyclists going round and round the same course is not particularly enthralling – although the feat of the Brownlie brothers in winning Gold and Bronze  for Great Britain was stunning – for me the excitement was identifying all the landmarks of home.

And so in the words of Hubert Gregg … Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner

“Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner,
That I love London so.
Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner,
That I think of her wherever I go.
I get a funny feeling inside of me,
Just walking up and down.
Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner,
That I love London Town.”
Hubert Gregg, English songwriter,  broadcaster, author and stage actor.
(1914-2004)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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..Related articles

• London Town (artistsuziepindar.wordpress.com)
• Can ‘posh’ Olympics reboot London’s cockney East End? (cbc.ca)

Walking Around London

I have another old book that I haven’t even opened for many years.  It is called The Face of London by Harold P Clunn.

The caption on the picture of St Paul’s on the left says “London 1946: St Paul’s Cathedral through the willow herb”.  The willow herb was a weed that sprung up on bombed sites following the bombing of the city by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War.

‘I have seen the greatest wonder which the world can show to the astonished spirit.  I have seen it and am still astonished – and ever will there remain fixed indelibly on my memory the stone forest of houses, amid which flows the rushing stream of faces of living men with all their varied passions, and all their terrible impulses of love, of hunger and of hatred – I mean London”

These words are shown in the preface of the book and were written by Heinrich Heine, who lived in Craven Street, Strand in 1827.  At that time apparently, London was the largest city in the world and had a population of 1,500,000.

I wonder how Herr Heine would react to London now.  Our friend Wikipedia tells us ” In July 2010 Greater London had an official population of 7,825,200, making it the most populous municipality in the European Union, and accounting for 12.5% of the UK population. The Greater London Urban Area is the second-largest in the EU with a population of 8,278,251, while London’s metropolitan area is the largest in the EU with an estimated total population of between 12 million and 14 million.  London had the largest population of any city in the world from around 1831 to 1925.

 Wikipedia

The book takes us on 25 walks around London and reinforces my feeling that I am a Londoner even though I haven’t lived there for some 50 years.  It appears that the book was published in 1957.  I still lived in London then and that was the year that I married my dashing young Scotsman. Nostalgia is alive and well in Wellington, New Zealand today.  So I shall go away and revel in it.

As you know, I am particularly interested in the East End of London and walk number 17 takes us from The Bank to Shoreditch, Hoxton, Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Mile End, Victoria Park and Stepney.

We walk along the roads that are familiar to me from my growing up years.  Cambridge Heath Road runs through Bethnal Green to Hackney which is where we lived.  We walk past the Bethnal Green Museum which was opened in 1872 by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) as an eastern branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum.  This is now commonly known as the Toy Museum and is a source of wonder and delight to the young.  My children were taken there on visits home when they were young and it was always on the list of ‘must visits’.

We pass the Bethnal Green underground station where I used to board the tube for my journey into the centre of London every day.  What memories that brings back.  Rushing to catch the interconnecting trains that would take me from the East End to the West End,  But more on that some other time.

Many tales of nefarious deeds abound in this area.  The siege of Houndsditch in 1911 when a group of criminals occupied several houses.  A police cordon was set up and two policemen were shot dead and the ringleader of the group was mortally injured and died the next day.

There was a large brewery, Charrington & Sons where the famous Toby Ale was brewed and then past the People’s Palace which stood on the grounds of the Drapers’ Company’s Almshouses.

And on to Limehouse and the West India Docks with the East London Tabernacle which provided accommodation for some 3,000 people at the height of its popularity and into the Mile End Road leading to Victoria Park.

I have waxed lyrical about this park in the heart of London’s East End.  Because of the history surrounding this park, often described as the largest and finest in London, it will have to be covered by a separate post.

When my sisters and I were growing up one of our favourite pastimes on Sunday afternoon was to take a bus into the centre of London and then walk home from there.  We would take a different route each week and this was one of them.

I have enjoyed my nostalgic walk around London and will return for others.

Related articles

• More Memories (growingyoungereachday.wordpress.com)
• Queen’s Jubilee visit to London’s East End (itv.com)
• East London transforming into must-see for travelling seniors (thestar.com)
• London Pride (growingyoungereachday.wordpress.com)

A Water Tower Anyone?

I have always been interested in Real Estate in all it’s forms.  I sold houses many years ago and then for some 20 plus years ran my own commercial property management company.  Added to that I have bought and sold more houses than I can count over the years and now I assist my friend in her Real Estate business, so real estate is very close to my heart.

On this subject here in New Zealand we can watch episodes of Grand Designs on television.  This is a series featuring unusual and often elaborate architectural home building projects. The programme has been running in the UK since 1999 and shows no signs of flagging interest from viewers.  I have this series programmed in my TV recorder so that I don’t miss an episode.

One of the things I love about the internet is that I can browse property papers from around the world.  Today I came across a great project that could well be featured on the programme,  It was a water tower for sale in a small village (Burton Green) in the UK some 8 miles from Coventry.  The tower was sold in 2009 apparently, and the purchaser had plans drawn and permission gained to develop it into a highly des res (desirable residence in Real Estate parlance).  This didn’t go ahead for whatever reason and the property is now offered for sale again.  The guideline is 395,000 GBP which seems awfully cheap to me for .33 of an acre of land and this building.  But what do I know of Real Estate in that part of Britain?

The plans call for the tower to be converted into a four bedroom house with all rooms, except bathrooms and cloakrooms having a curved wall.  I would like to see this when it is completed.

And then because I had time and the inclination I looked to see if Burton Green had a website.  Imagine my delight to find that it did, maintained by a private local individual, giving all sorts of information about the village.

I was particularly thrilled to read this blog from a former resident of the village, Anthony Richards.  In his blog he comments:

“The Water Tower 

This arrived in Burton Green six years before I did. No one was ever allowed in it. I wish I had known about the “open day” shortly before its sale, so that I could have seen inside it, as this is something I had marvelled at for years. The nearest we ever got was the roadway serving it. Our family was entitled to use this roadway to provide access to its adjoining plot of land. Of particular interest were the hundreds of swallows which nested in its eaves every summer. The tower was a useful landmark for directing visitors coming by bus. You would simply tell them: “Get off at the water tower.”

And then I discovered there is a British Water Tower Appreciation Society.  It is apparently “The only British society dedicated to water tower culture and history. “Onwards and Upwards””.  If like me you are interested in seeking out the unusual, take some time to look through the archives of this blog.  You might find some interesting things there.

Here endeth another rambling blog from this ancient mind.

And as we are still awaiting the arrival of Andy the Armadillo here in a wet Wellington, I am showing you his photo again so that you know what to expect.

Photo courtesy Georgette Sullins at Andy's last stopover

More on water towers in the Related articles

• Eden Park Water Tower (appliedimaginationbiz.wordpress.com)
• On the Kensal Rise water tower (theRatandMouse.co.uk)
• Modern Castles: 7 Cool Converted Watertower Houses (weburbanist.com)

A Train Ride

1940s Steam Train via Wikipedia

“I took a trip on a train and I thought about you.
I passed a shadowy lane and I thought about you.
Two or three cars parked under the stars a winding stream.
Moon shining down on some little town
And with each beam the same old dream……”
Johnny Mercer (American lyricist, songwriter and singer. 1909-1976

Early in my blogging adventure, I wrote a post entitled “I Took a Trip on a Train”.  In this post, I talked about all the trains on which we had travelled over many years.   At that time I think I had only two or three followers and two of them were my sisters.  I note they were the only people to comment on the post.

Anyway, I thought about train travel again today for some reason.  And I remembered travelling between London and Glasgow on the train.  We always made a point of doing so with our children when we went ‘home’ on holiday.

The train was a highlight of the trip.  We would board early in the morning and then when breakfast was called we would make our way to the dining car.  I don’t remember whether you had to reserve a table but there was always one ready for us.

Coffee and tea were instantly provided, cereal and toast and then the piece de resistance, the waiters came round with extremely large silver salvers with bacon, eggs, sausages, hashed potatoes, mushrooms etc.  These people (in memory they were always men) were adept at balancing these salvers while the train was moving along at high-speed.  I don’t recall there ever being an accident with salver and food crashing to the floor.

Tablecloths were pristine, starched white linen as were the napkins.  Silver British Railways cutlery and crockery.  Tea never tasted as good when travelling by air.  There was an aura of quiet distinction and good taste when eating in a BR dining car,

We continued to do this until our children were well into their teens and I do know that they remember this as we have spoken of it to their children on occasion.

I have never been any distance on a train here in New Zealand.  I do know that when I worked and caught a train most mornings, one could have coffee and always at night one could have an alcoholic drink, but I am sure that no service ever existed to match the London to Glasgow British Railways breakfast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Related articles

• Travel Smarter 2012: Tips for improving your train travel (gadling.com)
• Train Travel (varietyplus.wordpress.com)
• Ride The Rails (workthedream.wordpress.com)

And the winner is…

Well I was going to write about this film.  We saw it last week but now everyone knows about it because of its Oscar Best Actor award for Jean Dujardin

By now you all know the story of George Valentin a silentmovie great who refuses to acknowledge the advent of the talkies and is sure that it will never take off.

When he is at his height he befriends a new comer and yes you have guessed it, she becomes a hit of the talkies and an even greater star.  He falls from grace and is reduced to selling his artifacts and belongings and yes, again you have guessed it, she has somebody at the auction to buy everything.

The plot could have been written by any one of us .  The acting, minus a sound track, is no doubt what won the best actor award for Jean Dujardin but for me the actress who played Peppy – Bérénice Bejo – stole the show.

And again for me, the highlight of the movie was the tap dancing which the pair perform together at the end of the movie – click here to watch if you haven’t already seen the film.  Or even if you have, it’s worth a second or third, or fourth watch.  This is worthy of comparison with Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell – click here to see their dance routine.

No doubt the move away from the norm was much of the appeal of the movie to the powers that be, but frankly if left me thinking that I had seen so many much better movies during the year.

poster via Wikipedia

Last week we also saw The Descendants.  Of course any movie starring George Clooney has my vote.  In this he really shows his acting skill, demonstrating that he is so very much more than just a pretty face.

Once again, you no doubt know the story.

Matt King is a Honolulu-based lawyer and the sole trustee of a family trust that controls 25,000 acres of pristine land on the island of Kaua’i. The  rule against perpetuities means the trust will expire in seven years so the family decides to sell the land for development.   Just before the family formally endorses the deal Matt’s wife Elizabeth is involved in a boating accident and rendered comatose.

There are two daughters, 10-year-old Scottie and 17-year-old Alex.  Matt is not very close to his daughters but with his wife in a coma he is forced to confront Scottie’s inappropriate behavior with other children and Alex’s destructive behaviors.

Of course, as in all good stories the family pulls together when it is clear that the decision has to be made to pull the plug on Elizabeth.  Meantime, Matt discovers through his elder daughter that Elizabeth has been having an affair with the developer ti whom the trust proposes to sell the land on Kaua’i.

In a scene which for me, shows Clooney’s talents well, he confronts the developer and invites him to his wife’s bedside so that he can say his goodbye.  Of course, the developer does not attend, but instead his wife does.

It is a convoluted story but to my mind, much more interesting than the ‘hackneyed’ story told in The Artist.

Related articles

• Jean Dujardin wins best actor Oscar for The Artist (mirror.co.uk)
• Festivals, Fairs, and Fetes On Kaua’i: April, May, and June 2012 (kauaikolea.wordpress.com)
• …Pass It On (the2womancrusade.com)

I am just thinking

Many thought running around this sluggish brain today.  It is commonly accepted that we have about 70,000 (yes seventy thousand) thoughts each day.  Is it any wonder then I get confused?

So today what am I thinking.

Last week Janet at http://thoughtstomull.com/ awarded me a Versatile Blogger Award.  Thank you for this Janet I really appreciate it and consider it an honour to have been nominated by you.

But I do have some concerns about awards (as do some other bloggers).  See this post from Lenore Diane at mythoughtsexactly.  We do love to receive acknowledgment from our peers, and I don’t even object worry about the part where one has to tell seven, eight or however many things about themselves.  No, what really worries me is having to select 10 or 15 others on to whom to pass the award.  Note – Since there are so many great blogs out there I find it difficult to select only a few.  In the past I have nominated everyone on my blog roll but I guess that is cheating! (This note was added after the post was published and in recognition of some of the comments).

So may I say thank you and graciously decline the award, knowing that I can’t accept it without the obligations that accompany it?  I hope that this doesn’t offend the donor.  That most certainly is not my aim.  I am working on being gracious in all areas of my life.  Some areas are easier than others.

Christmas is rapidly approaching – only 15 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes and 30 seconds as I write this. Well many of you are a day behind us so you have 16 days etc etc.  Click here for the Christmas Countdown Clock.

I have been reading several posts about Christmas and how we celebrate,  We all have family traditions either of long standing or maybe only comparatively recently started.  One that we have in our family started almost half a century ago when my children were babes.  Each year we would select a gift for a child, wrap it and place it under the tree in a local department store.  This has been done now in three different countries in this world.  And we have carried on the tradition.  I still purchase a gift as do my daughter and family and my son and family.  The object has been to instil in the children (mine or theirs) that there is so much more to Christmas than receiving..

I have blogged about Christmas when growing up in London and Christmas in the southern hemisphere in the summer.  Christmas in the sunshine just doesn’t seem right somehow.  So I stick to the traditions, roast turkey and all the trimmings, Christmas pudding etc etc.  And sometimes the weather performs as it should in the summer and the temperatures soar.  But as our weather is so unpredictable who knows what Christmas Day will bring.

What are the traditions in your family?  I would really love to hear of them.

Yesterday was Thursday but I didn’t do lunches at the Hospice.  Instead I was asked to be part of a seminar for the administration staff.  Of course I agreed when they asked could I do something on Time Management.

I said “Yes I should be happy to do so” and I was until  I saw the Agenda for the day.  I was allotted 1.25 hours and the session was entitled Managing Multiple Projects, Objectives and Deadlines with a series of sub headings.

The Agenda was only circulated a week before the event so much midnight burning of candles oil went on in this house.

Of course the session went smoothly and was well received but for a little while I was concerned.

“To complain about a lack of time is like a fish in the sea complaining that it has a lack of water”
Judith Baxter

A short time ago I wrote about flat packs.  Some people hadn’t heard the expression before and they and others were kind enough to leave comments.  And for no other reason than I think it’s a great photo I give you…

Flat pack cat

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