Tag Archives: The Way We Were

Saturday Again!

Six word Saturday button

It’s Saturday again so here we go.  If you would like to participate please either click on the picture above or click this link.

HOUSE IN NEED OF RUBBER GLOVING
Instead I spent it
READING BLOGS AND ENJOYING THE SUNSHINE.

When it comes to housework the one thing no book of household management can ever tell you is how to begin.  Or maybe I mean why.
Katharine Whitehorn,  British journalist, writer and columnist.  1928 –

Each day this week I have said “Today’s the day”.  The day for rubber-gloving ie housework – ugh.  I am a really organised and relatively tidy person but I hate vacuuming that is until I start.  Each time I find so many reasons not to do this and then find it takes very little time and I am always delighted when the job is done.  Dusting follows of course and as this is an old house (circa 1914) it attracts spiders.

I never see these invaders but they leave evidence of their having visited by weaving complicated webs.  But this is a very strange phenomenon as they mostly appear in the living room and the only windows that sport these webs are in the living room.  Oh occasionally I find a web in another part of the house but never on a window anywhere else.

So rubber-gloving was given up in favour of reading blogs and enjoying the sunshine.

I subscribe to so many fascinating blogs that just occasionally I get really behind in my reading and then have to devote several hours to this happy chore.  Although now I come to think of it when I use the word chore I usually mean a disagreeable task ie housework.  And this is most certainly an agreeable task.

Then later I met with a friend.  We had coffee at a coffee shop sitting outside in the sun.  And that was followed with a glass of wine and so I remembered my favourite Christmas song – Drinking White Wine in the Sun.  OK  – I know it’s not Christmas but sitting with a glass of bubbles brought this song to mind.

So I have had a relaxing day; blogs are read but chores are still not done.  Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.  And just as I wrote that I remembered a song from my teenage years called It’s Almost Tomorrow.  If you feel like a trip down memory lane to 1955 when this recording was made click here for the Dreamweavers singing this song. And again I am reminded of how naive gentle and innocent were the songs of my teenage years.

And on the subject of memories and nostalgia, one of the blog posts I read today was this one from my blogging pal  (well really I think we are sisters, we think so much alike) Dor at Technicolor Day Dreams.

We all recycled although we didn’t know the word for it.  As Dor says, we all washed and returned milk bottles – our milkman who came to the door, uplifted them daily and replaced them with full bottles of milk.  Paper bags were re-used, wrapping paper was carefully folded to re-use, diapers were washed and hung out in the fresh air to dry and most of all we pushed our babies in their prams to the shops and didn’t need to go to gyms and use their electrically operated machines.  We were not the original recyclers, our mothers and grandmothers certainly recycled usually from necessity, but we all indulged in it during my early years.

“Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me would we? Could we?
Memories, may be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget…”
As sung by Barbra Streisand – The Way We were.

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The Market

It was still raining this morning what a surprise!  I had arranged to meet a friend for coffee and afterwards I decided to check out the Saturday market in the area. I have seen the notices for the market many times, as it is held in the school grounds in the same street as the Mary Potter Hospice.

The market was full of stalls selling fresh produce, mostly vegetables and some fruit, but one had freshly baked bread and bakery items, another was selling gourmet salamis – but the choice of vegetables was outstanding.

I was told that the vegetables had mostly been picked yesterday and many were organically grown.  What really surprised me was how much fresher they looked and how much cheaper they were than those vegetables currently on offer at the supermarket.

The market was busy in spite of the puddles and the continuing rain; it obviously has a host of loyal followers.  The comments among the customers and stall holders suggested that they were on friendly terms which could only be because of their familiarity with each other.

Of course, I bought far more than I should have, but as it’s coming up to soup weather the vegetables will be put to good use.

And then this reminded me of street markets in England when I was growing up.  I wrote a blog on this in July last year – if you are interested in my meanderings down memory lane please click here.

Road sign

I know that as I get older these memories return and I often wonder are these places, sights and people improved with the passing of time?

I do know that we had no choice on Saturday about whether to accompany Mother to the market.  And only as we became older and in her considered opinion, more able to be responsible for ourselves, were we able to make a decision as to whether or not to accompany her.  But this was a time of sharing for Mother and her three daughters.  It took about 30 minutes for us to walk from the market to our house. Walking along, each carrying at least one shopping bag, we discussed all things that mothers and young daughters discussed.

I particularly remember as I reached the ripe old age of 15 and had a boyfriend, Mother and my sisters ribbing me about him.  Innocent family fun.  Saturday afternoons and Ridley Road market are imprinted in my memory so many, many years later.

Mother and girls

Mother has now been dead for some 16 years and I cannot discuss these days with her anymore.  But I can discuss them with my sisters and I wonder if their memories of these days are as clear as mine.

“Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me would we? Could we?
Memories, may be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
So it’s the laughter we will remember
Whenever we remember
The way we were.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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