Reflections

Sitting reflecting back over the past year, as we come to the end of it, I think I have to say it`s been a pretty ordinary year . No outstanding events. Nothing really to write about. So this may be the most boring post you`ve ever read!

Looking back at the Resolutions I made for 2007, I haven`t been too successful on them. I failed on the first and third one, but have had partial success on the other four. Shall I make any new ones for 2008? I`m not sure.

Yet, there have been some good times during this year.

• I met a fellow blogger for the first time, and we got on so well
• I had two enjoyable holidays on my own staying with friends
• A new person at work is becoming a good friend

A surprise gift today, really made my day - a thimble from another blogger in Finland. It`s all the little things in life like that, that really mean so much, the thoughtful and kind gestures, that make such a difference to life.

Just looking back over what I`ve written, and it seems that the most outstanding thing about 2007 has been Friends. Friends made both over the world of blogging, and in day to day life. Thank God for friends.

Five Days ago

Is it really only 5 days since it was Christmas Day?..
When someone said to me this morning "Did you have a nice Christmas?", I automatically said yes, and thought to myself that was ages ago, I`ve seen you since then. But then I stopped and thought, no it isn`t , it was earlier this week.

Isn`t is strange how quickly getting back into the routine of everyday work and chores makes you forget that Christmas was only a few days, not even a week, ago. Especially with all the weeks of preparation and thinking about it coming, and now here it is, come, gone and almost forgotten about.

Oh, dear, am I getting old and forgetful already - or do others find the same I wonder?

On this day......

The twenty eighth of December ninteen sixty nine is a date that will always stick in my memory. It`s the day that I first walked as an employee into the establishment where I still work. Looking back, what changes I`ve seen in those 38 years, how many different staff have come and gone during those years, yet I still remain there almost as part of the fittings and fixtures.

Yet, it doesn`t seem like 38 years, it feels more like nine or ten they have gone so quickly.

But it`s also a frightening thought. Thirty eight years of my life have gone too. And where have they gone? Life seems to be passing me by. Those 38 years gone mean that I`m only about ten years away from retirement (unless the government change the goal posts again!). Do I want to retire? In a lot of ways Yes, to have a life. But then that will mean I`m getting old, rushing on towards the end of it, -- a scary thought.

Not a hankie in sight!

Not a hankie in sight.... lots of nice presents again this year, my favourites being a wooden carving of two dolphins playing. I love the sight and feel of well carved wooden items, as well as being a joy to sit and look at, they make me want to touch and feel them whenever I walk pass them. There`s just something so calming about stroking wood.

My other favourite was a book by Alan Titchmarsh entitled Nobbut a Lad. I`ve not started reading it yet, I`m saving that pleasure for after the Christmas holidays for the long days of January.

Other presents included, an electronic Suduko game (don`t think I`ll do that for long - not that I can`t solve the puzzles, but I can`t see how people can be so hooked on those puzzles - give me logic puzzle books anyday, now those I can spend hours enjoying!), chocolates, toiletries, and other bits and pieces. But it struck me, how there was not a box of handkerchiefs in sight.... yet as a child one Christmas I opened parcel after parcel and found hankies after hankies after hankies! Infact I`ve still got many of them in my drawers - there were far too many to use - and thinking about it, what a present to give a young child - I wonder what todays children would say if they were given lots of hankies!!

The Golden Goose

This also says CHRISTMAS to me!...

Before.....

and After...

Delicious!!!!

Now it`s Christmas

Now it is Christmas.... I`ve just come back from a midnight Communion service - and yes, it does feel like Christmas.

There is something so special about the atmosphere at that service, that makes it mark the real start of Christmas to me.

Something that struck me so strongly during the service this year, (I know I`ve heard it many times before, but tonight it came to me so much), that Christ was born for ME. Not just for those sitting around me or people in general, but individually for ME too. What a great Christmas present.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

Christmas Eve

So this is Christmas Eve.

Yet, it doesn`t feel like Christmas Eve.

But why not?....

...Is it because it`s a Monday, and a normal start to a working week for me - off to work 7.30 to 5.00.

...Is it because everything has been Christmas orientated for weeks, on tv, in shops etc... so that there`s no excitement over it.

...It it because I`ve got everything done! the tree and decorations were ofcourse up a week or so ago, the puddings made and waiting to be put in the steamer to heat, all the parcels are delivered, all the cards posted or hand delivered. The large serving dish has been unearthed out of the back of the cupboard waiting for the goose to be delivered.

.....And....for the first time ever... the Chritmas cake is decorated before Christmas Eve!

.....But..... have I forgotten anything, it seems too good to be true that everything seems to be prepared before today!?

A Letter to Father Christmas

"Dear Father Christmas

Help!!..... I urgently need a new radio alarm clock. I know I should have put it on my long list of things I`d like for Christmas which I sent you at the beginning of December, and which I`m sure you`ll have been busy preparing for me, but until this morning my clock was working fine. Now it`s given up the ghost. It was flashing away at me when I woke this morning, but now won`t set to the correct time no matter what buttons I presss. Without it I shan`t be up in time to go to work each day.

I`ll put plenty of carrots out for Rudolph and the other reindeer if you can do this for me. I am sorry it is such short notice

Ivy"

More than ice-cubes

What can you do with ice?
....put it in a drink, use it to put on sprains, use it to cool food to freeze and use in other household ways, yes, but what about doing something artistic with it?

Some skilled people have made wonderful artwork of it. I was amazed to come across this event on a blog when I was browsing earlier this evening, and more so because the event was only about 25 miles from where I lived and I`d not heard or seen anything about it being on. I`d love to have seen it. Doesn`t it look wonderful.

Why presents?

Why do we give presents?

I don`t mean what`s the history behind giving presents, what I mean is why do we give presents to who we give presents to.

The answer to that, for me, has to be that I give presents, especially at Christmas, to relatives and friends for one of two (or often both) of these reasons -to show my love for them, and/or to thank them for help and support they`ve given me during the year.

These last two or three years I`m becoming infuriated. Why?...... because of the way charities for overseas work are trying to cash in on the idea of giving presents, by advertising that instead of giving gifts to our families and friends we give them the money to buy tools, livestock, seeds, even toilets for people overseas and just give our friends and relations a card saying that that is their present.

I`m not going to mince my words (and I apologise if I offend any readers) but I HATE this scheme and think it so greedy on the charity`s part trying to make people feel guilty about giving to their loved ones here, that they should be giving to them instead. It really puts my back up, and gets me so mad. And I certainly won`t be supporting them in any way.

Yes, I know that charities need the money, but surely once a year its good and better to acknowledge our friends and relations and show them how much they are appreciated by giving them a gift, however small, but a "real" item, not a bit of paper. (unless of course its a £20 note!!)

My suggestion to the charity`s is that they suggest that on our list of people to buy presents for that they suggest we add them (or give details of names of people and items needed), to the bottom of our Christmas Present buying list. Surely that would be a better advertising way?

The Camera never Lies.....

They say "the camera never lies" when one looks at photos of oneself and thinks that doesn`t look like me. But, I`m now asking "does the microphone lie?"

I recently took part in an event in which I had a part to read. Listening to a tape recording of it afterwards, if anyone had asked me whose voice that was, I certainly wouldn`t have said mine! It didn`t sound a bit how I sound, or should I say - how I think I sound? I know that, having had a cold a few days previously (and being uncertain at one stage whether I would be able to do it, which I`d have been very disappointed about if I hadn`t), may have made me use my voice a bit differently pitched to normal, but even so, surely I should recognise it myself. Even my parent who was also listening to it asked me, "who was that?" as she too didn`t recognise it as me!

I wasn`t aware until listening to it either that a few of the words I used came out more with a local dialect accent than I realised I used.

So do the microphone and tape recorder lie, or do we not sound how we think we sound? Do our voices all sound different to ouselves to how they sound to others?


It was certainly interesting listening to that tape!

Christmas Tree

One of my favourite parts to the Christmas preparations is decorating the Christmas Tree. Opening the box of ornaments, unwrapping the tissue paper from them, and deciding where to put them on the tree this year. Not, for me the modern way of colour co-ordinating the tree, but ornaments of all shapes, colours, sizes, sorts - many of them from over 45 years ago and others bought more recently. How I`d love to know if anyone else has some of the unusual old ones like we have - the twisted plastic icicles and angels which hang on sort of coathanger fixings and then on the tree. Not expensive, I guess but probably all there were available in those years.
Wonder if anyone has done the history of Christmas Tree ornaments??

Chrisstmas Shopping

Only 10 (or 12 if you count Sunday`s, I don`t!) shopping days to Christmas. I wonder how many of us come back as loaded as this! Yes, my parent is under that pile of bags and parcels.


And this wasn`t actually when we were Christmas shopping, but just out on a shopping trip. so you can imagine what Christmas shopping trips are like!!

Success...!!!!

Success today...

They got it in! yes, by taking the whole of the window out and then replacing it.


So, I`m not going to write any more today,

I`m going to sit on my new comfy sofa!

"Twas on a Tuesday morning....."

"Twas on a Tuesday morning"..... well a Tuesday afternoon to be precise, but the events put me in mind of this Flanders and Swann song.

(You need to read yesterdays post if you haven`t already before reading on here!).
The van arrived with our new settee and chair this afternoon. They must be used to moving furniture we thought, so we asked them if they could first take the old settee out before they brought the new one in. Certainly, they said confidently. We got out of the way and said that we`d be in the other room if they needed us.

It wasn`t long before one of the two men called through, "we`re sorry, but we can`t get it out. How did you get it in?"
" Through the same front door, by your delivery men as it also came from your store" we replied.
He returned to his mate, and they had some more tries at manoevering it through the door, with no success.
"It might be possible if we could take the door off", he said,
He went and looked closely at the hinges "but the way the doors been put in I can`t guarantee that I could get it back on again"
"Is there any other way to solve it?" we asked
"Well, if its not going to be used you could have the arm taken off the settee"
We were only giving it away to a local charity, so thought that if that was the only way out, maybe we`d have to just let it go to the dump armless instead.

"Ah", I said, "can you try and see if the new one will come in the door first" I could picture us with neither settee.
"Oh, that`s a big one too" they said on looking at their paperwork.

So, off they went to the van to unload the new one, I retired to the kitchen.

It wasn`t long before a voice called "That one won`t go through the door either!"
On going to look, it was about an inch and a half too big for the door, and no amount of pushing and shoving made any difference.

So, there we were, an old settee in the hall waiting to go out, and a new settee on the drive waiting to come in.

We all stood looking at the problem

"I think the only way" said one of the men "is to get a glazier to take your front window pane out and we could easily then get this one in and the other out".
"We`ll take this back to the warehouse and if you arrange a glazier and let us know the time we`ll then arrange to redeliver it".

A glazier has been rung, and should come tomorrow......... ........watch this space!!!!

What goes in.......

What goes in, must come out - or so I thought. But, it seems it`s not as easy as that!

Having bought a new settee and chair, obviously the old ones had to be removed from the house, so along came a couple of chaps this afternoon with a van. Out went the chairs easily enough, then they came to the settee. They turned it this way and that way, got it from the room into the hallway, but then twisted and turned and pulled and tugged, but couldn`t get it out through the same front door as it had come in by a few years ago. Items in the hall were moved to make more space, but still they couldn`t shift it. We`ve got a man who`s better at doing this than us, but he`s off sick till next week, they said, we`ll come back next Monday.

When I heard about this it put into my mind the old song of "Right said Fred" which Bernard Cribbins sung some time back. to quote a little of it:

"Right," said Fred, "Both of us together
One on each end and steady as we go."
Tried to shift it, couldn't even lift it
We was getting nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea and

"Right," said Fred, "Give a shout for Charlie."
Up comes Charlie from the floor below.
After strainin', heavin' and complainin'
We was getting nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea...... 

"Right," said Fred, "Have to take the door off
Need more space to shift the so-and-so."
Had bad twinges taking off the hinges
And it got us nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea and

"Right," said Fred, " Have to take the wall down,
That there wall is gonna have to go."
Took the wall down, even with it all down
We was getting nowhere......

.....to read the whole song have a look here, its very entertaining. I just hope that isn`t the end result of getting our furniture out!!

And.....the new furniture comes tomorrow!

How many chickens?...

No, I`m not counting chickens. They say you shouldn`t count your chickens till they`re hatched, but I`m hoping against hope that mine will hatch out.

I`ve just done something, I`ve never done before!..... filled out an application form for a job.

Yes, I know I`ve been working for almost 38 years in the same place, but when I started there was no such formality as filling in loads of forms. You just went along saw the manager and hey presto if you were ok the job was yours. That was the benefit I suppose of living in a place all my life and my parent being well known as a respectable gentleman, that if I was his daughter that was it. Infact, thinking about it, I never even went for an interview. My Dad just went and saw the manager and said I was looking for a job, he said ok, start on Monday. What a different place the world is now!!

Digitabulist

If you haven`t guessed what a digitabulist is (which I referred to in my post on Tuesday), its a person who collects thimbles.

My hobby of collecting thimbles started, I would guess, about 20 years ago, when I was given for a Christmas present one thimble and a small wooden house shape case with 12 compartments in. I soon filled this with other thimbles - as one looked so lonely in it!, and things just took off from there. I now have 625 in thirteen various cases and stands. Some I have bought myself, others have been given to me by friends and relatives.

Besides the many china ones, from various places in this county and abroad - not that I`ve ever been abroad, but these have kindly been brought back for me by people travelling to other lands - I`ve some wooden ones, a glass one, a corn-dolly type one, enamelled ones, pewter, and a few cloisonne ones, like the one above, which is my latest one which was given to me on my birthday. This one is from Barcelona, Spain and has a type of lizard or creature going all round it.

I keep details of all my thimbles listed in a book, including the name of the person who has brought it for me. So my collection of thimbles is more than just a collection of items, its also a collection of friends, as when I look at them I think of the people who have given them to me.