Tag Archives: Family

What Have You Fixed Lately?⤴

Leopard print jacket flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license
Today’s TDC says

Show us a photo of something you recently fixed or made better.

When my SiL was clearing out my MiL’s flat she came across a bag of knitting. Inside was a jacket, half finished. We both remembered it as a project we’d seen a few years ago, quietly cleared away. Shona asked if I’d like it, and I said I would. It’s been sitting on my knitting chest since the beginning of this year while I made sense of where to start on it. There was no indication of what row had last been knitted, so first I had to work that out. This wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped as the pattern has 23 different coloured yarns and Morag had noted down three different versions of how the yarns she had chosen corresponded to those in the original pattern. She’d also altered the pattern to make it smaller, but I did work that out from the markings on the chart. Finally, and this puzzled me a great deal, the last row she’d knitted had started with one row on the chart and finished with another, and she’d dropped a stitch. I think these last mistakes were the ones that made her decide to put it away. Still, on a rainly morning on holiday this year I puzzled it all out and made a start. At the weekend I cast off the ribbing for the last piece of the body and I am now knitting the two sleeves. Wish me luck!

Write a Halloween Story⤴

from NomadWarMachine

Glasgow Crematorium flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

Mum in law’s funeral today, so just a quick cautionary poem:

Those who do not behave
Might end up here, or in a grave

TDC5040

Christmas Pudding⤴

from NomadWarMachine

302/365 Christmas Pudding flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

Christmas is coming, the [vegetarian] goose is getting fat
Please put a penny in the old man’s hat
If you haven’t got a penny, then a ha’penny will do
If you haven’t got a ha’penny, then God bless you!

Stir-Up Sunday is not till Nov 23rd this year, but it’s a dreich day and I’m off work with a cold so I thought it was time to get the Christmas pudding made this year. This is Mrs Beeton’s ‘rich’ pudding recipe. I omitted the milk and just used brandy and beer as liquid along with the eggs. It smells good already!

Fair Flora⤴

from NomadWarMachine

296/365 Fair Flora flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

When I was about eight years old our parents sold our family home and bought a plot of land that had once been part of an orchard. We had a static caravan which was towed onto a corner of the land and there we all lived – mum, dad and 4 children aged 8-4 – for 16 months while we built our new house on that land. It was difficult for us, as children, I cannot imagine how hard it was for my parents. But the house that we built was wonderful and we were all very happy there.

At some point after we moved in my mum got a visit from one of the local ‘characters’ – and old lady called Annie (was she once the post mistress, maybe – my memory is hazy and there’s nobody left to ask). Annie asked mum if she’d like a statue for the garden. Of course mum said yes, she was never one to turn down a free gift. So Annie turned up, under the cover of darkness, with a wheelbarrow containing a bundle wrapped in cloth. She tipped this out, unceremoniously, nearly toppling it into the burn in the corner of our garden (I was distraught as I was hoping that there might be frogs in that water!).

And so Fair Flora arrived, complete with a legend as told by Annie – of a maiden who haunted the woods over the village of Eyam (close to where we lived) and a statue in her honour liberated from one of the nearby stately homes – maybe Stoke Hall?

I don’t remember whether she was ever outside in our Derbyshire garden, but she travelled down south with us and stood in the hallway, draped in our coats. When mum and dad moved later she was consigned to their potting shed, and then I liberated her and brought her up to Scotland.

Now she sits in the corner of our patio, and she makes me very happy.

Warning!⤴

from NomadWarMachine

It’s been a year since you died, mum. I still miss you, so much more than I realised I would.

Happy memories, so many memories. Now time has peeled away the layers I notice how so much that I do was taught by you. Every day there is something to remind me of you.

Time doesn’t heal grief, it doesn’t diminish it. Today, as I so often do, I look up at the framed copy of the poem I read at your funeral and I smile with a tear in my eye.

Warning

Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Music as Time Travel⤴

from NomadWarMachine

Some people don’t believe in time travel, but I think I have a pretty convincing argument for it. Here it is. There are some pieces of music (actually, there are many) that instantly transport me back in time and space.

The Doctor Who theme tune (Jon Pertwee of course).

Instantly I am back in front of our TV on a Saturday night, five or six years old and perched on a swivel chair with my brother, reminding dad to turn the chair when the monsters appear.

Handel’s Messiah.

As soon as I hear the opening notes I am transported back to Sheffield City Hall, up in the gods, wrapped in the crochet shawl granny made me – saved for best. Dad sits next to me, conducting away happily, handing me opera glasses. (Were my glasses broken again? Probably.)

Rod Stewart’s Sailing.

Not a song most people would associate with my mum. Yet it takes me straight back to our kitchen in Derbyshire, mum turning up the radio as she hears it playing. Watching ToTP as a family, Rod sings his song. Mum, horrified, announces that she no longer likes the song. Hearing it now makes me smile, and I can see the wry smile on her face if she could read this now.

So there you have it – music as a way of traveling in time. QED.

Preserving memories⤴

from NomadWarMachine

Our friend Irvine recently gave us a big bag of apples from his trees, so this week I decided to make a batch of chutney and also to augment the pink currants from our garden and make a batch of jelly. I’d picked up a couple of mum’s books last time I was home, so yesterday I opened one and was immediately transported back to their kitchen on the Isle of Wight, with mum checking her cupboards for dry ingredients as I peeled and chopped the apples I’d picked from neighbours’ trees.

WI Jam flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

Her WI book is dogeared and stained – with recipes cut out from magazines and taped into the back with mum’s notations across them. The book falls open at a chutney recipe with two ticks – so that was the one I decided to make. Mum had recorded her version of the recipe – and after looking through my cupboards this morning and working out proportions I noted down my own version – I’d originally planned to walk down to the shops this morning and buy more vinegar and sugar, but I wanted to get it cooking while awaiting a delivery so this was what I had available.

Chutney recipes flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

It took a while to peel and chop the fruit (the recipe said to mince it, and I imagined mum’s raised eyebrows at the thought of taking the time to do that – chopped small was close enough!).

Chutney flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

Of course, after cooking it for ages, it was ready to put into jars just as it was time for lunch, but chutney is easier to manage than marmalade, so I turned off the gas and left it cooling while we ate lunch. The result is seven jars – a big one for Irvine to say thanks for the apples, the rest for us.

Chutney flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

Now I know, because Delia says so, that I have to wait till my chutney has matured – but I couldn’t resist trying it out mid-afternoon on some oatcakes. It’s pretty good.

Oatcakes and chutney flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

But the rest will be stored in a dark cupboard for a few weeks – I promise!

The juice is now straining from the currants and apples ready to make jelly tomorrow…

August 1st⤴

from NomadWarMachine

Mum and Dad’s wedding flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license
The first of August was always a red letter day in our family. On 1st August 1959 my mum and dad got married. The date is engraved upon my memory – and this year it was very hard because I had nobody to send a card to, nobody to phone and wish a happy anniversary. I messaged my siblings the day before to ask who had photos of the wedding as I couldn’t find mine, and Lucy scanned a few for me. My Aunty Belinda doesn’t like herself in this picture, and I always thought that Aunty Jenny – my godmother – looks like Alice when she grew too much in this shot, and I wonder where Aunty Marjorie was as she’s not in the picture at all. Mum and Dad probably told me before, too late to ask them now.

Mum and Dad’s wedding flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

They look so young, and so happy here. They were happy – it was a good marriage. Dad loved to tell me the story of how he met my mum at University, and mum once told me that the happiest time of her life was when the four of her children were very young and she stayed home to look after us. I don’t think she was ever really happy after he died – dad made us all promise that we’d look after her and I hope we did enough. As each year passed and they celebrated, dad would joke that he’d have got less time for murder – my dad liked his jokes so much that he used them over and over again. One of the things that amused him greatly towards the end of his life was when I’d say his jokes before he did. It amused me, too.

Mum and Dad’s wedding flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license

Mum hated getting old, and she hated being alone. Now she’s gone I find myself remembering her where I think she was happiest – in the house we built in the Peak District, surrounded by her family, pottering around the garden or lying in the sun with a book. I miss them both.

Knitting memories⤴

from NomadWarMachine

With a new great nephew due soon, I’ve been spending time knitting for him – a hap to wrap him in when he arrives

134/365 Hap flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

A stripy jacket and jester hat from the same pattern I made for his big sister

136/365 Tiny Jester flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

And then, as I was wrapping them carefully in tissue paper to post them to my niece, I remembered that I had picked up some old baby patterns last time I was down south at mum’s – I think this is from the 1960s. I knew Rosie would appreciate me knitting something with a connection to mum.

Knitting pattern flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

I chose a pattern that I remembered making many years ago, looked out some pretty pale purple yarn and started knitting. When I copied the pattern (the original is very battered, and I didn’t think it would stand being carried around again), I noticed that it has some of mum’s notations.

Annotations flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

So as I’ve been knitting I’ve felt connected to mum. I’ve been remembering how I’d sometimes get myself into a state when my knitting went wrong, and throw it down in a temper. How mum would raise an eyebrow and tell me to leave it for another day. And how, the next day, I’d find that she’d picked it up after I’d gone to bed and unpicked the mess I’d made so I could carry on. I started knitting this because I wanted to create a memory for Rosie, and in doing this I’ve spent some happy hours revisiting my own memories.

Thanks, mum. Cardigan all finished and sewn up with ‘vintage’ buttons from my button tin.

Baby Cardigan flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license