really old style living?

Hardup_Hester

I'm not sure I can cope with all these secret lives, Ginny & Ceridwen as master criminals, as for heaven I definately won't get in!
I was once knocked up by 2 armed policemen, should I rephrase that, ok, they visited me at 2am, oh the joys of living on an estate where Blenheim Road ran alongside Blenheim Street & ran into Blenheim Square.
I could be Amish, I have the appropriate teeth, ever since I lost a 3 tooth crown & was quoted £700 for a replacement & I have almost enough childen, when I was looking after my nephews as well there were 7 children underfoot.
Hester

ceridwen

Perhaps they might have a few other "qualifications" as well to be Amish.

i would be interested to know how their personal relationships work out. The main husband/wife couple featured obviously glow with marital satisfaction - they've clearly got a happy, settled marriage - thats obvious. I know how to spot a couple that have been through Trials together and come out the other side happy with each other - but can only think of two I know:
- my parents
- my best friend and her husband

So - it would be interesting to know the "state of play" in their marriages generally. The ones in our society are so often a disaster area from what I can see - i cant believe how many unhappily married people I spot around me...hence why I was being so careful myself not to marry the wrong person - the "Unhappily Marrieds" is one club I DON'T want to join and I can see its hugely difficult to "hold a marriage together" in this Society for a variety of reasons.

mardatha

I was just goign to post that Ceridwen, its an amazing site. But if we were Amish we'd be muttering in the cowsheds about the rest of the damn world having electricity !
Annie, I had an Irish catholic mother. They're much the same as Italians, but they smile a lot less. LOL!

ceridwen

mardatha wrote: »

I was just goign to post that Ceridwen, its an amazing site. But if we were Amish we'd be muttering in the cowsheds about the rest of the damn world having electricity !
Annie, I had an Irish catholic mother. They're much the same as Italians, but they smile a lot less. LOL!

Don't know about you Mardatha - but I'd be muttering to myself "If everyone else starts getting blackouts or having to pay through the nose for their fuel - we'll be sitting pretty:D"

Gigervamp

Yup, Lehmans is the one I was thinking of.

Ceridwen, I had an unhappy marriage, followed by an unhappy long term relationship before I met hubby. (3rd time lucky!)
We've been together for 11 years now (married nearly 6), been through trials and are still blissfully happy being together. I thank my lucky stars everyday that I met him.

Winged_one

Maybe not quite the Amish, but when we were in Barcelona a few years ago, we went to see a number of Gaudi sites, including apartments with balconies which had wrought iron decorations of seaweed and a lift/stairs shaft where the tiles went from wquite dark blue at the bottom to almost white at the top. There, I was seriously envious - the ventilation system allowing fresh air to circulate always, and the fabulous stone storecupboard shelves.

OH is suggesting that, as the allotment is a bit too difficult to deal with, that we intensify the veg growing in the garden, give up the plot on renewal, and ask his mum for some space in her garden to grow the onions, garlic, spuds, brassicas and pumpkins. (MIL has a HUGE garden, lots of it unnused and unseen). Visiting there once a month, and using the tricks I;'ve learned on the plot, should be enough to manage those crops there, he reckons. We'll see.

But we are off there this weekend to raid the local ditches for blackberries and damsons (there are loads of blacks to go around, but no one ever seems to want the damsons, so we harvest them some years). We'll be back on the same roads later in the autumn for the sloes - there are lanes FULL of them, and again the locals don't ever seem to want them, and there are TONNES to go around.

I have a dream of a certain "Grand Designs" house (the one in Scotland built into the hillside beside old kilns, living upstairs and sleeping downstairs (she was a cookery writer, and there was a grand piano in the music room/library, among other things). I have adapted the design to ensure I have a basement space for food storage (to buy in bulk a couple of times a year, and store lots of my own preserves), a crafts room facing the view, and outbuildings for the food preservation activities (involving cheesemaking, jam making, chocolate making, butter, and perhaps other things, as well as a seperate area for the preparation of my own meat from my own animals). Oh, and a wood shed for the thinnings from my wood plot for the wood burning stove. If I have insomnia, I often try to refine this design even more.

Hippeechiq

Sounds idyllic Winged One

mardatha

I love living up here, very much. But just sometimes I get envious...which is a Very Bad Thing ! I would love to have shops & neighbours from all nationalities and colours - that would be fun. I would love to have hedges & trees full of sloes and damsons and plums and cherries....(sob)! We all want what we haven't got eh ! I have miles and miles and miles of clean open space...but not much grows in it apart from heather and mountain ash. Fine if you're into shooting grouse I suppose.
Re self-sufficiency, I asked about the empty areas of Scotland on another forum, and they said that upto the Clearances the Highlands was fertile arable land, farmed under the crofting system and lived on by the clans quite happily. But the 200 years of de-population and sheep have ruined the ground and changed the eco-system (wotever hell that might be ) But my question was whether, one day, with the UK getting more and more crowded all the time, if those areas might one day be farmed and lived on again ... If you go up north into Highland region, there's TONS of empty space, as far as the eye can see.
But then again, in that book where the woman who lives near me went back to Scotland of 1790,(forgot name of it, Cottage Diaries or summat) she said ordinary Scottish homes did not have ovens, and people did not eat pork. Reason was that we can't grow wheat here - so didnt make bread. They made oatcakes instead., and they didnt keep a pig because they were too poor, the scraps that would have fed the pig, they ate instead. So maybe that's why less people live up here and why there wasnt a rush to build or buy houses.
I dono where this post is going, I seem to be wittering. I need more tea.

NualaBuala

Oh I love that website - they have great stuff!

There's so much I admire about the Amish lifestyle - I just don't share their religious beliefs at all. What a pity because I think I could be quite happy living that kind of life.

ginnyknit

I have always been interested in the Amish way of life, I don't think they have a choice about their marriages working as it is definately a patriachal soceity where the elders of the church make the decisions. The one thing that always makes me laugh is they have a number of Amish websites - so much for shunning the new world However their mayonaise chocolate cake is one of my friends favourite bakes, once they get over the idea of whats the main ingredient.

Just spent the morning at the hospital, taking part in an arthiritis study. I now see the lure of private medicine - oh how the other half lives. they even had decent coffee an a comfy waiting room! I was seamlessly escorted from one department to the next and treated like a human being. The doc hed even heard of MSE and laughed her socks off when I told her about the antics of my chickens. More tests next week if Im accepted. Trouble is they managed to push my knee cap about a bit so am having problems now - it will be worth it though if I get accepted and the treatment helps