As The Workhouse Approaches....How To Do Everything To Avoid It, the Old Style Way

ceridwen

ChocClare wrote: »

In pictura est puella. Puella est Cornelia.

Ecce Romani Book I, Line I. Cornelia had a friend called Flavia. Her brother was called Marcus and his friend was called Sextus. I think.

Cast your mind back, mar. If I can remember it, you can. Repeat after me: I DO remember my Latin

Errrmmm....guesses now...."There is a girl in the picture. The girl is Cornelia"....was that a good guess?:rotfl:

GreyQueen

smileyt wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I used to live in a shared household. We decided to take turns to cook, and one of the guys was too scared to tell us he didn't have a clue. I found him miserably poking the large potatoes in a pan, wondering why they weren't cooking. Once I had stopped laughing, I informed him that you are supposed to cut them into small pieces before attempting to boil them :rotfl:

He wasn't called Andrew by any chance, was he?!

I was grinning as I recall the horrors of a student flatshare with Andrew and 2 other guys. We were all 18 but the other 2 were domestically competant in a basic young-bloke sort of way but A was unbelievable..........:rotfl:

As the only female in the household I was determined not to default into domestic dogsbody mode so wouldn't do the dishes that the others left. It wasn't uncommon to come in from college at 6.30pm, having left the flat at 8am and find every single item soiled and in a pile on the counter.

A's specialist trick was to heat a pan of soup, pour it into a bowl and leave about 2 cm of soup in the bottom of the pan on the stove. Do you know what interseting varieties of mold you can grow in soup after a couple of weeks? Colourful isn't in it.

One night I came in after a particularly gruelling 12-hour day and was tired, ratty and, almost certainly hypoglaecemic. Everything was feelthy and I couldn't even fix myself a cuppa without doing dishes.

A. got both barrells of Infuriated Redhead at close range and rushed out of the room. His room-mate went after him and came back a couple of minutes later and told me he was crying. "Good!" I can remember snarling, as I washed up.

Funnily enough, he never did that again.

On the plus side, travelling the world and staying in hostels has shown me young guys of the same age doing, sophisticated proper cooking in communal kitchens and doing it very well, so something changes for the better sometimes. Hats off to Mums and Food Technology teachers who help send some young men out into the world as very good cooks indeed.

Well, I'm up at silly-o'clock to try getting a bit of allotmenteering in before work so catch y'all laters.

grandma247

I did domestic science in the last few years of the '60's. sewing was hopless at school. Were all sewing teachers obsessed with picking back sewing? I can sew now because at boarding school which I attended for a few months till we came back to England we had an old Singer we were allowed to use without supervision. I made myself a simple summer dress and even if the seams were not yardstick straight it was wearable. That gave me the confidence to keep sewing and I ended up making all three daughters' summer dresses when they were young.

My mother believed that boys should learn to cook and so did I. My brothers and my sons can cook a meal and bake cakes. I always used to tell my boys "even a mathematician has to eat."

Memory_Girl

Sweetie - your post just about made me spray the walls with coffee - and OK the walls are papered in 2 x 50p rolls of paper but not very MSE to destroy them like that.

ChocClare wrote: »

All these reminiscences of schooldays and good, practical skills

I made a gingham apron and a skirt too. Must have been the curriculum. We were also taught pattern drafting which IS useful. However, as I clearly went to a similar school to some of you, needlework was quite strenuously discouraged after the end of the second year for the academic gels. I know my friend Yvonne was practically the only "A" stream girl who took it - but she was absolutely brilliant at needlework and embroidery so they felt she was a suitable exception


No cooking, needlework, tecnical drawing or carpentry allowed in my "options" as I was deemed "academic" too!!! Thing is I wanted to be, and ended up being a Technical Stage manager in the West End - using masses of Needlework, tech drawing and woodwork skills.

My "Pattern Darfting" and sewing eventually took me all around the world as I got good enough to rattle out fabulous "Drag Queen" costumes. My tech drawing and woodwork enable to me to tackle most DIY stuff in the last 8 renovations and being able to cook - well I swear that the reason I graduated without debt.

No Home Ec OF COURSE - why would we need it?! We did have deportment classes and public speaking classes - I can walk the length of the hall and back with a pile of books on my head, walk down stairs "properly", sit with my legs at a demure angle, speak impromptu for two minutes on any subject, sight-read any document to a public gathering using the glance down, read two lines ahead while looking at your audience technique and - most importantly - get out of any car without flashing me knickers at anyone

All important things for ambassadors' wives... :rotfl:

At the age of 18, Madame JoJo and Ruby Venezuela bought me my first pair of "proper" high heels. I spent a month learning how to use them in the Club before they let me loose on my own - up and down stairs, across the dance floor like a lady, getting on and off high bar-stools with "ahem!" flashing anything - even in and out of really posh cars :rotfl:. They insisted that as the only "real lady" in the club I should able able to act as one.

Thank you for that memory.

Luckily, my very down-to-earth mother expected us to know how to do EVERYTHING, so I didn't have to rely on the school for cookery skills.

When I was at university, one of my ex-Etonian friends wanted baked beans so put the tin on the gas ring. It really was a spectacular explosion. Presumably he didn't have Home Ec at Eton either...

I used to run a Sunday Lunch Club when at college - the struggling and starving actors would throw a quid or so on my desk every week and then at the weekend I would do a roast from teh market with loads of veggies, yorkies and a big pudding. Everyone then went home with a box of soup made from the leftovers to keep them going.

The thing is - loads of those guys are now starring in their own TV series (we are all getting older) so I am hoping to be mentioned in a BAFTA thank-you speach anytime soon.:rotfl:

MG

Memory_Girl

ceridwen wrote: »

Here - ChocClare - how DO you walk down stairs "properly"? Do enlighten us - as I only know how to get out of a car properly (and had to teach myself that...).

In my case it was the "Hollywood Walkdown"

Head up
Chin Down
Eyes sparkling (T**s and Teeth)
Bum Under
Toe forward
Heel swings to back of step
Dip elegantly


Think of the ladies at the beginning of "Strictly" - or imagine for a moment you are Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady"

Dare you all to give it a go next time you are on the stairs.:rotfl:

MG

scottishminnie

I thought the "intelligent girls drop Home Economics immediately they can" ethos only applied in my school, just shoes you I was wrong.

I was lucky to grow up with 2 very different grandmothers. One had brought up her family alone while my grandfather was in the army during the War so she could turn her hand to absolutely anything. She was the queen of make do and mend and using leftovers (I suspect I have become her after all).
My other grandmother was a farmers wife whose days were spent cooking, baking and growing fruit and veg for canning (when she wasn't milking cows).

I got some fabulous skills from them and then my mother, who had been to uni and a spell at some sort of finishing type school thing before working in Parliament, taught me the more fancy skills I have - cordon blue cookery, catering for large numbers, home decoration and I definitely have her to blame for my love of expensive shoes and accessories.

I think I've been really lucky to have such varied skills - my friends like to joke about the fact that one minute I will happily darn socks and patch the knees of working jeans and the next minute I can turn my hand to carving vegetables to decorate a serving platter. Actually they think I'm wildy dysfunctional:D

scottishminnie

p.s. I too was taught the art of getting out of vehicles gracefully - I'm not sure my mother ever thought I'd be putting it to use in a filthy 4x4 or a pick up truck, think she more imagined me nipping around in a sports car.

There was ont thing she spent lots of time teaching me as a child though that I haven't really had to use much - I can demonstrate the perfect curtsey - it just isn't called for that much in my world these days!

cat_smith

Ecce Romani. That takes me back. I loathed Latin. Couldn't wait to give it up after LC3. Then I had to do Biblical Greek for university. Hopeless at that as well. Not language oriented at all.

My Mum was great at teaching the basics. She hates cooking but she's very good at it. She has about 10 standard recipes and roasts. She can't understand my experimental cookery and laughs hysterically at my freezer book.

mardatha

Quite glad that I live in a house with no stairs. Am sure I'd kill meself trying to get my body to be ladylike - why not just use the bloody lifts anyway?

GreyQueen

Memory_Girl wrote: »

In my case it was the "Hollywood Walkdown"

Head up
Chin Down
Eyes sparkling (T**s and Teeth)
Bum Under
Toe forward
Heel swings to back of step
Dip elegantly


Think of the ladies at the beginning of "Strictly" - or imagine for a moment you are Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady"

Dare you all to give it a go next time you are on the stairs.:rotfl:

MG

:rotfl: Loving this post and the previous ones! My doctor says I'm not to wear shoes with more than a 1 inch heel plus I live in a flat, can I be excused, please, miss?:rotfl:

An ex-colleague of mine who was a solicitor and went to a terribly terribly posh school (and was a lovely down-to-earth no-nonsense character) used to send up her former headmistress something rotten. This grande dame apparently used to sneer that "Only common girls learn typing!" and thus did not anticipate the computer age and left her former charges disadvantaged in both personal and professional life. Wish I'd been "commoner " and been taught to type properly when I was younger. Alas, went to grammar school and learned some useless stuff as well as the useful bits and pieces such as how to make a macaroni cheese, recognise a final meander on a river system and that they had speed bumps on the streets of Pompei to stop the Roman equivalent of boy racers speeding around in their chariots and upsetting the citizenry.

I still loathe m.c btw.

Well, was on the lottie between 7 and 9.15 am, rushed home to have a bath and am hoping the wash load I put on then will be done before I have to head out to the office; on lates this week. Bath water is chilling out and will go to the lottie tomorrow. Oh, and I ate the first two strawberries, not perfectly ripe but at least I got them before the blackbirds.

:eek: Gordon Bennett, I unwrapped the potato patch from the fleece and found horrors lurking underneath. They've recovered from the frost burn but I've been nurturing a handsome crop of fat hen, sow thistle, hairy bittercress and lots and lots of nettles and bindweed. They've clearly been enjoying a bit of shelter from the dessicating winds and are very lush. Or they were, because I have pulled most of them up already, he he.

The weather here is unbelievable. It was pushing 18 degrees before 8 am abd we haven't had any proper rain since Feb. I'd settle for some improper rain but none of that either. My poor plants.....