The OS Doorstep - a helpful and supportive thread in these tough times

[Deleted User]

Good luck with the cordial FUDDLE, I've used the River Cottage recipe and it's lovely. When you've made the cordial, keep the bottle in the fridge or it might ferment in the warmth of the summer. It should keep for a few months if you store it in the cool. Let me know how you get on, Cheers Lyn xxx.

bunbun2

tattycath wrote: »

There used to be loads of elder flowers and berries on the old disused railway line where I used to live. Not seen any round here though.
I never used to be interested when it was handy. Now I am interested I need to look harder.
Where abouts are you bunbun?

I am in County Durham

shegar

Fuddle yes its definately elder flower.......

We have a dry day here , but we have low cloud, which makes it feel grey and miserable :mad:.......Its about 17 degrees, so not cold, but where the devil is the sun??

Its lovely to read all the nostalgia, brings back lovely chilhood memories, but im honestly not whinging , but please can you put your sentences in to small paragraphs please, to me its diffucult reading 2 pages line after line after line with no break, I tend to lose where I am and what line im at , it tends to make me give up carrying on to read it, so sorry to whine ,but I do like to read the interesting posts.....................

Ive made a shepherds pie for tea with some veg, its cooking real slowly and it smells super.......

I planted some verbena boneriensis and scabious in my perennial border, I did have them but the last winters frost and snow killed them, dam plants are so expensive , no wonder the garden centres say they are having a hard time of the recession ........The garden centre I went to was full of pensioners, perhaps they are the only people left with some cash to spend..........

Well im now off to have a shower and then get some tea, catch you all later...Sheila

Emm-in-a-pickle

Our elderflowers have only just started to bloom (N.Wales) Years ago we made a lovely drink with them, but it fermented after about ten days so it was alcoholic then & the kids couldn`t drink it. We put some in 2litre plastic pop bottles, and one of those exploded once as it had been left in a warm room - luckily nobody was in the room at the time, it sounded like a bomb going off, and we couldn`t believe the state the exploded bottle was in, that stuff is tough!

[Deleted User]

EMM the first time I tried to make elderflower champagne we used 2 litre plastic lemonade bottles. They pressured up to the point of not being able to get the cap to unscrew and the sides bowed alarmingly. In the end He Who Knows got out the mole grips and managed to move the cap by about half a turn whereupon we had a catherine wheel effect of fizzing and spluttering. We threw a towel over it and whipped it out onto the lawn PDQ and it fizzed and spluttered away for 2 days. When it finally stopped we had 1/4 of an inch of flat fizz in the bottom of the bottle and an army of very sticky drunken ants partying on the lawn!!! I've used screw cap wine bottles ever since, but keep them in the shed outside just in case they pop and I cover them over with an old towel to stop flying glass if they do go, Cheers Lyn xxx.

tattycath

bunbun2 wrote: »

I am in County Durham

Only a couple of hundred miles then! :eek: lol x

Possession

I've just seen loads of elderflower too, but I don't think I'm geared up to make cordial at the moment. Have just invested in an apple tree and some raspberry and blackberry canes so let's hope they don't get the kiss of death from my very un-green fingers.
It must be time to revive the foraging thread, I think there's lots down the verges and by the canal which we can eat, and even more that my bunnies can eat.

monnagran

Oh, my goodness, you lot make me feel so old. I have loved all your stories about what you remember of your childhoods, but those were the times I was already an adult. I was going to say 'grown-up' but the jury's still out on that one.

My childhood was mostly spent during WW2 as I was born in 1939 before it all kicked off. So where your memories are of toys, games, food, clothes etc. mine are of sirens, bombs dropping, invasion fears, being chased by a German 'hedgehopper', the 'Kitchen Front' on the radio also the Radio Doctor, very thin newspapers and no comics (paper-saving), collecting things for salvage, making-do and mending on an unprecedented scale, searching for shrapnel on waste ground and in the garden, collecting the meagre weekly rations from the corner shop and so on.

We all played out in the street as every inch of garden was used for growing vegetables. No traffic, so we could have a skipping rope,(old clothes line)stretched from side to side of the road and mark wickets for cricket on someone's wall or gate. The only vehicle likely to disturb us was the bakers van pulled by an ancient horse whose appearance was marked by all us children lurking by our various gates with shovel and bucket waiting for the magic moment when we descended on the pile of droppings and fought for our share . We basked in parents' approval if we managed a fair share for the rhubarb. The milkman did have a motorised van but he came so early in the morning we rarely saw him.

The milk bottles had wide tops with cardboard circles for lids with a round hole half-punched in the middle of them. School liked us to collect these as we could bind them with raffia and sew them together for place mats....sooooo useful when you were expecting to be bombed to smithereens at any moment.

School was very crowded and we had 2 classes in our already packed classroom. It was quite good having 2 teachers in the room as if yours got a bit boring you could always tune in to the one on the other side of the room. Then of course there was always the hope of an air raid warning when we all gathered in the hall (working on the principle that if one went we all went, I suppose) and sang songs. It made a break in an otherwise boring day.
In the playground was an enormous water tank for dealing with incendaries. I don't recall any fence round it or any other protective measures. oh, Health and Safety eat your hearts out. No-one ever drowned though.

I'm stopping there before you all nod off. I'll keep the horrors of wartime food and clothes etc. for another day........
Be very afraid!

x

tattycath

monnagran wrote: »

Oh, my goodness, you lot make me feel so old. I have loved all your stories about what you remember of your childhoods, but those were the times I was already an adult. I was going to say 'grown-up' but the jury's still out on that one.

My childhood was mostly spent during WW2 as I was born in 1939 before it all kicked off. So where your memories are of toys, games, food, clothes etc. mine are of sirens, bombs dropping, invasion fears, being chased by a German 'hedgehopper', the 'Kitchen Front' on the radio also the Radio Doctor, very thin newspapers and no comics (paper-saving), collecting things for salvage, making-do and mending on an unprecedented scale, searching for shrapnel on waste ground and in the garden, collecting the meagre weekly rations from the corner shop and so on.

We all played out in the street as every inch of garden was used for growing vegetables. No traffic, so we could have a skipping rope,(old clothes line)stretched from side to side of the road and mark wickets for cricket on someone's wall or gate. The only vehicle likely to disturb us was the bakers van pulled by an ancient horse whose appearance was marked by all us children lurking by our various gates with shovel and bucket waiting for the magic moment when we descended on the pile of droppings and fought for our share . We basked in parents' approval if we managed a fair share for the rhubarb. The milkman did have a motorised van but he came so early in the morning we rarely saw him.

The milk bottles had wide tops with cardboard circles for lids with a round hole half-punched in the middle of them. School liked us to collect these as we could bind them with raffia and sew them together for place mats....sooooo useful when you were expecting to be bombed to smithereens at any moment.

School was very crowded and we had 2 classes in our already packed classroom. It was quite good having 2 teachers in the room as if yours got a bit boring you could always tune in to the one on the other side of the room. Then of course there was always the hope of an air raid warning when we all gathered in the hall (working on the principle that if one went we all went, I suppose) and sang songs. It made a break in an otherwise boring day.
In the playground was an enormous water tank for dealing with incendaries. I don't recall any fence round it or any other protective measures. oh, Health and Safety eat your hearts out. No-one ever drowned though.

I'm stopping there before you all nod off. I'll keep the horrors of wartime food and clothes etc. for another day........
Be very afraid!

x

Wow! Not bored at all.
My mum was born in '37 and she used to tell us what it was like for her. They used to have to take gas masks to school. It was very make do and mend. She lived out in the sticks and her grandad had a farm.
She was only telling me today about how they used to play with skipping ropes made out of washing line, played marbles.
There was little food waste as they could not afford to waste anything-everything was useful for something.

GreyQueen

juliettet wrote: »

Hi Everyone,

I was born in 1960 and remember too the nylon sheets. My favourite Christmas present was a Ladybird dressing gown with ladybird buttons! It was ankle length and years later near my knees when it was cut up for cloths. I remember long bike rides with pals and tomato sandwiches with the said warm orange juice in the beaker with the plastic top. I also remember having an old hand me down dolls silver cross pram. As i did not like dolls my guinea pig was walked instead.

I had a ladybird dressing gown, too. I loved it but eventually outgrew it. The ladybird buttons were cut off and saved - they're somewhere in Mum's button tins (yes, she has many of them).

Fishpaste sarnies, orange squash in beakers, Club biscuits, dairlylea triangles, arctic roll for dessert. We'd bike for miles as young children with our parents in 30 mile round-trips to see the grandparents when only about 7 years old. You'd be amazed what young kids can do if you haven't got a car.....;)

I was a rural child for my earliest years, then we lived on the edge of a market town. I can't remember hearing about the Moors Murders, but they made a big impression on my parents, as they did on parents everywhere, I imagine. As a child I wasn't allowed to have a paper-round on our estate in the 1970s, there had been a murder/ murders/ disappearances of children doing paper rounds elsewhere in the country and they didn't want to risk it.

Mostly, I felt pretty safe charging around on my bike, running around in the woods, making bows and arrows, fashioning throwing spears out of dead giant hogweed stems, identifying plants with my Observer Book of Wild Flowers, a pressie from my Nan. Funny how I'm not too much different now even though I'm technically a grown up woman in her late forties.

I remember reading somewhere Inside every old person is a very surprised young person...........:rotfl: