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The Garden Fence - help and support in tough times

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  • monnagran
    monnagran Posts: 5,284 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Sigh............

    I'm opening the tin of corned beef as we speak.
    I believe that friends are quiet angels
    Who lift us to our feet when our wings
    Have trouble remembering how to fly.
  • ivyleaf
    ivyleaf Posts: 6,431 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts
    Ha ha monna, I see you are still in literary mode this morning :D

    ((HUGS)) Hester, your poor DD1, she must be furious and upset after being fobbed off for so long!

    i can hear DS getting up. He's going to start on the pipework for the new boiler today, but i know he will say "I'm just going out to get a few more parts I need, and i'll get some breakfast while i'm out." (he can't face food when he first gets up) and will then disappear for several hours :cool:

    He suggested we go away for a couple of nights while the boiler's being fitted, as the power will have to be off some of the time so we won't be able to use our electric heater, so we are going to Lincoln and should have a chance to see BIL and DSIL while we're there.

    Last night I was wearing pj's rather than a nightie, and had bedsocks on, and a blanket on top of the duvet, but my nose was so cold it was keeping me awake, for goodness' sake :D

    But at least we know when there will be an end to it. It must have been so much more stressful being cold during and after WW2 (thinking of that awful winter of 1947-48 which I'm sure monna can remember all too well)
  • monnagran
    monnagran Posts: 5,284 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Too right Ivyleaf. My main impression of my childhood was being cold. I am sure that I must have been too hot at times but it is the cold I remember. It seems to have gone on until I was married and vowed that I would never be cold again. I will probably starve to death in a toasty warm house.
    1947 was grim. 1963 was not much fun either. By then I was living in a top floor bed-sitter with a one bar electric fire and teaching in a classroom with one inefficient radiator and three outside walls. And there was often no coke for the boiler when the lorries couldn't get through. Did the school close? Good heavens, no. Even though the outside toilets were permanently frozen and flushed by a chain of boys passing buckets of hot water drawn from the kitchen and the temperature in my classroom occasionally reached the heady heights of 46°F and the children had to sit all day in their coats and gloves. Every 15 minutes or so we had 5 minutes of jumping up and down to keep the circulation going. You can understand why I feel slightly peeved when schools now close at the first glimpse of a snowflake.

    Why do you get me going? You know I can bore for England on my life and times.

    Anyway, you are all safe now, I am going out to lunch with a friend. Maybe a call into the Cash and Carry. Yippee.
    I believe that friends are quiet angels
    Who lift us to our feet when our wings
    Have trouble remembering how to fly.
  • nursemaggie
    nursemaggie Posts: 2,608 Forumite
    Seventh Anniversary 1,000 Posts
    ivyleaf enjoy your trip to Lincoln. May your return to a nice warm house.

    monna you are never boring. My overwhelming memories are of cold winters lasting most of the year and long hot summers which must have been imagination. Just after my father died mum and I were sorting photographs and I found lots of photos of us on the beach on holiday. Mum and dad were always in their winter coats.

    I remember we also had summer coats then, but they were definitely winter coats and my brother and I were in those awful knitted bathing costumes. Mum said it was always cold in the late 40s and 50s.

    I can remember other winters with lots of snow. I also remember going to school in the snow when it came over the top of my wellies. That can't have been '63 as I was working then. The buses did not stop when it snowed like they have been doing for the last 30 odd years. It's a good job it doesn't snow every year like it did then.

    One of the best things about being retired is you don't have to go out in bad weather unless you want to.

    We have some sun today after it raining for the last 5 days.
  • mardatha
    mardatha Posts: 15,612 Forumite
    I seem destined to always live in high open places, I live in one now and grew up in another one the same. I can remember the winter of 63, I was 13 and we got a lot of time off school as the bus couldn't get through.
    I remember often my mum hanging those horrible cream utility blankets at the windows to stop the curtains blowing about. But with my dad a miner we always had a nice blazing coal fire in the livingroom - just the rest of the house was like an igloo lol
  • VJsmum
    VJsmum Posts: 6,999 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    I think i might be a product of the winter of '63 - I was born in December of that year :D Maybe that is why i detest the cold. Or maybe it's that I, too, remember freezing cold bedrooms and bathroom - no central heating for us and the bathroom had the paraffin stove lit on a sunday only.
    I wanna be in the room where it happens
  • silvasava
    silvasava Posts: 4,433 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    I was 15 in '63 and never had a day off work - if the bus couldn't get through I walked. I also remember walking home from a dance in bare feet - I'd got some new patent leather slingback stilettos and I wasn't going to ruin them by getting them soaked! Funnily enough my feet were perfectly warm and I didn't get any chilblains either. Do remember them sending animal feed into the farms by helicopter as so many were totally cut off. It started snowing on Boxing Day and didn't stop until Easter which I think was in April that year
    Small victories - sometimes they are all you can hope for but sometimes they are all you need - be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle
  • ginnyknit
    ginnyknit Posts: 3,718 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Monna we love hearing you reminisce (is that right lol) and Mar those cream utility blankets were and still are my favourite blankets. I have actually been looking for one to embroider on.

    We have both had the flu, obviously Hubby was worse than me and had anti bi's. Its still wonderous to me to have a GP that's so helpful and actually gives care along with meds. Our repeat scripts were processed, sent to the chemist and ready in 24 hours :eek: utter luxury and less stress for me all round.

    Dd won a Mothers Day hamper in a raffle today and shared it with me, I got pot pouri, nailfiles, facial wipes hand cream and hand wash plus I napped the lovely plastic basketit all came in - I have an obsession with baskets and every where is still a muddle :rotfl:

    DGs's parents evening was tonight and all is well. He is truly enjoying being a muddy little boy and the school reckons there are worse things than a wet 6 year old. they just change his clothes and wash the dirty ones bless them. Some of the pupils have extreme problems but everything is handled beautifully.

    Hope all those who are poorly or have poorly Oh's are doing ok and that they are sharing a bit of the sunshine to help them mend - even though its chilly.
    Clearing the junk to travel light
    Saving every single penny.
    I will get my caravan
  • nannywindow
    nannywindow Posts: 3,696 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Photogenic
    edited 23 March 2017 at 8:15PM
    Monagran I love your stories. You made me remember '63 ! My mother would take me to school everyday through "corridors" made in the snow drifts, that were almost as tall as me ! ( I had just started juniors) and every day for 6 weeks we were sent back home because the school boiler wouldn't light, so no heating and the outside toilets were frozen. Also the lunch canteen. about 5 mins walk away from school, was cut off completely. The only heating in our house was a coal fire in the living room and you woke every morning with ice on the inside of the bedroom window. Ahhh those were the days:rotfl:. Can't remember anything about how we managed to get any food shopping because there were no buses and we didn't have a car.
    Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, but this time more intelligently
  • Oh I so remember the ice on the inside of the windows. Mum used to put a rolled up towel on the windowsill to catch any drips, but to be honest the house was so cold they hardly ever melted.

    We had a paraffin heater on the landing which had to take the chill off 3 bedrooms and the bathroom, which of course wasn't adequate. The only other heating was the coal fire downstairs, and that wasn't lit until early evening.

    We only had a bath on Friday night, and because I was the oldest I was allowed to bathe on my own, but my 2 sisters had to share. We had an immersion heater to heat the water, and of course this was quite costly.

    I know we didn't have many blankets and on top of mine I had my Dad's old army coat, which was heavy but warm.

    I have no doubt that winters were much colder and longer in the 50s and even the 60s.

    Candlelightx
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