The Garden Fence - proper Old Style support and chat!

Floss

Can I just say that taking a husband back to his place of birth without the right paperwork isn't successful, I tried it with the now ex-husband on his 50th - I had to divorce him 😂😂

MingVase

See, this is the problem with buying goods on Sale. No returns. Drat.

pollyanna_26

MingVase said:

See, this is the problem with buying goods on Sale. No returns. Drat.

Well you did elope which tends not to give much time to think things through Mar. Tell the truth you wouldn't want to be without him, you are allowed a soft side. I know it's hard but no need to always be Evil Edna, anyway with your talent for disposing of people and other things you'd have sorted things years ago and who could you have complained about over the years?

pollyx

Nargleblast

I reckon if he weren't there you'd miss him, Ming. Although I am sure he'd come back and haunt you, just to be awkward.

Anyone noticed we're getting those headlines again about Christmas being cancelled? Last year it was because of Covid restrictions, this year they've dug up Brexit again as an excuse. Whatever food is or isn't available, people will still find a way of celebrating Christmas. If they could cope during the rationing period in WW2, I am sure we can cope in the 21st century. Regardless of news headlines, I shall be out there draping tinsel over the Fence as usual.

monnagran

I took a husband back once.  Well, he was faulty.

I think that nothing would be nicer than a cancelled Christmas.  The sheer excess and over-the-topness of the modern Christmas appals me.  I won't bore you with an account of a wartime Christmas, but I can tell you that it was the most exciting day of the year.

Just off to clear a bit of my ancient toyboy's ROD.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY 

Where two or three are gathered together you will have 3 times the gossip, 5 times the righteous indignation and 10 times the emotion.
Don't rally the troops to go along with you anger  -  keep drama in the theatre.

MingVase

Polly, I think the RV is beginning to train up now, so I'll persevere with him.

Monna, please tell us what a wartime Christmas was like. I really don't like the whole festive season bit at all but I want to. I love New Year though.  Anybody else on the Fence who can remember really good old-fashioned ones?

pollyanna_26

MingVase said:

Polly, I think the RV is beginning to train up now, so I'll persevere with him.

Monna, please tell us what a wartime Christmas was like. I really don't like the whole festive season bit at all but I want to. I love New Year though.  Anybody else on the Fence who can remember really good old-fashioned ones?

My Auntie Joan was the one who'd tell me about Christmas and other times. Dec 1940 there was the Christmas blitz which over 3 days killed nearly 400 people as Bootle and other parts of Liverpool took a hammering. Manchester was hit too with a higher death toll. She must have been 13 then so it must have been later in the war she outran the firemen and ARP wardens to run back into the house after it was hit to rescue her kniitting. She'd swapped a lipstick and a couple of other things for the wool and there's no way Grandma would have allowed make up until she was of working age.

I've no idea when the family moved from the little house to that big one away from the docks or where they went after the roof was hit but by the time I came along Auntie J was living there and possibly the females in the family had as the men were on active service.

My brother was four years older than me so must have been born in wartime. I know mum and dad were married a few years before Tom was born as dad was lucky his home port was his home town.

According to Auntie J when it came to Christmas everyone was pretty much in the same boat and they would sew or make gifts or pick up secondhand books or little presents in the markets. Obviously there were no twinking lights in a blackout and the gasmask was always to hand whether indoors or out. With food you ate what you could find and were grateful.

A lot Christmas gifts were from unpicked woollens they'd reknit .

There was a huge back yard at that house and there was an Anderson shelter in the garden . I've no idea how it stayed up they were supposed to be dug into the ground and soil packed around them but it was there for some years after the war and my cousins and I used to play in it.

When I was growing up we had tiny real candles on a real tree. I remember thinking that wasn't a good idea but it was very pretty with little angels and snowmen mum had knitted and bells we'd made out of milk bottle tops and red baby ribbon.

I loved Christmas Mar as a child and when I had my own children. I don't like a buy everything one . Among the decoratuions are tiny oval and round cross stitch frames with little Christmas designs on fine aida and sometimes a tiny bell and ribbon on a reindeers neck.

When the decoration boxes come out it's lovely some things are years old with shiny silver snowflakes , snow globes , little pottery houses with nightlights in, embroidered hearts and table runners and lots of bells including cat of the hearts very big red jingle bell with his name on it bought from the garden centre by the wool centre in Aberfoyle.

It hangs on a wall light until Christmas Eve then goes on the lower tree branch so he can give it a good whack as he used to with all the bells.

You must try to enjoy Christmas it's light in the darkest time of the year.

pollyx

MingVase

Funny Polly, I'm just reading a book about the Blitz and those places are mentioned in it.

Re Christmas - when my kids were wee I used to get them to help & we made all the decorations.  Alcan foil cut into long thin streamers and hung up, will twist and sparkle in any draught. Paper chains dabbed with glue and tons of glitter sprinkled on. Holly leaves in epsom salts. But I was brought up with a coal fire and really really missed that, was sad that mine didn't know how lovely a real fire was. We moved when they were early teens  back to a house with coal, and by then you could buy stuff to put in the fire that made the flames burn blue and green. And we try to stick to rules within the family that things should either be hand made or else in the case of the sons, that a day's labour is a good pressie. We really appreciate that now we're decepit 

maryb

I like Christmas Eve best.  Christmas Day itself is a bit meh by the afternoon, though I love going to church in the morning and belting out the carols.  And I wish it would all get back to normal sooner than it does

annieb64

I always claim the I picked my husband  up in a bar. We were in the same hall of residence at University and we met playing darts in the hall bar. 

Just got back from my last day in the charity shop and he hasn't  filled a single box.