I'm Back

bouicca21

Wow, 7 pages from posters all saying the same thing!   And what am I going to add?  Another welcome back!

-taff

Me too...

How lovely to see you back Jackie, missed your posts...

I've discovered we have a community fridge here where I live, all is free, and free to anyone and everyone, it's food being kept out of landfill not a food bank. You might have one by you...

London_1

Polly so good to know ,like me you are a fellow library user. I stll buy books ,mainly from charity shops ,but my eldest every year always asks what my 'Christmas book" will be, as she knows how I love my books and reading

She is a "Kindle" lady reader. !!!!I  I had a kindle when they first came on the market, and used it for a little while but I found it a bit 'souless' to be honest. I prefer a book with pages that I can turn. I know its easier to store books, and I can get electronic books from my library down loaded onto my laptop or Ipad ,but still to me the feel and smell of a book is part of the enjoyment . 

I went online to my library account and ordered the first of Helen Forrester's books last night Twopence Across the Mersey.
 The library have been brilliant throughout the past two years, and ordering stuff online means you can just pop in and pick it up. I have 'Shuggie Bain' to pick up next time I go there
They email you when its at the library, and I have found it even easier than wandering around looking.
During the past two years they never closed bless them, and when you went to pick up your books and return your old ones there was a big crate outside the door where your returns were dropped into This was quarantined for 72 hours in storage bfore being returned to the shelves .There was a glass fronted screen where they wuld push through your new books already stamped and ready for pick up, so safety of the users and librarians was not compromised.
My local librarians know me by name and know when I go in that there will be something for me in the reserved shelves  

Weenancyinamerica My idea of heaven would be to live in hay-on Wye its a beautiful place and I could happily wander around the 23 plus book shops there  for the rest of my days I think,but probably end up broke pretty soon. I used to live in Oxford back in the early 1960s and there was a book shop there just off the 'High' that was enormous. When I lived there I could never afford to go into it to buy anything but I would wander around just looking and dreaming of when I could .About 15 years ago I was in Oxford with a friend of mine, and hadn't been back there for almost 50 years and boy had the place changed from 1962. Gone was the students and workers cafe 'Georges' in the market where you could be fed full to bursting for half a crown. But I made a point of visiting the bookshop and finally bought my first book there. It was an Alan Bennett book and wasn't cheap but I had finally ticked of my dream to buy a book that I wanted from the bookshop I get passed a lot of books paperback usually and having read I pass them on to friends but my beloved hardbacks I keep even after reading them and several shelves of my books have built up over the years These are like old friends and I couldn't be rid of them.

I finished my this years Christmas book of Ken Follett's and really liked it . I shall loan it next Tuesday to my friend to take into hospital when she gets her bed booked.its a stonking 816 pages so should keep her entralled for awhile .

I find that if I find an author I like then I have to read everything written by them. I am working my way through Angela Marsons books at the moment I loved Ruth Rendell and have read everything she wrote , sadly no longer with us.

My book club meeting is next week and it will be interesting to see what book we have for the month . This tiny library where its held is behind a primary school and I will also pick up a couple of books from there to read to keep their 'footfall' going.Whe we had the first lockdown they even delivered the book club book to my doorstep for three months to ensure we still kept the book club going, from the little library three miles away .  

Use it, or lose it and cash strapped councils will soon shut free lending libraries if they can to raise funds, so we must use what there is or they will be gone and that would be dreadful ,especially for children. both my children have got the 'book' habit and luckily all of my grandchildren My eldest granddaughte now takes her two little gilrs to pick their books out from her local library even though the youngest isn't reading yet she gets her story book and the little girls get a story every bedtime The greatest gift you can give a child is a love of books as along with their children and families  its a love that will stay with them all their lives.

Right time for lunch I think and I have a cheese salad today ,the sun is shining, but rather cold so this afternoon will be a knitting afternoon as I have an old film to watch on my TiVo box North By North West  with Cary Grant , seen it before several times but I love old films , no effing and jeffing and just handsome chaps and beautiful scenery with a good story as well :0

Have a good day everyone and thanks for the welcomes 

JackieO xx

Shropshirelass

I'm so glad to see you back Jackie, have often thought of you over the last two years, especially when making rice pudding (and other things!), and hoped you were OK. I too love Helen Forrester's books, probably because I trained as a nurse in Liverpool in the sixties, and they give me a feeling of home, and of growing up.
I met a lovely lady in the Chemist this morning, she remarked that she feels old now that she is 60, and it struck me that I don't feel old at all, though I could give her 15 years. I'm sure reading gives a sense of proportion, for which I am very thankful.

Living_proof

As ever I am always late to the party but here's another who has thought of you many times since you left, particularly when I read the Love Food Not Waste thread. I have really enjoyed reading all the posts on this new thread and it has given me something to look forward to.

I too try and avoid waste but I find Olio collectors are so generous with their wares and sometimes give me so much food I can scarcely use it! I have a hotbin so can compost all sorts of food but it still feels a waste. Just today I have composted three perfectly good leaf salads and the birds have benefited from wholemeal and sourdough loaves, so I am just thinking of ways I can find homes for 6 packs of 8 tortilla wraps!

It's a beautiful day in North Lincolnshire so I must go for a walk and chase that Vitamin D we all need!

A heartfelt welcome Jackie. x

[Deleted User]

Oh how your stories reminded me of my childhood. I was allowed to go to the library as a small child, learnt to read very early, possibly due to my mother who also was a voracious reader. I remember on one occasion I went and got a book out, if I remember rightly one of the Mallory Towers books. I read it the same morning and went back in the afternoon to put the book back in and get another.....they would not let me. They did not believe I had read a book in such a short time.

I have read ever since, as have my two daughters. We live in a village and the mobile library was stopped during the pandemic, we resorted to Borrow Box on the internet,my husband is a great reader too. Borrow Box is fabulous, I counted up recently and have read well over 500 books since I found Borrow Box a few years ago. The mobile library comes the first Monday in the month and we can take out as many booksas we can carry. Uusually 10 - 15 to keep us going. I read quicker than my husband and have been known to read a book in a day, especially if it was one of those 'you could not put down'. I have also read long into the night when reading an exciting book, not wanting to sleep until I find out how the story worked out!! 

I was born just at the end of the war, I remember things 'being on the ration'. I was brought up to eat what was on my plate at meal times. Nothing went to waste, and for a while I wore 'hand me downs' which my grandnother altered to fit me. she trained as a tailoress and was a whizz at making 'something out of nothing'. I have never seen anyone work like she did. She would have a client come to the house, measure them and then lay fabric on the floor and chalk out the garment before cutting it out. She never used a pattern. Very rarely would she have to re-cut anything, just occasionally, when someone came for a fitting, she would make an alteration using chalk to mark the garment and then clipping the fabric. I remember on one occasion she was making a suit for someone and the jacket sleeve was slightly too long because there was a difference in the height of the shoulders, she just got hold of the bottom of the sleeve and ripped it out, everything was tacked before it was sewn, so if it needed adjustment she could just snip the thread and pull.

I inherited some of her skills to sew, but I could never cut out a garment like she did. I had to use a pattern.

littlemoney

Welcome back. Like you I have always been a reader and books were valued. I was never allowed fireworks but sometimes  I could have a book instead as it would last whereas fireworks was like burning money.

weenancyinAmerica

My father was a school librarian for several years. He used to take me with him to buy books for the library. 
Both of my parents were active in our local Friends of the Library group and I started going with them. Now I am the president. We raise money and pay for the Summer Reading Program for children and adults, a Winter Reading Program, and special programs all year long. We have 7 libraries that we support. Our Library was chosen Library of the Year for 2021 for all of the United States because of the activities we have. During the pandemic we had programs on the Internet also. We even have a new program for foster children who previously couldn't get a card unless an adult signed for them. We now have a special card where they can check out three books at a time - and if something happens, the Friends pays the replacement costs. We really want people to keep reading. Our librarian's goal is a library card for every student in our school district. We are almost there.

pollyanna_26

I bought Helens paperback books as each was issued as our local libraries didn't have them and there were no book sharing schemes back then.

They were very cheap and all these years on are still selling well.

I mentioned further up the thread learning about Jackie and MSE from a little book/ Old Style Ways For Modern Days on a book rack outside an independent bookshop. The title caught my eye so I bought it, read it and wanted to be part of the OS community.

After DD1 presented me with a shiny new Dell laptop insistingI teach nyself how to use it DD3 finally took pity on me and started to help.

So I could read the posts on OS but was wary of signing up. Everyone seemed to know everyone else and I wondered how I could ever fit in and remember everyones names and what could I talk about that anyone would be interested  in.

I didn't sign up and kept on reading posts.  I live just a short walk from the sea and have a likng for all things coastal. Little lightho uses. boats etc.

I don't  know if anyone remembers Popperwell a man who used to post on OS. He was a shopaholic and a hoarder. Buying things losing things, breaking or forgetting he'd already bought something and buying it again. At one point he bought three Christmas trees one after the other forgetting those he'd already bought and still never got round to putting one up or using the multi packs of decorations and lights.

Well I was browsing one day and he'd posted a picture of his latest buy a coastal sandwich tray.Youngest was upstairs so I ran up to ask her to come down. Poor girl had to set up an account urge me to remember exactly where I'd seen the image of a Mackintosh Glasgow Rose I'd long ago decided I wanted as my avater.

There are thousands of Mackintosh Rose images online and we trawled through many before finding the one. So my first ever post was askking Popperwell where he had bought that tray. he kindly replied mentioning all the other matching items available. We didn't have the shop he went to but I found those items in one of our independant shops.

So I was finally on MSE scattering typos left right and centre and getting confused by who was who but Jackie was there and I remembered her.

We have freezing fog here tonight with the promise of a heavy overnight frost and I am longing for Spring.

I'm partway through the latest Anna Jacobs book set in one of the areas of her imaginary Lancashire valley leading through villages to the Tops. I never took to her books set in Australia  but enjoyed her Peppercorn St series and her Lancashire ones. There were others over the years all a good read.

pollyx

annieb64

My mother ran the village library so I could change my books as often as I wanted-she knew how quickly I read. DH went on a rapid reading course once but he still reads more slowly than me.

It would be nice in some ways to read more slowly.  I do have a kindle now and have subscribed  to "kindle unlimited " but still prefer a real book. The kindle is useful when I'm  travelling  or if I want to read during the night as I don't  need to put the light on and disturb DH