Category Archives: Nostalgia

Christmas 2009

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Well, Christmas came before we were ready for it, mainly due to the weather being terrible and not being able to travel to see people. It was the most disorganised that we had ever been – which is daft really because it’s not as if we have much to do for it now that the family has grown up.

However, despite that we all agreed that it was a great Christmas, everything just seemed to be in harmony and we all had a really relaxing time.

We all had a bit too much to eat but only one bottle of wine was drunk between all five of us. I didn’t actually have anything to eat at all until 3 o’clock – not even a bit of chocolate, I just didn’t feel like eating. The result is that I am still weighing in at 9 stone exactly, even although we haven’t been able to get out for our customary hour of walking each day, due to the weather.

All in all a jolly good time was had by all. Now for Hogmanay!

Winter weather

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I hate the cold weather and it has been below freezing all day today. Tomorrow it is going to be -6c and it’s getting beyond a joke. The snow is just piled up everywhere and each morning we just wake up to even more of the horrible stuff.

We haven’t been able to get to our relatives to give them their Christmas presents either so Christmas is going to be delayed this year, until the roads are safe to drive on again.

Winter has come, the snow has fell,
Wee Josie’s nose is froze as well,
Wee Josie’s nose is frozen skintit,
Winter’s diabolic – intit!

I thought that I would inflict a terrible piece of Scottish doggerel poetry on you, just in case you weren’t feeling bad enough!

Scottish words: Fankle

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Fankle is the Scottish word for tangle. It is a word that always seems to be in use at this time of the year. Inevitably the Christmas tree lights are always in a fankle when you dig them out of the box that they have been living in over the past year.

It seems that no matter how carefully you pack them away after the festivities are over, the lights have obviously spent their time dancing the nights away like sugar plum fairies. The desperate cry goes up over the whole country – They’re all fankled up! How does it happen?

Other things that get fankled or in a fankle are hair, particularly mine in the terrible winds that you get here coming off the North Sea. And of course people here don’t get their knickers in a twist when they are panicking about something. Their knickers get into a good old fashioned fankle.

Haworth at Christmas

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I’ve been finding it difficult to get into the Christmas spirit this year, partly I think because there isn’t anything going on around here in the way of traditional celebrations. It’s all about parting everyone from their cash really, which is a shame.

Although I can’t say that I’m in any way religious (quite the opposite really), I still think that the mad commercialisation of Christmas is a complete pain in the neck. Let’s face it, the shops are full of tat at the moment, and expensive tat at that! And people feel the need to spend and spend and spoil their children rotten, even when they know that the kids get more fun out of simple things, like big boxes they can sit in and pretend that it is a car, bus, train or whatever.

Some people are still paying for Christmas by the time the next one comes along. I wish we could get back to the time when people just made something for their friends and relatives, if they feel the need to give something.

I must admit that we have never exchanged presents amongst our brothers and sisters as there are just too many of us and it is much simpler to give to the young people only, and our parents of course, (when they were alive).

So what has all this moaning got to do with Haworth in Yorkshire? We visited Haworth for the first time in the summer and we really enjoyed it, although we didn’t have enough time there. So we thought we would definitely go again and I did a bit of research and discovered that the good people of Haworth are up to all sorts throughout the year. The place really seems to be jumping and if we lived a bit closer I would definitely be visiting the Christmas market and going to see exactly what holly scroggling is. Singing carols at Haworth would just be perfect, I’m sure that you couldn’t stay ‘bah humbugish’ for long there.

I really fancy going to the vintage fair which they have later in the year, well it’s all recycling isn’t it, and wouldn’t it be great
to dress up in a 1940s tea dress for the 40s weekend that they have every year.

Have a look at the Haworth Village site to find out more.

Scottish words Haver

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As ever, there is some controversy over how this word is spelt. I have seen it written as haiver, however in The Proclaimers lyrics for I’m Gonna Be (500 miles) it is written as haver.

So, haver just means to talk nonsense or rubbish. It’s very useful if someone is being particularly stupid, annoying and long winded about something, then you can use just one word “Havers!” to deflate them and succinctly tell them what you think.

Or – What are you havering about now? gives the distinct impression that the speaker is ALWAYS talking rubbish.

When The Proclaimers released their single 500 miles, in America, it caused a bit of consternation as the Americans got it into their heads that havering was something rude so they were thinking about banning it. In Britain banning anything usually makes it an instant hit. Anyway, the Americans were reassured that the sky wouldn’t fall down if Craig and Charlie sang the word haver and it has been their biggest hit ever.

Tea

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I HATE tea. I really wish that I could like it and I have tried really hard over the years to find a kind of tea that I could stomach. Common or garden tea, green tea, herbal tea, fruit tea, Earl Grey and many moons ago Lapsang Sou -whatever it is. The trouble is they all taste of tea and I even dislike the smell of it. My husband feels exactly the same about it, we are strictly black coffee people – no sugar.

I wish I loved it and it’s really strange to me that I don’t because both my parents were tea addicts as were my husband’s parents. The thing is that I love everything to do with tea, which is why I’ve persevered with it over the years. It’s all so very British and twee, as are all the accessories that go with tea making.

Teapots and military crested ware

Tea cosies and accessories

As you can see, I have quite a collection of lovely teapots, tea cosies and caddies which I inherited from a great aunt. Tea seems to have got the older generation through desperate times in their lives. The first action in any disaster seemed to be to put the kettle on, I think the process and ritual of tea-making must have had a great calming effect on people’s nerves.

My father-in-law was in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Regiment during WW2. He was mobilised in 1939 and was in it for the whole duration of the war. He was one of the poor souls who had to wait on the beach at Dunkirk to be evacuated, whilst being bombed and shot at by the Luftwaffe, and he said that the first thing that they did whenever they pitched up somewhere new was to get the tea brewing. After that things didn’t seem so bad.

So you can see why I feel that I’m missing out on something here. Strangely, both our ‘boys’ are keen tea drinkers, quaffing quantities of the stuff in the ordinary and green varieties.

If anyone can advise me on obscure tea types which might tempt me, I’d be grateful. I’m still willing to try and my pinky finger is just ready to tweek to a jaunty angle whilst drinking from a bone china cup (hand-painted of course)!

Christmas

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Well, I suppose I had to give in sometime but I can’t say that I feel at all festive. Obviously I’ll have to put some effort into it. In years past I’ve gone down the road of the big traditional Victorian tree and I’ve even made the oranges studded with cloves, in fact I’ve still got some of them in my wardrobe. I think that it is easier to get into the spirit of it all when you have small children.

Do not be thinking that we had wee boys who were writing letters to Santa or any of that nonsense. As I was the youngest in my family I was teeny when I found out from my teenage brothers and sisters that there was no such person as Santa. I can still remember what a complete idiot I felt, even although I was probably only about 3 years old. I even remember thinking that I would never tell such a lie to a child and I stuck by that when I had children of my own. I just told them that Santa had lived a long time ago, but he was dead now and people just gave each other presents to remember him and to cheer ourselves up in the dark, cold winter.

I was really proud of them when they came home from nursery school and told me that they had had to explain to the other children that Santa was dead. As you can imagine, I was very popular with the other mums, ho ho ho , by their looks I think they could have strung me up. I just smiled angelically at them.

Anyway, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still have a good time and to get myself into the Christmas spirit I sometimes resort to reading a very slim volume by Charles Dickens called A Christmas Tree. I’m not really into Dickens but I must admit he does do Christmas very well.

It begins with a description of a Victorian Christmas starting with the tree which is laden with all sorts of goodies, many of them made in Wolverhampton! For some reason Dickens seemed to link Christmas with ghosts and they feature in this wee book too.

It reminds me that I always used to buy chocolate watch decorations for our real tree and chocolate soldiers too but I haven’t been able to get them in the shops for the past few years now.

Being me, I’m swithering about getting a real tree or not this year. We usually put one in the sitting-room, which is hardly ever used now that we don’t have boys practising on the pianos in there. Yes that was supposed to be plural, one upright and one inherited boudoir grand, how are we ever going to downsize?

It seems a waste of a living tree really, but I suppose that is what they are grown for. Also I’m mad with myself for swithering over keeping the real fire or getting a fake gas one and opting for the gas one, as there is nothing like a real fire for mesmerising comfort during the winter. Too late, it’s gas now.

So in the next few days I’ll be giving in and joining all my neighbours who started the decorating lark far too early. Watch out for the photographs, hopefully they wont be too tacky.

Scottish words Swithering

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Swithering is a word which I use on a regular basis, because I’m not very good at making up my mind about anything. So I spend a lot of time swithering. If you can’t decide whether to choose a chocolate eclair or a meringue, then you are swithering. Of course you could always solve the problem by having both cakes, but then that only brings more problems of the, “My God how did I get so fat variety.”

I suppose, in English you would say that you were undecided about something, but swithering has a much better ring to it, I think.

Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser

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This book was first published in 1969 and at 667 pages the sheer thickness of it could be a wee bit off putting to anyone with lots of books in the ‘to be read pile’. However, if you are at all interested in Mary Stuart then this is a must read for you.

You can easily tell that Antonia Fraser has a real passion for Mary and she obviously did a fantastic amount of research on her subject, which I suspect was a real treat for her.

Mary Stuart has always been a familiar tragic figure to me. My favourite doll as a teeny wee girl was that well known one of her dressed in a black velvet gown with a lace cloak. When I was told of her sorry tale and ghastly end – well, you couldn’t not love the idea of her.

So it was inevitable that I was going to read this book sometime.The book won the James Tait Memorial Prize and although it was written so long ago, it has never been bettered.

Although the book is packed with historical detail, it never becomes dry or boring as Antonia Fraser has a wonderful free-flowing way with words. Despite the fact that she is so keen on her subject, it hasn’t blinded her to the fact that Mary was very far from being perfect. It’s a real pity that she didn’t take a leaf out of her cousin Elizabeth’s book and steer clear of marriage altogether.

It seems that wherever you live in Scotland, you will be close to a castle or palace with links to Mary Stuart.

She was born in Linlithgow Palace in 1542. The palace is just a shell now as it caught fire in 1746, but it must have been wonderful in its day.

Linlithgow Palace and Loch in late evening

Her first marriage to the dauphin ended when he died of complications from an ear infection a month before his 17th birthday. So at the age of 18, Mary sailed for Scotland after 13 years in France.

Considering that she was a Roman Catholic queen in a Presbyterian country, things went rather well for her. She was greeted by enthusiastic crowds and she didn’t disappoint them.

Her choice of husbands left a lot to be desired and brought nothing but trouble for her.

She gave birth to her only child James VI in Edinburgh Castle.

Castle lit up at sunset - Explored

She spent a large part of her life being held captive in various
castles, and managed to escape from a few of them. Lochleven Castle being the most famous escape.

Loch Leven Castle

She loved to spend time at Falkland Palace in Fife, where she could ride and fly her falcons. This palace is well worth a visit, there is plenty to see, it has lovely gardens and the village of Falkland itself is worth a walk round. For those who are a bit more energetic, take time to walk up the East and West Lomonds, to get a great view.

Falkland Palace in Spring

Knitting

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I was taught to knit by my mum when I was about 5 years old using teeny wee needles. Then at about the age of 7 we had to knit a tea cosy at school, a truly hideous thing. The boys did raffia work while the girls knitted.

In the 1970s there was quite a resurgence in craft work, it was all a bit hippy-ish I suppose. So knitting really took off again and I got right into the pointy sticks and became quite proficient at it.

My pride and joy was the Fair Isle jumper which I knitted for my husband around 1980 and it is still going strong after all these years of careful washing.

Fair Isle Jumper

So as you can see I wasn’t bad at knitting and the wool wasn’t too expensive then so I did quite a lot of it even although we were pretty skint (poor) back then.

Later on in the 80’s, the boys arrived with just 19 months in between them and as you can imagine there was quite a fair amount of cot blanket, bootees and matinee jacket knitting going on. Certainly for the first baby anyway – then a strange thing happened and my brain seemed to be – well I can only describe it as being ‘hijacked’, and suddenly I couldn’t concentrate on anything much beyond feeds and nappies. Our first boy hardly slept at all which didn’t help matters.

So boy number 2 hardly got anything knitted for him and the matinee jacket which I did manage is a very much plainer effort than his brother’s.

After that I just gave up for a long time and have only recently picked up the needles again, but I was really shocked to see how much knitting wool had gone up in price. I can understand that there are a lot of processes that a sheep fleece has to go through before you get to a ball of wool, but I know for a fact that the sheep farmers are getting pennies for the fleeces. It seems such a shame when they have all the hard work and worry of the sheep. In fact the farmers are being fleeced.

So what with me trying to tidy things up in the house and get rid of stuff or use it up in some way, I decided to knit with the left over bits of wool which have accumulated in various work baskets over the years. And as I’m trying to knit my way back up to Fair Isle and Aran standard again I decided to start back at the beginning with squares with a slight difference, just to make them a bit more interesting.

Wool Squares

These knitted shapes are actually described as “shells” and I found the pattern instructions in a 1940s knitting book called Modern Knitting Illustrated, which has patterns for everything that the well dressed war time person needed. Including knitted knickers (very itchy I imagine).

Use a size of needles which suits the left-over wool which you have and cast on 41 stitches and knit about 8 rows in garter stitch. Still working in garter stitch, knit 2 stitches together each side of the middle stitch, which you should mark to make life easier for you. I slip a safety pin onto the middle stitch which you can pull on to help you decide when you should be knitting 2 together. Knit the next row straight and continue in this way, decreasing in the middle of each alternate row until 3 stitches remain. Knit these 3 stitches together and fasten off.

The shells can then be sewn together to form a pattern or just randomly and it is more decorative than just plain squares.