Birdy Nut Tree

So, here it is. The last story for Sian's Storytelling Sunday 2011. If you hop over to her blog, here, you will find links to many more wonderful stories, not least her own, which I can't wait to read.

My story for December is actually a Christmassy story. I had two very different stories to chose from - one that was actually a story from Hugh's family and the other from our second Christmas with Ben. I decided to go with the Ben story, but I may share the other story in a couple of week's time!

So, it was Christmas 1991 and Ben was 2 and a half and Penny 7 months. Hugh and I decided that we would have a real Christmas tree, not an artificial one, so whilst I stayed at home with Ben, Hugh went off to Leighton Buzzard market (where we were living at the time) to buy a tree.

The one he came back with was lovely, but (you knew there was a but coming didn't you?) it was a bit too big to go where we needed it, on a table in the bay window of the lounge. So, off Hugh went to the back garden with his secetaurs to trim the tree to fit. When he came back in it still wasn't right, so off he went again. This went on for about 20 minutes, by which time the tree had reduced in size so much it really wasn't big enough or balanced enough to have in the lounge! I was not very impressed as it had not been cheap to buy, but it really was beyond saving. However, we decided it could be used still, but out in the garden. We had some strings of bird nuts and so once Ben awoke from his afternoon nap we wrapped him up warmly and sent him into the garden to decorate the tree for the birds - the 'birdy nut tree' as he called it!

  Ben decorating the tree with some 'birdy nuts'

The tree in situ down the garden with the nuts hanging off it.

 We ended up with our first artifical tree that year and have not had a real tree since! Unfortunately I do not have any photos of the tree indoors that year - it is all on video as it was Penny's first Christmas and actually we spend Christmas Eve and Day at my parents, but believe me, it looked beautiful!

A pocketful of .....

A while ago I told a story about my paternal grandmother. This is a story about my maternal grandmother.

When Pippa and I were little we often went to stay with Gran and Pop on a Saturday night. They lived in a flat (apartment), in (looking back) what was quite a posh development! There was an indoor swimming pool on the development and our treat on a Sunday morning was to go for a swim, but that isn’t what this story is about.

Across from the flats were the woods where we loved to go for a walk on a Saturday afternoon. One crisp autumn afternoon we were wrapped up in our coats, hats and scarves and taken by Gran and Pop over the road for our walk and to collect blackberries. This was one of Gran’s favourite stories to tell people and even when she was struggling with dementia she remembered this story and whenever she saw me she would say –“‘ Becky, I asked you where are your blackberries?’ and you would say to me ‘ Grangran, they are in my pocket’’. Yes, I had collected loads of blackberries and squashed them into my coat pocket, much to Gran’s horror! What was her daughter (my mother) going to say when she came to collect me and found the coat stained with blackberry juice! That part of the story was never told as Gran always fell about laughing at this point and then gave me a hug. I don’t actually remember this event, but remember with warmth how Gran loved to tell me this story and how much it meant to her. Unfortunately I have absolutely no photos of the woods or me in the coat, but I do have this photo of me with Gran, Pippa and Pop, taken at about the time in question.

 Me sitting on Gran's knee (don't you just love that wallpaper!)

For more stories pop over to Sian’s blog where there are lots more links to lovely Sunday stories.

Rabbits go 'Meep' - the biggest lie of Penny's childhood!

This Storytelling Sunday is dedicated to Penny and what she terms - 'the biggest lie of her childhood'! Worse than finding out about Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy!

When Hugh was a little boy, his mother told him, when reading stories, that rabbits say 'meep'. As in, cows say 'moo', sheep say 'baa' and ducks say 'quack' and so on. I had never heard this myself, and in fact, had never heard a rabbit say anything, all I had ever seen a rabbit do was 'waffle' its nose, but, to keep Hugh happy, we carried on the tradition when we had children.

This was fine when they were very little. We read various stories where cows went 'moo', sheep went 'baa', hens went 'cluck' and rabbits went 'meep'. As we visited various farms and zoos we saw the animals in question and the children heard them 'talking'. We hadn't seen any rabbits, or if we had Penny hadn't really taken much notice of them. Then we got two as pets, Blossom (Penny's) and Meepy (Ben's). These were two black and white baby rabbits. The children loved them dearly and were very gentle with them. They cuddled them regularly and for the first few months they were lovely creatures. However, they never muttered a word. Penny started questioning us. Hugh had to own up that rabbits didn't actually say 'meep' after all. At this Penny was totally shocked! She had been lied to by her parents! On top of this, the rabbits turned vicious! We ended up having to take them to a rabbit re-homing centre and we then re-homed a friend's rabbit, LouLou, who was a lovely 4 year old brown rabbit, very gentle and who lived with us for another 6 years before dying of old age.

Penny with LouLou

Penny still brings up how us telling her that rabbits say 'meep' was the biggest lie of her childhood! She does laugh when she says it, but I think it is something that will go down in the family history now and we probably won't dare pass it on to any more of the children for fear of disturbing them too!!

Please go to Sian's blog to see some wonderful stories this sunny Sunday.

A honeymoon story - part two

Arriving in Paris we found our way to our hotel, which had been booked by a work colleague who worked for Kodak in Paris (Hugh and I both worked for Kodak in the UK). We walked up to reception and using my best schoolgirl French I tried to book in. The receptionist, a myopic middle aged French man, looked in the reservations book, looked at me, looked back at the book again and said ‘NON’. I explained that it had been booked by someone else and gave their name – ‘Non’. By this time I was starting to panic a little. I asked him if he was sure – we had booked the room for 3 nights – he picked up the book, held it to within 3 inches of his face, put it back on the desk, took an eraser, rubbed someone’s name out and put our name in! We had a room! Pity the poor people who came after us!

 Look carefully and you can see me on the balcony!

We spent a nice time in Paris, although it was not very warm! We had taken very summery clothes with us to wear in the South, but hadn’t really thought that Paris might not be warm. Consequently I ended up wearing the same clothes for all three days and looking pinched and cold in the photos! After all, you expect Paris to be warm and sunny at the beginning of June.

See the theme? Same blue skirt in most photos teamed with the same yellow jacket! The skirt is one I made for my honeymoon, but that is another story!

We had decided to end our honeymoon by taking a couple of days to drive back to Calais from Paris and visiting St Paer – a tiny village in northern France where Hugh’s family had originated from and where the surname had come from. Hugh’s ancestor had been the Comte de St Paer (the Gotch part is English and Hugh’s grandparent’s put the names together). We drove up to the village which turned out to be a mill and about three other buildings! There was no big manor house where the Comte might have lived, so it was a bit of a letdown! However, I did take a photo of Hugh standing by the road sign showing the name of the village.

We then drove on to Gisores to have a look in the cemetery to see if we could find any ancestors. The answer to that was no! There were so many graves it would have taken forever to search and there didn’t seem to be any sort of caretaker to ask. We did visit the church though which was beautiful. This had only taken a day and as the weather wasn’t great and we were very close to Calais we decided to go home! We drove to Calais and managed to get our reservation moved and managed to return home on my parents’ silver wedding anniversary, which was nice as otherwise we would have missed it.

 Us on the ferry - 'should have gone to Spec Savers'?!

I can’t believe that next year Hugh and I will be celebrating our silver wedding anniversary. Where has the time gone! We may have had an eventful honeymoon, but it was lovely and one that we still talk about and remember well.

 And a layout to finish with! Another 8 x 11.5, using a Sarah's Cards Kit and a Page Maps Sketch.

This story is brought to you as part of Sian's Storytelling Sunday. Please pop over here to see some more.

A honeymoon story - part one

As a 20 year old about to get married I hadn’t been to many places around the world and so was very excited to be planning our honeymoon. The only times I had left the UK had been to go to the South of France, Germany and Majorca. Hugh and I collected many brochures from the travel agents and after much discussion and poring over the brochures we chose a hotel in Tenerife. So, off to the travel agents we went. We spent a long time with the travel agent going through all the details and getting our names spelt correctly – my new surname was going to be ‘de St.Paer-Gotch’ which has caused problems ever since! However, when asked if we would like the free car hire we eagerly said yes, paid our deposit and off we went home.

About a week later all the paperwork came through the post with the reservation details on. Oops! They had charged for the car hire. So, on the phone to the travel agent, who then informed me that in fact it wasn’t free car hire! I was so cross I cancelled the holiday and asked for my deposit back as I said I had been mis-sold the holiday! I got my deposit back, but this left us without a honeymoon.

So, now where did we go? My parents’ good friends had a static caravan on a site in the South of France, which my family and I had visited on a number of occasions. They offered it to us for a week, so we took them up on that offer and decided to spend our second week in Paris.

So, after the wedding we set off for our first night of married bliss – in the Dover Motel! Not very salubrious, but we were so exhausted it didn’t really matter!

Hugh pretending to eat the grapes in our 'suite' - a large room with settee and a bowl of fruit!

Me in my going away outfit sitting on the bed in the Dover Motel's 'Honeymoon Suite' 

We got the ferry early the next morning and started our journey to the South of France. Before long, the skies went dark, the temperature rose and it got really humid. There was then a tremendous thunderstorm – which wasn’t very nice whilst driving on a French motorway. What then made it worse was that I suddenly got a really bad nose bleed! Hugh had to pull over onto the hard shoulder and soaked paper tissues with rainwater by holding them on the car roof and then using them to stop the nose bleed!

We knew that it would take two days and so we stopped at Tain l'Hermitage on our way down. The hotel we chose was lovely and our room had a view over the courtyard at the back which had a swimming pool.

 I found that I still had this leaflet from the hotel in my Honeymoon photo album

We went down for a meal in the restaurant and they were playing ‘mood’ music , quite loudly, and on a short loop. If we heard ‘Moon River’ once, we must have heard it ten times during our meal. We retired to our room and as it was hot, had the windows open. The ‘mood’ music was being piped out to the courtyard – argh! Moon River over and over again until 11pm!

 Hugh standing on our balcony overlooking the pool (Moon River was not playing!)

The rest of the journey was without incident and we arrived at the caravan to find that our friends had left a bottle of champagne and some fruit for us, which was really nice. We had a very pleasant 5 days in and around the St Tropez area, sightseeing and lazing on the beach.

Hugh and me sitting outside the caravan

Hugh and me in St Tropez

The only hiccup was when Hugh burnt the top of his feet in the sun and so couldn’t bear even a sheet on his feet at night! We were lucky to meet up with my Godfather, Uncle Bob, who hadn't been able to make the wedding as he was on holiday only 5 miles away from where we were. He had a copy of the Daily Telegraph for us with the wedding announcement in it!

Me, Hugh, Uncle Bob and Dorothy

When our week was up we packed up and drove up towards Paris. Although we had been driven mad by ‘Moon River’ we decided to stop at the same hotel on the way back. We were given a room overlooking the front of the hotel this time. And yes, they were still playing ‘Moon River’! However, we could not hear it until 11pm as we were at the front of the hotel, so it was only during our meal. We now call it ‘our’ song!

The story to be continued next month!

But before I go, I have just got time to share something else with you ...

Yes, this month I managed to get a layout done based on my story! I am really pleased with myself lol. I also did an 8.5x11, which is unusual for me. I have got an album with this size of layout in, most of them are done using older photos. I had fun doing this and will definitely try to do one each month now to go with the story.

This story is brought to you courtesy of Sian's Storytelling Sunday. Please pop here to see more stories.

The Marching Song

A story for Sian's Story Telling Sunday (more information here) and links to today's stories can be found on Sian's blog.

When my sister and I were little, for many years we would go and stay with our Nana and Grandad (my Dad's parents) every Friday night whilst my parents went out with their friends.

Pippa and I would arrive in time for Friday night tea, which Nana always made a treat for us. We would be allowed to stay up and watch 'It's a Knockout' or 'Steptoe and Son'. Then it would be bath time in their big old bath before bedtime. Pippa and I ended up sharing a single bed for many years as she had nightmares and didn't want to sleep in a bedroom alone.

Anyway, on Saturday mornings, before our parents came to collect us, Nana would sit at the piano and play for us. It would always end up with us asking for the 'Marching song'. I don't know what this piece of music actually was, but as soon as Nana started playing it, Pippa, Grandad and I would start to skip and march, out of the lounge where Nana was playing, into their large hall, round the hall, back into the lounge and up and down the lounge. This was such a tradition and if the rest of the family, including our cousins, were there then everyone would join in.

Unfortunately Grandad died when I was only 13 and Pippa and I no longer stayed regularly with Nana as we were more grown up and could be left on our own for a couple of hours on a Friday night.

However, skip forward to February 1988, and Nana's 80th birthday.

 Nana cutting her birthday cake with from left to right

my Mum, Aunty Sandra, Cousin Caroline and Uncle John

We had been out for a meal to celebrate, my immediate family, my Dad's sister (Aunty Sandra) and her family and Hugh. We finished the meal and went back to Aunty Sandra's for a cup of coffee and to continue the party. 'Nana, please play the marching song!' we begged. She protested that she was too old and that her arthritis was too bad, but we kept on and said that Hugh had never heard her play, so in the end she gave in! She played the marching song in Aunty Sandra's dining room and we all, including Hugh, marched, skipped and generally had a wonderful time.

Nana is hidden behind my Aunty in the green,

the man in the tye is my Dad and the lady laughing is my Mum

 The lady in the black is my sister,

again you cannot see Nana, but you can see her hands!

That was the last time I ever heard her play the piano, although she lived for another 10 years and saw me, my sister and my cousins married and welcomed 3 great grandchildren into the world.

I have many happy memories of both sets of my grandparents and feel very privileged to have those memories.

Don't forget to have a look at the other stories here.

Storytelling Sunday

As we had a fairy tale wedding on Friday, I thought I would tell of another fairy tale romance.

Once upon a time there was a young girl who was working in her first office job. One day the phone rang and when she answered it she found she was talking to a boy with a very nice voice. He also worked for the company but was on assignment in the States. They got on like a house on fire on the phone and so the girl, very naughtily, looked in his personnel file to see if he was married! He wasn't and she thought that even if there was a girlfriend on the scene she could be got rid of! At this point the girl and boy had not met nor even seen photos of each other.

After three months of talking on the phone the boy finished his assignment and returned to the UK. The girl was very excited and had all his paperwork ready for when he came into the office. The boy went straight to the office from the airport and turned up wearing cream cords, cowboy boots and a red jumper and carrying a banjo case. The girl thought he looked very handsome, walked up to him, introduced herself and gave him the keys to his company car.

The girl and boy continued to get on very well together at work. One evening when they were in the lift preparing to go home the boy asked the girl if she would like a lift home (after all, he had a new company car and wanted to show it off!). The girl didn't want to look too keen and so she said 'no thank you, I am fine, I will walk'. She then walked home and was really cross with herself that she hadn't said yes!

A couple of weeks later they were both away on business together at an exhibition. The first night he asked her out for a meal. In the way he asked she thought that it was a group of them going, and so she said yes. In fact it was just the two of them and they had the most fantastic evening in an Indian restaurant. They spent the next evening together and the next. Finally they were an item.

However, the department they worked in was mostly full of old men and none of them even noticed that they were going out together! It was only when the girl moved to another department that they realised why.

Ten months after their first date the boy took the girl into a jewellers and asked her to try on rings as he would like to see what kind of ring to buy her in the future. She excitedly tried on a couple of rings and they both liked a sapphire and diamond one - 'well, you had better have it then' he said! And so they were engaged. They went back to her parents' house to break the news and he phoned his parents in Cornwall to inform them.

Everyone was extremely happy for them and on 21st May this year we celebrated the 26th anniversary of our first date and on 30th May this year it will be our 24th wedding anniversary. I love that boy more and more each day, which I wouldn't have thought was possible as I loved him so much when we got married, but over the years that love has developed in so many different ways. Love you Hugh xx

The boy and girl working together at a 

customer entertainment event - after they had got together!

To read more wonderful stories visit Sian's post here.

Storytelling Sunday

I haven't joined in with Sian's Storytelling Sunday before, but a few weeks back she posted a story about her best friend from school who is still her best friend now. That made me think of my best friend, Ann and I thought that I would like to share that friendship with this little story.

This photo is pinched
off Ann's Facebook
Page - she has
not aged at all!

We met on the first day at Hemel Hempstead Secondary School - neither of us knew anyone else in our form and as were sat girl/boy and alphabetically she sat behind me (I was Armstrong, she was Bradley), so we got talking - well, we were not going to talk to boys!

Stories? I could tell a few about the two of us! Getting called into the Senior Mistress's office (Miss Hughes, really old school) and being really told off as we had been seen eating apples whilst walking home from school in school uniform! Ann, coming round to my house during the teaching strikes and having lunch (faggots in gravy) before walking into school, in the snow, to collect work to do at home. Then, her being extremely sick in the hedge outside the school once we had our work! We didn't get called in and told off for doing that! In fact, we had trouble getting hold of any teaching staff to get them to call Ann's mum to get her to come and collect her!

Occasionally on a Sunday, when I was about 14, my Mum and Dad would go out for a Sunday drink and Ann would come round to have lunch with Pippa and me. On one occasion Mum left a box of Bird's Trifle mix out for us to make. It all went really well, until it came to the decorations. There was a small packet of chocolate strands and so I said to Ann to grab the jar off the shelf and put a whole handful more on. However, I didn't watch what she was doing as I was washing up. We dished up the trifle, both took a mouthful and instantly spat it out! She had sprinkled loose tea all over the top of the trifle!

There are so many stories I could tell, but I will finish with Ann on the morning of my wedding. I would have loved her to be my bridesmaid, but things didn't work out that way. However, she was still there on the morning to support me whilst I got ready. She arrived all dressed up and looked lovely. Things were going swimmingly until my Mum offered her a drink. She accepted and Mum passed her a glass of cola, which she promptly managed to throw all down the front of her pale blue dress! We then had to rapidly sponge her down and try to get rid of the stain before we left the house! It took my mind off my nerves anyway.

This is Ann, in the blue dress (minus cola stain!) with one of Hugh's good friends - we tried to pair them off but it didn't work!!

Ann really is my best friend. We have known each other for over 30 years and although we don't get together anywhere near as often as I would like, whenever we do get together it is like we only saw each other yesterday.