Saturday, 15 March 2025

Halfway Through March

What's been happening this week?

Apart from finding some old photos to share.... 

A builders yard was a fun place to play, there was nowhere tidy, there were heaps of sand to dig tunnels into for toy cars and a heap of sawdust under the saw bench to make puddings! That big block of wood under the window was my "kitchen" - didn't need one of the special 'mud kitchens' that are available now. All I needed was sand, sawdust and water and a few old dishes and spoons.

On my trike and in a pedal car

I've brought in a few daffs from the front border, I can't see them from indoors so might as well cut them and bring in. They are so late compared to some on the edge of the graveyard up the road. Very short of colour and flowers in the garden here, almost everything I plant gets smaller rather than spreading. The rhubarb has disappeared again - the third crowns I've planted. Not trying again.

After my post about laundry and how many 'add ons' there are now -  with fabric softeners, fragrance boosters, dryer sheets etc, I saw an ad for another new idea that someone has invented. This time for the dishwasher. Some dish washer tab ads make a great thing of not needing to pre-rinse or pre-soak or re-wash but the ad I saw was for a special spray to use on oven ware before it goes in the dishwasher. (I think it was a Fairy Liquid thing.) Which is the opposite of what they've been saying for years!............... I'll not be buying it.

I've done a couple of batch meal makes for the freezer this week, even though I really wanted to get it defrosted first, but I'd run out of choices for quick home made meals so rustled up some Bolognese sauce using a packet of quorn mince - that made 5 portions  and then  7 portions of salmon, broccoli, pasta bake. The freezer looks much better but still needs defrosting sometime - a job I don't enjoy.

There was one nice note through the  post this week with a letter from one of the building societies saying they'd taken over another bank and I'd be getting a £50 bonus paid in soon - that was good to hear - every little helps. 

Plus lovely news about 7 year old youngest granddaughter who has won a national story writing competition. I know it was done through school but haven't heard more about it yet.

Then finally I went to the funeral for my Auntie. 100 years old - amazing, out living all her younger siblings and her daughter. I arrived a few minutes late after finding a road closed sign on the road where I wanted to drive down, turning round to go another way and then finding where the road was actually closed and had to turn round and go back again down the original road! Road Closed signs never actually say Where the road is closed which can be so annoying. Luckily they were singing the first hymn so I was able to slip in unseen! None of the other cousins there so I only knew my Aunties son - he's now the oldest in the family - just a few years older than me.

Have a good weekend. Fingers crossed for fine weather.

Back Soon
Sue



31 comments:

  1. Well done granddaughter - so good to see the love of words passing on to the younger generation. And well done Gran and parents for encouraging that. I agree about Road Closed signs. They seem to put them up a fair distance from the closure. I think it's to do with preventing big lorries getting stuck up narrow country roads.
    At least you weren't too late for the funeral. What changes your aunt would have seen in her 100 years....

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    1. I've not heard more about the win yet, but she's been making up stories and telling them to anyone who will listen since she was little

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  2. We called mud pies " Sloppy daw daw" back in Lancashire when I was growing up.

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  3. Road Closed signs can be very annoying .Especially when they don't take them down when they have finished ! We once had an interesting ride on a coach when the driver decided to ignore a Road Closed sign because he thought he could get through .We got almost to the end of the road when we could go no further & it meant doing a multi point turn because it was a very narrow road .Helen

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    1. It was annoying to be late for the funeral, first loads of traffic in town and then roads closed!

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  4. Remember those pedal cars so difficult and tiring to keep going.

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    1. I can't remember me pedalling the pedal car but I think I remember pushing my sister in it

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  5. The photo of you on your trike brought back memories; I had one like that, with a boot behind the seat. One day I decided to visit my Aunt Ivy, who lived in the next village to us in Leicestershire. Up hill and down dale on narrow country lanes I pedalled - all 5 miles of it!! I've no idea how 'they' got me back home; my auntie had to go to their village pub to telephone our village pub, where someone was dispatched to tell my Mum where I was. There must have been someone with a car available and willing to come and get me. Oooops!

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    1. What a memory - and what a different world we live in now

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  6. That tricycle looks enormous - room for growth. 😁
    Congratulations to your little granddaughter. How pleased she must feel.
    It's sobering to realise that one has reached the position of one of the most senior in the family, especially when one doesn't feel like that.

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    1. I didn't need a two wheel bike until I was quite a bit older!

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  7. Well done to your granddaughter. I had a slightly more modern version of your trike when I was growing up, it was the only new bike that I ever had, I loved it. Sadly, by the time my brother got a pedal car my legs were too long to be able to have a go, but we did take it apart and adapt it into a bogey when he outgrew it. :-)

    Mum got a £50 bonus into her Nationwide account as seemingly they had bought Virgin Money. It should pay for an hour of her care home fees. :-)

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    1. It was a good trike - much safer on the rough ground of a builders yard than a two wheeler would have been.

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  8. Well done to your granddaughter. I also had a trek like that with a box on the crack and a folding handle thing that my parents used to hold to save me pedalling away from them. Catriona

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    1. Sorry-box on the back!!

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    2. When I put the picture on the blog a while back several people said they ahd one with a saddle bag on the back, this one didn't

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  9. We had a pedal car similar to yours. We spent a lot of time outside playing when we were kids, also.
    Congrats to your granddaughter!

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    1. We played outside whenever it was fine - it was the best place to play

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  10. Well done to your granddaughter, a national competition no less!

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    1. I hope I can find out more soon. She's always been good at making up stories

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  11. Many congratulations to granddaughter for winning that competition . Clever lass.
    March seems to be passing even faster than February did - and that's saying something! xx

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    1. Some warm weather again in the second half of march would be good, frosts again this morning here

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  12. Your granddaughter obviously inherited something of her grandmother! Is this the contest that allows the children a trip to Buckingham Palace to hear their stories read by celebrities?

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    1. I think the competition you mention is the BBC 500 words , but that's not what Granddaughter has won - her win was something to do with 'The Book Trust' I think -- I shall find out eventually

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  13. Life goes on.
    We have a clump of very late flowering daffodils. They won't be out for another month yet.

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    1. The garden here is short of flowers, things seem to just get smaller - it's a frost pocket and not enough sun

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  14. Winning a national writing award is quite an achievement.

    Did any of my snowdrops show their faces this year? Mine were particularly spectacular this year…drifts of them.

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  15. Well done to your granddaughter. How nice you went to your Auntie's funeral and saw her son.

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  16. Happy rugby day! Lovely news about your granddaughter’s success.

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  17. Sweet pictures. A tricycle, peddle car and a bicycle was the progression for us as well.
    Congratulations to your granddaughter! That's a wonderful accomplishment. Does she write stories in a journal too?

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