Lists

Got cut off in my prime by surprised publication of my last post

I am an inveterate list-maker. I have 2 lists - A & B. A hopefully to be done today and B likely to drift into the future until some item becomes urgent and then swiftly moves over to list A.Christmas lists start at the end of November when the P.O. urges us to send our cards to far-flung outposts of Empire to get there in time for Christmas. This I duly do and find my cards arrive in Sri Lanka or wherever in the first week of December!

Being obsessed with food my first list is of ingredients for Christmas fare. Then cards and stamps. There is talk of removing the Queen's head from the stamps. A good job they didn't this year.as with the grotesque creatures on this year's stamps I wouldn't know which way up to put them.
Preparations start with making lists
This happens at the end of November.
Food, cards and presents must be bought
Something for each family member.
Is there anyone not on the list
now lying on the kitchen table?
Oh yes. We had almost forgotten
The Holy Baby born in a stable.

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone.


I have made masses of sausage rolls and mince pies and iced the cake. There are lovely Christmassy smells of cooking coming from upstairs. Amanda has laid in enough food for a siege so if we get snowed in we will be ok. I have lost count of the number of people Amanda and Mike have to feed over the next few days.

Hats

I was watching a documentary about the 1920s and noticed that every man wore a hat. They wore flat caps, trilbys or bowlers. Looking back I realise that my life has been dogged by episodes concerning hats.

As a four year old when I was on a pleasure steamer on the Thames on a family outing my beautiful pink straw hat fell overboard and was lost forever. Some years later I was walking to school over Lambeth Bridge with my friend Peggy when she decided to get rid of her battered Panama. She dropped it off the bridge but at that moment a barge emerged from under the bridge and the hat dropped on to the barge. The boatman tossed the hat on to the shore and a nice schoolboy kindly retrieved it for an ungrateful Peggy. That was how I met my first husband.

During the war when I was working in Whitehall my mother and I went to lunch at Lyons Corner House in the Strand. She had just bought a very pretty blue and white straw hat. Going down some steps she missed the bottom step and fell on to her knees. A very helpful young RAF man bent to help her up. Unfortunately he was smoking a cigarette and as Mother got to her feet the lighted end of his cigarette fell on to the brim of her hat and set it alight. With much agitated clapping of hands we managed to put it out. We didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Another friend , also called Peggy, had a thing about hats. She had bought a new green one in the style of Robin Hood with a tall brown feather. The weather looked like rain so she was torn between wearing her new hat or her old brown one. She really wanted to show off her hat to the girls at thr office. She finally made up her mind and set off for work. Sitting opposite her on the Tube was a lady wearing a green Robin Hood hat with a brown feather. Peggy thought how extraordinary that they should be sitting opposite each other wearing identical hats. Peggy, a friendly soul, smiled at the lady and pointed to the hat. The lady smiled nervously back and looked away. Peggy continued to smile and point. There was no response. Peggy reached her station and as she got up to get off she caught sight of her reflection in the carriage window. She was wearing her old brown hat!

To cap it all (if I may make a pun) my second husband was a Mr. BOWLER>

Father Christmas

What an extraordinary picture in the Daily Telegraph today of hundreds of people dressed as Santa Claus on a charity run through Liverpool. Another illusion shattered!

Have you ever heard of the Lambeth Walk? No, I don't mean the dance but a wonderful street market of my childhood. We lived two streets away. One Christmas my mother said we could go "down the Walk" to meet Father Christmas. He would be outside Marcantonio's. This was what the Americans would call an ice-cream parlour. In the summer I could have a halfpenny ice cream cornet and in the winter a warming glass of hot peppermint cordial. So off we went down the Walk and coming towards us as we approached "Marcs" was Father Christmas. . Imagine my excitement. But before I could speak to him another Father Christmas came from the opposite direction and the two Father Christmases stopped just in front of us. One accused the other of stealing his pitch and there was a rare old set-to with a lot of pushing and shoving and some very naughty words. Mother hurried me away. I never felt quite the same about Father Christmas after that.

Soon be Christmas!

I have just sent my Christmas cards to Australia and Sri Lanka so Christmas preparations are under way (or should it be under weigh). I have seen a good many Christmases. One I particularly remember was when I was about six. Life was hard for our family between the wars and money very short.
Two or three days before Christmas there was a knock at the door. I heard my mother say "Come in out of the cold" and into the room came a Girl Guide Captain, who we came to know later as Miss Christina Fleming . She came in with her sister, Robin, and six Girl Guides each one bearing a gift. They had brought tins of fruit, chocolate, biscuits, corned beef, tea, sugar and a Christmas pudding. Such largesse!
Some kind person had given our name to these two ladies who were the daughters of the Reverend Archibald Fleming. He was the minister of a fashionable Church in Pont St, Knightsbridge. The Guide Company was distributing gifts to the less well off. I reckon we qualified!!
What a lovely surprise! How kind they were and what a wonderful Christmas we had!

Snow

As someone once said "If this week was a fish I'd throw it back". The mother and father of all snowfalls descended on Sussex on Wednesday night. The coastal towns rarely see so much snow. No trains from Brighton - only one bus has gone along our normally busy road and few people are out. I am in hibernation as I am none too steady on my feet and am afraid of falling. I don't want the neighbours to speculate whether I've had a glass too many!

Our patchwork Christmas dinner has been cancelled. My very nice help couldn't come as the school her children go to has been closed. And to cap it all my laptop came over all peculiar and wouldn't start. I have been suffering withdrawal symptoms. Mike came to the rescue so here I am.

I can't ever remember my schools being closed because of bad weather. Living in the centre of London I do remember it snowing but not deep snow. In the thirties I walked over Lambeth Bridge along the Embankment to Vauxhall Bridge to school and back four times a day. No school dinners! Lunchtime was from 12 till 2p.m. If it was raining hard I might be given a penny to go halfway on the tram. ( I usually walked and illicitly bought an orange or some sweets).

No wonder my husband once described me as a tough old bird.