Wednesday 29 August 2012

'Charity Shop Chic.'


Blog Post No.7
29/08/2012
 
Up until a few years back I wouldn’t have been seen dead in a second hand shop or charity shop.

I used to have all the usual preconceptions that others alike shared. I thought only old biddies (I use the term with fondness not in the derogatory sense mind) with nothing better to do other than to spend their time perusing round each and every one buying out dated clothes, ancient home wares and endless jigsaws. But contrary to popular opinion or more accurately popular misconception, charity and second-hand shops are the place to shop!

  For a good while now I have been going in charity shops up and down the country, whenever we are away somewhere or happen to be in a different part of the country and come across a thrifty shop my feet just take me in there. I have bought allsorts from the weird to the wonderful and before shopping anywhere else I always scope out the local charity or second-hand shops.

Hardly ever have I seen any ladies with a blue rinse or solely gents old enough to be my Grandfather or Great-grandfather for that matter. My own Grandfather is actually a rather young sixty-six year old. He does at my recommendation of course shop at charity shops and second-hand stores.

He’s always on the lookout for a rare or unusual musical instrument to add to his ever expanding collection despite my Grandmother’s protests. He also is looking for a cheap pair of size tens clogs, preferably with a tap sole should anyone come across any!

When perusing these shops I regularly come across a whole array of different people from all walks of life, each of them buying something different which I find interesting and further adds to the charm of these fabulous thrift stores! So what I am trying to get at, is Charity Shops and Second-hand stores are for everyone not just the Silver-Foxes out there!

  My Aunty whom first got me into charity shop buying quite often comes across designer clothing and handbags. Personally I am always looking out for Chick-Lit novels, good DVDs, the odd item of clothing and vintage finds but mostly cute kitchenalia. These thrifty stores are filled with all sorts of brilliant finds. As for my Aunty she gets an array of things from toys for her children, fabulous clothes for her and the kids, things for their home. Much to her husband’s (my Uncle) dismay. You see he thinks as long as you have all the practical stuff and your home is clean and tidy you don’t really need all the extra bits and bobs that make a house a home, I think he’s a secret minimalist in denial. Don’t get me wrong their home is beautiful and decorated wonderfully but he likes things neat and incredibly non-cluttered. So my Aunt has to protest to get little knick-knacks and bits and pieces through their front door, I’m sure he likes these things really but men need to be men and they to like to protest a little about all the feminine touches when they feel their BBQ’s, tools and Topgear DVD's are being pushed out to make way for more candles and photo frames etc.

I have practically my own library at home (I wish- with chunky leather chesterfields, wingback chairs and dark book shelves filled from floor to ceiling with all sorts of books and light classical music playing in the background with cups of Earl Grey or iced tea on tap and a great big fat fluffy cat stat on a window-sill staring out into the countryside.) I do have the books for one, we are running out of shelf space and we occasionally buy Earl Grey, oh and I do own a wingback that I still haven’t gotten round to re-upholstering but as for the leather chesterfields and wall to wall bookshelves we don’t, as for the cat I’m working on it. It’s not our dog that would mind-he likes most animals –apart from horses and the occasional goose but it is Mr N I need to work on. He said maybe for Christmas …………. Note to self: add to Crimbo wish list and leave hints around the house nearer the time.

As well as buying from charity shops and thrift stores, I never throw anything away without first asking myself could my trash be someone else’s treasure?

 -Mrs N x
 

Friday 24 August 2012

The Story of Grange Farm.


A Short Story.
The Story of Grange Farm.
 

  Near her betrayers door she lays her head. The wind was icy and shrill, it howled like the sound of rabid wolves as it tore through the hall and into each and every room, bursting to find its way out and back into the night. Tap, tap, tap. It pelted against the single pane windows, at the very top of the cottage. Usually the wind and rain were trying to get in but not now. Not here. Not even the cold and callas weather wanted to stay here a moment longer.

  Grange farm wasn’t always so feral and tormented. The barns were once filled with the sound of cow’s being happily milked. The fields were once fruitful with the season’s crops and accompanied by village shows. This had been the case for many a year.

  The people of Skelton knew the family who ran the farm well. They were just your usual farming folk. Although one day life appeared to seemingly carry on as normal. The family sat down to breakfast at the large oak dining table where they ate the eggs the girls had collected fresh from the hens that morning, the bread the mother had baked before sunrise and they topped up their tea and poured the fresh milk on their cereal  that the cows had given only an hour before. After breakfast they set to work, even the children mucked in. their day was blissfully average, it wasn’t until late afternoon when it happened.

  They were rounded up and hushed into the barn. General Shilmer did not give an explanation to them he just ordered his men to shoot each of them and leave their bodies to the pigs.

  The head of the family was shot first as he posed the largest threat to a possible orderly task. The eldest daughter was next then the son and then to the twins. The mother was out to market. She had to watch from the stile as her family were murdered. It took everything she had not to scream, she stood there helpless and motionless. A farm hand from the next farm saw her and rushed her away; he knew he had to get them both away without being seen otherwise they too would meet their fate. She had dropped her basket of groceries and the contents began to roll down the road. He frantically collected them. If the Germans found the items he feared they would realise that they had been seen and surely come looking for them.

  Their bodies lied there amongst the hay and dirt. The men dragged the bodies into one of the stalls. The barn was closed and they joined the General at the cottage table.

  The orders had come from a higher place, to secure the farm and to use it as a standing base for German troops entering from the east coast. It was as simple as the farm being hidden far from anything in between two valleys.

  It was a cold November in 1944 and Frieda had decided to return from Vienna, where she was discovering the art of ballet to help her family through the winter months. Her conscience had plagued her from sometime. It had been four months since she last heard anything by letter. So she decided now was the time to come back.

  She arrived to discover the devastating events before her. She tried to run but she too suffered the same fate. The only difference being that she suffered a fatal blow to the head as she walked into her once familiar family home. Her head lay in the doorway.

  A buzzing of plane engines sounded as a large cluster of Lancashire Bombers flew overhead. Each of the soldiers rushed outdoor in an attempt to stop their position being discovered but they were too little too late. Each lost their lives. Our men defended their country well.

  The locals knew now what had happened. The mother must be sitting on the porch filled with sickness and sorrow they told themselves but a dull and lifeless body hung in the barn.

The End

 

Ignorant or just Uneducated?

Blog post No.6
24/08/2012

Ignorant or just Uneducated?

When we get to a certain age, do we suddenly become less aware of our behaviour, namely in public places but in general also?
Are we aware that we offend people whom we think haven’t noticed we exist?
 


  The other day I happened to be sitting in my local library typing up a short story the computer and perusing blogs I'm particularly fond of when I couldn’t help but find myself listening into a conversation a group of ladies where having. The ladies mostly appeared to be above the age of retirement and were sat in a cluster around a table provided for coffee mornings and as quiet reading space. These ladies were enjoying afternoon refreshments but they were neither quiet nor socially aware of their surroundings.
They discussed everything from the dismal weather to politics but what caught my attention more than anything is that they were discussing immigration and in a non -too favourable manner might I add. I found a lot of there conversing controversial and at times a little uncomfortable. A different person to me may have asked them to keep their voices down on particular subjects but I found their ignorance and opinions both interesting and entertaining to an extent. Not in a way that I agreed with them entirely but I found their lack of knowledge and understanding to be something to think about. You would think in this day and age that each and everyone of us would have all the facts and be able to make a proper judgement on things but these ladies were stuck in the wrong decade of thinking. I found myself sat there wondering if the other library patrons were too listening to them howling with laughter and talking without a second thought for anyone that could hear them.
In some ways they seemed really rather ‘hip’ and up to date with things. I heard them have a conversation about using the internet and one even said she owned a laptop. I wondered how a group of clearly intelligent ladies could be so ignorant and socially unaware of their own behaviour.

My Great Grandmother can be similar sometimes, she was brought up in the twenties and those were different times life was incredibly different back then but is this just an excuse that we today use? She too knows about the internet. She asks me about facebook and eBay, not that she uses it but she is aware that it is there. She watches the news religiously. She listens to the radio each night before she goes to bed or the wireless as she still calls it. I find myself regularly impressed by her ability to have adapted to modern life and everything it has brought with it over the years but one thing that hasn’t transpired is her attitude towards people in this world. She occasionally says things in the company of the family that shock us and we worry she would offend. Sure at the time we laugh, not because we necessarily find it funny what she comes out with but at her brash and boldness to say something in today’s world that you yourself wouldn’t dream of thinking to be the case let alone say something aloud as plain as day. Don’t get me wrong she is a very caring and generous person and the most wonderful Grandmother; I love her to the ends of the earth. It’s just she was brought up in a very different way to us, along time ago.

 
As for the ladies in my library they collectively packed up the remnants of their refreshments and seemingly morphed back into the extremely polite and graceful women I assumed they were from their appearances and demeanour before I heard their opulent opinions just seconds before. They were approximately twenty or so years younger than my Gran but I assume they too were brought up differently. They say ignorance is bliss it certainly is for these women as they chatted and drank their tea, blissfully unaware they had said anything out of the ordinary or obtuse.

Attitudes change, they always will but will there always be some of us that speak our mind no matter how shocking and often incorrect?

-Mrs N x

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Back to School…


Blog Post No. 5

21/08/2012

As September is fast approaching us, it reminds me of the same time of year when I was of school age.

My mum used to take me shopping for a brand new pencil case to WH Smiths and she bought me all new things to put in it; new pencils, some funky new erasers, those scented gel pens that were all the rage when I was at school; popcorn scented ones, blueberry scented ones and apple scented ones, new maths sets- protractors and compasses never seem to make it to the following year and some sharp new pencil crayons. No matter how old I will get I will relish a new set of drawing pencils and a blank sheet of paper. I loved having all brand new things to go back to school with and compare what you’ve got with friends. You were always the cool kid in the class for a few days when you rocked up to school at the start of the new term with the latest pencil case and all the best stuff in it, until you went to big school at least and then you got beat up instead.

I would be fitted for new school uniform as each new school year started, I would be a year older than the last which made me that much taller too.  You see at a tall 5’7and a half I had a lot of growing to do. Most of my school life I was a skinny minny with knobbly knees and long feet to boot. Now fully grown into a size seven, so not excessive now but through my early school years I looked much disproportioned with size fives and standing less than five foot tall. My stepdad still teases me about my grey woolly school tights being baggy and wrinkly at the knees as I was so skinny back then. It is seemingly impossible to have baggy tights I hear you say but that was me.

I was always measured for a new skirt, new jumpers and shirts but no matter what, the skirt just never seemed to fit my teeny tiny waist. My Gran spent most of the school year adjusting my skirt so it would stay up as opposed to residing round my ankles not a good luck during a poetry recital when your grey pleated skirt falls to the floor in front of the whole school, parents and teachers too! It was the teachers that laughed the most!

How I wish I was that svelte now, I’d give my hind leg to have my skirt fall down because my waist is so slim.

Whatever I ate as a child nothing made me gain any weight, I used to have the metabolism of ‘Speedy Gonzales’. I assure you I had a healthy appetite and ate copious amounts of chocolate and sweets and the ice-cream man practically set up camp near our street in the school holidays. These days all I have to do is look at an iced bun or ’99 cone and I gain half a stone.

Oh to be a child again. *Memories*

 I used to be out climbing trees, building den’s, running around everywhere and riding my bike. I was always outdoors when not at school even the weather didn’t deter us from playing out.

I hope my children in the future are the same and not hooked solely on the latest computer game or electronic phase. Childhood is for running around, acting daft and exploring the outdoors if we ever came in as kids my parents would say get back outside and find something to do and that we did.



Going back to school after the six weeks holidays was something to be excited about. I liked having new exercise books to fill up with neat handwriting and cool illustrations. The allure of a new notepad with its blank interior and untouched pages I still can’t resist. I guess that’s just the writer in me. It may have taken me a long time to finally put pen to paper and write something with the confidence to let others read it nut I have always carried a notepad and pen with e wherever I go.

Getting back into the routine of getting up early and going to bed at an earlier time is one of the most difficult things about going back to school after the six week break. You have just got them used to getting up at a reasonable hour, i.e. after eight am and now you have to get them up around seven am and out the door for eight fifteen. This is some task I tell you!

It is to be expected that concentration levels are lower during those first few weeks back at school. The kids are getting out of their ‘free time’ mode and back into a more structured routine, requiring more sensible behaviour. The teachers are switching from late night with a glass of Chardonnay and long days spent on Greek islands and have to reacclimatise themselves too lots of coffee and orderliness instead.



Things slowly began to slip back into there once familiar routine and making packed lunches and having P.E kits washed and ready for the day ahead soon become the norm. Only in those first few weeks after the holidays do you and your children have to suffer the embarrassment of them being sat in the lunch hall with your turkey salad on rye and you at your desk with cheese and marmite triangle shaped butties the crusts cut off. And you turn up to your gym class with a pair of muddy football boots and small kit to match whilst your child is sat in their P.E class with your Pilates mat and your revealing lycra suit. And the teachers forget their lesson preparations and have to improvise with learning through music or dance to fill the time slot where science would have been. Things eventually settle down and school life goes back to a normal balance of learning and fun it a great big dollop of not long til next summer holidays in the horizon.

The first weeks of term for us mere mortals are consumed with near disasters and crazy goings on in hindsight are hilarious to the adults just not for your embarrassed child. But these things are barely avoidable when all summer uniforms and lunchboxes were far from anyone’s mind.

Who doesn’t love the six weeks holidays, especially the parents whom get to see their children grow and spend proper time with them? We all wish those summer holidays could last just that little bit longer...

Good Luck to everyone going back to school this term.

And a special Good Luck to my Aunt & Uncle’s little one, MJ as he starts in Reception this time.

-Love Mrs Nx

Friday 17 August 2012

A Cup of tea, two lumps of trepidation with just a dash of a malevolent Mother-in-Law.


A Cup of Tea, two lumps of trepidation with just a dash of a malevolent Mother-in-Law.
 I just couldn’t sit still I was so nervous. I had no idea why, yet I couldn’t relax enough to bring myself to speak let alone make eye contact.

There she sat sweetly sipping her tea, adding one lump after the next and stirring in a rather un-nerving manner. I could tell she was just urging me to converse with her but I couldn’t engage my thoughts into connecting with my mouth. She seemed so effortlessly confident all of a sudden. This was so unlike her. This was not the shy, timid woman that I knew.

I got up and half jogged from the dining room. I hovered over the usually cold cumbersome, pot Belfast sink. But today I was glad for its icy demeanour and its heavy presence. Clinging to it cooled me down and I was able to hold on top it to stop myself from sliding to the kitchen floor.

I stooped over it just for a moment but I felt like I had been there an age. I still felt nauseous so I splashed some cold water onto my face and dried it roughly with a battered tea towel, one my Great Grandmother had given to me when I was a little girl. I used to play tea parties with it but it now found pride of place next to my Aga.

More fervent stirring tore through the air and I was suddenly aware that I should probably go back in. I called into the larder to collect the cheesecake I had prepared specially. I was on my way back when I heard her calling me in a rather dulcet tone. This only increased my panicked state.

It took everything I had to call back ‘I’m coming’ but what actually came out of my mouth was those words but in a rather bad and hideously accidental Irish accent. And as she was from Killarney her response was a chilling ‘I’m not amused, if that was your sorry attempt at trying to bond with me you aren’t doing very well’.

I froze; I just didn’t know what to do next. I grabbed the icing sugar in an attempt to at least get the presentation right on my cheesecake and scuppered back to the dining table.

As I began to cut her a slice I could feel her eyes burning into my back and my cheeks turned an awful shade of crimson. I nervously served her a slice and began apologising when she started sneezing repetitively screaming arrrgh pepper why is there pepper on this cheesecake. I finally summoned the courage to look at her. When I realised it wasn’t actually my Mother-in-Law but indeed The Queen, yes The Queen!! Sat before me crown wearing and all was Liz herself. I couldn’t believe my eyes, there beside her was two of her corgi’s, sat to her left was Prince Philip and to her right were Charles and Camilla I turned to look round to see half the Royal family staring at me.

The telephone rang and a butler I wasn’t aware I had informed me it was my Mother-in-Law confirming our engagement at three. As I approached the telephone it continued to ring and I woke realising it was in fact just a dream. I had fallen asleep whilst baking my cheesecake and my phone was ringing I looked at the caller display it was my Mother-in-Law.



It was unlike any other dream I had ever had before.





A fictional story from my imagination.

Tuesday 14 August 2012

"8 Legged Lodger"

Blogpost No.4
14/08/2012




 
8 Web Lane,
Fly Valley,
Cobwebville.
SP1D3R.
14/08/2012.

  Dear Mr & Mrs Spider,

                                       I am writing in regards to your recent lodgings at our abode, I regret to inform you that your rent is far overdue!

  Please take this as your notice of eviction. I trust that in the future you may spare a thought for us phobic humans when taking up residence in each shadowed corner, dusty shelf, dry washing pile and hearth rugs alike. Should you feel the need to take a last look round before you depart, I feel it my duty to warn you that Mr Farnsbarn won’t take lightly to meeting something with more than the allowed four legs in his home.  You may also find after meeting him you may need to have yourselves fitted for hearing aids as his bark has been known to deafen. Might I add he is partial to a creepy crawley or two for his supper!

  Should you find yourself looking for somewhere to stay in the future –please try next door, I’m sure he could do with the company and if his doorway is anything to go by I’m sure you will be most at home in that dusty dwelling.

  On a final note. The recent weather, however pleasing I’m sure we have both found it to be, may cause us to sit out in the sun a little too long and drink just a little bit more wine than usual. But remember prevention is better than unplanned parenthood especially when you reproduce by the hundred. Spare a thought for those Foster Parents at the Arachnid Agency, with bug spray and glass jars separating families all over the country making the orphanages more over crowded than ever. Not to mention the countless homeless.

Yours Sincerely

Mr & Mrs N

P.S. Thanks for catching all those pesky house flies but you really could have used the glass and paper method and set them free in the garden after all humane = happy!

-Mrs N x

Photo Credit: http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-illustration-14124110-spider-cartoon.php