NOT THE USUAL SATURDAY MORNING AT THE BIRD FEEDER BUT A GOOSE GAVE CHASE…

 This is a story I mentioned before but I thought it would be fun to tell it again in pictures. This happened to me 70 years ago.

A picnic with my Aunty Dorothy and cousins, a very hungry child, a white goose chasing me. I remember screaming and running as fast as the wind with my Aunty’s voice ringing in my ears, “Drop the sandwich, drop the sandwich!”  

There she goes, silly girl, feeling the pain as the goose nipped the back of her leg, but eventually she threw her sandwich into the lake, upon which the goose gave up the chase and dived in after it. My Aunty gave me a wise piece of advice when I regained my composure, how little girls should immediately drop their sandwich when a goose takes an interest in it.  

A good lesson learned! This memory is as vivid to me as if it happened yesterday. So, if you are holding a sandwich when a goose gives chase, you know what to do!

Thanks for visiting and 

I hope your day is a great one.

MONDAY MORNING RECIPE POST - POACHED EGGS ON NAAN BREAD AND THOUGHTS OF GREAT-AUNT GERTRUDE

I have not thought about my Great-Aunt Gertrude in a long time. The last I ever saw her I was about seven, maybe eight. Funny how finding an old recipe will do that (this is another from my old blog). Naan bread of all things (in both bread and aunty, there was the connection). Her face popped into my head when at the store and on a whim and I picked up a packet of the bread. Story on Aunt Gertrude later, which will be written for our son as I don't think I have told him about her before. If I did it was a long time ago. And maybe you will find it interesting too. If you don't you can skip through of course.

I published this originally in 2008 and this is what I wrote:

So, here's brunch with my companion Great-Aunt Gertrude, at least in retelling the story to Gregg as we ate our lunch and repeating what my mother told me when I was young.  

But first, no recipe link. I had seen enough of this type of thing online and tweaked it a bit to suit our own tastes. 

I covered the bread with grated Cheddar cheese, and on top of the cheese, next came sautéed onions. These I had done in a little olive oil until transparent. I sliced tomatoes, which I didn't precook, and those went over the onions. (Next time I will add additional grated cheese over everything.) It went under the broiler until the cheese had melted and was golden, and the bread toasty. 

At the same time, I cooked the poached eggs, placing them carefully into low-simmering water. The last step was to place them on the loaded naan bread. I timed everything so that they were ready at the same time.

Our naan breads were large enough for two people. I cut one in half and it made a very satisfying breakfast for both of us.

I am also adding the following since publishing my post, as I have a keen interest on the history of food. I looked it up on Google and this is what popped up.

“The term “naan” comes from Persia, and ancient bread-making on hot pebbles (sangak) in Persia likely influenced its development.

It arrived in the Indian subcontinent with the Delhi Sultans and Mughals, who introduced the tandoor door oven method.

During the Mughal era (1520s onwards), naan was a special breakfast for the elite, served with keema or kebabs.

The first recorded mention in India is from 1300 AD by Indo-Persian poet Amir Khusrau, who described light (naan-e-tunuk) and heavy (naan-e-tanuri) versions cooked in tandoors.

Through trade, conquest and migration, naan spread from Central Asia and Iran to Afghanistan, Myanmar and eventually the West, becoming a universal favorite.”

If you have a question about this, let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to answer.

Now for the story of my Great Aunt. I asked AI to put together a watercolor of a photograph I remember my mother showing me many times. The photo was very old even back then. It has long since been lost. I have no idea where it went but it gave me some comfort and another connection to recompose it in a watercolor-style. The likenesses were off obviously, but it is darned near close to what I could remember of the setting.

So, this is a story to honor my Great-Aunt Gertude and two little boys whom she grew to love as if they were her own sons. 

She was my mother's aunt, her mother's sister. She passed away when I was in my early teens, and my memories of her are of a very nice lady who always had a ready smile for my sister and me, and always a kind word for my mother. Mother in fact loved her. Great-Aunt was a widow, husband long gone, who had no children of her own.

She and her husband spent many years in India. His work was something to do with the railroads. I vividly remember this fabulous old photograph of my mother's aunt. Mum pulled it out of a large box quite often when looking through old photos. Her aunt was sitting in one of those wickerwork peacock chairs, tropical palms in the background and two young Indian boys on each side of her. There was the most contented smile on her face and lovely smiles on those handsome young children. This I noticed when I was a little girl, and the thought stays with me still. The photo is long gone, and I have always wondered where it disappeared to as I would love to have it now, but my memory will be my photo. The idea for this 'watercolor' came to me as a curiosity to see what could be created more than anything.

My Mother told me a little of Great-Aunt Gertrude's story, and it was that she loved these little boys dearly, as if they were her own sons. She wanted to adopt them and bring them back to England when it was time for them to leave, but this was never meant to be and she was broken-hearted when she left them behind. I know nothing more about their time in India.

Years later, when Mum thought me old enough to know of such things, she told me that Great-Aunt Gertrude's husband, before I was born, had been murdered. I remember being very shocked and there are a few details I won't go into here, but I remember feeling sad for her all over again. They never did find the culprit. 

On our visits to see my nanny (mother's mother), nanny's sister would invariably be there, ready with a piece of toffee to give me. She had a gentle touch, a quiet voice and a sweet smile. That's all I can remember about my Great Aunt Gertrude.

Thanks for 'listening' and for visiting. I hope your week is an excellent one.

A BLOG BREAK AND LEAVING THIS AS MY LAST POST FOR A WHILE

"People who think life must get boring with age, clearly have not experienced the joy of watching the bird feeder while taking that first sip of coffee in the morning" 

My imaginary cats agree with me.  

I hope this gave you a smile too.  

I added the cats because I love cats, though I have not had one since childhood, and there are none in the house. Hubs is a dog person (I love them too) but at this stage of the game, that won't be happening either. He sees me hobbling around and says, "Nuh-uh" and words to that effect. He gets a scrunched-up nose and eyes rolled to the ceiling from me (hello Dad), but he's right and I content myself with doggy fixes when we are out and about.

In the picture I gave myself a pair of dangly earrings because I love earrings and dangly ones especially, since teen-hood. My father couldn't stand mine, he thought they weren't ladylike (this is going back 60 plus years). He was an old lovable post-era Victorian man, what can I say? But could that man laugh, he would laugh until he had us all laughing with one of his funny stories, and tears ran down our cheeks, salt of the earth. Mum didn't like dangly ones either, but I used to ogle the Indian shop window on my way home from school and look at all that exotic jewelry on display in the window. Absolutely loved what I saw but never could afford as the price was way above what I could save with my pocket money. Hints for Christmas were ignored, and I continued to get my Bunty and Judy annuals, and I think Rupert the Bear was in there somewhere, another book I favored. No, I'm not knocking books, as they were my all-time favorite Christmas gifts and reading them on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, after our festivities had ended, was a real treat and I always looked forward to them.

We were talking about earrings weren't we? The saga continues! At the age of 50 mum finally had her ears pierced, also my sister. They went to a jeweler to get them done, not at the same time. I think mother saw sister's newly pierced ears and followed soon after. My dad was not a happy man. I can still see him scrunching up his nose in disgust and rolling his eyes to the ceiling. No, I don't have pierced ears. Whether it was my dad's influence or not, the infections both my sister and mother had from theirs (sorry for that image) put me right off! They did all the right things, but they had a terrible time. I couldn't stand the thought of having holes in my ears after that. And as for dad I think there was a 'told you so' in there somewhere, and he and I nodded at each other sagely as we scrunched our noses and rolled our eyes up to the ceiling. He put up with my dangly earrings after that.

So, the birds and feeder are a given and when I saw the saying online, I thought it was perfect. I added the flower myself and I love hearts, so that had to go on the flowerpot.

 Coffee is my favorite drink first thing in the morning. I drink green tea in the afternoon, with a cup of chamomile infused with vanilla and honey in the evening (no caffeine that late in the day). I haven't had a proper cuppa in a while, it's overdue. Maybe tomorrow!

The birds are slowly coming back and so have the squirrels (and chipmunks). One of those naughty squirrels has been eating the leaves off my mums (flowers), but they are looking a bit past it now the colder weather is arriving at night. I have truly enjoyed them though.

Enough of the blathering, as I wanted to tell you I am taking a blog break. Nothing too exciting, just things I have to take care of. I am not sure how long for, a few days, a week or two, I'm not really sure. I know I am going to miss you all, but I need to make a clean break. I'll be catching up with you when I get back.

For those of you who are having life challenges, whether it's a loved one's health or your own, know that you are never very far from my thoughts and I am sending all the prayers I can muster. I love you all and am sending hugs.

Thanks for always being there for me,

and have a continued outstanding October.

(The graphic was a request from me done in BingAI, plus graphics from pixabay.com, a royalty free graphic program, which I put on the original request picture using Paint Shop Pro, a program I have had for many, many years. I found the phrase online. I believe it fits many of us).

A COUPLE OF OLD PHOTOS FROM 1973 AND EARLY 1980'S AND A FEW MEMORIES.

 I have mentioned that we've been downsizing, getting into the closets, into the garage, into the basement, etc. Oh boy, I knew this would happen. We have been finding things that we have forgotten all about, and it has slowed us down to a snail's pace today. Memories come flooding back as they do, and we have been having fun looking at old photos, old passports where I found the photo below, and goodness knows what else will be waiting for us when we start again. In the meantime we have boxes everywhere, and are gradually sorting things out. 

But, we did get rid of a few garden odds and ends that were of no working value to anyone. Off they went to the trash center, as well as three large plastic bags of 'no-one is going to want to do anything with those'. 

Two of the photos we found were getting a bit worse for wear, but I couldn't throw them away. Our son put the photo of the three of us through his tidy-up app. The old passport photo was taken when I was 23. It's been in an old Rubbermaid box in the garage for longer than I care to say, long forgotten. I paid 60 pounds sterling for that passport, which was more than I did for my 10 day-holiday in Austria, and it was a real nice hotel. I saved up the whole year and then some for that holiday.

A group of good friends and I were off on a skiing trip in March 1973. None of us knew how to ski but the package included skiing lessons. I wasn't a very confident learner. Once I remember ending up hanging over a fence at the bottom of a nursery slope, looking into someone's private home. True story and this proved to me that I was not built for speed. Very embarrassing but fortunately no one came out to see what was going on, and there was no damage done to their fence. I had a feeling I was not the first unintentional visitor over their not so very tall wooden fence. I wasn't very good at skiing, and I remember my skiing instructor not being too pleased with me. But, fun times with a bunch of great friends, and we used to look out for each other. One of my friends brought her husband along. He was/is the sweetest guy and looked out for all of us. I still keep in touch with them.

I remember the hotel vividly, where we danced all night in their nightclub, went to the coffee shop (also in the hotel) in the early hours of the morning after dancing, and then to our rooms to grab a couple of hours sleep, and to the slopes to learn how to ski, again. We were in a town called Seefeld, surrounded by snow-covered mountains (the Austrian Alps) and it was gorgeous! We had fun walking around town, doing a little shopping and souvenir hunting, small gifts for our families back home, then back to get dressed for a night of après-ski, more dancing till four o'clock in the morning, back to the coffee shop, back for a couple hours of sleep in our room, to start the process all over again. 

One time we caught a train to visit another area one of our friends had always wanted to see. It was many miles away which involved an overnight stay. Finding ourselves on a train going through the most incredible scenery, we didn't really know which stop to get off at, but a kind Austrian man who spoke English overheard us and said, here is your stop. 

Off we got, found a hotel (no ahead booking) stayed one night, had a good look around and back on the train again to finish off our holiday. I don't know how we did it and my parents would have had a conniption if they knew, especially my dear mum. Oh boy! Anyhow, here is my passport photo, a little worse for wear but yes that's me.

We went two years in a row on our skiing holidays. In subsequent years my friends met their life-partners, and two years after my last trip I met Gregg, which leads me to the second photo.

It was taken in the den of my in-law's house. That den was a haven for not only my in-law's but all the family and friends who visited. It was a happening place. There was always someone there, they knew no strangers. 

A big picture window looked out on the back of their garden. My dear mother-in-law sat doing her crossword puzzles, with a pair of binoculars on the end table. She used them to watch the birds coming to her feeders and had a book to identify those she didn't know. She was very good at identifying her birds, she didn't need the book but rarely. We both had fun watching them and I remember her squirrels too. 

On a Saturday Morning she and I would watch old Westerns, TV shows and movies. We both enjoyed those. Gregg and his Dad would be in the garage where father-in-law worked on his old cars.

 On a Sunday morning Henry delivered the New York Times and she would get stuck in with her crossword puzzle, but first we'd have a chat with Henry who was older than my in-laws at the time, probably only a few years older than I am now. He had bought the Sunday newspaper for years and was always invited in for a refreshment of some kind. He had become a good friend and was a fixture in the neighborhood. Everyone knew Henry, a friend to everyone.

Memories of 4th of July Picnics, Thanksgivings and Christmas', and everything in between. We lived in Washington DC for a couple of years when we were first married and drove down every second week or so. Later we lived nearby for a couple of years when Brad was about four years of age. Memories of Brad in his paper tricorne hat we made him out of Henry's newspaper once read, beating on the drum with his Nanna marching in front of him, with them both singing a good old marching song. She was wonderful, and so much fun!

Now, I wonder what we will find in the next clean-up session?

Enjoy your weekend everyone and thanks for listening.

PHOTOS FROM GEORGETOWN LOOKING ACROSS THE POTOMAC RIVER.

 A few days ago, husband and son visited Georgetown in Washington DC. They took these photos.

They are looking across the Potomac at Rosslyn on the Virginia side. The Key Bridge disappears into the darkness on the right.

The next photo shows the Kennedy Center all lit up. To the left is the Watergate Complex. These are on the Washington DC side of the Potomac.

The same scene a little closer.

One last photo looking towards Rosslyn, with a plane making its way to Ronald Reagan Airport, which isn't very far away down the river.

We haven't been into DC for a long time and are way overdue. We have always enjoyed going to the Smithsonian Museums, walking around the city and along the Potomac. Years ago, when we were first married, we took our bikes into the city, leaving our car at the Pentagon parking lot. We drove across the Memorial Bridge and made our way alongside the Potomac many times, loving all the impressive sights along the way. We changed our routes, sometimes making our way passed the Lincoln Memorial, passed the Washington Monument and up to the Capitol Building. We haven't had bikes for several years now, but we still drive into the city to look around, although not for quite a while.  

One funny memory to me in our bike-riding days, and one I may have mentioned before as my memory is getting shorter and my blog is getting longer. We passed two young marines jogging along the Potomac and without us realizing, started reenacting the tortoise and the hare. We would pass them, and they would pass us in one direction, and then we would pass them again, and they would pass us in the other. Two very friendly and polite young marines who said hello each time, with a smile and a wave at the slowpokes who were by then running out of gas, figuratively speaking. It took us longer getting back to our starting-off point and by the end of our ride, were always very glad to get back to the car.  It was also usually hot and humid when we went out, something that I have never gotten used to even today.  

I am very thankful to my husband and son who took these photos, not only because I enjoyed each and every one of them, but because they brought back some lovely memories.

AN OLD GATE

I could happily lean on a gate all the livelong day, chatting to passers-by about the wind and the rain.  I do a lot of gate-leaning while I am supposed to be gardening; instead of hoeing, I lean on the gate, stare at the vegetable beds and ponder.

~Tom Hodgkinson~

~~~~~

I have my own memory of an old gate in front of our home, and from the ages of five to fifteen, I spent many a time swinging on it, leaning on it, climbing up it (to a child it seemed like Mt. Everest) and watching the world go by.  This is not that gate I am sharing today, but an old photo I took on our last trip to England.