Wednesday Witterings . . .

 

(source)

 It's quiet out there this morning. Not a lot of noise except for when a car goes past. It's quite warm and muggy so I expect the birds are feeling it as well. When it is 21*C/70*F and it's not even 7 a.m. yet, you just know it's going to be a stinker of a day. They got my heat pump fixed just in time. 

There is another heat warning out for today.  

I have a bird bath on the railing of my front deck and birds were coming to visit it yesterday to drink and to splash. It was very hot and humid yesterday as well. 

I think the local high school graduation is tomorrow night and as I recall, those were always hot and miserable with hundreds of parents stuck in the hot gymnasium of the school with no air con. It was always a relief to get outside afterwards.

 

(sunset through the front window last night)

For some reason our garbage was not picked up yesterday. It is still sitting at the ends of our lawns. I am not sure why. It should have been. We will see if they pick it up today.  

Not nice weather to have to be doing work like this outdoors. I count my blessings that I don't have to work like that.

Garbagemen always make me think of this young woman named Etta that my mother hired to help take care of us when she first went back to work. There had been another one named Brenda first, but she did not last and then came Etta.  Etta shared my bedroom with me. 

She was man crazy. On garbage day she used to hang out my bedroom window flirting with the garbage men as they moved along the back of our houses (we lived in a row of townhouse type of homes) emptying the bins.

I thought she was nuts.  She wasn't nuts.  She just liked men.  But to an 11-year-old, that does not compute. 

She didn't last long either. My father had a habit of flirting with anyone in a skirt, especially if they were young.  The next lady mom got was a woman named Mrs. Robar.  She was old, very overweight and had no teeth. Our dad did not flirt with her.

She didn't last long either, however.  Mom caught her having coffee with the next-door neighbor and she didn't like that. Mom was not a coffee-morning kind of a person and wasn't paying her "housekeeper/nanny" to have coffee with the neighbors.

After that mom gave up and decided that I could do the job. That was the end of my childhood. I then had to be "responsible."

 

(source)

The local berries are coming in now.  You can also go to the You-pick and pick your own. My berry picking days are over. I can't crouch like that anymore. I am reduced to buying them already picked at the farm stands.  The last ones I saw were $7.99 a container, so I will wait until they come down a bit. 

I do so love fresh strawberries.  

Mom and dad used to take us picking with them when we were kids.  I am sure we probably ate just as many as we picked.  Mom would make jam with them.  She liked to make the freezer jam.  It was always enjoyed by us in the Winter months, spooned over vanilla ice cream or on our toast. So delicious. She also used to put it between cake layers when she baked a cake, which wasn't very often, but still . . .  so good.

I used to make jam for my own family every year as well, beginning with strawberry. We, too, enjoyed it over our ice cream and on our toast and in the middle of our cakes.

I think to this day, of all the jams in the world, strawberry is my favorite, even if I am not really supposed to be and shouldn't be eating it.

 

(source)

Summer holidays always used to mean swimming lessons when I was a child. Our mother had never learned to swim. (I think our father could.) She did take lessons once but did not like getting her face wet in the water. It was important to her however that we learned to swim and so we did.  The lessons were always taken at the local outdoor pools, early in the morning before the sun had had a chance to warm up the water. I can remember it being positively frigid. Your body did acclimate to it eventually, but that first jump in was always teeth chattering.

Swimming for pleasure was not free. You had to either buy a summer pass or pay each time you went. A summer pass was the cheaper route to go. We were issued badges to sew onto our swimsuits as proof that we had a pass. Little cloth medallions with the year on them. 

Most of us younger kids spent all of our afternoons at the outdoor pools alternately baking and then cooling off. The pools would be loaded. There were so many kids that sometimes the lifeguards broke us up into groups to go in swimming. First boys and then girls.  You would be given so many minutes and then the whistle would blow, and you would have to get out so the next lot could go in.

The lifeguard was king.

When we girls got bit older, we spent our afternoons ogling the lifeguards. They were always Seniors and quite fit. And they knew it!

We would all be nut-brown come end of July.

(source)

The Lupins are all but done now. Gone to seed. They don't last long. The peonies are all in bloom now.  Glenna has some early yellow lilies that are blooming. My lilies are nowhere near blooming yet, but they have shot right up.

The new people next door have put in a nice-looking garden at the front, complete with lots of ornaments, etc. The man who used to live there always had a nice garden full of perennials. He was always working at it, out there digging and weeding every day. 

There are some really talented gardeners on the street. Jane down at the end has a very English garden, but then again, she is English. Molly down at the other end has a really pretty garden as well. 

I have always found it fascinating how we all like to put our own stamp on the places we live and that is usually done by the garden or lack thereof.

I didn't get any hanging baskets this year. I have my wee geranium that Dan takes care of for me in the Winter.  Chippy keeps digging it out. Little monkey.  

I can hear him out there chipping at the moment. He's a cheeky little chappie.

 

(source)

Did you date when you were younger before you got married?  I didn't.  There really wasn't anywhere for you to go on dates here where I lived.  There was the movie theatre on the base, the tavern if you were old enough to drink and they would have dances most weekends at the rec center, but there was really nowhere to go for "dates." We mostly just all hung out together as a group.  

I only ever had three "boyfriends" and I married each of them.  There wasn't really any dating in between or playing the field that I can recall. Occasionally you would let someone walk you home from the Rec Center or a dance, but that was it.

I started watching Ginny and Georgia the other week and was horrified.  Is that how young people act today? It made me fearful for my granddaughter. I don't remember us being as wild as all that back in the day. I mentioned it to my oldest son, and he said that they used to have drinking parties every weekend when he was a teenager.  I must have been very naive.

I do remember telling him one time that if he couldn't abide by the house rules he could leave. I was very shocked when an hour or so later he came up the stairs from his room in the basement with all of his camping gear and left.  I don't think I slept a wink most of the night. I did get a phone call about 3 in the morning from the Military Police saying they had a very contrite lad there who wanted to come home. They had found him camping near the dump and bears had been sighted. I was so relieved, one, that he was okay, and two, that he wanted to come home.

That's when I learned that you never say anything you don't mean, especially in anger. 

 

(source)

I am not sure what I will get up to today. My friend Tatiana showed me a delicious looking recipe for lemon ice cream the other day that I am keen to try out. I have my course work to do as well. I got a bit behind with that with all of my appointments that I had last week.  I do have my regular work to do as well and I hope to get in a bit of play. I don't know why my days seem to disappear as quickly as they do.  Time seems to evaporate these days. Is it the same way with everyone? I know it seems to take me twice as long to get anything done these days, and I seem to get easily distracted.  Maybe it is the same for everyone? I don't know.  But I do know the day will pass and before I know it, I will be staring at my bed again.

I best get on with what I want and need to do.

A thought to carry with you . . .

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★
 *.The hum of the bees
is the voice of the garden.
~Elizabeth Lawrence° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •

In the kitchen today, Cheese and Onion Muffin Bread, a quick bread to love. This is so delicious. Like muffins but baked as a whole round bread.  Just cut into wedges to serve. Delicious served warm with lashing of butter for spreading!

I hope that you have the most wonderful Wednesday, filled with lots of wonderful things.  Things which bring you joy and peace. Whatever you get up to, don't forget!

═══════════ღೋƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒღೋ═══════════ 

⊰✿░G░O░D⊰✿⊰L░O░V░E░S⊰✿⊰░Y░O░U░⊰✿

═══════════ ღೋƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒღೋ ═══════════  

And I do too!