A little Christmassing . . .

 

Keith would have been 86 today.  I decided I would get myself out for a short while, and do some Christmas shopping and buy myself A Treat at the Old Railway Line Garden Centre at Three Cocks.  I was mostly going to enjoy their Christmas Department, and allow the child in me a little indulgence.  Having been a career soldier, Christmas didn't mean much to Keith and had he been on his own, he wouldn't have bothered celebrating at all.  Poor man - his birthday outing one year was being dragged around Abbey Cwm-Hir Hall - which made a point of doing Christmas in Every Room - all 52 of them!  (Well, in my defence, all the NT properties I thought of shut at the end of Oct.)  At least it got him out of the house!  My trip today gave a nod to that :)

The Santa Express.  It's the truck I have shown before, now in Christmas mode.

Lots and lots and lots of Cyclamens.  I bought 6 last month, but had 4 to decorate a copper fish kettle I was selling (and it sold), and the other two are doing well in a pot in the front.  Along with a self-seeded Borage which is flowering, would you believe!

I loved the deep deep wallpaper with these gorgeous lights against it.

A pretty blue tree with Owls . . .

Large Christmas rat, anyone?  Not quite sure how they fit into Christmas  . . . or the knitting sheep, below!

Some really cute things here, but the meeces in the tree, bottom left, were £14.99 and I couldn't justify that.

Temptation here, I like fungi . . .

I bought a little mouse rather like this one.  It's a Christmas ritual for me, to add to my family of meeces.

And I couldn't resist the cream-topped one of these.  Hah - a Russula delica!!  (I used to go on Fungi Forays when I first got together with Keith.  He thought I was mad!)

I got Garlic to plant as well, which was my "official" reason for going.  I didn't allow myself any leeway when I got back and went straight out and dug over/weeded the garlic tub, added half a sack of fresh compost, and planted I think it was 25 garlic bulbs.  Hopefully they will grow.  The ones I had last year were spring-planted (odd) and never came to anything much.

I will go and pin the back of the quilt now.  When that is sewn, it will be finished.  I am quite pleased with how it has turned out, but by gum, I've sewn a LOT of stitches.  I will get back to my embroideryt for a bit before I start on the other auction quilt, which I replaced the centre in.

Last night, having watched Kate at the Last Homely House with her (home sewn I assume) modern take on a hay box, where she put her casserole in to carry on cooking for 6 hours, I am rather tempted to try making my own.  I will try and find her video where she makes it now.  My neighbour Ed cooks in a hay box too (proper hay in a box for him), as they used to in the Army.  Worth remembering if we have sporadic power cuts . . . as long as we can time them so we have our casserole piping hot ready to go in said hay box when the power goes out!

Gabby is on her way and it will be a fish and chip supper - in memory of Keith, as that was his favourite meal, especially if bought in Scarborough, where the fish was SO fresh and sweet.

Letters from the Front - Bertie Ward Harrison

This post was originally put on in July 2016, to remember Keith's grandfather, Bertie Ward-Harrison, who died on the Somme.  This is Bertie's story, which I think gives a vivid portrayal of what life was like on the front - and how much worry he tried to protect his family from.  Keith inherited his filmstar looks and cheeky character, and his love of a bet (Bertie was a bookie's runner at one point prior to the War).

From the 2016 blog post:

"I have had these posts in mind for all of July.  100 years ago on 31st July 1916, my husband's great Uncle, Captain George Brown Bird, was killed in action.  I will remember him tomorrow, as the 3rd August is the date that his commanding officer wrote to George's sister to inform her of her loss.

Just 3 weeks earlier, his brother-in-law, my husband's grandfather, Bertie Ward Harrison, had been badly injured.  Initial news was that he was expected to live, having been shot in the back and the legs.  This is the information which had been given to George Bird, when he asked after him, knowing his Company had been involved in house to house fighting in the village of La Boisselle.  It was a rum do - no-one knew from one minute to the next whether the house which had been held by the Germans shortly before, was still in enemy hands or had been captured (briefly) by the British. The village was captured  and held by the British on the 4th July, and it was on this date that Bertie was injured.  If you visit the La Boisselle Study Group page, you will see a map which is copyrighted, so I can't show it here.  Here is a link to some of the information about the area, and the huge crater (The Glory Hole) which was never filled in and is still in evidence to this day.

In the confusion of the dressing stations, perhaps George was misinformed, but sadly Bertie's injuries proved too great and he died on 5th July.  Initially he was listed as "Missing".  The news of his death was not passed on to his widow for some weeks.  Within days of this she was to hear of the death of her brother.  Her hair turned white overnight.

Keith has passed me the letters Bertie sent to his wife.   Just three remain. They sound so down to earth but all the time you can see he knew that the outlook for the fighting Tommies was not good. When he was in hospital it is clear he was dreading going back but all the time he tried to keep positive.  I guess many men wrote in a similar vein.  I have added a little punctuation as Bertie often missed it out, but I think you will see something of the man in these letters.  He was so good looking and apparently when he came home on leave, all the neighbouring wives would be round, as they thought he had film star looks and he brightened up their lives.  Knowing what we do of him, I think he was quite a character and I am sure Keith has inherited his wicked sense of humour from Bertie.  He was brave - he once had a shave in a lion's cage (for the money, which was always tight). He was a Bookie's runner for a while, but had some problems with that as on occasion he wouldn't put the bet on as he knew the horse and thought it couldn't run an inch, and then the blooming thing went and won, and he had to go to the Boxing Booths in Blackpool to fight and win the stake money back . . .

He and George will never be forgotten in our family.  Here are the letters:

March 14th, 1916:

Dear Maggie

I got writing pad and twist alright.  The Twist was a God send.  I had just finished my other.  Well dear, people seem to get alarmed over a bit of an air raid.  I don't now what they would do if they had been like us for 34 days within a stone throw of the Gers and seeing your mates go under every day.  Thank God we are out for a 10 days rest and then we shall be among it again.  It's a treat to get away from it a bit if its only to get a clean change and a bath.  I think George's Reg. is following us for a rest.  I am going to try and find out today. . . . . .

I hope Edie  is keeping alright.  Also the rest of Friends.  I am glad Alice is getting a clever girl.  Let her write me a few lines next letter and see if she is improving.  Tell George to be a good boy and go to school and then he will be able to write to his daddy.  I hope baby and Agnes is well, also yourself.  I must close now.  Good bye and God bless you all.  from your Loving Husband Bert xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Over the page he wrote asking for a weekly paper after Maggie had read it, as "we never see one".

Undated:

Dear Maggie

Just a line to let you know I have been here (the Gen. Hospital) nearly a fortnight, got a wound in the hand and it turned to poisoning, but glad to say I am nearly better.  I shall be leaving here any day but write back to this address by return.  it will follow me on.  I haven't heard from you since September 9th.  I feel so miserable.  I came down here from the firing line after the big advance so I expect my letters will be there for me when I get back.  I sent a letter from here a week on Saturday with a young chap, he was coming to England.  I told him to post it when he arrived but I think he must have forgot it or lost it. If you had received it I know you would have written back straight away.  I do hope you have got over your illness alright and that you are up again, its been hard for me not been able to get any letters.  Of course if this had not have happened I should have got them alright and got to (k)now how you were getting on.  I feel sorry at giving him the letter to post but I thought you would get it sooner.  Now dear don't fret about me I am alright again.  I shant be in the trenches for a week or so until I get moved.  Have you heard from George yet.  I would like to hear from him.  It looks as if the War will last a long time yet as we gain ground here we seem to lose it on the other side.  Its a treat to here our Guns sending the shells over our heads into there lines , the noise was terrible but the sights were worse.  I never want to see it again.  Well dear, I would like to tell you more about it but you will have to wait till I come home which I hope wont be long.  Write straight back.  Remember me to Mrs Wood and all.  Has Jack come out yet if not tell him to hurry up, we can do with the big guns.  I most close now, from Your Loving Husband Bert xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

March 14th or 15th (I don't know which he wrote)

Dear Maggie

Just a line to let you know I got your letter.  I also receives twist and handkerchief last night.  Well dear, I am glad you are alright.  Sorry to hear Mrs Wood is bad again.  Poor old Mrs.  Tell her to buck up, the War will soon be over I don't think.  Well Maggie, our Division is on Pass so in a month or two if I get through I shall be looking at coming home for a few days.  Men thats been in hospital have to wait till the last I believe, but it wont take our company so long to get through as theres only a few of us left, its the Bombers thats touching out every day, you see we have to get very close to the Gers before we can reach them with our bombs but its God help them same as it is God help us when they drop among you, there terrible things.  I have only just got my nerves right from the last big battle, what with their bombs and ours its a bit nerve recking.  I hope I come through alright for your sake and the childrens.  Tell Alice and George to be good children and go to school and then they will get on alright.  Poor Samy Brotherton I only saw him in the trenches two days before he got it, he laughed away and we had a s(h)ort talk.  I never thought it would be the last time but its a old saying in the midst of life we are in Death and now I must close and Good bye, from your Loving Husband Bert. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Bertie died on 5th July 1916.  He was 27.  Many years before, In Scarborough, a gypsy had told his fortune for him and told he he would die when he was 27."

Fed up

From yesterday's walk.

 I fancied going somewhere today and thought of going to the Garden Centre to see their Christmas display, but talked myself out of it as an unnecessary indulgence.  I also thought of going to Merthyr Tydfil shopping centre to try on Bra's at M&S and get my shopping down there, but talked myself out of that too.  I am going to Carmarthen next week and will tie up several things together on the same fuel usage.  I just went to Llandod for groceries in the end.

I have been working on the quilt and have got to the swearing and cussing and absolutely fed up with it stage now.  I have unpicked the last side, and sewn one half back together, and am now pinning on the strip down the middle of the back which is taxing, to say the least, doing it on my lap.  I am needing a break from Outlander too.  

Fingers x'd that a lady interested in my spinning wheel will have it when we meet up tomorrow.  That would help the exchequer.

Perhaps tomorrow will be a bit more positive, and hey, I finally found the fishing rods rack I knew I had bought back from the Unit, but searched the house for 3 times before I found it merged against a bookcase at the back of the library. . .

Lulu has been resting upstairs as usual most of today.  Not sure what she has eaten or drunk though but she looks bright enough.

Lulu update

 I'm back from the vet with Lulu now.  She has been resting all day, her favourite spot on the single bed (quilted of course) which has Tam's blow-up mattress laid across the top as nowhere else for me to put it.  I "lost" her many times (Pippi too) before I discovered this hiding place.  Anyway, she did a tiny offering of poo of the right colour and no longer diarrhoea this morning, and has been eating.  I had trouble getting her into the cat carrier and after she escaped once, had to upend it and feed her in, with her still trying to double back and escape.  

Gosh, I need to vacuum the kitchen floor!  And put the polishing rags bag away.  

Here she is "tinging" the water bowl with her claws.  It makes a musical ring.  The vet said she had had a very bad allergic reaction causing Diverticulitis,  to something in the PURINA FELIX ORIGINAL MIXED SELECTION IN GRAVY sachets.  Do NOT buy these for your cat as there is something in the ingredients which can make certain cats very ill indeed.  She said she didn't need any treatment, but I did right to bring her in to get her checked out.  

I hated sitting in the vet's with her. Last time Tam and I were there to have L. Whale pts.  My nerves were twanging - love makes you so vulnerable.  My nervous system/stress levels have never really gotten back to normal after the state I was in during Keith's final weeks.  

I shall go back and work a bit more on the quilt after tea.  It will now have to have a stripe down the back too!  Oh what fun :) 

(I had some curry sauce left over from last night's king prawn curry so tonight it will be chicken curry, with mixed grain rice incl. red and wild rice.  Yummy.)

I have had one expense.  The 2nd is a new microwave (I will wait for Black Friday to get the Panasonic one I fancy - pointless buying the cheaper ones as they only last 3 yrs).  What will the 3rd expense be?

A poorly Lulu

 The two quilts sewn together - you can see the brown strip, but whichever sides I sewed together, all were edged in brown as clearly she had lots of brown left over . . .  Name of Quilt, "Brown Stripe"!!  I clearly didn't have my thinking head on as that would have removed another strip either side, but then I would have been left with incomplete paler hexies.  Can't win I guess.  If I had just removed the valances, although generous, the single tops wouldn't have been sufficiently wide enough to go over a bed.

Lulu has had a very poorly upset tummy.  I'm not sure if it was the sachets of meat in gravy that did it as that has upset Pippi's tummy in the past, or whether she has just got an inflamed gut, but she was passing bloody diarrhoea last night and sicked up some slightly pink foam.  Needless to say all this happened well after the vet's had shut.  She spent the night on my bed, snuggled into my back as usual, purring, and has seemed quite bright this morning, and eaten some biscuits and a little of a different sachet.  I have tried to get an early (morning) appointment at the vet's but although I phoned dead on 9, when they open, all the morning appointments are already taken.  Just like the GP . . .  don't know how it happens unless people turn up on the doorstep to book animals in. 

I will have to keep busy as obviously I am worried.  They said as long as she wasn't lethargic, she would be ok to wait.

 It's often Pippi in the photos, but Lulu likes to be upstairs, that's her domain.  She doesn't often go outside either and when she does, she doesn't go far.  She would e perfectly happy to be a total house cat.

So now I have to worry until 3.30 when she is booked in.  

Angels on my shoulders?

 . . . or perhaps on my fingertips, as I imagine these little old wrinkled faces smiling as I work on the quilts they once made and need restoring, or finishing, or altering.  I sense they would be delighted to see them put to rights, ready to be loved and treasured again.  So many hours of stitching went into their creations and - heavens - a good few into putting them to rights again!  I can vouch for that.  I have done quite a few down the years.  

They might touch with angel hands a fabric they remember buying, or which started off life as a dress or skirt, they might think of what they were listening to on the radio or tv whilst they sewed (Z-Cars or Gardeners World or the A-Team or Fawlty Towers perhaps, with this current hexi quilt).  

I have had a busy day today, stripping and remaking the guest bed with a winter duvet and brushed cotton bedding, and washing the used-once set and hanging it up to dry.  I baked a lovely loaf of bread, and made a Spicy Dorset Apple Cake to take to my friend tomorrow, but it smelt so good that I weakened and had a piece and then had to make her another (Manderin Orange Cake).  

I have been sewing - joining the loose backing on the quilts, and now I am on the borders.  One went smoothly but this current one has a join in the middle and that hexi-angel bodged it a bit and so I am having to try and unbodge it.  Bless her, we all do things like that.  

I am still happily watching Outlander, but skipping the awful scene in Wentworth jail with that barsteward Black Jack Randall. . .  They'll be escaped and off to France shortly.

I must try and avoid any click bait posts on Microsoft Bing when I sign in.  I did not want to see that a White House adviser is saying that the next 8 weeks could be the most dangerous of our lives and lead to WWIII. . .  That sort of thing haunts me rather when I wake up for a call of nature at 3 a.m.

Well, my day out tomorrow is off as Lulu has an upset tummy and just been sick, with a tint of blood in it so I will have to take her to the vet tomorrow.  

Amalgamation

 I've got the car back from the garage, and I can cope with Porlock Hill again now - but only if I am driving.  Couldn't blardy walk up there - I think it's a 1 in 4 hill.  (That's a 25% grade in American terms).   No worries anyway, as it's in the West Country and haven't been down that way for many a long year.   I have had problems with the handbrake on the car - it just wouldn't hold on a steep hill.  The car was overdue an oil change anyway, so got both things attended to at the same time.  I was surprised when I put the handbrake on and it only came up less than a cm!  Phew.  I had to drive into a very steep driveway on a narrow lane on the way back from Tam's recently and thought I'd end up going through their gate!

Without a car and knowing I was going to have to walk to the garage to collect it later, I sat down after breakfast and started stitching the two single quilts together.  I will need to put a nice binding on it too, later.  I am using a tiny 1" quilting needle and tiny stitches on the tiny 1 1/2" hexies.  I have sewn about 2 1/2 feet of it now.

I have been rewatching Outlander from the start to keep me amused.  I sped up through the bit where Jamie is flogged though.  Looking at her gorgeous wedding dress, I really don't know how it stayed up.  It must have been glued in place!! It's nice to get lost in history, and forget about the current world worries.  Though, to be said, it was so good to see Trump starting to get his comeuppance . . .

I have tried to keep the heating off most of the day.  I had it on for an hour and a half first thing, then half an hour at lunchtime.  Alfie was looking cold though so I made him up the small hotty botty which I put under the quilt on the sofa where he was.  He snuggled up onto that.  Pippi was snuggled beside me and if she'd had her way, would have been inside the quilts as usual.   It's 15.3 deg in the kitchen, not warm - not quite 60 deg. Fahrenheit, so I will put the heating back on shortly.

I filled up with diesel on Monday, but prices haven't gone up yet.  Perhaps the situation with  America v. Iran will now calm down a bit and prices may even drop.  We are ALL paying for that war.  If only this Government would stop trying to destroy farmers and destroy farmland, for we are getting into dangerous territory.

Right, back to Outlander and the quilts.