Wednesday 15 December 2021

Getting Christmassy and Carolling with Norman Goodland

 

I am glad to report I am back in the land of the living again now, after that blip in my health.  I'm taking stronger anti-histamines for a few days in case it was caused by an allergic response to mould spores from mouldering leaves and I've not been overdoing things.

      Yesterday we finished dressing the tree and finding new homes for the Christmas meece family now that the furniture they used to sit on was sold with our old house.  I even found a new baby meece (I know the singular is mouse but they are meeces to me) in a shop in town when Tam and I were doing last minute shopping.  We have some nice gift shops here.


The tree is a nice one, with all our favourite baubles on it, collected down the years.  When the children were smaller we used to go to Salem Christmas Tree Farm and choose and cut down a tree and go in and each choose a special decoration. There are also a selection of x-stitch decorations (designs from Just X-Stitch, the American x-stitch mag I bought probably 30 years ago) which are special to me.



The new "meece" is the little one on the right.  I couldn't resist, and our nearest TK-Maxx (where I got the others) is in Carmarthen, over 50 miles away.





Foxy-loxy has come off the tree this year to decorate the old candle box in the kitchen along with a little jingle-bell wreath.

        Yesterday we had the local carpet shop out to measure for two carpets and quote for the lino laying.  We're going to the shop tomorrow to choose carpets but have already decided that we will have a similar silver-grey in the bedroom here we had in our last home.  It goes well with the blue.  The other carpet is for the Library and will be a Berber style carpet in a neutral colour which won't show muddy pussycat paw prints!

        So, not a great deal happening here.  I still have a couple of letters to write and things to organize, and house insurance to sort out.  I am trying not to think about the marathon clear out necessary in the Library in January, to lay the new carpet . . .

        I've been looking back through past Christmas posts and will share this one with you, from my Hampshire roots.


A piece by Norman Goodland today. He was a well-known writer and broadcaster. I remember him well from my Hampshire days, and he captured Hampshire countryside and the folk that lived there, perfectly.

CAROLLING

'Carols is funny things!  They bain't all to do wi' Christmas!  if you don't ring 'em out proper, they might not answer the door, nor gie thee nar 'apence!'

Foster Father was delivering his annual lecture tol the Baughurst bell-ringers, of whom he was Captain.  They practiced in Foster Mother's scullery, on the handbells.

I remember them - big bewhiskered men, shirt sleeved and leather belted, standing facing each other in a double row.  Flashing up the brass bells.  Checking the swing with broad thumn, to make them 'speak' in their clear, lucid tones.  It was all taken very seriously.  Standards were high; they had to be, to impress the gentry upon whom they called.

They walked from Baughurst to Wolverton, back through Ramsdell and Pamber End, and home through what was then know as the 'gypsy' village of Tadley.  Or made their way up to Heath End, aiming for the high spot of the season - Aldermaston Hall.

'We had to watch they sarvint galls!' Father once told me. 'They was always up to mischief!'

'We was invited up to the hall oncest.  We 'ad to go in through the back, an' through the kitchens, y'see.  An' we left our 'ats in the kitchen along wi' they gals.

'We went in and give a tune or two to the Master and the Mistress, and them as was there.  They gie us a sovereign!  They told us to go back to the kitchens and Cook would gie us a drink.

'So we done that.  And when 'twas time to get on, they gals was round the door away from the light.  An' they wouldn't gie us our 'ats until we give 'em a Christmas kiss.

'Waal - you never put yer 'at on inside a gentleman's 'ouse, luk.  So we put 'em on outside in the dark - so we didn't see what was gwine on. Anyways.  We went on down to the Hind's Head, t'other end o' the street.  We went in, took off our 'ats - an' everybody started to laugh! We didn't know what to make on it!  'Til we looked at each other - an' then we seed we 'ad white 'air - like a bunch of old men!

''Twas they sarvint gals!  They'd put flour in our 'ats - whiles we was a-carollin' for the Master!'

Father and his bell-ringers faced some competition from other Christmas and New Year rounders - the village bands of the time - The August Hill Drum and Fife Band.  The Temperence Bands, one from Tadley, one from Baughurst.  But it is said at the end of their rounds, the Temperence Bands were no more temperence than Father and his bell-ringers, when they came to clanking up the garden path well after midnight, to collect their bicycles and wobble their ways home!


Snow by the River Cothi.

17 comments:

  1. Brrr. That lovely snow picture looks cold. You will have a lovely Christmas in the new house with all the children around. Enjoy.

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    1. There was one year when it was minus 17 (yes, truly) down by the river. The water had frozen almost from side to side, just one narrow little channel down the middle. The temperature was taken by the Semex man who drove a refrigerated van from farm to farm.

      Looking forward to new Christmas traditions in our new home, and having all our family here again.

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  2. Good to hear that you are feeling better m'dear, tis looking rather festive at your abode and the meeces look quite content.

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    1. The meeces are happy as long as they are above cat height (and we have a climbing cat!!)

      Saw our plumber this morning and he was getting over a stinker of a cold, so these germs are doing the rounds (he has two smallish children though -infant school-age where germs do the rounds).

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  3. Glad you are feeling better. Missed a couple of your posts--recovering from Strep Throat myself. How I got it is a mystery since I hadn't left the house in more than a week when I came down with it. Nor been around anyone by DH--who I am blaming it on since he does go out...he didn't get sick. Still haven't decorated for Christmas yet and not quite sure I will bother. Suffering from the bah-humbug virus, perhaps. Best of luck picking out carpet.

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    1. That's rotten luck Mary, but glad you are now on the mend. I am guessing Christmas seems a bit of an effort at the moment - perhaps just a couple of baubles up by a light to twinkle and sparkle. The carpet is sort-of tidy again but I need to do open heart surgery on the Dyson yet again as it doesn't want to play ball.

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    1. Aren't they? I intend to keep adding to them on modest scale!

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  5. What a lovely tree :)
    Glad you are feeling better - it's rubbish when you are not well and life just feels like a drag xxx

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    1. I'm glad to report I feel back to normal now. The tree is bringing such pleasure.

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  6. A lovely Christmassy post. Glad you are feeling better. The tree looks lovely - we have put ours up too and we have a selection of decorations collected over the years as well. I remember your "meece" - they are SO cute.

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    1. Having a real tree is lovely (though perhaps a smaller one next year would be better as words were had in its putting up this year). It brings the wildwood into the home. I will cut some sprigs of variegated holly from the garden tomorrow and we need to make the wreath.

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  7. Everything is so pretty! I love the Meeces. Glad you're felling better. Thanks for the literary excerpts, very enjoyable, I save them for my evening read w my tea.

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    1. Hi Lizzy, glad your comments got through this time. Glad you are enjoying the literary excerpts. Perhaps leave today's until after you have eaten though!!

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  8. I love your collection of little mice. Not a creature was stirring!

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