🦞 The Lockdown Gang still chatting 🦞

Love to you Naughtyneine ❤️
You are doing the best you can and Naughtytide will know this.
X
Sending gentle hugs.

If I'd read all of the above on another GN site I'd have thought...you need to get a grip girl....

Well here I am trying again. I did write a screed some weeks back but I can't find it so it's probably still somewhere in the ether bit like my head. I've been having a few wobbles hence the unauthorised absence for far too long. I am so envious of Jan and NFK meeting up as I know if I'd been able to meet up with you all I'd have been sorted out in no time. Way back when I was negotiating the end of a long marriage, a full time job and foreign students arriving and leaving every few days ( that required breakfast ,pack lunch, dinner and drop off and pick up) I reached a point where I couldn't stop crying....and eventually had no choice but to go to see my GP in the hope it was some hormonal deficiency...his words still echo round my head...Mrs E ( as I was then) I've been waiting for this to happen , you have been coming in here for years with Mr E and all his problems ( a lot caused by alcohol) and now your mind and your body can take no more. He suggested medication but I didn't want to go down that route and in the end it took me a year to' get better'. At the time I couldn't accept it a a sort of breakdown ( I'm far too sensible and practical for that thought I) but it was and in the end it was only driving myself round huge swathes of Oz and NZ that finally got me back on track. I deliberately stayed in Airbnb so I'd have to talk to people unlike here where I'd only see people I really had to ...and my girls who totally understood and wanted their strong Mumma back. My twin Grandsons and their little brother put a smile on my face and I never lost being able to have them for sleepovers. On all other levels I merely functioned and set my one task a day and if I achieved it fine...if I did more then great and if I didn't then that was also fine too. This for a person who was used to juggling all the balls in the air ( Ex was not a practical person and sadly not a hands on Father either , his Father was 50 when he was born so he'd not had that experience growing up and his Mother was a very strong person physically and mentally and as he was the only son out of 5 was very shall we say ...spoilt and I sort of at 20 tried and mostly succeeded to take over her role of managing everything that needed doing, swapping spoiling for caring but only so far ...when after a week of marriage he asked if I could wash his hair as his Mother used to do it, my immediate response was...Why ? Have you hurt your hands? and unless you have broken both arms then No.) was a really tough time but I did get back to 'normal' again and life went on and 5 years later I met DH and life changed for ever in the most wonderful way. So what brought me to the edge again a couple of months ago who knows but I found myself teetering once more and I hated it am hating it. Yes I know there have been some very rocky roads to negotiate over the past 7 years but we 'locked on and drove' through them all....the sadness of not seeing my 'girls' and 11 GC is immense but I try not to dwell on it but pray daily for their happiness and wellbeing. Looking back I realise I wasn't ready for the very sudden decision that DH made about retiring...a working man on Friday and retired on Monday. I think I felt that it was something that was going to happen in a few years time and would be a gradual working towards thing and anticipated and my working life would gradually come to a natural end too. Stupidly I still want to feel that I'm in the late summer of my life ( in reality age wise I'm probably in the Autumn) but the suddenness of his retirement in my eyes put me in the Winter and that scared me and instead of my mind letting me grab the wonderful opportunity...it's paralysed me. I am still doing my supporting of the little family and others and but doing my swan act...calm and serene on the surface but paddling like mad underneath it all. There....you have it all... I've bared my soul to you....I know none of it makes any sense and my guilt know no bounds just now...My DH deserves better.

My DM wasn't glamorous but wished she was. She was little and a bit plump . She longed to be tall and willowy a favourite word of hers

She spent money on nice shoes. When she died my DSis and I had to give away her beautiful shoes as we were like Cinderella's sisters 😅🤣😂 she took a size 4

Grammaretto your mother sounds very glamourous. Men used to look so nice going out in their finery.
ixion those gloves sound lovely. I do hope you kept one pair for yourself,
Jan and NFK so pleased you met up again. How lovely. And you got to meet Keira too. An added bonus. So glad you managed it.
Been to lunch today and ate too much. Nice meal though and good chat. I think the restaurant was glad when we finally left. We were sitting chatting for ages.

Oh, that's lovely to read, Jan! Pleased you both had a great time.

How's your sorting going, Grammaretto?
Lots of support on the Decluttering thread. We Grans are never short of a tip or too - or solace when needed!

Did your buyers want to keep any of your furniture? If so, I hope it was helpful and not too sad for you.

Hello from the Norfolk Broads! To all the Lobstars desperate to know if Nfk Dumpling and Jan I can tell you we very definitely did!! We did have my DH with us as well but couldn’t find anything else to do!!! Think he was a bit bored listening to two ladies chattering away!
Anyway we met at one of our favourite places- Ranworth which has food and drink on tap at 1030 and reluctantly split up at 1430!! The lovely Keira came too and was sooo good but she did say “Remember Mum I dont like prawns!”🦐 we left with promises to meet up next year. A very good afternoon!! Have a good weekend all!

I inherited, by default, several pairs of long evening gloves, each in their own dedicated long box with original tissue paper. They were my great grandma's, so around the turn of the century, but worn by my grandma and my mum for her wedding. Elbow length white kid, others a sort of mink/buff colour, with pearl buttons along the palm and wrist.
In a nod to Cinderella, try as I might I couldn't get them buttoned up at all. One pair went to a local costume museum, the rest to a thriving AmDram society which has a keen children's and teens' section, where I guess there are slimmer
paws than mine!

A favourite as a child was my mother's full circular underskirt made from parachute silk. A dream for dressing up, bridal wear.

I was never allowed not jeans but trousers with a fly front. 🤷‍♀️
University and independence soon out an end to that😆

I wasn't allowed jeans!
What did I buy with my Saturday job money???

... they were the sort you wore sitting in the bath of course.

I think my love of (beautiful) fabrics is from my childhood.
How lovely wicked to dress up in your mother's finery!

I remember being in trouble for inviting a friend home when my DM was out and trying on her fur stole and high heels possibly long gloves too.

She had a Dior dress too but we didn't dare try that on.

I was more of a tomboy and preferred jeans and casual clothes but dressing up occasionally was exciting.

I remember my dad's shop selling ladies evening gloves and the beautiful fan of them at Christmas time in the shop window. Lots of different colours in a sort of colour-wheel peacock tail.
The arm and fingers had cardboard inside making the satin flat and shiny and the fingers look like feathers...

In my little girl mind I feel that this was every Christmas - but obviously as an adult I do know it almost certainly wasn't.

What fun to be meeting up Jan and Nfk
😊

Jan DS 2 and family are heading to Norfolk next weekend.
So pleased you’re meeting up with NfK how lovely. Have a great time.

Notspaghetti how interesting. I’m not surprised you haven’t parted with the gloves. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pair of evening gloves in real life. On screen of course. I too love the glamourous era

Have a lovely day NfK and Jan

Hi All. We are having a few days at the Norfolk Broads. Yesterday was glorious wall to wall sunshine but today has started off with the usual cloud and slightly damp feel. We are off to lunch at one of our favourite slightly posh pubs later but before that we are checking out a possible little holiday home for the end of the month. We are in a very old and quirky cottage at the moment the quirky bit being there is a step up or a step down into every room! Well thats ok inless youve had a stroke! Ive got a phobia about steps but all has been fine.
Tomorrow we are meeting up with Nfk for coffee/lunch/alcohol and a lot of chattering at a favourite spot for us all. Fingers crossed for some sun!

Naughtyneine where are you?
Are you OK?

She was a tailor by trade but had danced in her early years (very much against the wishes of her father).
She had a collection of evening gloves and rather ridiculously I couldn't part with them before now as I was quite attracted to the glamour.
It's ridiculous though. I'm not glamorous by any means!
My dad had a clothes shop after the war until he retired. Prior to that he had worked with a furrier and a milliner before settling on window display - so he probably made the collars from odds and ends of fur and then my mum would swap them about on her suits and winter coats to ring the changes.

I have previously disposed of the cut leather obviously rescued from two pairs of very soft long boots which were cut into ladies gloves and all "just" needed sewing.

Gritting my teeth...
I am not sewing gloves!

ixion my singing wouldn’t be fun for anyone 🤣
Yes I’ve been t sit fit today, meeting art friends in Thursday for lunch. Tree is doing well thank you. I’ve been down a few times with a bucket and watered it from the river. It’s laden with little cones. So heavy the branches are bending.
Grammaretto i love exploring ruins too. Hope your new home has a very solid roof.
Notspaghetti what interesting items you have come across. Was your mum a bit of a collector.

Such beautiful photos Grammaretto
Yes. I like my rain outside too!

Glad it happened when we were just sitting there though- as I had seven silk hangings on the side just rolled in tissue paper. I was able to move them out of the rain.

Yes, it's a big square bay window ixion with a matching but smaller square bay above.

It involved me moving lots of --junk- important stuff out of the way to check the bedroom carpet and then floor.
The very important items included a box of fur collars from my mother circa 1950 and a bag of odd evening gloves from the same era!

Maybe now I will be able to part with some of the other stuff discovered there... her dance school tunic and footwear from her youth surely is no use to anyone? Not now I've finally disposed of all her greasepaint!

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That's not nice at all NotSpaghetti. Rain should stay outside in my opinion.
It does like to come in though and has been the bane of my life.

I spent the day going by bus to Jedburgh abbey with my df and exploring it. It's a ruin but a very impressive one.

Some of my ancestors were from Jedburgh but left for Australia and on to NZ in the early 1800s.

Oh, that's grim, NS, so sorry.
A long time to wait when your ceiling is in jeopardy. Is it a bay window or do you have a room above?

How do your DC feel about your prospective new home, Grammaretto? Hoping things are progressing as per plan.

Do your classes start again soon, Doodle?
Art and drawing? Sit Fit?
Would you consider singing (for fun, that is)?
How's DH's tree looking? I hope the continuous heatwaves haven't affected it. 🌳

I have been decluttering my sewing room - again - today, thanks to the almost incessant rain here.
Trimmings, buttons, furbelows - you name it, I inherited it.
Not sure what to do with Mr.I's great aunt's Cash's name tapes et al from her days in the WRENS.

All vintage stuff.

Oh Notspaghetti Im so sorry, that’s not what you need. Hope the damage isn’t too bad.
Quiet day for me today. Not much happening. Did a bit of drawing and painting just trying to keep busy

Oh no...
had a leak last night. Bulging ceiling near the window in our sitting room. Poked it with a craft knife and let it rain in.
😕
Have someone coming to look at the flashing on Wednesday...
Keeping 🤞it's safe 'till then as the wind is blowing from the other direction.

Of course it's our "best" room with a lovely wool carpet and "professional" paintwork. Typical!