Remember the disappearing garden?  Well now we know why.  Just look at it now.  It obviously had to be cleared before work started.

This is not just an ordinary extension our neighbour is having built.  This is a house enlargement!  The extension was built higher than the house, and yesterday Mo said.  “It looks funny.  I wonder why he’s done that”  Today we found out.

They have completely removed the roof of the main house.  They also have a supply of new bricks up there.  Obviously to level the house up with the extension – which, by the way, is almost as big as the house!  I imagine he is having bedrooms for the kids up in the (now higher) loft area, so turning a two story house effectively into a three story.

The back view

Front of the house

He will end up with a very large and luxurious house, but strange that he didn’t just move and get a larger house.  It must be costing him as much this way, though he has been able to design the house just the way he wants it.  Not sure which I’d do.

Given the finances, and thinking of the tremendous upheaval, would you extend like this or move house?

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It was 1967.  The days of the mini skirt and Vidal Sassoon hair cuts.  I had THIS very cut.

I was twenty one and prided myself on my fashion flair.  You know what they say about pride coming before a fall don’t you?  Hold that thought.

I can’t believe, now, that I actually wore my skirts so short that when I sat down my knickers showed.  Still that was the norm back then.  At least in London’s West End where I spent my days.  I had knickers to match most of my clothes for that very reason.  Thankfully, in the sixties, the skimpy panties and thongs were nowhere to be seen (or not) as the case may be.  It was also a must for the mini skirt to be a hipster, so there wasn’t much material in the whole thing! Jumpers were extra short, so you almost always showed a bare midriff too.

I had a real thing for shoes, and usually paid a lot of money for them.  I didn’t have lots of shoes, rather I would really fall in love with a pair and buy them to wear until I fell in love with another pair – usually very expensive.  It didn’t matter that they cost a lot.  I had a good job, and money was plentiful in the sixties (sigh… those were the days).  I fell in love with a lovely burgundy/brown pair of leather shoes, that had little leather tassels on the top. They had a beautiful shine to the leather.  Those were the days when people polished their shoes every day.  Shiny leather shoes was a must, and later Jim taught me how to spit ‘n’ polish, like the soldiers did, to get a real mirror finish on the toes.

Just as a side note.  My shoes were/are size 4 (UK), and I didn’t topple over!  Well, not often.  It was average and often shoes I wanted to buy were sold out in my size.  I had an aunt who was a size 3.  My 14 year old great niece (yes I’m a great aunt) is already a size 7 – what’s evolving here?

Remember I said that pride comes before a fall?

One sunny day I was starting out for work.  I caught a train into the West End and the platform was down a flight of steps.  These were concrete steps with lots of little stones in the concrete, I imagine to give the concrete strength.  Anyway, it was rush hour and the platform was packed with commuters. All the ‘Home Pride’ men (I explain this term HERE) were standing in rows waiting for their train.

I had on my lovely, heavy suede skirt that was made up of panels stitched onto the main skirt.  Another costly item that I loved. A walking fashion statement (huh!) and my beautiful, expensive shoes.

My shoes ….. that looked the bee’s knees.

My shoes ….. that I loved.

My shoes ….. that had an unusual sole.  A sole that was made from a kind of hard resin substance.

My shoes ….. that were not too friendly with the shiny stones in the concrete.

My shoes ……………..

Whooooosh! Bump! Bump! Bump! Bump! Thwuuuump!!

OH MY …..! I DIED!!!

Well I didn’t actually die, but I died inside.  I slipped down the whole flight of steps and landed on my backside in front of all the Home Pride men.

The Home Pride men ….. that (in unison) slowly turned and looked my way.

The Home Pride men ….. that stared vacantly, wondering what, or even IF they should show any chivalry and come to my aid.

The Home Pride men ….. didn’t

The Home Pride men ….. slowly (in unison) turned back and stared at the platform floor, fighting back laughter I expect.

The Home Pride men ……… How I hated the Home Pride men! ***

Now we all know that to fall down a flight of steps is embarrassing.  To fall down a flight of steps, have everybody stare at you, and then have to scramble to your feet on your own, regain your composure and walk away is beyond embarrassing.

I wonder why, on an expensive pair of shoes, such little thought would go into the safety of the sole.

Did I stop wearing those shoes?  I did NOT!

Did I fall down wearing them again?  Thankfully I did NOT.

Now I want to hear all about your slips and falls in public.  You know, your really embarrassing times.

*** I was later to discover that the Home Pride men would turn away from a FAR more serious situation, and leave me to go it alone.

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I sit and stare at my computer screen
An emptier page I have not seen
No funny quip, or humorous action
Can I write down, to gain reaction

My mind I dredge.  It’s a vain attempt
to bring to the fore, not one I’ve dreamt
But a real life story to entertain through
To make you smile. It’s long overdue

The hours slip by.  It turns into days
Nothing appears, despite my gaze
It’s a simple task, not rocket science
But the page glares back in noncompliance

I worry and fret but that doesn’t help me
I decide to make a nice cup of tea
I take a sip and glance once more
At the empty page ……..Oh what the hell…….Bejeweled beckons……..

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Most of you know that I lost my niece, Sindie, shortly before Christmas.  This post is especially for Livvie, Sindie’s fourteen year old daughter.  She’ll probably say this photo isn’t ‘cool’ enough, but I like it.

This is a video she made for her mum, using a selection of photos that hold a special place in her heart.  It includes a song she wrote, and sang to her mum just before she passed.  I have posted the lyrics below in case the words are not too clear on the video.

Livvie wants as many people to see this video as possible, so I thought I’d do my bit for her, and share it with all my blogging friends.
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Butterflies

The wind upon the hills,
On that lonely day
It shone down the spirit of your soul.

And the children down the valley,
On that lonely day
They brought the sun down to shine on you.

And all the creatures in the grass,
And all the butterflies
They brought the sun down to shine on you.

All the clouds over-head,
They hung their heads heavy
They hadn’t got much sun that day.

And rainbows covered the skies,
As the rain fell
Because everybody brought the sun to shine on you.

Because you are my sun,
And to everyone else. (x2)

And the gates of heaven will open,
When they see the sun come.
And everyone will smile, when they see you come.

You’ll sure get some love that day.

And the children down the valley,
On that lonely day
They brought the sun down to shine on you.

And all the creatures in the grass,
And all the butterflies
They brought the sun down to shine on you.

Because you are my sun,
And to everyone else. X2

The wind upon the hills,
They all weep your name,
Because their lives are pretty cold without the sun!

Can’t you see
That you are my sun? (x2)

And all of my earlier photos,
Can illustrate,
The sunshine you brought me,
And the rest of your family.

Without you and your heart,
I wouldn’t have lived,
I thank you for loving me,
Because I love you too.

Because you are my sun,
And no one,
Can take that
Away from me.

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Look what Mo came home with yesterday.  She thought I might like a game of Jacks.

I remember I used to be quite good at this game when I was a kid.  We called it ‘Fivestones’ and they looked different to these.   They were small square blocks of clay and all different colours.  We didn’t use a ball either.  We threw a single stone in the air instead.

I eagerly removed them from the box and tested them out……. I was useless!  Either I couldn’t grab any in time to catch the ball, or the ball bounced merrily in the totally wrong direction for me to catch at all!

What happens as we get older?  Must we give everything up, and resign ourselves to the fact that we are……well, useless at stuff we used to be good at?

I refuse to give up gracefully.  I WILL have another go.  I will GO DOWN FIGHTING – though go down is what I’ll no doubt do.

I want to hear about all the things that you can’t do very well anymore, that you used to shine at.

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Some of you may have seen this before.  It’s been around a while, but it doesn’t matter how many times I watch it I can’t stop laughing.  I even have it on my iPhone.

I thought I’d post it for those who haven’t seen it, and also for those that have and want another giggle.  I don’t think you could watch it and not laugh.

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Yesterday, I was thrilled to collect the hard drive from my old iMac.  This was the drive that held five years (and more) of all my files and programmes.  I have been waiting patiently for Apple to say it was ready to collect.  “Once I get my hard drive, I can get myself all sorted out on my new iMac”  I kept telling Mo.  “Until then, I can’t really get going.”

We picked up the old drive from the Apple Store and went straight to PC  World to buy an enclosure (Apple don’t sell them).  We were greeted by a young chap who looked like Eric Sykes (British comedian) and sounded like Tommy Cooper!  He was a bit of a comedian himself, but I expect that was inevitable really.  He finally sold us an enclosure and we set off home.

Once home we followed the very brief instructions on how to wire it up. I plugged everything in and switched it on.  The light came on and quickly went off again.  We took it to pieces and tried wiring it differently, as the instructions were so vague we were not totally sure it was correct.  Still not working.

I contacted a very clever PC man called Jeff (View From The Clouds) and emails flew back and forth while he very kindly tried to help me out of my predicament.  Unfortunately it seemed that something was faulty, and we would have to go back and see Mr Eric Cooper, or was it Tommy Sykes?

It ended up with us getting our money back, even though they said that the enclosure fired up for them.  I was now a little worried that it may be the hard drive that was faulty after all, so we went to the Apple Store, and they said that if we couldn’t get it to work with another enclosure they would return the costs for the drive removal.  We set off to the only other shop we could think of, to buy another enclosure.  On the journey I started to think (shame I didn’t do that sooner – much sooner!) Did I really need what was on the drive?  What IS actually on it?  You know, questions like that.

“Don’t worry Mo” I said out loud.  “I will take the drive back to Apple and get a refund”  Mo looked a little confused – not too confused because she knows me.

“I’ve just remembered.  I didn’t use the internal drive for many of my files.  I used an external one, and in any case, I always backed up my ‘home’ folder, so I will have everything on my backup drive.” (For those that don’t know about Macs, the ‘Home’ folder holds pretty much everything, except applications!) “We might as well go home now.”

Mo: “I’m already going home.”

She had turned around as soon as she heard my ramblings on what was, or wasn’t on the hard drive.  She knows me too well.  She hasn’t moaned at me once, for all the running around she’s had to do.

What is my excuse for my stupidity and total waste of time?  None really.

We’ll probably take the hard drive back, get a refund from Apple and pretend that these last few weeks didn’t really happen.

For those of you that like Tommy Cooper, and just to show you that some people make a fortune out of being as daft as me, here is a little clip for you.
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“Will you pop up to the shop for me Babs?”

I was fourteen, my mum had run out of something that she needed in order to cook our evening meal.  The shop was about 200 yards up the road, and we constantly shopped there for items that mum had ‘run out of’ throughout the week.  She did a main shop once a week but it was a mammoth task to shop for our large family.  We always needed extras.

If it was a Sunday, depending what food item you asked for, the shop owner would wrap it in a brown paper bag and say “Don’t let anybody see what’s in the bag.  I’m not allowed to sell it on a Sunday.”  It was 1959 and the ‘corner shops’ were now allowed to open on Sundays, to sell essentials only.  Certain foods were not allowed.

I need to set the scene here.

Our house had two front doors.  One that you climbed a flight of steps to reach, and another that you went down a flight of steps to.  The house had a semi basement which meant that the rooms were half underground and half above the ground.  Windows looked out at ground level, which was very strange.  While dad was decorating the rest of the rooms, we were living down in the lower part of the house.  There was a small concrete area at the front with steep steps that led up to street level.  Thanks to Google Maps, I’ve just found the actual house fifty years on.

“OK” I said.  Mum handed me the money and I left the house.  I loved to run places when I was young so I ran up the steps and along the road to the shop, oblivious to what was going on around me, as always.  When I got back home this is what greeted me.

A lorry carrying huge lengths of timber had rounded the bend in the road, a bend that had seen lots of accidents, and would see many more.   As it took the bend, probably too quickly, the safety straps gave under the weight and it shed it’s load, straight down the basement of our house.  Poor mum and dad were standing, frantic on the top steps wondering if I had made it up the steps in time, or if I was underneath all the wood.  Their relief showed as they saw me approaching the house.  It seems that within moments of me leaving this had happened.  Had I dawdled and not loved running so much I would no doubt have been underneath, and very squashed! I don’t remember how, or when I managed to get in the house, but I’m sure clearing the wood from our home would have been first on the agenda.

That was a close call.  I don’t think my mum and dad could wait to move away from that dangerous road.  Two years later we were gone from London completely.

Note:  Have you noticed something that is in this post but has been sadly lacking in my posts of late?  No prize for guessing I’m afraid.  (I’ve reworded this as it seemed to cause confusion.)

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We were really shocked, and sad, when we looked out of our back window today.  Our next door neighbour is having an extension built on the side of his house.  It’s a corner house and he has a very large back garden, which extends around the side, so we can see that a side extension would be a good idea.  What we don’t understand is that he would do this.

This is just the very back portion of the garden.

His father has worked so hard every year, landscaping it.  It was beautiful with it’s shaped lawns, rockeries, trees and shrubs.  We loved to look out of our bedroom windows and take in the view.  They cut down, and sawed into little pieces, all the beautiful trees (poor birdies) the other day and now they’ve removed the complete garden!

This is going to be like a docudrama.  We will just have to tune in each day to find out what will happen next.  I hope it will be at least half as beautiful as it was.

Can anyone tell me why they think somebody would need to dig up their complete back garden in order to build on the side of their house?  Please don’t say it’s to turn it into a huge concrete garden!  I’ve never seen him so much as pull a weed himself.

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Here it is – My new iMac!

It’s my birthday on Sunday so this couldn’t have been timed any better.

I waited until today, so I could get some daylight photos – Who was I kidding?  It’s so dark and miserable that I had to use a flash anyway!  That did NOT dampen my mood any.  I am thrilled – It is beautiful, and yes I smell the new Mac smell too.  I wish I could bottle that smell.

It will be a long job getting it to the state of my other iMac, but there’s no real rush I suppose. They haven’t given me my old hard disk yet so I still don’t have any of my files.

I have never seen such a tiny keyboard.  Just look at this!  When I unpacked it I thought it was a piece of cardboard it was so weightless.

I put my iPhone there so you could see the size better.

And the mouse is beautiful!

You can see that it’s flat with no buttons.  You don’t need buttons.  It works just the same as a scroll mouse.  To scroll you just brush your finger on the surface.  To scan a page you brush two fingers left or right.  It’s like a track pad on a mouse.  Left and right buttons are the same as any mouse.

I haven’t got into the actual computer, and what it does yet.  I haven’t had time.  Would you believe we’ve had two lots of visitors today?  Mind you they are the first people we’ve seen since New years Eve so we were very glad of the company.

Am I happy?  What do you think?

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