Palaisglide

What's the weather like in your area?

Stockton started sunny with blue sky although it was cloudy to the south.
We then got rain more sun and ended up with clear sky and it looked very bright over Rain's Hills.

Frank.

"For goodness sake, Google it!"

"Oh yes" goggle it indeed and then find the answer is something you yourself put on some other forum as i discovered last week.
Looking for some old information my local history section had lost and having to go to the site then enter my own name, there was a very recent picture of me I had never put on any site. I can only think the grandchildren who use social networks must have put it on a site that was picked up by google. We are told it cannot happen, it obviously does
Going through, it turned out there was page after page from many forums a lot of them BBC there must be several hundred, I did not check for any from this site as yet. Big brother is watching and is called google.

Frank.

What's the weather like in your area?

Bev, Pergoniums should have one third of the top growth cut back to over winter although I also remove any old stems and leaves.
Fuchsia should be left until March when a light trim is all they need but clean out any loose or broken stems and leaves.
Keep in the light in the greenhouse and they need to be just damp but not dry, overwatering will kill them.
You may have flowers on both at Christmas I often do.

Frank.

What's the weather like in your area?

I am fuming, last night just at the start of Montalbano the lights went out, pitch black torch in the back past an obstacle course so had to sit until eye's adjusted. Half my neighbours were out on the front so went out to see what was going on. Now this is a quiet middle class sanctuary but they had turned into a lynch mob if any green or wind farm lover had come by they would now be hanging from the lamp posts. Quite a few of us are engineers and one worked on power so the discussion was about what is going to happen and sooner than most think if they do not get their act together after all China fires up one new coal power station every month so why are we pussyfooting around (to put it mildly, it was more explicit last night).
Rant over.  Stockton Cloudy?? then why is the sun burning my eyeballs? it is fine though cool and my meat a nice Ham is getting up to room temperature before going in the oven. Surround with veg, cover lightly with foil then remove foil and veg for last half hour, that is for the cooks among you.
The garden is now all cut back and quite tidy, the bulbs in, the lawn cut for the last time and things put away for the winter, greenhouse cleaning is a doddle Zoomer if you have a pressure washer, I can guarantee though you will get wet.
Got the message Posh will get back.

Frank.

Wartime Farm

Chris, My Mother also hated anything German until the day she died, she had seen two wars and had uncles and cousins killed in the first and Nephews killed in the second so for her there was no going back.
The night the Church bells rang which was the warning for invasion she was out of the shelter into the stable and back with two pitchforks and a very determined look on her face, holding the fork she said "let the B####### try landing here" and believe me with her Irish temper she would have chased them, luckily it was a false alarm.
I looked down on those prisoners unaccompanied working away, to me brought up on Sergeants three, Beau geste,  Clive of India, Gunga Din, prisoners were honour bound to escape, this lot seemed content to be away from it all and that puzzled me until much later, we all live and learn.
They have definitely lost their way with this one after starting reasonably well.

Frank.

What's the weather like in your area?

I have come in to warm up with a cuppa, it is warm in the sun out back but the front is east facing the breeze is straight off the North Sea. Stockton clear and sunny on the box, true, they got it right.
Blue sky all round although one or two puff balls of white like an Indian smoke message, it looks bright over you Rain and the Hills clear.
Big shock yesterday. pootling along the back lane to my Daughters in brilliant sunshine I spotted a small flood warning, knowing the road I took notice and as I reached the top of the dip saw a lake, the water was pouring off flooded fields onto the road like a waterfall and then pouring off into a housing estate lower than the road. Where did that come from I wondered as I engaged crawler gear and made a slow way through and also through three more pools. Daughter told me it had poured down without stop all night? first I knew of it having gone to bed early because of a power cut. That will become a regular thing if the Government do not stop all the silly wind farm lark and build proper power stations, it is OK us being green it is our kids who will be in the dark.

Frank

Wartime Farm

Hello Ma, I was prepared to give them the benefit of working from old documents, they are now well off what it was really like. As you said when I saw the pitchforks I nealy yelled, "not for kids" where is H&S when you need it.
Labour shortage? when the farmers wanted some help the word went round like wild fire and the village turned out, grandma's to children would be stooking or raking, the men would be stacking and thatching the ricks we knew the ropes so needed no telling and always the impromptu party after it was done.
Ask people when we won the first land battle and they say Alamein Oct 1942, wrong it was the recapture of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in late 1940 early 41, all us kids knew about it as troops pushed down from the Sudan and up from what is now Kenya but was East Africa and many of those Italians ended up within a mile of us and working for us quite happily too.
They moved to Canada and we got Germans, I think they were graded from Nazi down and our lot were the lowest risk. They too marched down the road under their own NCO's with the Soldier on his bike bringing up the rear, rifle across his shoulders, they broke off in groups into the market gardens farms and many other jobs, a couple worked in the Blacksmiths on the Green, one married the Daughter and stayed.
My friends Dad had a coal business and he had four Germans for bagging the coal and helping, they came up from the rail staithes at lunch time and ate with the family and me, with mother and dad on war work I spent a lot of time in his home.
We got to see them as normal men and would spend time writing English words for them to say and write, they would wash up after lunch then all go back to work then to camp at the end of day.
When they marched down to church on Sunday's there would be a flock of girls watching, there was a shortage of young fit men in our area. We still hated Germans who were fighting us and thought our Bombing was what they deserved, we had been bombed but those Germans just seemed different.

Frank.

Wartime Farm

Sorry David, the gloves are off, there was either a massive North South divide in farming or else they are picking out the very odd happenings which probably did take place but not general events.
Straw Houses? the story went the two lads gave up their room for the rat catcher. They then built a straw house (I was expecting the three little pigs and the wolf at anytime) supposedly for two, roofing it with nettles after telling us straw was so plentiful it was almost a waste product!! so thatch with straw then.
They then moved in one narrow bed a table and chair complete with a naked flame lamp?? In a straw house? Those two either had strange sleeping habits or one found out the rat catcher was a woman and moved back, lusty lads those farmers.
We never poisoned rats where livestock abounded for obvious reason, we trapped them. On a Saturday afternoon you would see men walking into the Tan yard across the Green with wire cages and Terriers, us kids were barred, but knew that several rats were dropped into a concrete ring and a terrier dropped in then timed as to how long it took to kill the number of rats, big money would be laid and I suppose the men had a good afternoon of sport!! It certainly reduced the rat population.
Kids Camp? we had the usual two weeks potato picking and we went and picked potato's it was not a holiday. We would be picked up at school in open trucks boys and girls driven to a place of work and join with all the locals picking potato's in wire trugs and emptying the trugs into carts that came round as we picked. They would go to the yard be washed and or riddled then dried off for bagging. It was solid hard work and not all were up to it so they would be put to bagging under cover, the one time we were glad to get back to school.
No one has mentioned POW's yet we had them working around the village on all kinds of work from coal bag filling to small holdings, Italians who marched down the road under their own NCO's and a lone British soldier on a bike at the back rifle slung over his shoulder, and they sang, i never heard so much singing, they certainly boosted the choirs in all the local churches on a Sunday Morning.
We knew the Lindy Hop from films but here it was called the Jitter bug and brought initially by the Canadian Airmen stationed all around us RCAF, my mother worked at Goosepool as an electrician the largest of the bases. It became the Jive in my dancing years then changed name and form many times.
As to gingham flour or grain sacks? everything was rationed including animal feed so why did they need to advertise, sacks of all kinds were recycled until they fell apart.

Frank.

What's the weather like in your area?

Chris, thanks for asking, all OK giving it a rest is all.

Frank.

What's the weather like in your area?

happens a lot Jo, too much cake left so butter a dish jam the bottom put the cake on top in lumps, damp with milk and press down, make a custard and wait until warm.
I sometimes thinly slice apples into the bottom. No waste and the kids eat it but would not do it themselves, they sling it.
Strange afternoon, blue sky above but a ring of dark to black cloud around in a circle, I was in sunshine someone was getting rain.

Frank.

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