Boadicea's Chariot

There was orange peel all along the mantelpiece. Not so much ‘S’-shaped orange peel, more ‘C’ shape as if Auntie hadn’t the strength to peel a whole orange in one strip. Her hands were arthritic and she was in her eighties at that time, though still fairly tough and resourceful, making her own envelopes and birthday cards and chopping her own firewood. But the orange peel was something else. When we questioned her she said it was for the fire. I guess it was some kind of fuel. Besides the orange peel, there were two or three candles on the mantelpiece. Auntie didn’t like to waste electricity. In fact, auntie didn’t like to waste anything.

Her nephews would visit her two or three times a year and would usually find old food in the refrigerator, food long past its sell by date. Auntie used to treat her nephews to dinner and tea but that was before she began to get dementia.

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Well mate. I’m not sure where you are right now but here’s wishing you and the Mrs a good day and hoping you can join me for a pint next time.

For your information Boadicea, this picture was taken in the Snug Bar at the Half Moon Hotel, Herne Hill, South London last Saturday. My dad met an old school friend and we did a pub crawl, ending up at Dulwich Village at the Crown and Greyhound. Earlier in the day Read more…

For all the ladies, from Kojo.

Hope everyone has some love and cheer today. London is warming to a sunny day.

New chums

I have put a picture on Ara’s photography competition post on my son’s holiday in Ghana. But for those that have not seen that one then I put another here. Kojo has been away two months now, with his mother, and is due back in the UK next week. He has had a great time. He is outside the house most of the day, playing with other kids, with a ball or a hoop, chasing chickens and counting stars. (I am told the girls are chasing him!)

I shall re-create a mini Christmas day, on the day of his arrival back home; loads of prezzies to open and a small tree to marvel at. You can be sure I have missed him and his mother.

As some may know I am an advocate of Sainsbury’s ‘Three Fruit’ marmalade, a combination of grapefruit, oranges and lemons. I actually prefer this to their Seville range of marmalade as the mixed fruit variety has more of a kick. Anyway, I tried it out on PapaGuinea Junior yesterday morning. Perhaps it takes years to acquire the taste of bitter marmalade and this trial no doubt was a stepping stone. Whether or not he realised this is seventh heaven is another thing but by the expression on his face at Step 7, I would say he was unsure.

Step 1. Examine toast

The daughter of one of my Ghanaian friends had a problem pronouncing the plural of the word “crisp”. She had no trouble saying, “the air is crisp this autumn morning” but had great difficulty in saying “May I have packet of crisps please?” Her problem was not knowing when to stop making the “sps” sound at the end of the word. It would have been easier for her to say “May I have a packet of cripps please?” (Cripps being plural and a crip being singular.) So she would in effect be saying “May I have a packet of crispspsps please.”  This used to annoy me because I suspected she was taking the pss. Curiously today, my wife (Ghanaian) said to me “Honey, would you like a packet of cripps?”.

(And thanks to Ara and Bilby for the technical knowhow!)