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Showing posts with label remembering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label remembering. Show all posts

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Amazing voices

Hello. The only excuse I've got for not writing a post tonight, is that I've been watching old videos on yoootooob. My computer is my entertainment, and I love watching the golden oldies, much better than all the modern tosh they churn out now.

Remember Demis Roussos, wasn't he just wonderful. I like this video which shows the young man and the old man, singing the same song to perfection.


One more, remember Lena Zavaroni. Such a wonderful singer, such a tragic loss. It's approaching  the anniversary of her death, 1st October 1999.


Think I'll go to bed now, goodnight.

PS, I did read all your comments, thank you for sharing with me.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Look and listen for the Lancaster's

Hello. It was a misty morning and I wondered if it would clear in time for the Lancaster Flypast. I went to the village green at 9am where a few people had started to gather. The grey skies were turning blue and the sun came out.
A few more people arriving, the grass was covered in dew, wish I had put some sturdy boots on.

The bungalow to the left just beyond the hedge is where Mr Robinson lives. He was told that they would fly right over the top of it.

A few more people are arriving, the atmosphere is good, very exciting. 
Mr Robinson has come outside to join us, with his family.

Now we are all waiting quietly, gazing up at the sky, and listening. The sun is behind us and we expect the Lancasters to come from that direction, and go straight over us and over the church.

At 9.25am we heard the first roar of the mighty engines. I turned to face the sun, pointed my camera in the direction of the deep throaty growl, pressed the shutter, and hoped that I had something. Yes :o)

In seconds they had passed over, and I got one more shot of them on their way. Two photographs and they were gone. I felt quite emotional.

People stood around talking for a while, it was a nice atmosphere. We weren't the only ones to turn out for this memorable event. There were people at several vantage points around the village. High on the hills overlooking the river would have been a good place to see them flying off into the distance. People gathered at the playing fields, they would have been the first to see them. I only had to walk across the road.

Here is a short film of them,



Toodle pip.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

A little bit of nostalgia.

Moving on from the brief  cobbled together post from yesterday, here is me putting a bit more effort into it. A little bit of nostalgia today, it doesn't hurt to look back once in a while. It's good to reflect on what has gone before, but best not to get hung up about the bad bits. I like to remind myself how lucky I am, that I have come through the shit relatively unscathed. 
Scanned pics take no time at all to upload, the editing takes a bit of time due to cropping all the unwanted bits from the outer edges. Sadly this leaves them a bit grainy, but as I haven't the expertise to tart them up further, apart from tweaking the contrast and colour density, these are the the best I can do. So, in no particular order, come take a stroll through the past with me. 
Six Flags theme park at Darien Lake, this was one of 17 theme parks I visited in the USA, on a Roller Coaster Club trip in 2001. I can honestly say it was the best holiday ever. It was manic, dashing from park to park with 100 other people, on two coaches. I was with my boyfriend at the time, he took the pic. 
Yonks ago I did a sponsored hitch for charity. Me and a friend hitched lifts all over the UK, raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital. The Kernel Hotel gave us free accommodation, it's no longer there now.

I was truck mad for years. Everywhere I went I looked for big trucks to photograph, the bigger the better. This one belonged to GEC at Stafford.

My friend drove this one, he would ring me up and tell me where he was parked so I could go out and meet him. It belonged to Abnormal Load Engineering, at Stafford. These two were big push and pull jobs with a massive low loader trailer in the middle.

This is me helping out as a marshal at a truck show. Trucks were my hobby as well as my job.

Hey, look at me getting my hair done. I was invited to go to London for the day to take part in a makeover for Chat magazine. It was great fun.
A bit of larking about here. A sunny Sunday afternoon with nothing to do. My friend came to show me his new bike, so I said, lets take some photo's, I will be the model. I had my own bike at this time, but my Honda CX500 Custom was not as big as this beast.
There was an interlude in my driving career when I left full time employment and became self employed. I didn't buy a lorry, but hired out my services to drive for other people.I joined the Business Club in my town and we had an exhibition in a hotel. This is my stall laid out displaying my certificates, touting for business.

In my spare time, when I had any after working 60 hours a week, I took the Lady Truckers stall out to the truckshows. I had a small caravan hitched up to my Ford Cortina which was my base for the weekend. By this time I had become quite famous so there was a steady stream of visitors calling in to chat. It was great fun.

There was a firm in Derby called E & A West that I worked for, it was a British Road Services contract, we delivered chemicals in tankers. They had an open day and invited all their bigwig customers. They took me off the road for the day and I had to dress up and look smart, stand in front of my lorry, meeting and greeting.

Ha ha, this shunt vehicle was no looker. Me with the tight jeans and big hair. Not your average beer bellied hairy arse trucker. 
Two best friends, Carol and me, in the street outside her mum's house.

I'll finish off with this one. Look at the platforms, and the suntan,  real I might add. These young lassies today think they are so so in fashion, sorry, but they are forty years too late. I was just back from Majorca when my sister got married. My dear mum looked lovely. 
So as I end this post I pay tribute to my dear mum, as always I thank her from the bottom of my heart for giving me this life. Today is the anniversary of her passing away. Thank you mum, I love you.
Back tomorrow. Toodle pip.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

An interesting experience.

Hola Ilona! Estoy de Espa�a! I read your blog for a long time but dont'' write hi. Please blog us about your life in Mallorca, Gracias, Maria.
Hola Maria, thank you for your comment, your wish is my command, but please don't expect any Spanish from me. I learnt a little but now I have forgotten. After all it was forty years ago. 
My first overseas holiday was to Magaluf, I went with my friend Janet, and we liked it that much we decided we would go and live there and find some work. We booked a holiday to go  to Palma Nova the following March. It was a five day all inclusive package trip, but we didn't come back. It was the cheapest way to get there, rather than booking a scheduled flight only. It was in 1973 and I was 24 years old. 
After the five days we had to leave the hotel, or pay for some extra nights. We couldn't afford it and looked for cheaper accommodation, perhaps a flat share. I had met a boy and started going out with him, and when he heard that we didn't have anywhere to stay, he said we could move into his flat with him. It was a relief to have somewhere to go. 
My boyfriend was French, so despite the language difficulties we managed to communicate ok. I have his name written down as Chemari, I have no idea if that is the correct spelling but that's how you say it. He worked on the beach renting out pedaloes, and I used to go down there and sit with him and take his lunch.   

There was an English newspaper and every day Janet and I searched for a job. We were prepared to do hotel work, clean rooms, or bar work, looking after children, or shop work. We went for an interview with the manager of a hotel, but he said we were too early in the season and he couldn't start us until later. A few weeks later we still hadn't got a job and Chemari was feeding us. Every time we asked for a job it was always manyana, come back tomorrow. Our money was getting very low, then Janet ran out altogether, although I had a bit left.

Janet was worried, and contacted her parents, who paid for an air ticket to get her back home. I couldn't do that because there's no way my mother could pay for me. A week later, Chemari gave Janet her taxi fare to the airport and she went home.

I was on my own, with no job. I had almost given up, what with the language difficulties, chasing non jobs,  and no one showing any interest in me, it seemed hopeless. I spent most days either in the apartment or at the beach with Chemari. I had tried to get a ticket on the same flight back as Janet, but didn't have enough money. I was stuck.
  
I started to see a different side to Chemari, he became very possessive and wanted to control my every movement. I remember one time I was sat on the beach while he was renting out his boats, and heard a man speak in English. It was such a relief to hear my native tongue, I started a conversation with him. Chemari became very nasty and accused me of chatting him up. I knew then that I had to get away.

It was never in my nature to take handouts from anyone, and I didn't like having to ask Chemari for money for the shopping, although he was happy to keep me. I still had a bit of my own money left, and wanted to keep that for emergencies. I couldn't get a job, I wanted to go home. Every day I looked in the English newspaper, there was sometimes small adverts from people who had come to Majorca on a package trip like we had, then sold the return part of their ticket because they had already got a job lined up. A few days later I found a ticket, and rang the number. Success. It was a price I could afford, just.

In the few days I had to wait for the flight, I didn't tell Chemari about it. I was afraid he would be angry and destroy the ticket. The person who sold me the ticket provided a car to the airport, there was a second ticket which someone else had bought. We were due to leave at midnight, and I told Chemari I was going two hours before, promising that I would be back. He didn't kick up a fuss and let me go. I knew I wouldn't be going back.

When I got to Heathrow I had just enough money for the train home. That little adventure lasted about two months. I wasn't new at standing on my own two feet, as I left home at 18. I was confident about looking after myself, but alone in a country where they spoke a different language was a bit scary. There were some English people living there, but nowhere near the amount there are today. If I had got a job straight away it might have worked out, but for me to rely on someone else to feed me and put a roof over my head is a big no no. I had to earn my own money, reliant on no one. It was an interesting experience. I was straight into another job when I got back home.
Thank you for reading. Toodle pip

Monday, December 9, 2013

Having a laff

I like to have a titter now and again, life doesn't always have to be dead serious, full consternation (oops big word) and angst (little word). It's best to lighten the tone a bit and not get so hung up on things going wrong or not working out right. A little trip on an uneven flagstone makes me laugh, my trip that is, it wouldn't be right to laugh at someone else who has tripped, unless they are laughing themselves of course. When I say trip, I mean without falling down, a little stumble that's all. It's not funny when someone hurts themselves. It's the silly little things that make me titter, like the umbrella that blows inside out and takes off in the wind, or the kitchen that gets blasted with soup when you lift the blender out too soon. It helps if you can see the funny side of things.

I often laugh at my own little mishaps, like the time I nearly chopped my own finger off with one of those hand held blades that you cut grass with. A sickle I think you call it. I was slashing away at the weeds in my back garden, and not making much progress, all I seemed to be doing was flattening it and not cutting it. So I had this bright idea of grabbing a tuft in my left hand and hacking it with the sickle in my right hand. Yes, I missed and sliced into my finger, ha ha. A good job I lived just down the road from the hospital, and was able to walk there with my hand wrapped in a tea towel dripping with blood. What a pillock eh, won't do that again.

There were several little mishaps when I was driving, it's normal to make mistakes, everyone does it. Like the time I unhooked an empty tank trailer from my tractor unit, at a brewery. The first thing you do is make sure you are on flat level ground, what did I do, I dropped it on a slope. There is a set order of doing things, you need to wind down the legs on the trailer first. Then disconnect the suzi's, those coloured curly cables at the back of the cab, they are the airlines and electrics and they activate the parking brake on the trailer. Then you pull the handle to release the pin, lastly drive the tractor unit away from the trailer leaving it supported by it's legs with it's brakes on. What did I do !?!? I pulled the pin first, head was in the clouds or somewhere else. This released the trailer, and because it was on a slope it parted company with the unit and rolled backwards. It landed on it's knees, (legs not down to support it), and stretched the suzi's till they bust. Ha ha, what a plonker, and how embarrassing. Had to get a fork lift truck to come and lift the front of the trailer so I could wind the legs down, and get a mechanic to come and replace the suzi's. Didn't do that again.

Ok, while I'm at it, confession time, can laugh now, not funny at the time. When I got back to the depot one night I found I was one box of 24 cans of baked beans short. All was intact when I left, rope and sheet job (tarpaulin covering the load), so where was it. I found it on the road as I was driving home in my car, bent cans and beans splattered all over the place. I quickly stopped and jumped out with a carrier bag and picked them all up. Funny that there wasn't 24 squashed cans, someone must have stopped before me and picked up the undamaged ones, ha ha. Nobody ever found out about it.

Oh go on then, I'll tell you another embarrassing story, ha ha. I was at the Lucas factory in Birmingham collecting some machinery, they were closing it down and we were shipping all the equipment out to another site. I had a lowloader trailer which only just fit through the gates. A team of men dismantled the machines and put them on the trailer. It was my job to rope, strap, and chain everything down. I crawled slowly through the gate and started to turn onto the road, hesitating for a second to look behind me to check all was safe. Now this is every drivers nightmare, to see your load move and not be able to do anything to stop it from falling off. I held my breath and prayed, then two very tall upright machines started leaning to one side, like slow motion they fell onto the road. No one told me they were top heavy, and were filled with oil. OMG EEEEK. Everyone came out to see what had made the big bang, the road was covered in oil, the fire brigade had to be called to mop it up. The road was closed, the buses had to divert, and the police interviewed me. I wasn't laughing then, but it's funny when I look back at it now. I wasn't prosecuted, and I wasn't sacked from my job. Phew, that was close.

Hey, do you like jokes? I've found a few which might make you titter.

My tom cat used to stay out all night, so I took him to the vet and had him neutered. Now he still stays out all night - it turns out he likes to watch!

Man to friend, 'I've really had it with my dog, he'll chase anyone on a bike.' Friend, 'What are you going to do? Have him put down?' Man, 'No, I think I'll just take his bike away'.

A man goes for a check-up. The doctor says, 'I'm going to need a urine sample, a semen sample, a blood sample, and a stool sample.' The man replies, 'I'm in a hurry. Can I just leave my underpants?'

Two bachelors are talking about cooking. 'I got a cook book once,' says one. 'But I could never do anything with it.' 'Were the recipes too hard?' asks the other. 'No,' he replies. But each of the recipes began the same way - take a clean dish.....'

It's late evening and Tom's wife catches him pouring six cans of lager down the toilet. 'What on earth are you doing?' she says. Tom replies, 'Well it seems a waste, but I thought it'd save me getting up in the night.'

And now........This has got to be the funniest Mr Bean ever.



It's good to laff. Toodle pip

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Thank you Harold.

It's usually stories about animals and children that bring me to tears when reading the newspapers online. Whether it be a happy ending, or some terribly sad unspeakable act of cruelty, or an account of accidental tragedy, the end result is always blurred vision and having to remove my specs to wipe my eyes before I can do anything else. I am a sentimental old fart I know.

This morning I clicked on a headline to read more, and as the story unfolded I completely lost it. Turn on the waterworks, big time. It was a simple story, elderly gent aged 99 dies in nursing home, he has never married and has no family of his own. An advert was placed in his local paper asking for people to come to his funeral, especially service personnel. This is the full story in the Mail.

It turns out that Harold Jellico Percival, what a fabulous name, was a war hero who served as ground crew with RAF Bomber Command. He helped with the famous Dambusters Raid during the second world war.

Sgt Rick Clement, an injured serviceman who lost his legs while serving in Afghanistan, spotted the story, it seemed that there would be no one to attend Harold's funeral. He spread the word on Facebook and Twitter, and it was quickly picked up and shared by thousands of other people. This is what he posted. It has been shared 30,000 times.

If it wasn't for the internet, Harold might have had a very quiet send off, now it seems that the whole of Blackpool and Lytham St Annes will turn out to pay their respects. And quite rightly so. His funeral service and cremation will take place at Lytham Crematorium tomorrow, the 11th of November, at 11am. Sorry I can't be there Harold, but I will be thinking about you, and observing the two minutes silence for all our war hero's.

Catch you tomorrow. xxx

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Walk with me

Aha, the video is ready, so if you want to come for a short five minute walk with me, just click on it.



Answers to some questions.

What an awesome number of miles in one day! Is that the most you've done?
Hi Judy. No, I once walked 30 miles in one day. It was the last day of a seven day trip, it was from Selby to the Humber Bridge. I was almost dead by the time I finished. My friends had to come and pick me up off the ground, ha ha.
 
Why don't you treat yourself to two nights somewhere you like the look of and really explore that area, just to give your poor feet a bit of a break from the constant pounding of the road.
Hi Sue, My aim for this walk was to cover a long distance, and take photo's along the way. It wasn't a sightseeing trip, I can do that on other holidays. Funnily enough, my feet hurt more when stopping and starting, they hurt less while I keep walking. Exploring an area still requires some walking, which doesn't really rest the feet. Also, if it is raining it's not much fun ambling around getting drenched, best to carry on and concentrate on walking faster.
 
Sorry but I HAVE to ask...was it 'naff' in Nafferton?
Ha ha, no it wasn't, it was a nice village.  
 
Hi dear,
What a shame you're so focused on getting home and don't have time to relax and enjoy the scenery. Mind you, considering the mileage you're doing every day I'm not surprised!
Hi Albedo. The whole point of it is to focus the mind to the job in hand. I like to see a bit of the countryside as I'm passing through, and I try and vary the route to take in different landscapes. But the interest for me is to make it up as I go along, to change direction, to make decisions on how I am feeling, the weather, and how long I want to be out for. At the beginning of a walk, I will spend time looking around, but towards the middle of it I will push on to reach the goal I set myself. I move the goalposts on a daily basis.

I can associate long distance walking with a journey through life. Short term pain will not last forever, it's just one of those blips you have to go through. How you deal with it moulds you into the person you are. If you cannot accept the highs and lows and move on, you will be stuck in a rut and will never do anything. Stepping out of your comfort zone might not be for everyone, that's fine if it suits you, but for me, life is about exploring. It's about testing myself, and  having a go.

Look at what happened in the garden while I was away. Loads of sunflowers have appeared.

 Need to look up to see them, great view from an upstairs window.

 Loads of massive courgettes. I've got a lot of cooking and freezing to do.

A friend has left me a bag of apples as well, so more cooking. I love stewed apples. I don't need to go shopping just yet, still got a lot of food to get through.
Life gets back to normal, till the next adventure. Toodle pip.