Should have had a shower before sitting down to write this...had my hair cut this afternoon you see and now there are little itchy bits in spite of being swathed in coveralls...
I have it cut very short now...can't be doing with fiddling about with a dryer or needing to use huge amounts of shampoo...then there were the inevitable tangles...dragging those out used to make my eyes water...
Trisha, and the lady in the flower shop next door, who is named Ita, are on a diet. It's one of those liquid drink meal replacements...like all new converts they were praising this stuff to the nines...it has a special container and a special whisk 'cos otherwise it's lumpy and comes in different flavours. Apparently the chocolate flavour is horrid but the strawberry one is lovely...Ita lost a pound last week!
I kept very quiet indeed.
Horlicks came with a tall narrow jug didn't it? And you could get a special whisk to beat the lumps into oblivion before adding the hot milk...Horlicks made me feel sick...just the smell was enough to have me heaving. And there were funny shaped mugs with Horlicks printed on the side...
Himself was talking the other evening about collecting I-Spy books and the PG Tips books you could stick the cards in...all I ever wanted was for Mother to buy Chivers jams and marmalade so I could save up enough tokens to get a Golliwog brooch but she made all her own jam and the marmalade and refused to buy 'shop-bought rubbish'...I did go off the idea when Father told me the Raspberry jam was coloured sugar with woodchips for the pips...
Mind you...Father said that Lyons tea was the sweepings off the floor...
Mother smoked Kenitas cigarettes...each pack came with a coupon...you could save up for all manner of goods...kitchen mixers and a string of pearls or tea-towels...packets of scented soap and perfume...she'd go through the catalogue and choose an item then count out all the coupons she'd saved up...
We went through a stage at college of smoking Gauloise in those squashy packs...unfiltered and terribly strong with a distinctive smell, we imagined we were like the beatniks...all black polo-necked sweaters and long fringes hanging in our eyes...we probably looked like proper eejits. We spent hours in grotty cafes drinking frothy coffee out of glass cups when we ought to have been studying nutrition in the elderly and infirm...we had intense conversations as to who was the most talented Beatle instead...
Funny how the mind wanders about on an April afternoon...
19 Replies
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talking of showers Vashti, I had one this morning a lovely hot steamy cascade of water...... The difficulty arose when I tried to turn the tap off, no response! The water continued to pour! I turned the water off at the stop cock which slowed it down but I still couldn't turn off the hot water. A plumber has now been and isolated the shower and we have mains water on again! That was one expensive shower 😃
I still have one of those skinny Horlicks jugs with a plunger type whisk. It belonged to a very dear friend and I assumed she might of acquired it when she was a nurse. I could imagine her doing the rounds with milky drinks last thing.
I used to work for a large company that put on publicity benefits etc and all the teenage technicians could waitress for extra money. At the end of the evening we were given large boxes and platters to clear the tables and take what we wanted home. My first taste of caviar. My first olive. My first smoked salmon. Most especially my first pastel coloured cocktail cigarette. That evening I must have taken around 300 normal cigarettes and 100 sobranie ciggies. Happy days. Thanks for jogging the mouse's memory x 🐀
Ahhhhh sounds like a sixties coffee bar,did you have the juke box,and handsome lads in drape coats with velvet collars,and pocket flaps, perhaps I am going to far back for you,as I know I can give you 10 yrs.Lol
My new boyfriend came to pick me up and my mother nearly had heart failure he was wearing a drape coat with a velvet collar and illuminous pink socks and beetle crushers. I thought he was wonderful.
Golden college days, Du Maurier cocktail cigarettes in a flat box came in all pastel shades with a gold tip, first taste of spaghetti bolognese ( made by the Greek cafe owner ) Beehive hairdo,circular skirts with all the petticoats and pointed toe stiletto shoes that crippled you before leaving home even, and numbed the toes before you got back home . Heights of sophistication, and Evening in Paris and Californian Poppy perfumes.
Bronze stilettos, falling over walking in them on Plymouth Hoe, all the fruit from my gondola basket rolling down two lots of steps leading down to the bottom, a bunch of Tiffies (young trainee naval officers) chasing after them, my friends nearly wetting themselves laughing. Was SO embarassed. x
Evening in Paris Polly - i used to wear that, imitating the big girls. It did feel so sophisticated but i think id hate it now
Shoes left you with bunions for life.
Remember first avocado pear my (much older sister) brought home from london, not typical of the times. She introduced me to lots of unknown foods, very exciting.
Avocados nobody that I knew then had clue how to eat them. dinner parties we went to served them plain, no dressings, lemon juice or anything. People just pretended to love them.
Remember hair laquer? We three sister kept it on the hall stand and used it before going out. It smelled of shellac, took all the varnish off the hall stand, wrecked the mirror and if you got caught in a shower it looked like a massive infestation of nits!
Shampoo was a sachet of powder that you mixed in lukewarm water in a cup with no handle, kept especially for the purpose. Lord help anyone caught using anything else.
Lovely times Vashti, i feel back there again. Thankyou. I had an elderly friend, who had been in service. When i went to tea, she cut the bread, very fine & removed the crusts. She always had pastel cocktail cigarettes. As for the skirts, do you remember hooped underskirts, that we dipped in sugar, to keep them stiffened & flounce out the skirts. We must have been very attractive to wasps! Love Margaret x
I remember collecting wild life cards with Chivers Jelly and getting in trouble for opening the boxes to get the cards out before the jelly was due to be used.
Vashti, don't you know the word Gollywog is not acceptable anymore and you could be arrested by the political correctness police for mentioning it. I lusted after one of those GW brooches so much, I would have killed to get one but I think it was Robertson's Marmalade and we'd have had to send a postal order to the UK or something else equally unachievable. And like your mother, mine made her own marmalade and jam, so much that it lasted all year long. We mostly had porridge but when Cornflakes penetrated to our corner of Ireland, we had them occasionally as a mega treat. They used to have cut out houses or masks on the back of the packet, that could keep three children battling for weeks over ownership. The other foodie treat that made us all drool was a large can of Tate &Lyle Golden Syrup. It never lasted long but the memory of digging deep into the tin and swirling the syrup round your knife then spreading it messily on a thick doorstep of bread is intoxicating. It ran off your bread and down your chin while you were eating it and you were a sitting target if there were wasps nearby, but that golden drooly sweetness in the green tin with two yellow lions, was just bliss. I think I may have to buy a tin now to relive the experience.
And who remembers Lobby Ludd. "You are Lobby Ludd and I claim my £5". I used to look for him in his flasher's raincoat but never lucky.
On the other hand i took the Stork test, and its true - you can't tell the difference due to how they set it up. They give you 6 x 1" square pieces of bread spread randomly with both Stork and butter. The first 3 i got dead right, easy peasy, but then your taste buds gets muddled which is no doubt what they intended. My last three i got one right, two wrong.
Wonderful memories. I had a small collection of Robertson's golly badges. Didn't enter my head they could be racist.
I remember the beatniks and coffee shops. The juke boxes. I had the black polo neck, black stockings and black watch tartan skirt.
The Beatles were my heroes. Sadly I never saw them live as I had heard you couldn't here them because of the screaming, so thought it would be a waste of money!
My favourite drink was Ovaltine, although I preferred to eat it!
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I lusted after one of those GW brooches so much, I would have killed to get one but I think it was Robertson's Marmalade and we'd have had to send a postal order to the UK or something else equally unachievable. And like your mother, mine made her own marmalade and jam, so much that it lasted all year long. We mostly had porridge but when Cornflakes penetrated to our corner of Ireland, we had them occasionally as a mega treat. They used to have cut out houses or masks on the back of the packet, that could keep three children battling for weeks over ownership. The other foodie treat that made us all drool was a large can of Tate &Lyle Golden Syrup. It never lasted long but the memory of digging deep into the tin and swirling the syrup round your knife then spreading it messily on a thick doorstep of bread is intoxicating. It ran off your bread and down your chin while you were eating it and you were a sitting target if there were wasps nearby, but that golden drooly sweetness in the green tin with two yellow lions, was just bliss. I think I may have to buy a tin now to relive the experience.
I got to thinking..
Out Spending Money...Again
