another day.....

.............spent in the rain.  How can the media report that the hosepipe ban stands as we are having the wrong sort of rain?  Rain is rain is rain, wet, falls from the sky and is cold!!  We are not able to get into the gardens at all and there are daffodils to be deadheaded and tied down, roses to plant, hyacinths to be lifted etc. etc. One of our clients has actually brought a set of keys round with a note to say 'come when you can' - nice to be trusted but  ............
I have had some bad news today - my card swap group is not getting the usual support and therefore will be cutting down on the number of swaps. :-(
I shall have to find another swap group or else just send out cards as 'thoughts' - I was just thinking of you so I made this card. 

Back to memories

Coming back down the road from Patrick’s there was a nice family……..

A lady called Mrs Busby, whose daughter, Marion, was my sister’s age.  Mam had told her I embroidered and so I got into the habit of popping across to sit with her.  We used to chat and sew and watch tv together for a couple of hours.  Eventually Marion got engaged to Ray so I became part of the family, I suppose like a younger sister to her.  When she married, Ray moved in with them and slowly I grew up and stopped going ……………. but it was a good time. 

Next door to them lived a family that I had nothing to do with really as their boys were older teenagers, too old to play out but young enough to torment us younger ones.  Then there was another family, again older children, and next door lived Thelma.  Some other families down that side of the road had older children but, although Mam was friends with their mothers, we didn’t mix. 

Then there was the family on the corner!  Two boys lived there, one a couple of years older and one a year younger than me.  I became friends with Eric (the younger boy) and we mixed with the group but also spent time together.  The others used to rag us as ‘going out with each other, being in love with each other’ all the things that children do but it wasn’t like that.  He was younger and kept white mice and hamsters in a shed at the top of his garden.  The garden opened onto the gulley (gulley is not strictly true as it was an access for cars so it was quite wide and had garages each side as well as back gates).  So when no-one was out playing, I would walk my dog down to the gulley, he would see me and we would walk the dog together, or maybe if it was raining or cold (the sun stopped shining all the time when we moved to Hall Green) we would stay in the shed.  We talked about anything and played with the mice, which I had never had close contact with before.  Later on I found out that four houses away from me lived a family with a son called Derek, who didn’t really play out much with us, but I found out he had white mice and, when they bred, he gave me a little one so Eric & I had more in common to talk about. 

He used to advise me as to looking after the mouse (can’t remember its name) and we would discuss homework, gossip and he had a record player in there …… just like having our own jukebox as his older brother gave him his old records, and sometimes treated him by buying new ones. 

As I grew up the older boy became ‘my secret love’ (Kathy Kirby’s song came out around this time), oh! how I spent time in my bedroom peering through the curtains as he hung out with the boys next to Marion house.  The older boys tended to group outside this house as there was a lamppost there to lean against and a wall to sit on.  Proper Teddy boys they were!!

I told Ronny one day who enjoyed telling her cousin next door (who also hung out with him) and I was just so embarrassed then!  I just couldn’t meet with Eric after that and could never tell him why!!!

Happy days as my youngest would say!

Ronny married her childhood sweetheart, lived in Shirley and had several children.

Ray moved miles away with his work, married and had three children who were adored by their grandparents.

Thelma married Ozzy Osborne (Black Sabbath Rock Group) – there's another story - divorced and became a well respected Music Manager.  I don’t know what happened to anyone else although I did speak with Freda from over the road on Friends Reunited one year.