Sunday 28 January 2018

A wet Sunday

Today sounded like a good day according to last night's weather forecast.   Temperatures up to twelve degrees the weatherman said.   Well, true, it was quite warm but there has been a stiff breeze blowing and it has rained all day, so quite disappointing after all.

The gang of four (remember them?) lunched at The Golf C lub - delicious as usual- very busy today.   We arrive at half past twelve, have a drink, lunch at one and then go into the bar for a tray of tea and arrive home around four.   When one lives alone (as all four of us do) this takes up quite a large part of what could so easily be a very lonely Sunday. 

Tomorrow my car goes in for its first service.   Goodness me, how time has passed.  There used to be a time when the new car had to go in after quite a short time to have an oil change; now it is serviced only once a year and although I didn't buy it until March it was a demonstration model with 138 miles on the clock and was registered in January, hence the early service.

How times have changed eh?   When I was a child only the vicar, the doctor, the judge who lived in our village and the Lord of the Manor had cars.   The rest of us relied on the very reliable public transport.   Now there is hardly  a house on the estate where I live where there isn't at least one car.   We rely on cars and as a consequence other forms of transport have dwindled to almost 
nothing.

The same applies to heating - I didn't know anyone with fancy central heating when I was a child.   Everyone had a coal fire and you sat round
it in the evening and the front of your legs got burnt and the backs were still freezing cold.   If you had a side oven next to your fire you took the shelf out when you went to bed, wrapped it in a bit of old sheeting and warmed your bed with it.   No fancy electric blankets. 

Well, enough reminiscing, doesnt get you anywhere.   Reading through it reads like a Stream of Consciousness post - sorry about that.

19 comments:

John "By Stargoose And Hanglands" said...

Quite the opposite here - bad forecast but weather not so bad as they'd predicted, big bright shiny thing up in the sky at times too. I remember my uncle driving out from Cambridge at a steady 30 mph then draining his radiator and doing an oil change before washing and polishing the body work. The whole operation took all afternoon, if I was lucky he'd give me 3d for helping him!

donna baker said...

I love reading your stories Pat. I've been watching Estates In The Country about places all around GB and have enjoyed it immensely. From Scotland to Dorset, it has finally put a face to the places I read about in blogs. What a gorgeous and fine country. I rambled off topic, but I do love hearing about how you live there. I have heard of bed warmers, but never knew they used whatever one could find. I still believe the days gone by were the best. Sometimes, anyway.

Rachel Phillips said...

After the Romans left there was a very long gap before anybody got central heating again in the UK.

Sue in Suffolk said...

I think new cars used to have signs on them saying "running in please pass", which sounds so funny now.
Weather not too bad here, not sure what the forecast is for the week.

Joanne Noragon said...

I think its a perfect post. So are your comments. My car and I are in a contest to outlive the other.

Jules said...

A very breezy day down by the sea today. Thankfully no rain. X

Gail, northern California said...

Please don't apologize. I love your stories, especially as they pertain to the past---like the makeshift bed warmer.

Mac n' Janet said...

When I was a child after Dad drove off to work in the morning there were no cars left around, each family had only one car. Now everyone has 2 or 3 cars.

John Going Gently said...

I remember interviewing one of iur villagers about cars....it was only the vicar and the owner of a small electrical shop who had cars

Shawn said...

Wet and grey here too. I love your posts about going out with friends for drinks and meals. The way you describe it makes me sure that there is no place 'round here that would feel so cozy. Living alone or not, it's always about getting through the day in the most amusing way possible, isn't it?

Cro Magnon said...

Every two years I take my car in for its 'road worthiness' test, and keep my fingers crossed until they tell me it's OK. Otherwise it never visits a mechanic. It's cheaper that way.

JoAnn ( Scene Through My Eyes) said...

We had a very blustery day today here in the NW corner of Washington State - not too chilly, but oh that wind. Just a few drops of rain now and then - a good day for staying indoors and reading or cooking.

the veg artist said...

I remember that as children, we would stop playing and run to the edge of the garden to see whose car was passing - there were so few around that we knew most of them. Now, that same B road leads to a 'country park' type attraction, with hundreds of cars passing daily. My father was a builder, and had an Austin A30 van, with a pile of cushions on the floor of the back, in amongst his tools and lengths of wood, for us to lie on!

Derek Faulkner said...

Was there such a thing as central heating in your childhood Pat, I certainly don't recall any suggestion of it during my childhood in the early 1950's. As someone who sleeps under a 10 tog duvet in the winter and still wakes up hot in the night at times, the mere suggestion of electric blankets amazes me, surely people don't have them on all night.

Heather said...

We didn't have a car until my husband saw a promotion on the horizon for which he would need to drive. He was in his 30s before he learned to drive and I was in my 50s before I plucked up the courage. We managed well without central heating throughout a very cold winter up in Cheshire, then were moved south to Devon to a house which already had it installed and eventually became 'softies'. The first winter we were there I hardly needed a coat, it was so mild. I do remember having to scrape the ice off the bedroom window to be able to see out, when I was a child. Very thankful that is no longer the case.

Librarian said...

Same here about cars; hardly a place that has not at least one (mostly two) cars per household; the husband has one, the wife, too, and if there are grown-up children living in the house, they want their own cars, of course! Way too many, for my liking, and way too little use is made of that wonderful thing most of us do have in full working order - our legs and feet.
Sorry, don't want to turn this into a rant. And of course I am fully aware of how there are truly many people who depend on their cars because for one reason or other, they can not walk to do their food shopping and other errands, get to work and back, and so on, and often public transport is non-existant or unreliable.
But there are still WAY too many who could easily get about without a car and think they "NEED" one because they don't even consider the alternatives.
Rant over!

We've had wet and windy weather here, too; not very cold but not exactly attractive for being outdoors for long, either. I'm home today with a cold, the first in I don't know how many years!

By the way, I really enjoy reading about what life used to be like.

Jean Jennings said...

Lord of the manor? I would love to hear more about your childhood! I'm a big fan of Downton Abbey!

Eleanor said...

I remember my brother would sit on the hearth to keep warm and would only move when his jumper gave off that horrible singed wool smell. We had a small fireplace in our bedroom, but that was only lit when someone was ill in bed or on Christmas Eve. I also remember the beautiful patterns on the windows made by frost.

Derek Faulkner said...

Bedroom fire only lit on Christmas Eve - did you dislike Father Christmas then.