Saturday 4 December 2021

Saturday

  

Saturday again and three weeks today will be Christmas Day - just another day says Derek and I do tend to agree with him.   Yes it was good when both my first husband and then my farmer were here.  But alone it really is just another day.   Kindly my carer is bringing me a Christmas dinner - but as she is not bringing it until late afternoon I shall most probably eat it on Boxing Day.   My farmer's party trick was setting fire to the Christmas Pudding on the big day.   He would pour a good helping of Brandy into a saucepan and set it on the Aga to heat.   He would tip the pudding on to a good decorated plate and when the brandy was very hot he would set fire to it in the saucepan and pour it - still flaming - over the pudding.

Now this year I am having the day alone.   I don't mind this at all.   I shall have had books for Christmas so plenty of reading material, I shall earmark what I wish to watch on television, I shall have a sherry before my lunch (which, if I decide to keep my Christmas dinner until Boxing Day, may well be Sausage and Mash which I have in the freezer).

I shall chat with my son of course but going round means he has to cook three different meals (he is vegetarian, his wife and I eat rather different food from one another too) 

                               ********

Meantime I shall raise a topic from today's Times.   How do couples  these days  meet,form a relationship and then either move in  or marry? Reading about it it all sounds so complicated but in my day it was always so easy.   You tended to marry a local lad or - if you worked in a nearby town you might spread your wings or if you went to University then the world was your oyster.

Now it all seems to be dating apps and the like. Have all the likely venues for meeting disappeared?  Maybe there are no longer dance halls, sports venues, parties and the like.   I just don't understand from my advanced age.   Is it really so very difficult to meet folk of the opposite sex for a night out?   Answers on a postcard please as John would say.

29 comments:

JayCee said...

Dating? Thankfully I am past the age of having to put myself through all that. It was bad enough when I was young and wrinkle-free.

Barbara Anne said...

Hi Pat!

I have several wonderful CDs of Christmas music that gets me in the spirit of Christmas. I especially love Mannheim Steamroller's early CDs: 'Christmas in the Aire', A Fresh Aire Christmas'. 'Christmas', and 'Christmas Extraordinaire'. The music is joyous and I've not tired of it in nearly 25 years.

For a post card, I'll need your snail mail address, please and thank you!

Hugs!

Heather said...

Thank goodness I don't have to think about meeting a 'date' any more. I have often noticed that couples have often met at work. I met my husband at work though we did work for different banks. Nurses quite often marry doctors, teachers likewise, and so on.

Tasker Dunham said...

Yep. The kids have both met special friends through dating apps.

gz said...

We met at a cycling event at Meadowbank Velodrome in Edinburgh.
My three eldest met their partners through cycling...
It's those who don't have interests or hobbies that need apps I suppose!

the veg artist said...

There are many ways in which I'm glad I'm not young any more, and modern dating is one of them. I met my husband at a dinner. We had the same surname, and had been seated together on the assumption that we were married!

The Weaver of Grass said...

Lovely to read your 'dating'answers.

Cheryl Seaman said...

Met my husband at work. We both worked in a large bookstore. We were together for 35 years (he died 6 years ago) and had our own bookstore for 20 years - I miss the store and him.
I have a friend whose mother found several husbands through the personal columns of our local newspaper!?

Anonymous said...

My 30 year old daughter met her BF via a dating app, the summer before Covid. He then moved across the U.S. to a new job, so after getting to first know each other in person, they continued the relationship for months remotely with in person visits as their jobs allowed. Working remotely meant they could work from any location. They’ve been living together for a year now, and I was surprised when she recently told me they’d never been to a wedding or large social event nor had they ever visited a museum together. They have eaten in a restaurant and are big on hiking and camping so have visited many national and state parks. Weddings among their friends were delayed or changed and it has caused a bit of a backup, so they will be attending 4 weddings next spring.

It’s not just “how do people meet” but how do people “court” in the time of Covid. These two are working remotely in their apartment so are together nearly all the time. It simply wouldn’t work for some couples but I also think of the things they’ve missed - the social events and museums, concerts. What if things went along perfectly well for the first couple of years but we put Covid behind us and she finds his behavior in a museum is just atrocious? Not likely, but what could be hidden beneath all the togetherness and the radical changes in social interactions? She has met very few of her co-workers in person (began job after Covid).

And then there’s our 4 year old granddaughter, visiting last week for the first time since last March, who said “I’m going to Disneyland when the pandemic is over.”

I love reading your blog, especially when you talk about the times you’ve lived through. It gives me faith that we can all live through these times as well.

They’re both accomplished and I think they would say that using apps to meet a partner is efficient and that they turned to apps when things weren’t happening for them despite being out and about in the world (pre-covid).

Cro Magnon said...

Now you know what all those people are doing on their phones all day. Personally I never had difficulty meeting people. I met my wife at Art College.

vic said...

It was a fortuitous meeting since I lived and went to school in Texas and my husband grew up and went to school in Wisconsin---ordinarily our paths would have never crossed. I met him at the swimming pool at the officer's club at a naval base down in Georgia. He was there at a school the navy provided for new ensigns just out of Officer Candidate School to prepare them for the duties that they would have when assigned to a ship. I lived in Texas and was there visiting my sister whose husband taught in one of the schools. We dated for several weeks before I had to go back to finish my last year of University. We wrote each other and when he finished the course he had some leave coming and so came to Texas for most of a week and proposed while there. He went on to the ship he had been assigned to and I finished out my last year of school. We got married in June of that year. In terms of really knowing each other and seeing how we behaved in the real world we didn't have much of that but we did write during the 8 months before we married which helped a lot. I guess we (me particularly) just got lucky since he has turned out to be a wonderful husband. 53 years and counting so things have worked out well.

The bike shed said...

It is so long since I dated that I'm as mystified as you. I do think that Covid has made it very difficult for youngsters to meet and date, teenagers especially. And with all the other concerns these days it makes dating much less carefree than it was in my day. There is good and bad in that I suppose.

thelma said...

Well my first husband I met him at Christmas. My stepmother had invited two local young people and they had brought Nick along as his family were in Switzerland. He wrote a letter a couple of weeks later to my grandfather asking to take me out. Now how formal and old fashioned is that? Second time around, when I decided to remarry after a long widowhood, there was a choice of three and that was the most difficult decision in my life, I did not make a good choice but then my son Mark would not be here and that would never do. My last partner was the most perfect of course. My daughter on the other hand uses a dating app for her latest and he seems to be doing well ;)

Librarian said...

I love reading the stories of how your readers have met their partners or spouses! But I strongly disagree with what someone wrote, that only those without hobbies or interests need apps. I was married twice (once divorced, once widowed) and have been in long-term relationships after my second husband died; with my current partner, I intend to stay together for life (would marry him today if he asked). The way I met my men was as different as the men themselves; on an outing with my friends, through work, in a Star Trek chatroom, on a dating website, at a friend‘s birthday party.

Sue said...

It does seem these days that most couples meet on one dating app or another, swiping left or right or blocking and deleting, very few meeting 'in person' for the first time. Although to buck the trend my younger son was introduced to his soul mate by a work colleague who had formerly worked with his girlfriend, and then started a new career in the Police and on the same shift pattern as my son. She somehow saw immediately that they would suit each other perfectly and they really do. Guess who will be guest of honour at the wedding!!

I met Alan 17 years ago online, when the first few dating sites had started. It worked well for us, although we lived in the same town our paths would never have crossed any other way and indeed wouldn't have crossed at all if Alan hadn't listed his eye colour as green instead of the blue they actually are. I have never like blue eyed men!!

susie @ persimmon moon cottage said...

My husband was the boy down the street. We occasionally spoke to each other on the school bus when I started high school and he was in his final year. We got to know each other more because he was friends with my friend's brother and he would see me down at her house. We started dating toward the end of 1970, and got married in 1974.

I'll never forget watching tv to see what birth dates were going to be drafted into the military in what order. I watched not only for what number would be drawn for my husband, but for all of his friends and relatives that we had grown up with. My husband (boyfriend at the time) was in the 300's, but his closest friend was 86. Thank God we didn't lose any friends or relatives to the war in Viet Nam. Very sad to think how many lives were lost there.

Melinda from Ontario said...

Despite the popular opinion that bars are not a good place to meet people, I met my husband in one. It was a loud, smoky, beer soaked country bar as well. I had reluctantly joined my neighbours that night as they were big country fans. Tom looked pretty good through that haze of cigarette smoke and stale beer fumes.

jinxxxygirl said...

Exactly what does that mean...'Answers on a postcard'... I see that on John's blog too...and never really knew for sure... Do you want people to send you a postcard through the post or ?
Anyway met my husband in the military 35 years ago.... I have traveled quite a bit in my life...

Anonymous said...

A friend met her husband via Craigslist dating section. She looked on a whim just one time and contacted him. He had been planning to close his listing later that day as he’d not gotten any suitable replies. Truly meant to be. They complement each other so well and have been married for 10 years.

Rachel Phillips said...

Answers on a postcard is a metaphor for a short answer.

AZDave said...

I met my wife when she worked at a bakery next door to a upscale mens clothing store where I worked. She brought me a choclate eclair with a pudding fillng. I said thank you, but I don't like them, she said "I bought it for you". I said no thank you. She said "Eat it or wear it". I said "I still don't want it". So I wore it and we have been married for 56 years.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Thank you for providing me with such fascinating reading - I am glad you didn't all follow my request to answer on a postcard!

Brenda said...

Answers on a postcard? Never heard that one...lol

Yellow Shoes said...

I think the phrase came from radio/tv quizzes of old where you wrote in with the answers and they didn’t want the bother of opening letters!

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Debby said...

After jaunting around, I returned home, determined to never marry again. There was a quiet guy at work. We've been married for nearly 24 years. Funny how life goes, isn't it?

VC said...

I met my husband in his cafe. We had friends in common but had never met each other. We have been a couple and a well-matched happy one since the day we met.

VC said...

Like Debby I was a very happy and fulfilled singleton with no desire to meet a significant other. Maybe that’s the answer!

thotlady said...

My co-worker met her fiance' at church.