This bread was made for walking...

I love all things French (it could be to do with my ancestors) so was amazed to see this French  stick in a  supermarket on the Fylde Coast recently. The  first ever edible walking stick maybe?

At the same time I discovered  the delectable Frenchaz.blogspot.com  written  by an Australian girl who' s addicted to travelling round  France.

Do you think she'd appreciate my photo? Or would she dismiss it as a load of old boulangerie...?

Fifty shades of grey hair...

What is it about grown women and sex? Do they think it's just been  invented?

 When I was thirteen our (all-girls) form teacher took us for Latin.  I loved English, so had chosen the 'dead' language  in the hope that it would  help me to become a writer.  Every morning, when she took the register,  Miss Wright made us answer in Latin,  our surnames denoting the  pecking order with the  addition of 'please.'

'Please' in Latin, translates as  'si placet' (with the emphasis on the hard 'c.') .   We trainee teenagers carried it off without a hitch, until it  came to six, which sadly, is 'sex' in Latin.  And yes - you've guessed it - I was number six. Each day for a whole year I shouted  'Sex si placet,' to the great amusement of all my friends.  Childish, puerile even, if girls can be called such a thing.

Move forward to 2012  and 'Fifty shades of Grey.' Middle aged women are reading this masochistic tome on their Kindles,  giggling, like teenagers and sniggering behind their hands.  Did I miss something? Has sex been re-invented? Are pensioners the new teens?

D. H Lawrence, eat your heart out.  Lady Chatterley might just have become a Dame... 

Free 9ct gold ring? It must be the 1970's....

If your name is JOHN and your wife is CHRISTINE - this heavy 9ct gold signet ring is yours FREE!

This was the message in the window of  a Blackpool jewellers when John Muir caught sight of it back in 1971. John, who worked at the Department of Employment in the town, was amazed when he walked past Prestons Ltd and saw the second-hand ring.

 'I had just got engaged to  my fiance, Christine, at the time,' he told the Blackpool Evening Gazette, ' and I couldn't believe my eyes.  The ring had John  inscribed on the top face and Christine on the underside.  Even though we were only engaged, Prestons very kindly gave us the ring.'

John has kept the  message from the window (above) but, sadly lost the ring a few years ago.


 On March 25 this year the couple celebrated their ruby wedding anniversary so, if you've seen a similar ring in a shop somewhere, maybe you could let us know?  In the meantime, I can't help thinking  this story says a lot about life in the North of England forty years ago. Can you  picture the same scenario today?  The resort, I suspect, would be overflowing with   'Christines' and 'Johns.'

Give us a ring...

The calendar that saw into the future...

Searching through  my Guernsey memorabilia yesterday, I found this old *Bakelite calendar that once stood on the mantel in my grandparents' parlour. When I was a child  I used to love clicking the metal pieces in the corners to change the date, though sadly they no longer work. Looking again, I saw that  the date had stuck on September 11....  Just a coincidence?  Or is this  a psychic calendar? I wonder what else it knows about the future!

Nineteen thirties/forties Bakelite calendar

*Bakelite , according to the OED, is 'an early brittle form of plastic made from formaldehyde and phenol.'

Soap gets in your eyes... (or how Lifebuoy saved my life)

A fascinating reminder of the past - from Guernsey Museums (below) - landed in my in-box yesterday and got me thinking about soap. Not Coronation St or Eastenders, you understand, but the sort we used to wash ourselves with long ago!. My grandfather had a greenhouse in his garden in Guernsey when I was a child, and he wasn't allowed back in the kitchen until he had 'got the dirt off' his hands.  So by the back door he kept a 'dipper' - a metal bowl with a handle - where he  used to scrub his hands (and mine) with Lifebuoy toilet soap.


In the early nineties I visited Port Sunlight Village on the Wirral - home of Lifebuoy (and, of course Sunlight) toilet soap.  In the factory shop they had several bars of Lifebuoy on display and I asked if I could buy  one. 'Sorry, no,' said the assistant, explaining that manufacturing had now stopped. When I asked if I could get hold of the soap, to bring back childhood memories, (it smelt of carbolic) to my embarrassment, my eyes filled with tears.


Later in the day I went back to the shop for one last look and the assistant beckoned me into the back room. 'I want you to have this,' she said, pressing the soap into my hand. 'I've been worried all day after seeing you so upset.' She made me promise 'not to tell a soul,' which I haven't, till now.  Needless to say, I still have that bar of Lifebuoy today, and wouldn't part with it for anything.

Access-Learning Guernsey-Museums

Do you remember Sunlight Soap, Kensitas cigarettes or Pepsodent toothpaste? Our next exhibition is a trip down memory lane, looking at the brands and packaging from yesteryear. To tie in, the Museum Shop is stocked up with vintage branded products.

Guernsey Museums' Shops

Beautiful things we sell.

by: Guernsey Museums

Eighty-two thousand poppies...

Guernsey poppies growing wild...

How I wish I could have seen the 82,000 poppies

released into the sky by the last-flying Lancaster bomber today.

The poppies represented the tens of thousands of men who died in World War Two and, no doubt, the trail of 

broken hearts

left behind.

God bless them all.

Noah had his ark in the right place!

It was Club Day  today in Lytham, Lancashire, where no-one stopped the carnival, despite the weather. An amazing array of floats appeared, full of freezing children  who had long-awaited this special day. Floats, in case you're not familiar with the word,  are lorries, boats, trucks or trailers - adorned with  flowers (mostly paper but sometimes real) - with the relevant church, club, school or studio emblazoned  for all to see.

As a cub reporter on my local paper in the early seventies, I dreaded the thought of covering Club Day.

'Just look up last year's report,' my fellow hack said helpfully, 'and change a few words  to suit the occasion.'  It was easier in those days. 'The sun shone brightly on this special June day as the carnival came to town...'  said the archives. I hardly had to change a word.

Today, the sun did not shine, and the floats might well have been on the water, so dire was the flood warning.  (Amber, according to the Met Office, means storms imminent.) But no, we survived, in true English spirit, as the band played on...

Supporters at a recent gala day in nearby Poulton-Le-Fylde

History is  going full circle. While we all limped home, drenched to the skin, Noah clearly had his ark in the right place.

Come into the garden Maud - why weeping willows make me smile...

I love summer: it means I can write under my wonderful weeping willow tree, pictured here.

'A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy.' So said  the acclaimed  landscape architect Luis Barragan who was born in Mexico in 1902. If you've read  Kate Morton's 'The Forgotten Garden,' you'll understand what he meant.

When I was a child 'The Secret Garden' by Frances Hodgson Burnett  held me in its spell; so much so that I once bought a house with a secluded walkway leading down to a separate garden. This riot of greenery grew as it pleased, except for a lone magnolia tree which appeared every spring as if its star- shaped flowers had been carefully  crafted by hand. Sitting under a willow tree gives me the same sense of seclusion. 

Hans Christian Andersen wrote a story called' Under the Willow Tree' in 1853 and many others have followed his example. Even Billie Holiday was famed for singing 'Willow weep for me.'

Underneath my  tree I hear the branches rustle in the wind and watch as they tumble to the ground. It makes me feel happy, it makes me feel creative and, sometimes, it's the only place I want to be.

Perhaps that's why Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote 'Come into the garden Maud...'

Newspapers? Which one are you reading now?

Forget politics and actresses with well-paid PR companies to support them - honesty is still what we  want - and need. As I writer I try to read all the newspapers, but my favourites are The Times and the Daily Mail who present such opposing views that, between them, they amount to genuine entertainment. Today, while the Mail front page declares 'Nancy's masseur cleared of molesting 18 women,' the Times asks: 'Have Oxford scholars discovered the hand that baptised Christ?' And, as the former  proudly announces that Mail Online is the 'Number One choice for sharing news on Facebook' (my sister calls it Bookface - don't ask) the Times talks solemnly of  'Dawn raids on downloaders of child abuse.'

But, suddenly, an about turn. The Times devotes two pages to the fate of five-year-old children,  headed 'Obesity is the chief suspect as girls reach puberty at the age of 5,' while its rival tells us of the Christian GP who discussed faith with his patient.

In more familiar mode, the Mail shows us photos of Peaches Geldof with new baby Astala (a boy in case you didn't realise) with a succession of computer generated cartoon hairstyles.  The Times, on the other hand, tries to make a money-spinning artist out of a girl ages three...

Anyway, you get the gist.  When I was a child, men in bowler hats with umbrellas aloft walked along reading copies of The Times. And the sort that read the Daily Herald, sorry, I mean Mail, were more interested in who did what with who (or should I say whom?)

There is, at least, one good thing about newspapers today.  They offer a Father's Day meal for Two including main meal, side  dish, dessert and a bottle of wine for just £10.00.   Now I'm not sure which newspaper I found that in, but I can't stop now. I'm off to M&S for the bargain of the year...

www.timesonline.co.uk

www.dailymail.co.uk