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My Mom said the horse rocker was a hand-me-down from her cousin, Jeanette. My Great Aunt Thelma gave it to her once her cousins were too big for it. Jeanette is over 70 years old so the horse is at least that old. There's our family heirloom. I think we took it to my parents' house when we moved??? I have a great photo of me in it at about two years old, but it's in storage back in Maryland - snap!
So on Tuesday after visiting with the olde ladies at the craft morning where I purchased some tomato chutney and a hand knitted cardigan, I went to lunch with a couple of friends. As we were walking to the cafe, we passed a barbershop and in the window was an old child's ride on toy, like from WWII old. It is a metal carnival horse with a small cart and somehow a child would push two pedals which then makes the whole thing go. Now it just so happens that I own a rocking horse pretty much exactly like the one in the window and I stopped my friends to show them. At the EXACT same moment, and I am not joking, a woman my mother's age points to the toy and says to her husband, "I used to have a toy exactly like that when I was young." We looked at one another and were just gobsmacked. How uncanny is that? We then got to talking and it turns out she grew up in Wales and was born the same year as my Mom, during WWII. She then went inside the shop and looked at the horse to see where it was made. It is made in England. My maternal grandfather was stationed in England and France during WWII as a Colonel in the US Army. I am assuming this toy was passed down to us kids from my Mom, but I need to email her and ask. Or Mom, if you are reading this, please make a comment so we can get the rest of the story. Or email me and I will finish the story because the woman wants me to call her if I get any more information.
I know this isn't the best photo, but you can still make out the horse and the red cart behind it.
I believe pretty much everyone knows who Mr. Rogers is from our good old childhood. Well, everyday, Craig comes home and since it is either raining or he is just sweaty from his bike ride home, he changes clothing. This includes a comfier pair of shoes and sometimes a sweater in the cooler months once he's cooled off. He then goes and feeds the koi in our mini pond in the garden and sometimes whistles a tune. He joked today that he is turning into Mr. Rogers and I agree with him. The funniest part of this story is that the owners of the house we live in have the surname of Rogers. How weird is that?
Owen has become an insane conker-ite. For those of you not in the know, Conkers is a game "traditionally played by children in the UK using the seeds of horse chestnut trees – the name conker is also applied to the seed and to the tree itself. The game is played by two players, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string. They take turns to strike one another's conker until one breaks" (from Wikipedia, of course!). There is a World Championships held on the second Sunday in October near Cambridge.
We have conker trees all around our park. Owen collects a basketful and sets to work peeling off the outer pod, pushing a large, thick needle through the seed and tying the string. He actually made his fingers sore yesterday, requiring band aids. The only downside is that he makes an incredible mess inside and outside the house with all of his materials and the leavings of the conkers. So much so that he is driving me conker crazy!
Today we traveled to the RAF base for the semi annual hail and farewell for Craig's organization. A traditional chili cook-off is held at the autumn h&f's. This year Craig decided to enter his "Goat Breath Chili". There were about 10 contestants and while Craig's concoction did not win, it was still very yummy. The guy who won actually won last year as well and I heard that he put like eight pounds (yes, pounds) of steak into his recipe and he imports the spices directly from Spain or something.
They also had a salsa contest (the munchie, not the dance) and my friend, Amy, who was our sponsoree won! Yeeehaw for her, ya'll! Or is salsa Mexican? In that case muy bien, mi amiga!
I planted some bulbs in the gah-den today after completing the gah-dening and a general clean up yesterday. It was very hard to dig through the soil. I heard on the radio yesterday that we have had three straight weeks without rain. Now yesterday, it did rain a bit, but it was more like thick mist for the morning and cleared by the afternoon. We are also having what we Americans would call and Indian Summer. Very beautiful days. I don't know what these Brits are talking about when they complain about the weather! Actually, strike that, I do know. It's a string of such niceness that makes the drizzly dark even worse. Oh how I am not looking forward to December and January, but I am making a mental note of days like today to dream about when I am freezing.
This past Friday and Saturday, our sponsorees graciously watched the kids for an overnight as well as giving us a gift certificate to a nearby B&B called The Green Dragon for an overnight stay. We had a wonderfully relaxing time and were amazed at the quiet all around us, so quiet that we had real conversation time and were able to visit a church, a cemetery, take a short walk, eat three meals completely uninterrupted AND visit two towns in the same day. The Green Dragon is in the VERY small village (if you can call it that) of Cockleford. The dinner and especially the breakfast were well-worth the stay. The furniture is made by a famous craftsman who also did the woodwork in the Yorkminster Cathedral and his "signature" is the engraving of a mouse on every piece. We saw these at Yorkminster as well.
In the morning we took a stroll down a side road and came upon hunters who were pheasant hunting. The double barrel shotguns were a bit unnerving but we were well within sight and away from the actual hunting area.
Run Mr. Bunny!
Those two images are wool shears and a sack of wool.
My Three Sons - brass on a grave
This door was squished in a corner off a small street and looked about as authentic as it gets.
Later that evening we went to a friend's house for an awesome dinner and great conversation. The kids got along well even though Owen was exhausted from a busy couple of days especially an all day field trip to London and the school Hallowe'en disco the day/night before.
