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Category Archives: History

Porcelain, Dumbbells and A Word

I have two beautiful little porcelain boxes. They were given to my parents on their Ruby wedding anniversary by the man who was their Best Man and who became my Godfather, Maurice Oldfield. These little boxes became mine in due course and I love them.

In November last year I joined an online exercise class designed for women over 60 and I am loving it! Feeling stronger and fitter and far less arthritic pain. We have just graduated from using cans of beans as weights to little dumbbells weighing twice as much and mine arrived in the post today!

We have rain again today, a soft mizzle and I turned to my beautiful book , Ninety-Nine Words for Rain and this one describes today’s drizzly stuff. I just wish I knew how to say these lovely words.

 

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Allotment, Leeks and A Good Read

We’ve had lots of fun and lots of delicious food from our allotment over the years but the time has come to move on. We have four raised beds for veg in our garden and can get fresh veg from Community Roots so at the end of the month we will hand over the plot to a lovely and very enthusiastic young family.
This morning we dug up a lot of our leeks and have spent the day processing them all. At £1 each from the shops, they are a very valuable crop! We now have some pots of leeks in white sauce as a ‘ready’ veg, prepped leeks for the base of a risotto and four bottles of leek and potato soup – a very productive and pretty tiring day.

The current book from The ShelterBox Book Group is ‘Scattered’ by Aamna Modhin.  This is a powerful and gripping story told by a journalist who visited Calais as she was reporting on the refugee crisis and here begins to come to terms with being a refugee herself. It is a wonderful mix of personal history and journalistic detail, all told in a very readable style. I really cared about Aamna and her family and I learned a great deal about the whole refugee situation which the media doesn’t really show. There’s an excellent glossary, notes section and bibliography. It seems a perfect choice for the ShelterBox book group and I’m looking forward to the Q&A with the author next week.

 

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Cornish Saints and Sinners and A Song

Another of Mum’s books that I have always loved is “Cornish Saints and Sinners” by J. Henry Harris, a quirky and entertaining look at the stories of places and people who feature in  Cornwall’s history.

It amused me today on looking at it again after many years, that there’s a whole chapter dedicated to Dolly Pentreath about whom we sing at choir, a song written by Claire and Anna Maria Murphy.

You can listen to the song here, sung by Femmes de la Mer, Claire’s all female shanty group.

 

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Kite, Candle Snuffer and Chocolates

We’ve been sorting out lots of the toys kept for LiveWires and have been deciding where they are all to go now everyone has grown out of them. The kite has been claimed by our son for his twins, LiveWires 5 and 6. It came to us many years ago from family in America and was much loved and well used. I even have the original instructions that came to us in about 1983, such an unusual personalised present that the kids all loved and which gave the whole family lots of fun.

Our old silver candle snuffer is being used every day when the advent candle has burned the day’s date away.

We have an advent calendar that gives us two little truffles each day – a calendar for couples!

P.S. The big storm that is battering Cornwall and much of the UK today has been named Bram.  In Cornish, Bram  means ‘fart’ which has amused many of us as we hear the howling winds.

 

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A Lane, A Name and The Bench

After going to the garden centre to buy hyacinth bulbs, we came home the long way round, going down the very narrow lane, Sunny Corner,  where my Mum and Dad used to live in Cusgarne.

We went past their house, still named for the many chimney pots they had collected and which Mum used as planters. We have some now as do two of our daughters.

The bench we put in place to remember both of my parents is just a little further on. It pleased me greatly to see rings on the armrests where people on their walks have rested with their flasks. I especially wanted wide arm-rests for that very purpose.

 

On This Day……

On this day in 1937, two young students’ eyes met across a crowded cafeteria at Manchester University as my Mum noted in her diary. She was doing a special qualification in the teaching of deaf children and Dad was, that year, President of the Student Union and her diary records their meeting almost every day for months. They married on September 2nd 1939 and their four children had 12 children between them who have gone on to have another four, That’s twenty humans on this planet as a result of that chance meeting – love at first sight! The diary is, of course, a family treasure.

 
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Posted by on November 19, 2025 in family, family history, Postaday2025

 

Sunflower, Hallelujah and Trees

The Suitcase Singers, one of the choirs I sing with,  have been loving learning this beautiful Peter Amidon arrangement of Hallelujah,. We can’t wait to learn the next verse!  Do have a listen.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1754910295195936

After a lovely, animated breakfast out with friends, I took these photos on the way home. The trees are just beginning to turn.

 

 

 

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Buttons, Knitting and Some Advice

I found both the patience and the time this afternoon to sew up another of the little jackets I am knitting for babies in Ukraine. I have three more knitted and all in pieces but so dislike sewing up that they’ve been waiting a while.  Happily the truck going to Ukraine isn’t going for a while.  I am using the mother-of-pearl buttons that were my Grandfather’s sample ones when he was a button salesman in the 1920s so they are 100 years old! It gives me enormous pleasure to handle them, to sew them on and to make every little jacket extra special.

Note to self from Sallie G – she’s right!

 

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Kindness Calendar, Coincidences and Sweetcorn

From Action for Happiness: “In a world that feels divided, kindness is a quiet but powerful act of hope. Whether you’re supporting a friend, helping a stranger, or simply listening with care, your actions matter. Every kind choice makes a difference.”

We went today to have the staples removed from my lovely Mr S’s new knee and had really interesting conversations with the two nurses who looked after him. They asked where we lived and when we said where, the older one said she’d been to St Euny Church just near us, to see a wonderful production in the churchyard in 2017.  That was our Until the Day Break! She said she absolutely loved it and that now she views graveyards in a very different light and likes to think of the real stories behind each gravestone.  If the production is new to you Dear Reader, check it out on the red links here.

The second coincidence was that when we were asked where we used to teach and said Doncaster, the younger Nurse said her father had been to Uni there at the old School for the Deaf as he is profoundly deaf. My Mum trained at that school in the 1930s but even more coincidental was the fact that when a youngster, her dad was taught at the special unit for deaf children at Roskear School in Camborne and it was my Mum who set up the unit and who would have taught him!  Ellie, the nurse is going to ask him if he remembers Mrs Wiseman. One of her old pupils commented on my blog when I wrote about my Mum and her work here.

Our Sweetcorn is coming along well, flowers on almost every 5′ high plant and some tassels indicating a cob getting ready.

 

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Agapanthus and Protest Boards

We saw these beautiful Agapanthus flowers as we left the hospital on Saturday.

A friend and I popped down to Porthtowan after working at Community Roots this morning and were very impressed by the fifteen  wonderful protest boards which tell such a story. I took a few photos to show you detail and have the first photo from a friend of the whole length of them along the path to the beach. I’ll post them all in sequence at some point when my lovely Mr S and I can  go down to the beach together.

Thanks John.

 

 

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