For just A$185 per person you can be fed a five course meal (collected along the way from the area's top restaurants) and be shown many historic sites in and around Windsor.
What a great way to spend an evening on a special occasion!
Blessings!
Showing posts with label yesteryears. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yesteryears. Show all posts
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Clydesdale eating?
Another feature on our familiarisation tour was the Clydesdale Restaurant. An unusual way to see the historic sites around the Windsor (Sydney) area is to be pulled in a dining van by 3 beautiful Clydesdale horses. We stopped by to check it all out while they were being 'dressed' for the evening's booking. Beautifully docile animals stood patiently while their dresser plaited and twisted and knotted and decorated their manes and tails.
For just A$185 per person you can be fed a five course meal (collected along the way from the area's top restaurants) and be shown many historic sites in and around Windsor.
What a great way to spend an evening on a special occasion!
Blessings!
For just A$185 per person you can be fed a five course meal (collected along the way from the area's top restaurants) and be shown many historic sites in and around Windsor.
What a great way to spend an evening on a special occasion!
Blessings!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
NEW LOOK
I've decided to try a new look and a name change. Now I'm not a very inventive or ideas person - I like what I see, but don't have much skill in putting it together. After searching on the net for something I could use that reflects 'me' I gave up and decided to put on my table some of the things that I love, and went from there. Camera out, moving items into different positions and 'click' took some shots. The result is my new pic at the top of this page. I'll keep searching for just the 'right' look for me but for now I'm happy with how it has turned out.
The new name? You may think this is rather strange but again, it reflects 'me'. I love shabby chic - in pretty much any form - but the 'chic' part of the name is kind of a play on words. You see my DH has for many, many years called me "Chookie"! As for the shabby? Well I am getting on in years now and no longer a crisp fresh young thing. Much as I would love to think those days are not over, alas, they are long gone! Still we can dream can't we?
Blessings!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
1871
A few months ago I joined a couple of email ‘lists’ which provide questions, answers, queries, by people all over the world who are interested in genealogy in similar geographical areas to me. For example, I may be researching a long lost relative with the surname ‘Blogs’ who lived in the mid 1800’s in Blogland. I may send a query to the ‘list’ about the possibility of Blogs marrying say ‘Webb’ (fictitious name in this case) in 1856 and asking one of the listers to do a ‘look-up’ for me to see if this was recorded somewhere in the genealogical records of the past which they have access to. It really is a great way of not only gaining information but also of ‘meeting’ a great bunch of people who have wonderful memories and resources which they are very willing to share.
Now that I look back on it, it was a spur of the moment thing – but I offered my services to help with transcribing some areas of the 1871 census. I had in the past transcribed some old New Zealand newspaper listings and found it relatively uncomplicated so thought I’d probably be able to manage the census transcript OK.
What has happened in the process of transcription though, is not just straightforward typing, but an endless fascination and contemplation of the lives of those who lived in 1871 in a particular street and a particular house. Where did they all fit? Many families with large numbers of children, all living at one address. Occupations such as seed sifter, relic stamper, envelope folder, feather hand, boot closer, to name only a few, push my mind into overdrive trying to imagine aspects of their lives which I’ll never be able to relate to. So many of them, young in years to our way of thinking, whose wife or husband had died, leaving them with many children to raise, in conditions we couldn’t imagine in our time of material comforts. Huge numbers of kids who never went to school, and even larger numbers of 10, 11 year olds out working, presumably to help the family keep their heads above the financial high water line.
My part in transcribing their information is minute - but recording some of their history is an important step to making sure they are never forgotten. We may only know them as names on a piece of paper, but no matter who they were, what their story was, or where they came from, they have been part of history that has in some small way, brought me to where I am today. To them then, I am grateful!
Now that I look back on it, it was a spur of the moment thing – but I offered my services to help with transcribing some areas of the 1871 census. I had in the past transcribed some old New Zealand newspaper listings and found it relatively uncomplicated so thought I’d probably be able to manage the census transcript OK.
What has happened in the process of transcription though, is not just straightforward typing, but an endless fascination and contemplation of the lives of those who lived in 1871 in a particular street and a particular house. Where did they all fit? Many families with large numbers of children, all living at one address. Occupations such as seed sifter, relic stamper, envelope folder, feather hand, boot closer, to name only a few, push my mind into overdrive trying to imagine aspects of their lives which I’ll never be able to relate to. So many of them, young in years to our way of thinking, whose wife or husband had died, leaving them with many children to raise, in conditions we couldn’t imagine in our time of material comforts. Huge numbers of kids who never went to school, and even larger numbers of 10, 11 year olds out working, presumably to help the family keep their heads above the financial high water line.
My part in transcribing their information is minute - but recording some of their history is an important step to making sure they are never forgotten. We may only know them as names on a piece of paper, but no matter who they were, what their story was, or where they came from, they have been part of history that has in some small way, brought me to where I am today. To them then, I am grateful!
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Christmas Pudding
I haven’t been slacking it since last writing this journal – have had other things to do like making my first ever ‘real’ Christmas pud! Yes actually wrapping it in calico cloth and boiling it for 6 hours. I’m not sure if it turned out the way it should but the crumbs sure tasted good when I unwrapped it. I’ve frozen half and the other half will do for our Chrissy dinner that will be plenty for those who enjoy the taste - the others can have fresh fruit salad, ice cream and whipped cream – YUM!
While mixing it and spreading it in the cloth, I remembered years gone by when my mother in law made the most wonderful boiled Christmas pudding in the old fashioned ‘copper.’ This was a large bowl shaped tub which stood on the floor of the laundry made from – you guessed it – copper. A fire was lit underneath it to heat water. When the water was absolutely steaming, the clothes would be put in and stirred around with a long wooden pole. Once having steeped for a good while in the water and washing soap, they were hooked out with the pole into a tub nearby and rinsed. In those days everything was wrung out by hand – even bed linen and other large items. What bliss when the new-fangled ‘wringer’ became available – this was positioned on the edge of the tub and one could pass the clothing through it by turning a handle and the water would be squeezed out between two rubber rollers. To dry, they were pegged on a long wire line which was held at both ends by sturdy poles and in the centre hoisted with a forked branch of a tree to hold it well above the ground.
Well, come Christmas food preparation time, the same ‘copper’ was used to boil the pudding. In those days with 5 growing boys and several other relatives and friends who shared Christmas day fare with the family, it was a very large pudding that was made!
This time of the year surely brings back lovely memories of those days doesn’t it – well, if you’re as old as me it does!
Have a blessed and joyous Christmas!
While mixing it and spreading it in the cloth, I remembered years gone by when my mother in law made the most wonderful boiled Christmas pudding in the old fashioned ‘copper.’ This was a large bowl shaped tub which stood on the floor of the laundry made from – you guessed it – copper. A fire was lit underneath it to heat water. When the water was absolutely steaming, the clothes would be put in and stirred around with a long wooden pole. Once having steeped for a good while in the water and washing soap, they were hooked out with the pole into a tub nearby and rinsed. In those days everything was wrung out by hand – even bed linen and other large items. What bliss when the new-fangled ‘wringer’ became available – this was positioned on the edge of the tub and one could pass the clothing through it by turning a handle and the water would be squeezed out between two rubber rollers. To dry, they were pegged on a long wire line which was held at both ends by sturdy poles and in the centre hoisted with a forked branch of a tree to hold it well above the ground.
Well, come Christmas food preparation time, the same ‘copper’ was used to boil the pudding. In those days with 5 growing boys and several other relatives and friends who shared Christmas day fare with the family, it was a very large pudding that was made!
This time of the year surely brings back lovely memories of those days doesn’t it – well, if you’re as old as me it does!
Have a blessed and joyous Christmas!
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