Grandad bought a chapel

You've heard of the Thomas Firbank novel 'I bought a Mountain' no doubt many of you will have read it, or how about Dodie Smith 'I capture the castle' -have seen that listed as someone's fave. Well my grandad bought a chapel. He paid £750 for it and the graveyard complete with graves, yew tress and an ornamental gate. It was next door to his house - well it was joined to it in a semi detached sort of way, the back bedroom was the vestry when required. £750 was a fortune in the 1930's so you can tell it was a big chapel with a large pulpit and steps on which the pews were arranged. this chapel had its hey day in the days of the hell fire and brimstone sermons of the Methodist preachers. Photographs of the congregation show the ladies in enormous hats, the genltemen sporting huge amounts of facial hair and the children looking terrified.

Grandad retired from the police force after many years, prior to which he had been a shepherd boy living on the Clee Hills in a shepherd's caravan for much of the year. He met my grandmother who was actually a few years the elder when she was betrothed to another. She was of a more 'dignified' family and was engaged to the local jeweller. Along comes smart young policeman to the market town and broke the jeweller's heart. But the jeweller a gentleman to the end offered to make her wedding ring for he would wed no other, and so he did. I wear both the engagement and wedding rings now and love them dearly and no, the jeweller never married.

As Grandad was posted around the different market towns of Shropshire he came to know a kaliedescope of people from all walks of life, he had trunks full of china from the Coalport works in Ironbridge and carpets from Kidderminster, he knew people that lived in caves, the travelling communities and lords and ladies and he was comfortable with them all. I heard all these tales as I sat on his knee on a carved wooded throne in the chapel on rainy afternoons. He smoked his pipe in the chapel and I loved the smell of the tobacco, my mother hated and it was not allowed in the house. he had a chopping block in the chapel and when he wasn't in his garden he would be chopping morning sticks for the fires.

We had to go 'sticking' on Saturdays down the fields by the river where the trees broke in the winter floods. There would be Grandad leading the way in his brown smock and wellies, my mother with an old coat and a scarf over her hair and me and any other scruffy little varmint I happened to be playing with, or my mother just happened to be looking after at the time. We would have our dinner in our pockets - a packet of crisps, the blue salt bag removed and discarded of course, in the packet of crisps would be a hard boiled egg and a cold sausage and there would be an apple for afters.

Back in the chapel we built elephants out of old butter boxes from the dairy before they were chopped up. We covered them with rugs and wandered around the jungles of Africa and India meeting tigers and lions and strange people with bones through their noses. We changed the scenario and built rockets and were walking on the moon years before Neil Armstrong ever thought of it and we were back in time for dinner! We played on the tombstones in the graveyard as the sun went down and ducked as the bats flew low above us. The names on the tombstones were as our friends and we borrowed them in our games, "will you be Elizabeth Humphreys today or Gertrude Whistle?" "nah that means Terry will have to be little George the baby again... he hates being the babby!"

As we grew up the mood changed -Grandad passed away peacefully in his sleep one night and motorbikes appeared in the chapel belonging to my uncle and my dad. A record player balanced on the pulpit steps and with new friends I would play records such as Daydream Believer, the Seekers and then the flower power era and San Francisco, the Beach boys..... etc.

My mother was a bit fey and could mend animals and part of the chapel held boxes in which an owl recuperated, a hedgehog got over a cut head, there was a baby mouse without a tail that got dug up in the garden and ate milk soaked bread in a bottletop. The owl was a real pest when it was released. Convinced my mother was it's mother he would dive bomb her hanging the washing out, hang upside down on the guttering to look through the bedroom windows at night and screech as loud as he could. My dog a JRT Heidi spent a lot of time stretched out in the sun on the pulpit bench and dad read motorbike books on the old throne.

The years passed and my eldest son would join my dad in the chapel cutting the morning sticks and would swing on the swing grandad put up in the beams for me when I was five. There were still a few butter boxes left and sure enough they became horses and houses as they had done in the past. But then dad died suddenly and mum suffering with osteo arthritis had to sell the house and chapel because even with my help she couldn't manage the house, the chapel, the garden. the eleven immaculately stripey lawns, the orchard where two old ewes had twins every year in the gooseberry bushes ..........

So it was sold and my mother went to live on 'death row' as she quaintly referred to the old peoples bungalows but she had the last word ... she interveiwed each prospective purchaser and no, the man who wanted to build trucks in the chapel didn't get it, neither did the builder, nor the goat man - a nice couple who loved the gardens and promised to 'look after' the chapel got it at a much lower price than the others, "what do I need money for on death row?"

They did look after it and the swing is still there, the tombstones lie down now amongst beautiful shrubs and an owl still hangs around the guttering .......

http://www2.blogger.com/snailbeachsheep

well have I done a link or not? I AM TRYING

Very new grandson, Toby 4 weeks old in wonderful sleep suit with ears and a tail!

there are the woolly women and it is possible to see that we really do perch on a hillside!

Soooooo sorry matron -honest

Gosh I did leave a mess in the common room last night didn't I? I am sorry - it appears I had a gremlin in the dashboard and when I shouted "delete" it got the hump and did "repeat" and I did it twice .... Anyway I went straight to bed, lights out, never did any reading homework -sorry En Peu dont wailey at me too much please. AND when himself came up the wooden hill I sat up straight away "DO NOT even think about it!" I squawked, "I'm in trouble at school!!" The reply sounded like, "Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez you are as barking as the rest of 'em! When is the white van with the red and yellow wheels coming?" Couldn't answer that coz am no good at Pub quizzes!
Anyway will not be blogging today - have got into a pattern of blogging one day, read you all the next. In any case have got 9 for PROPER Sunday lunch -with wine! The table will seat 10 so if there is a waif out there do pop in - Grandad will be here to help with Welsh - (yesterdays blog refers) And when they all disappear I shall be under the big green brolly with the rest of the wine reading all your blogs.
Just one last query - do you put voices to the blogs when you read them? I've got a few Edna Everidges, a couple of Billy Connollys, a Pam Ayres and the waitress from 'Allo 'Allo to name but a few.....me? I dont know -someone will have to tell me!...........bye

Well - a bit about Wales, global warming, make up and tiny horses

Ooooooh dear - seems like my little walking friend has taken to peeping in through the window at PurpleCoo, "What do you mean 'we are like Morecombe and Wise in walking boots' - if you are the tall one that makes me the one with short fat hairy legs!!"
"Its OK," I tried to placate her, "I'll get you some Immac for your birthday!"
"Great -my birthday is in December!" she retorted.
"Well plaits are in .......... with purple ribbon of course!"
Anyway she is too scared to come in and is out there peeping in - hubby wont give her a password to computer because previous forays into their computer cost an awful lot in repairs! Now is that Chicken Licken with her out there or is she in here under a sue doe nimm? I need to know because she is a neighbour of mine and us gals out on the Welsh Marches appear to be few and far between and we've got to get patrolling Offa's Dyke - you know that green bump between England and Wales, stop a bit of intermingling of the natives and set up a few customs posts - its OK you lot down in South Wales if you need to get over the bump you can have a pass - a purple one of course! Why? I hear you ask, well have you seen the mess after Wrexham v Shrewsbury Town? - the pitch is called 'The Gay Meadow' should be 'Black Eye Alley'!
Anyway its these mixed marriages that cause the problems - and the poor kiddiewinks -shame!
I should know - him sitting over there snoring gently under the green brolly is Welsh and proud of it and needless to say I am not! Each disagreement, row, altercation, whatever, will finish with, "You're English you wouldn't understand!" .... or...."I shall put that down to you being Welsh!"
I can remember his mother lapsing into Welsh when she didn't want me to know what they were talking about grrrrrrrrrrrr!
But I can remember days on the seafront at Aberystwyth with the boys in the paddling pool sitting close to father in law, who never spoke English until into his teens, people watching and when a group were near all babbling away, saying to him, "what are they saying?" and he would quietly interpret a mundane conversation about new hats - well it looked an awful lot more exiting than that - but then they are a bit excitable aren't they - the Welsh?
Anway ChickenL or what ever you are now, if you do the bit from Oswestry up to Chester I'll do the bit from here down and I'll see if my hairy friend can do the bit in the middle!
And before you say it - I have absolutely no intention of learning the lingo -languages do not come easy to me, French -a virtual disaster - no, I have two languages - English and Bad and thats it - old dog new tricks etc.
Another lovely day here with the garden looking fab -which is a bit unusual for my garden at the best of time! But everything is new and fresh and sparkly and the roses are off like Jack's beanstalk. The clematis over the summer house is in bud - bet everybody else's is out -but we are a bit high here, down in the valley there are flowers everywhere! There will be the usual "global warming" comments resounding off every page of tomorrows papers. Now I really wonder about this 'ere "Global Warming" tack - I know I am a bit cynical, (the job I do does have that effect - Court Clerk in a busy Crown Court dealing with man's inhumainty to man or woman or child or animal or inanimate object..etc) but I can remember science lessons dealing with the solar system and this planet and there are times when this planet is tilted more towards the sun and that causes marked climatic change in the seasons. Now I am as committed to reusing and recycling as anybody, we do not fly, we buy fresh fruit and veg from farm shops and meat and bread from local shops, I only use Tesco home delivery for the grot bit of shopping
and have spent last week organising a village wide request for a plastic recycling receptacle. I wont have a slug pellet through the gate and never use chemical fertilsisers or salt in cooking -sorry thats another channel altogether isn't it. We are a bit stuffed with having 2 4x4 vehicles sitting outside, but you simply cant pull a sheep trailer with a Citroen Dyane and we do not have a road that can be classed as any type of road, its simply an uphill unmetalled track! I just remember back to my childhood and teenage years when summers were summers and being a redhead it was an agony of sunburn and prickly heat but it was a summer. Now that is a good forty years ago, were we on the tilt then I wonder? Well what worries me is that if this climatic change is simply normal then there are a few people starting to cash in. Yes we must make every effort to preserve the enviroment for future generations but now the Government are slapping taxes on things "for the sake of the environment" I just start to worry a bit.........

And another thing....(Oh hell .....she's off again) all this clod stuffing rubbish that we are supposed to stuff in our pores to avoid anti ageing and wrinkles .... well what's all that about? Its not the stuff you rub on the old kisser that is doing it good - surely its simply the fact you are rubbing it that is doing the trick? It doesnt matter whether its £49.99 a shot from wherever or goosegrease out of the pantry its the gentle massage that keeps the skin supple and if you've paid £49.99 for it well it will work won't it? - because at that price you sure as hell will use evey last spot of it and rub it in really well......get the drift?

Might as well end on another rant - went to see a friend - yes I have got more than one-honest. Anyway she has spent years caring for rescued minature shetland ponies and she introduced me to her little family and told me their stories, rescued from tinkers, illtreated, malnourished etc etc but the one that absolutely sent me into orbit was the one that had been found living on a balcony in a high rise block of flats in Brighton for -wait for it -seven years! Unbelievable!!! And this is now the 21st Century!!! Well I was totally gobsmacked and horrorified.

So I will leave you with that little gem and retire to admire the garden in the global warming with a face that is used to plain water and a rub down with an oily rag........ bye

The Good, the Bad and The Grubly

Oh woe is me! Hell and damnation! Bugger! Wailey Wailey (thanks Un Peu love that exclamation!) The youngest has found GIRLS - surely nothing wrong in that I hear you cry! Better that than embroidery like another male we've seen this week! BUT the door to the GCSE exams is unlocked and opens the week after next!! Revision? My foot! We are now wearing a little stringy bracelet thingy with two red beads and a green glass fish.....we have found the shower room without being reminded ..... we have found the smelliest deodorant spray imaginable... comment from father shepherd, " Good God that lad smells like a tarts boudoir!" Smart retort from yours truly hands on child bearing hips..,"How do you know what a tarts boudoir smells like then?" its not the fact that he has found girls, its the fact that this could be the worst time!! Why does this educational system decree that possibly the most important set of examinations to set the basis for the future are set at the same time as the onslaught of hormones?

Youngest has always been the "grub" of the trio - until now! -the others were sporty - football, football and then even more football and I remember the grub stating quite forcefully at the ripe old age of about twelve, " I am never ever going to watch another football match-EVER! All I can remember about weekends is going to watch one or the other of them play football and I HATE IT! AND ANOTHER THING - I am NEVER EVER going to another sheep sale!! GOT IT?"
OK! OK! OK! message received loud and clear!

Hoever the grub shines in other areas - always the envronmentalist, the bird watcher, the real animal lover. I remember well an old friend taking him for a walk when he was about six across the fields one morning and returning with a bemused "Can I slap him!" look. they had been wandering down the overgrown path by the brook and had come across a very large caterpillar on the path ..... "Oooooooh G look at this!" she cried.... the reply came back very disdainfully, "What that?...its only an Elephant Hawk moth caterpillar, they arent that rare!"The worst of it was I had to go home and look it up and the little horror was right!"
The Grub has always "worn" a cat. Even as a toddler poor old Tatty cat, who was a very small kitten then and not really in the best of health, was clutched to his chest like a furry badge attached to his jumper as he would proclaim "Rupert's Tat, Rupert's Tat!" The cat's name was not Tat and his name wasn't really Rupert .............confusing household dot com? Smokey Joe another rescued moggy came much later .... but spent the obligatory first few months living up a T shirt or round a grubby neck! Then there was Crocket! Crocket and the grub were inseparable from day one .... a long haired tabby with a white bib and the biggest tail you have ever seen on a cat .... the grub grew a scarf --- and a woolly beard ... and a tail out of the hat - hence the name Crocket! Crocket waits for the school bus to be wound round a grubby neck that is now a long way from the ground and now not so grubby!

The elder two are " The Good" and "The Bad" --- "the Good" being the eldest, and was always good - server at Church, Boys Brigade, Duke of Edinburgh ... you know the sort, but strangely shy.. on holiday never found a friend until the last day... not like "the Bad" who by teatime on the first day had collected a tribe of new friends and " Can they come to tea mum?" Girls were slow to materialise and left again. Never smoked or drunk and disorderly! Never had a day out of work since leaving college. Hated learning to drive... gave up ... only to restart when it looked like "The bad" would pass his test first! Now a homeowner with a lovely partner down in "the little house on the prairie" and their first child -still very new polish still unmarked...... bless!

Meanwhile "The Bad" well where do I start .... has always been able to charm any bird off any tree....has been pursued relentlessley by many spinsters of this parish and a few other parishes besides! And a few that weren't spinsters come to that! I remember one telephone call in particular, "Oh you want my SIXTEEN year old son ...SO SORRY DEAR ... he is still at school tonight doing EXTRA BIOLOGY. Can I take a message? No? OK then I'll tell him you called!"
Interfering mother? Me? Never!!
This is the son that when on a trip to swimming pool in summer hols with a tribe of children promptly found a friend as mischevious as himself and went and joined in with the ladies ante natal swimming exercise class...! They loved him! Cheeky brat!
Caught him and two mates red handed smoking like chimneys, "ARE YOU SMOKING?" best telling off voice! Three innocent faces in front of me with hands behind their backs, plumes of blue smoke were creeping up round the backs of their heads - I nearly cracked up! "No!" they chorused, " Oh well you've got a problem then coz your arse is on fire" ... I left the scene quickly before bursting!

This is the son who calmly announced when I was driving in busy traffic he was "going into nursing" ... nearly caused a tail end concertina crash ....

At 17 had a go at plumbing - hated it - got the sack when accidentally filled disel van with petrol!
At 18 he started as a carer in an old peoples home....loved it, loved the wrinklies, cried for days when Scary Mary passed away. I thought 'hey ho better cultivate this for my old age...' dont bother... "you will never go in a home mum...." ahhhhhhh I thought, bless him, " I'll put a pillow over your head first!" Gee thanks pal! All pillows locked safely away -immediately!

By 20 a houseparent in a beautiful school for autistic boys .... loves it ... brings them to feed the lambs, takes them to play football etc etc etc

Still loving and leaving 'em, drives a car he can hardly get in now he's hit 6'3" and encourages the other two to call me "the little mother" I wouldnt mind but I am 5'9"! And I can't catch them either.....

Heck! Ive fetched a picture - thanks to Janitor and the techy page - might have to go back and get another just to check I can do it! Look out Avatars next!!!

Toilets, flowers and sheep

Well first of all Ive got to get on the old soap box and have a rant! Have been out yomping round the countryside with friend of many years , I think we probably resemble Morcambe and Wise in walking boots-yours truly is the tall one!-Have you ever noticed how many people persist in using redundant toilet bowls as flower planters? What on earth is that all about? Go -on now tell me you have all got them and I'll creep away into the purple sunset! These aren't any old elaborate Victorian edifices, the ones that are making me see red are the 1970's models in Pampas green , do you remember Pampas green ?- you had ARRIVED in 1977 if you had a Pampas bathroom suite!! I've spotted another in a vile yellowy shade and, sorry Blossom, pink! Sorry if my rant offends, its just a personal dislike but go on I dare you - just look out and you will find one, lets compare results! We could have a comp............ stop hitting me will you - it was only a suggestion!!!
Anyway back to the yomp around the hillside which was very therapeutic. The swathes of bluebells -proper ones not Spanish, and the clumps of violets everywhere. is it me or are there more violets this year ?- There are usually odd little clumps on the roadside but this year the banks are covered in ..... dare I say it ......purple flowers! When we stand on our hillside and look down into the fertile valley and over at the other side; (that side gets all the sun, and is where all the large farms are,) its like looking at a giant patchwork of painting by numbers and my goodness has someone gone mad with whatever number acid yellow is! Oilseed rape looks to be in fashion this year! When the warm breeze drifts up the valley the smell of musky wallflowers is almost overpowering but spare a thought for the hayfever sufferers.....
The woolly women have all been moved this evening onto a nice clean field - they are so funny now they have their lambs. They come to the feed trough like a flood of lumpy milk and once fed, they find their offspring and with heads held proudly high, hips swaying, their precious lambs tucked in neatly on each side like white woolly handbags they swagger off into the dusk. All except "confused dot com "and he thinks I'm his mother.......bless!

The spectre has vanished!

No more will that strange spectre be stalking the hilly fields at night! That wild looking creature in an Eden Vale jacket, flowery jim jams and the obligatory green wellies that shrieks at foxes like a banshee on heat has been banished to myth and legend for twelve months anyway. Its appearance each spring sends blood curdling shivers down spines and sends lesser mortals into their sheds in fear. Dogs cower and howl at the moon as the spectre passes them shrieking and hollering "Clear off you..... and the rest is unprintable....." This morning as the last pair of twins were born at 5:00am the spectre calmly and quietly went back through the gate dropping the larger than life old blue jacket by the washing machine, kicked off the wellies by the backdoor and could be heard muttering, "Well thank goodness that's over!"
Yes lambing is over for 12 months and our normally dysfunctional life can resume to its chaotic pace instead of frenetic. What am I on about? Compared to our 13th lambing this one ,the 15th, was a doddle, and in nice weather, and the shepherdess managed a sun tan - or is that a weatherbeaten look I have now? The 13th lambing was in torrential rain, with more prolapses than lambs , six cade lambs in the new summerhouse and a four figure vet bill at the end of it. We nearly gave up that year! We nearly gave up in 2001 as well, after foot and mouth -if they had taken our girls we would never have restocked. This is only "wheelbarrow" farming after all - a "hobby" he says!
But we have learnt so much about nature and what it can throw at you when least expecting it. I have learnt so much from the old hill farmers and heard so many tales - some a lot longer than others! It has been an experience I would never have missed for the world. Football and sport claimed the two eldest sons but the youngest has been junior shepherd for some years and was promoted to assistant midwife this year and never batted an eyelid. As an old crinkly hill farmer said to me once, "you've got to be able to read ship and speak ship afore you get anwhere with the awkard varmints!" I think I know what he means after 16 years as a shepherdess.

Am I here yet?

Well try as I might I cant seem to get to PurpleCoo and god knows I've tried! Resorted to the vernacular Anglo Saxon - well one does when a machine only three weeks old starts getting smart and the Google starts being silly as well! We've done enough passwords now to get into MI5 never mind a blog site. Have no idea where this will land just a practice really. Got a bit scared yesterday - pressed a button and ended up with a german bloke with objectionable labels everywhere.....OOOOOH dear I thought - cant be doing with this.... so off I went again whirling in cyberspace. Now just look here I've got me basket with some bits for the party WHEN I GET THERE! Theres a bit of Shropshire Blue, a couple of hard boiled duck eggs - (thank you Mrs Pemberton -she's the duck!) Ive even unearthed last years sloe gin and some 1985 Marrow Rum that will take gloss paint off and twenty paces. Now am I here yet or not?
I only started to get some phsyio for a grotty arm - now its sod the physio where have all the bloggers gone and did CL really stop the chat room? Who are those suddenly new bloggers that are appearing? Bet its CL staff on a three line whip to get some interest re generated.
These girls are very good sorting this lot out arent they? - Three days and its taken on a life of its own -Brilliant work ladies - god knows if I'm there yet - I'll go and feed the lamb - confused dot com - thats his name and he really hasnt got a clue! One more to go and we will have finished lambing for 2007!

Lost in cyber space looking for purple coo

Well am I here yet or is it all a dream?
Managed 1 post it thingy yesterday but that was all!
If I'm still on the doorstep can you drag me in please?