Living Between the Lines
A wry look at family life
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Birthdays, shoes and puppy dogs
I shall gloss over my second visit to the dentist. Suffice it to say, the experience was quicker, cleaner and would have been painless had the anaesthetic worked first time and I had not had to wince as the drill hit an unprotected nerve. Enough said. This month’s post is not about dentists, it is about birthdays and shoes and puppies. The birthday belonged to my mother – her 89th to be precise. Here we are, the two of us on the big day. (I say big day, it was a low key affair but none the less enjoyable for that.) and here she is in another new dress, she…
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Oh to be an Amoeba…
Oh to have had the dental care in yesteryear that we enjoy today… An hour and a quarter spent lying in the dentist’s chair, having pre-crown preparation and a pre-overlay done on the same day, is no fun. It wasn’t as though there was anything wrong with my teeth in the first place. This was pre-emptive treatment. My dentist recommended it – especially as the teeth contained the old amalgam fillings that are so ugly when you look at them these days. “You don’t want those fillings to fail, do you – you’ve had them a long time,” he said back in January, continuing with, “Our generation didn’t have it…
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Then and Now…
The war years, 1939-1945, have been very much in my mother’s thoughts of late. Our telephone conversations have often turned from this week’s shopping list, to “Did I ever tell you…?” If she has told me these stories before, I am only too delighted to be told them again. I feel I should soak up as much knowledge of her past as I can for it is my past too of course. Since telling me all about Chester, (she still insists his surname was Isermann or Eisermann, whereas my uncle is certain it was, Ackerman) my mother has re-told a few more tales including this: In 1939, when her elder…
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Chester Eisermann
D-Day – June 6, 2014 marks the 70th Anniversary of the Normandy Landings and the Liberation of Europe. With the 70th Anniversary of the D Day landings upon us, towns and villages across the country have been remembering. Last weekend, Saturday 31st May, we visited the nearby village of Droxford, where the 12 Century Church is hosting its own D Day exhibition. We read original letters and accounts from June 1944 and pored over fascinating photographs. I had not realised that the village had played such a vital part in the operation. On 2nd June 1944, Churchill made camp on the Royal train at Droxford station, meeting members of his…
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A Right Royal Occasion
“Are you descendants?” asked the overly enthusiastic lady as we stepped out of our car, onto the tarmac. We were momentarily thrown. Descendants? Well we are certainly descendants of someone but we guessed the lady to be referring to persons more specific. We were heading to The Re-dedication of HMS Alliance at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, in Gosport, by special invitation. HRH The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, was to be guest of honour. We had been invited because we had, some time before, donated a sum of money to the project which went on to raise £7m with the help of a lottery grant. HRH Prince William is…
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In touch with your DNA
A bit of spit and we can tell where our ancestors were at any given time in the last 200,000 years, according to Eddie Izzard. I watched enthralled, as he retraced the steps of his and our, ancestors from a group of 10,000 Homo sapiens living in ancient Africa, all the way to the 7 billion people populating the planet today. Thanks to the BBC, we were all able to see how far he and we have actually come. All it took was a bit of spit. I haven’t spat at anyone lately but I have been moved to wonder if our DNA recognises the places where our ancestors lived…
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What’s so funny?
Earlier this month, I signed up to “Giggle Blog” started by Susan Jane Jones. I believe the idea is to start the month with a giggle or two. Rather strangely, since signing up to do this, I seem to have lost my funny bone. Screenscribbler also made mention of the value of humour this month and I whole heartedly agreed with him. Since then, alas, my sense of humour gene has definitely mutated. I have given this lack of spontaneous hilarity some serious thought. It cannot be that I am under pressure to be funny because I work best under pressure, don’t I? It cannot be that I really have…
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Welcome home
Whoop whoop! All is well. WordPress have helped us and have moved all our subscribers and stats to their new home. Thank you WordPress. Welcome back everyone 🙂 Debbie and Flossie X
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Where have all the Followers Gone?
Yes, that was a play on the song title but oh dear, since I redirected my blog to its new domain, www.deborahjbarker.co.uk, I seem to have lost most of our dear and much valued, followers. If you are one of those who has fallen by the wayside during the move and if you would like to jump back aboard, then please find us in our new abode and re-subscribe. We will be so happy to see you back. Things are just not the same without you. Debbie and Flossie 🙂
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Rain, rain go away…
So runs the nursery rhyme. This month’s storms, bringing with them the misery of floods and ruined homes in many parts of Britain, seem never-ending. We spent last week in Cornwall as it happens, where some of the worst weather was being experienced. The coastal towns saw waves crashing over harbour walls and flooding the streets. Tides were reaching record levels and the railway line at Dawlish in Devon has been left hanging in mid-air. There was something quite surreal about seeing that rail wavering in the wind, the ballast beneath completely washed away. Now we hear there could be snow — oh joy. Not all is bleak though. Our…
