Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[RED-DOG]

They look like Chinese Gooseberries to me.

Nope. I googled Chinese Gooseberries, it's another name for kiwi fruit.

[boldie]

they're dimplybouncies,  latin name; anastrataconfuscia. More popularly known as featherballs.


edit; spelling.

[RED-DOG]

they're dimplybouncies,  latin name; anastrataconfuscia. More popularly known as featherballs.


edit; spelling.

Sigh....

[boldie]

they're dimplybouncies,  latin name; anastrataconfuscia. More popularly known as featherballs.


edit; spelling.

Sigh....

I just want something to be called dimplybouncies..I think it's a great name for a berry..or any other fruit for that matter..in fact..If I was a transvestite I think it would be my Alias..either that or Featherballs.

[boldie]

and yes I'm very bored so start telling tales, Mr Red!

[barhell]

Is this any help Red?  http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek060101.html  Second photo maybe?

[RED-DOG]

Is this any help Red?  http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek060101.html  Second photo maybe?

Not spikey like the first pic, very like the second pic but these are on strings.

[barhell]

Same tree American Sycamore as second photo but looks more similar http://www.etsu.edu/arboretum/totw.html

[RED-DOG]

Same tree American Sycamore as second photo but looks more similar http://www.etsu.edu/arboretum/totw.html

Excellent! That's the very same Mr bar, well done. Thank you.

PS- I'm gonna plant me one at home.

[Karabiner]

They look like Chinese Gooseberries to me.

Nope. I googled Chinese Gooseberries, it's another name for kiwi fruit.

Sorry i meant Li-Chees(sp?)

[RED-DOG]

They look like Chinese Gooseberries to me.

Nope. I googled Chinese Gooseberries, it's another name for kiwi fruit.

Sorry i meant Li-Chees(sp?)

Ah yes, lychees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lychee


Close, but no cigar.

[RED-DOG]

Long before I reached the ripe old age of 8, school had become a distant memory.
My schooldays may well have been over, but my education was just beginning.

A typical day for me started very early. I can’t tell you what time, but I do know that in winter, it was still dark. I would wake up warm and cosy, and slowly untangle myself from the arms and legs of my siblings. Sharing a bed was the most natural thing in the world, and a soon as the latest baby was old enough to hold on to it’s own piece of blanket, it was moved out of my parents bed and put in with us.

My mam would be first up. When you have an entire family living in one small caravan no one gets to lie in, but we were granted a short reprieve while mam lit the stove and boiled a kettle on the primus. We all got a cup of tea, (even the babies, who had tea in their bottles) then it was a quick scrabble to get the best socks and we would all trail outside to give my mam room to put the beds back.

How well I remember stepping out of the warm fug of the caravan into the cold fresh morning air. Even now, all these years later, I still have to go outside for a little while when I get up.

After 10 minutes or so, we would all go back inside and mam would have worked a miracle. Everything was packed away. Gone were the beds, folded back into long spacious bunks. The floor was clear, and curtains were open, allowing light to stream in and me to look out in any direction. After it’s transformation from bedroom to dayroom, the tiny caravan seemed positively enormous.

I realise now that when you have a lot of people living in such a small space, routine and order are very important. Most people would find it cramped and difficult, but it was no problem for us, it was all we knew. It was the most natural thing in the world, we were born to it.

We kids would sit in a long row on the bunk while my mam placed a small washbasin on the floor in front of us. Into this she would pour about a pint of cold water from the jug, and a pint of hot from the kettle. No one ever wasted water, it was a cardinal sin. Every drop we used had to be begged from someone and carried home in a milk churn, and in those days, a lot of people wouldn’t give you water because they thought you would try to steal something while you waited for the can to fill.

So my mam would wash the little ones first, and then we “big boys” could wash ourselves in the same water. We soon learned to make a good job of it too, because my mam was always on standby with the dreaded sandpaper flannel. Recently, I stayed overnight at my parents place en route to some tournament or other. That morning, despite me protesting that I was 50 years old, my mam still peeled back my ears and peered inside, flannel at the ready.

Our ablutions finished, we would pack away the jug and basin and once again line up on the bunk ready for our breakfast. No cereal in those days, (at least we never saw any) it would be bread and jam, or a rasher of streaky bacon between two huge doorstops of bread that had been dipped in the bacon fat.

Sometimes we had toast. Proper toast, done of the fire. That was my job. Using a long black fork that my granddad made from a length of stiff wire for that very purpose, I would hold thick slices of bread in front of the flames until the intended recipient decided that it was brown enough. Then I would pass it to mam who would spread it with a great dollop of real butter that melted into little islands on the surface. Then she would pass it back, and I would give it to the next in line.

While I was toasting, I was allowed to eat about one in every 5 slices I cooked. Sometimes, I would eat one that I wasn’t entitled to; this usually brought forth an anguished cry from the rightful owner, and a clip round the ear from mam.

Breakfast over, we were ready for work.

[tikay]

Mrs Red is off to London galavanting again. It's supposed to be a cultural awareness seminar but when she was on the trumpet to her cronies earlier today all I could her was squealing and sniggering. Hmmmm!

Anyway, she talked me in to dropping her off at Hinckley station. We got there a little early, and not wanting to leave her alone on the platform, I sat and waited with her until her train arrived.

While we were waiting, I noticed this unusual tree. It was shaped a bit like a sycamore and it had a smooth grey bark. Hanging from it's branches were thousands of golf ball sized "Fruits" or "Nuts" Call them what you will. These were attached by a 4-6in length of organic "string" The tree looked exactly as if it had been decorated for Christmas.

They are probably quite common, but I can't remember ever seeing one before. Does anyone know what it is?

It's weird how we see things daily, but don't realise it.

Outside the office window here (Sky), there are THREE of these trees with the balls-suspended on stringy-bits. They don't look like "traditional" Sycamore's though. Most sycamores are, so far as I know, self-seeders, but these have been planted as part of landscaping.

[tikay]

An article in the Daily Telegraph a day or two ago referred to the "Basil Brush Show" being in legal hot water, as they had referred to "gipsies" (sic) being, by nature, thieves.

Anyway, the article referred to "gipsies", not "gypsies". (And note, in both cases, the lower case "g").

Puzzled by is it "y" or "i", I went to Cambridge University Online Dictionary, which stated.....

gypsy, gipsy   Show phonetics
noun [C] (UK ALSO Romany)
a member of a race of people originally from northern India who typically used to travel from place to place, and now live especially in Europe and North America:

...which struck me as odd on no less than three counts.

1) I seem to recall you Posted that Gypsies (Gipsies?) originated from Egypt, & phonetically, that adds up. But they say India.

2) It refers to a race of people from India (upper case I), but gypsies with a lower case "g". Is this institutional bigotry? And "Romany" gets an Upper-Case "R".

3) Is it "Gipsy" or Gypsy"?

Just curious!

[RED-DOG]

An article in the Daily Telegraph a day or two ago referred to the "Basil Brush Show" being in legal hot water, as they had referred to "gipsies" (sic) being, by nature, thieves.

Anyway, the article referred to "gipsies", not "gypsies". (And note, in both cases, the lower case "g").

Puzzled by is it "y" or "i", I went to Cambridge University Online Dictionary, which stated.....

gypsy, gipsy   Show phonetics
noun [C] (UK ALSO Romany)
a member of a race of people originally from northern India who typically used to travel from place to place, and now live especially in Europe and North America:

...which struck me as odd on no less than three counts.

1) I seem to recall you Posted that Gypsies (Gipsies?) originated from Egypt, & phonetically, that adds up. But they say India.

2) It refers to a race of people from India (upper case I), but gypsies with a lower case "g". Is this institutional bigotry? And "Romany" gets an Upper-Case "R".

3) Is it "Gipsy" or Gypsy"?

Just curious!

1: I said India. People thought we were from Egypt, hence "Egyiptians = Gypsies"  http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=30601.msg646644#msg646644


2: Yes

3: Gypsy