I’m pretty sure Sian said the link for her Story Telling is open beyond Sunday?
My story is also my JYC page for 1st January and comes courtesy of Uncle David at High in the Sky, Thank you Uncle David and the reason I love STS is exactly what you say, I love that another persons story sparks off a thought or memory in my head!
…to start my Advent Journal.
I lit my Advent Candle on the first Sunday of Advent this year and decided to start my Journal from then. This is the first entry in my book.
I haven’t really thought about the meaning or start of Advent since I was a young girl going to mass on a Sunday morning with the family.
It was such a special time, a time of preparation and anticipation for the birth of Jesus. I loved the ritual and the colour of Advent in the Church. The purple wall hangings and priests vestments, a symbol of Hope and Waiting.
The peace, the singing, candlelight and the deep earthy perfume of frankincense burning touched my soul.
Mum used to begin her preparation at home like everyone else, starting with the pudding made last Sunday. There was so little money and so many of us. How she did it never ceases to amaze me. She baked and stored things away, (later, not far enough away from brother Tim who loved her mince pies!)
She shopped and stashed things in her wardrobe (discovered by brother Martin). Her knitting needles flew through the evening, socks, hats and scarves for this person or that person.
Fabric, always a bit of fabric to be made into something for this dolly or that action man.
My parents were ‘famous’ around family friends and neighbours for the sweets they made and packaged so beautifully for gifts.
I remember making smooth glossy fudge, vanilla or chocolate or rum & raisin, my dad’s favourite.
We used to stand in a row waiting for a turn to pull the toffee from one end of the kitchen to the other (or so it seemed) fold it, like a bed sheet, and pull it out again to make it chewy and smooth.
The smell and the pink and green colours of the coconut ice, are still so vivid in my memory. I didn’t like the smell of it then or now.
How our parents coped with the endless stream of demands, the television advertising and peer pressure remains a mystery. I can’t ask mum now of course but I know what she would have said. “Just get on with it!” that was her answer to lots of things. I realised as I grew up that she was a very strong Irish lady with an unshakable faith in the Lord. Only He had the answers. She certainly did not she told us, so she left things in His hands.
I have her strength and some of her faith. For that and all our childhood Christmases I thank her.
Thank you to Sian for linking all these wonderful stories together.
Merry December story telling to you all.
The cover of my Journal
and my entry for The First Sunday in Advent
I will share my JYC pages during the week. Hope you have a happy day today.
You may or may not know that I am besotted with my beautiful brindle greyhound called Pepsi.
This is her.
The Dream
I was busy on my Mac, playing with Photoshop as usual when I called to my husband and son to help me.
“I need something to enable me to take some animals into Photoshop, manipulate them and then export them back outside”
“I can do the manipulating bit, but I need the ‘something’ bit”
“It needs to have a long hose, like the one that comes out of the back of the tumble dryer and needs to have a kind of hood or funnel that goes on the other end of the hose.” I said.
So off they went like little lambs, to begin the task of making something for me.
Ben was happily banging and soldering in his garage and Paul was busy cutting up the tumble dryer hose in his shed.
No, I have no idea how the dryer was going to work now. This is a dream don’t forget!
Paul went to see how the funnel was coming along. Ben was faffing because he wanted the soldering to be particularly smooth so that the animals didn’t hurt themselves.
After much to-ing and fro-ing and many cups of tea, the magnificent object was brought to me.
I was absolutely delighted and connected it to my computer.
No I don’t know how, this is a dream!
The boys were dispatched off to bring me animals.
First, the hamster.
Paul put the little, soft, gold and white hamster on the desk, Ben put the funnel over it and Whoosh! Off it went up the hose and there it was in Photoshop.
I happily changed its darling little legs into long slender light brindle coloured greyhound legs. I was so thrilled; it was perfect.
I exported it back to my desk and gave it to the boys to set free.
Then came next doors long haired black and white cat.
Whoosh! It too went up the tube and appeared seconds later in Photoshop.
Once again I played with it and changed its beautiful soft, fluffy black and white tail into a long, thin, whippy greyhound tail. Delighted with my efforts I exported it back to the garden.
No, still don’t know how, this is still a dream!
The boys were helping me but seriously worried about my state of mind, not to mention the possible cruelty to animals. They were looking out of the window at the creatures I had altered.
The little hamster was trying to walk along but it kept falling off its now extremely long, slender brindle coloured legs!
The cat was trying to balance on the fence as it normally did but the ridiculously long stiff tail was knocking it off balance onto the floor!
“You tell her” said Ben.
“No you tell her, it would come better from you, after all she loves you so much, she would take it from you” said Paul,
“No I don’t think she loves me enough to hear that I think she has gone completely off her head! YOU tell her, she’s YOUR wife.
“Oh for goodness sake; just look what she has done to the chickens! The poor things are being driven mad by great flappy greyhound ears, they can’t balance with them; they are crashing and banging into each other…”
I wonder what woke me? The noise of the poor greyhound adapted creatures falling around the place or the discussion of the boys wanting to tell me I had completely lost the plot?
Days of laughing and remembering the dream followed, wondering what on earth it was about when I came across this in my e-mail deleted box, I had forgotten all about it, my poor befuddled brain had not.
Ben had seen this on the internet ages ago and sent it to me to make me laugh.
Thank you Sian for bringing us together for Story Telling Sunday.
More (sensible, I am sure) stories over here today.
Husband has just had his regular Sunday call with his Mum. She was telling him all about the great thing that ‘Auntie Claire’ has got:
It’s flat
It’s about the size of a notepad
It doesn’t have any paper in it
It has glass on the front
It doesn’t have any buttons or switches
It doesn’t have any ink in it
You don’t have to put films in it
You can write on it with you finger (but no ink comes out)
It can show pictures
She doesn’t know where the pictures come from because there are no films in it, but she thinks they might be coming from Manchester!
(Why Manchester!!!???)
Can you tell what it is yet?
I wonder if it might be powered by pixies and magic dust?
…or those magicians at Apple?
I get the writing prompts from Mama’s Losin’ it each week and rarely do anything with them but for some reason, when I saw this prompt:
When was the first time you saw your mother as more than ‘just mum’
This memory popped into my mind immediately.
The story is from 1975 and my parents are no longer with us.
I think this is the first time I realized that my mother was more than just mum.
I realized she was a woman and a wife, just like me.
My husband & I and my parents had tickets to see ‘The Pearl Fishers’ at the beautiful new Theatre in our hometown.
I had not long been married and thought it was such a nice thing to do, go out with the parents! We had been to a few lovely occasions that summer.
As we walked into the building, dad had gone to the bar with my husband and she said, straight out, no flowery words, no hesitant ‘I have something to tell you’. No, very bluntly she said, “you’re dad is having an affair”
I wanted to feint, I was so shocked and embarrassed. I remember my stomach turning over and my face getting hot. No, this can’t be, they were happily married, had been married for 26 years. They were a good Catholic family. My father had strong opinions about the sanctity of marriage, the importance of the family.
This was the first time in my life that she had ever spoken to me about anything other than day to day mother/daughter things, and it was this bombshell that she choose. Her heart was broken and I was there.
For the first time I saw my mum as a woman, a married women, a wife just like me, a woman who was more than just mum.
This is the rose I planted for her, It is her birthday this month.
There are wonderful stories High in the Sky today.