General Chat

Mo hope you feel better soon <3

Are you an M.I.F. or an M.I.L person?

(Well, it is Saturday!)

just poped back in for a little read

been doing grave stone thread


hope you feel better soon mo

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how life used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500's:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then, the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, 'Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.'

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip off the roof. Hence the saying 'It's raining cats and dogs.'

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying 'dirt poor.' The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a 'thresh hold.'

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day, they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes, stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, 'Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.'

Sometimes they would have pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could 'bring home the bacon.' They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and 'chew the fat.'

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or 'upper crust.'

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a 'wake.'

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a 'bone-house' and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realised they had been burying people alive.

So, they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the 'graveyard shift') to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be 'saved by the bell' or was considered a 'dead ringer.'

And that's the truth... Now, whoever said that history was boring!

If any of you can hear a strange sizzling don't worry, it's just my poor feet cooling down in a bucket of cold water. ;-) The walk went well and there was a good turnout so hopefully a lot of money was raised. I'm not as tired as I expected and am enjoying a well earned coffee and some toast with marmite :-D :-D
Dermot thats fascinating stuff, sure makes one stop and think.
Mo get well soon,
Big family lunch tomorrow but while I was out OH got everything peeled and prepared so just have to cook it and watch them devour it, lol.

****************************************
~~~~ CONGRATULATIONS ~~~~
****************************************
Cath 2010 and her OH are celebrating
their 29th Wedding Anniversary today.
Hope your Anniversary day is as
happy as your Wedding day was.
Love to you both.
Jean xxxx :-D <3 :-D <3 :-D

Morning All.

Bright and sunny this morning.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MR AND MRS CATH.

Hope Mo and Linda are feeling better today.

Keep well everyone else.

Take care. See ya later.
<3

Morning all,
thanks for your kind wishes. 29 years of wedded bliss, lol. He might be a pain in the bum at times but he's my pain in the bum and I still love him lots :-D
Sunny and windy down here, good for the washing on the line.
I'm feeling a little stiff this morning, but lots of housework should loosen me up.
Hope our poorly friendlies are feeling better and everyone has a good day.

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º° °º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°°º¤ø°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°

*********************Happy ANNIVERSARY Cath & Oh ********************

°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º° °º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°°º¤ø°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°

Hope you have many more....

Marilyn xx :-)

Happy 29th Wedding Anniversary Cath.
hope you and your OH have a great day.
29 years I bet it seems a long time to you at times and a short one other times.
Hope the sun shines for you all day.

Love Rita
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Morning to everyone else hope your day goes well . we have a sunny morning so far but I can see clouds in the distance. I hope they blow over.

I have paperwork to do this morning. and letters to repy to which I didnt get a chance to do yesterday..so hope I can finish them off today.
I have a stack of washing. anyone offering to do it for me PLEASE ?

Love Rita

:-D

Dermot.

I'm beginning to believe ALL that !!! really good stuff .

Well its fathers day ...I'm out taking my Dad to the moors for a ride then afternoon tea somewhere.

My son is coming later to see his dear Dad later after he's been for a Chinese in the town.....

I expect all the men are being spoilt today,suppose its allowed ..LOL

****** HAPPY FATHERS DAY******

To Stevey & Dermot..... :-D

Morning All !

Happy Anniversary Cath......have a good day.

'Always be an England'

as long as they can still use things invented by the SCOTS.

Macadamised roads : John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836)[3]

The pedal bicycle: Attributed to both Kirkpatrick Macmillan (1813–1878)

The pneumatic tyre: Robert William Thomson and John Boyd Dunlop (1822–1873) [10]

The overhead valve engine: David Dunbar Buick (1854–1929) [11]

Tubular steel: Sir William Fairbairn (1789–1874)[12]

The patent slip for docking vessels: Thomas Morton (1781–1832) [14][15]

Canal design: Thomas Telford (1757–1834) [17

Aircraft design: Frank Barnwell (1910) Establishing the fundamentals of aircraft design at the University of Glasgow.[20]

Steam engine improvements: James Watt (1736–1819)[1]

Coal-gas lighting: William Murdoch (1754–1839) [21]
]
Carbon brushes for dynamos: George Forbes (1849–1936) [23]

Europe's first passenger steamboat: Henry Bell (1767–1830) [27]

The first iron-hulled steamship: Sir William Fairbairn (1789–1874) [28]

The first practical screw propeller: Robert Wilson (1803–1882)

Making cast steel from wrought iron: David Mushet (1772–1847) [32]

The hot blast oven: James Beaumont Neilson (1792–1865) [34]

The steam hammer: James Nasmyth (1808–1890) [35]

Wire rope: Robert Stirling Newall (1812–1889) [36]

Cordite - Sir James Dewar, Sir Frederick Abel (1889) [39]

Threshing machine improvements: James Meikle (c.1690-c.1780) & Andrew Meikle (1719–1811) [40]

Hollow pipe drainage: Sir Hew Dalrymple, Lord Drummore (1700–1753) [41]

The Scotch Plough: James Anderson of Hermiston (1739–1808) [42]

The mechanical reaping machine: Rev. Patrick Bell (1799–1869) [44]

Roller printing: Thomas Bell (patented 1783) [48]

The adhesive postage stamp and the postmark: James Chalmers (1782–1853) [49]

Universal Standard Time: Sir Sandford Fleming (1827–1915) [50]

Light signalling between ships: Admiral Philip H. Colomb (1831–1899) [51]

The telephone: Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922)[4]

The teleprinter: Frederick G. Creed (1871–1957) [52]

The first working television, and colour television; John Logie Baird (1888–1946)[5][6]

Radar: Robert Watson-Watt (1892–1973)[8]

The underlying principles of Radio - James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) [53]

The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768–81) [54]

The first English textbook on surgery(1597) [55]

The first postcards and picture postcards in the UK [57]

Logarithms: John Napier (1550–1617)[58]

The theory of electromagnetism: James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) [59]

Popularising the decimal point: John Napier (1550–1617) [60]

Identifying the nucleus in living cells: Robert Brown (1773–1858) [64]

Hypnotism: James Braid (1795–1860) [65]

Transplant rejection: Professor Thomas Gibson (1940s)

Criminal fingerprinting: Henry Faulds (1843–1930) [70]

Pioneering work on nutrition and poverty: John Boyd Orr (1880–1971) [73]

The ultrasound scanner: Ian Donald (1910–1987) [74]

The MRI body scanner: John Mallard and James Huchinson from (1974–1980) [76]

The first cloned mammal (Dolly the Sheep): Was conducted in The Roslin Institute research centre in 1996 [77]

Chloroform: Sir James Young Simpson (1811–1870) [86]

The hypodermic syringe: Alexander Wood (1817–1884) [87]

Discovery of hypnotism (November 1841): James Braid (1795-1860) [88]

Identifying the mosquito as the carrier of malaria: Sir Ronald Ross (1857–1932) [89]

Identifying the cause of brucellosis: Sir David Bruce (1855–1931) [90]

Discovering the vaccine for typhoid fever: Sir William B. Leishman (1865–1926) [91]

Discovering insulin: John J R Macleod (1876–1935) with others [9]

Penicillin: Sir Alexander Fleming (1881–1955) [7]

Discovering an effective tuberculosis treatment: Sir John Crofton in the 1950s [93]

Primary creator of the artificial kidney (Professor Kenneth Lowe

First beta-blocker drugs: Sir James W. Black in 1964 [95]

EKG [Electrocardiography]: Alexander Muirhead (1911) [97]

The Refrigerator: William Cullen (1748) [98]

The Flush toilet: Alexander Cummings (1775) [99]

The Vacuum Flask: Sir James Dewar (1847–1932) [100]


The piano footpedal: John Broadwood (1732–1812) [102]

The first automated can-filing machine John West (1809–1888) [103]

The waterproof macintosh: Charles Macintosh (1766–1843) [104]

The modern lawnmower: Alexander Shanks (1801–1845) [106]

The Lucifer friction match: Sir Isaac Holden (1807–1897) [107]

The self filling pen: Robert Thomson (1822–1873) [108]

Cotton-reel thread: J & J Clark of Paisley [109]

Lime Cordial: Peter Burnett in 1867 [110]

Bovril beef extract: John Lawson Johnston in 1874 [112]

Electric clock: Alexander Bain (1840) [113]

Boys' Brigade

Royal Air Force: Lieutenant David Henderson considered instrumental in the foundation of the British Royal Air Force. [121]

Bank of England devised by William Paterson

Bank of France devised by John Law

Colour photography: the first known permanent colour photograph was taken by James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) [122]
Etc :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P :-P

Hi Folks,

Printed with Tongue in Cheek so to speak !!!!!!!!!!

All in good faith :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Now that it's brightening up....... for Fathers Day I'm taking Mrs Stephen out to vist some gardens near my daughters house.

Some of the bigger houses (mansions) have a Garden Open Day today.

All the cash raised goes to Charitable causes.

Think I'll go dressed as a Tramp (nothing out of the ordinary for me)
and rattle a tin can about. See if I get any donations :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Catch you later ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

Hi Everyone,
Just been to see my friend Avril and I've been spending my birthday money :-)
Got a pair of trainers and Is used my W. gift card to get some more books.
Fascinating history Dermot. Very interesting.
Stephen a lot of Scots invented important things but England is still better at football :-D :-D :-D
Happy Anniversary Mr and Mrs Cath <3 <3.
I managed to finish all My Vampire books.I didn't go to bed til 12.30am but never mind. I took these books up to the church and left them in the Porch ;-)

Evening All.

Hope you had a pleasant day, Cath and hubby hope you had a nice meal somewhere.

Been home from work for about 1 hour. Had a nice beef dinner and feel very full up now.

We will be cutting K.'s birthday cake later on with a nice cup of tea. :-)

Keep the cyber hatches open, it will be winging you way about 9pm.

If I dont get back, see ya tomorrow.
<3 <3

Evening All !

That was a magic day out. The gardens we visited were fantastic. Obviously a labour of love for the owners.

Now Mrs Stephen will be ear bashing me to do a bit of transformation to ours. :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(

What's wrong with weeds ? They are natural and are mostly green. And once the snow covers everything they all look the same ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

Time for a wee relax.

If house prices continue to fall as fast as predicted, I can see the day looming when the signs in estate agents’ windows will read ‘Buy one, get one free’.