Grannymar

There is a touch of the child in all of us no matter how old we are. Did I have a childhood??? I am not so sure….  I have lost count, this might be my second or third childhood, but I am certainly enjoying it this time round and may it never end! Magpie 11 has challenged us to journey back to those far off days and recall

Rhymes and Songs from childhood.

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I don’t have any recollection of Nursery Rhymes being read to us, but I do remember mammy singing them with us as she worked about the house.  Since I was third in line, she knew all the words and saw no need to sit with the book when she could be doing something else.  So what did she sing:

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye;
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,
They all began to sing.
Now, wasn’t that a dainty dish
to set before the King?

The King was in his counting house,
Counting out his money;
The Queen was in the parlour
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes.
Along there came a big black bird
and pecked off her nose!

Now that one I dd NOT like; for two reasons.  1) I didn’t like the idea of eating black birds or 2) having my nose pecked off.  For years, if birds touched ground near me I immediately covered my nose!

Hey diddle diddle,
the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

How could a cow jump over the moon?   A cow was heavier than me…. and the moon was way up there in the sky…. I just didn’t get it.

One, two, three, four, five.
Once I caught a fish alive,
Six, seven, eight, nine ,ten,
Then I let it go again.
Why did you let it go?
Because it bit my finger so.
Which finger did it bite?
This little finger on the right.

I am glad the fish was let go ’cause I hated the smell of it cooking on the pan.  Back in my young days we had fish every Friday.  It was the only area of cooking where mammy was not adventurous.   I liked the dessert that day - Apple-cake served hot from the oven.  It was like a sweet scone mixture and if mammy was in a hurry the apple was spread between two layers of the dough before cooking.  With a little more time, she chopped the apple in chunks and added it to the dry ingredients before adding the liquid.

There was an old woman,
Who lived in a shoe;
She had so many children,
She didn’t know what to do.
She gave them some broth,
Without any bread;
She whipped them all soundly,
And sent them to bed.

Now this lady I had sympathy for.  It was bad enough in a house full of brothers with gangly legs, knees, elbows and arms.  They were everywhere!  In a tangle under the table, halfway across the floor as we sat around the open fire, or dangling over the banisters as they slid down.. instead of walking down the stairs.

There was a crooked man,
Who walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence
Upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat
Who caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a
Crooked little house.

Ah yes!  I liked this one and could live with it since I once found a crooked sixpence, and there many crooked roads that twisted and turned every 50 yards, Ireland was full of them.  Around each corner was a new vista, sometimes only visible through gaps in the hedge.  They were like that since the days of the Ass and Car.  Well it was really an Ass & Cart and as we all know, an ass is a stubborn animal, and if it saw a long straight road, it would dig in its heels and go no further.  When the ass only saw the short road ahead it walked along happily.

I’m a little teapot, short and stout
Here is my handle, here is my spout
When I get all steamed up hear me shout.
Just tip me over and pour me out.

I’m a clever teapot, yes it’s true
Here’s an example of what I can do
I can change my handle to my spout
Just tip me over and pour me out.

I’m a little teapot, short and stout,
Here is my handle, here is my spout,
When I hear the tea-cups, hear me shout,
th”Tip me up and pour me out”.

Just tip me over
And pour………me…………out.

Now that little ditty was my very first party piece.  Can you imagine me standing up there in my pretty dress with a great big Chocolate box bow on my hair, doing all the actions!

Frère Jacques.

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping?
Brother John, Brother John?
Morning bells are ringing,
Morning bells are ringing,
Ding Dang Dong, Ding Dang Dong.

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques,
Dormez vous? Dormez vous?

Sonnez les matines!Sonnez les matines!
Ding Dang Dong! Ding Dang Dong!

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping?
Brother John, Brother John?
Morning bells are ringing,
Morning bells are ringing,
Ding Dang Dong, Ding Dang Dong.

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques,
Dormez vous? Dormez vous?
Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines!
Ding Dang Dong! Ding Dang Dong!

Sonnez les matines, Sonnez les matines
Ding Dang Dong! Ding Dang Dong!

Just to add an international tone, my very first attempt at French!

And finally…

One potato, two potato, ten potatoes more

Another 57 before they let me out the door

I haven’t got a finger left

My nails are in the stew

If they didn’t have a sister

I’ve no idea what they’d do!

(I may have felt like that all those years ago, but I only penned these words now!)

The gates are locked.

The old and rusting double gates remain locked.  On the right a single gate allows pedestrians and cyclists pass through to the grounds of Clotworthy House, Co Antrim.

I was very late last night playing with my friends, now I need to rest a little longer.

See you at 3pm.

A man wanted to celebrate his wife’s Birthday by throwing a party.

So he ordered a birthday cake.

The salesman asked him what message he wanted put on the cake.

He thought for a moment and said, put “Getting older but you are getting better”.

The salesman asked “How do you want me to put it?”

The man said ‘Well…put “You are getting older” at the top and “But you are getting better” at the bottom.’

When the cake was unveiled at the party all the guests were aghast at the message on the cake.

It reads:

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“You are getting older at the top,

but you are getting better at the bottom”

Thank you Ramana, this made me smile!

A naked Lady.

No! It is not me.

I found her lurking at the back of the wardrobe.

She has been in there for a couple of years now.  No wonder she is still so young and fresh.  I wonder if I sat in there for a few months would it act like a freezer and keep me fresh

This lady hung in my bathroom for years.  You saw the colour of my bath yesterday and this piece I did to suit the decor.

The idea came from a line drawing in an advert for Armitage Shanks, that I saw many years earlier in a voluminous Sunday newspaper.  The lines appealed to me so I kept it with all my other scraps of paper.

The piece is hand stitched with only two stitches used throughout.

I traced* the outline drawing onto a piece of Stitch and Tear - a temporary stabiliser fibre that is easy to remove after your stitching is completed.  It can be torn away in either a horizontal or vertical direction, and should be removed carefully in order not to disturb the stitches of the design.  It is not recommended for very delicate fabrics or knitwear.

The next step was to tack the design to the back of my chosen fabric: in this case a peach satin.  I placed the work in an embroidery hoop and worked all my outline stitches in backstitch using 2 strands of Stranded cotton.  For the hair I used a Maderia gold sewing thread.

Towels have a bouclé surface, so to achieve this effect I worked in exaggerated French knots.  I outlined the towel in a darker tone and also used it to give the effect of the naturally falling folds.

Normally when mounting a piece of work it is stretched taut over a board or heavy card, and then a series of large lacing  stitches are worked north to south and east to west at the back to hold the piece in place.  This time when positioning the piece I noticed the ripples and they reminded of ripples on gently disturbed water.  I liked them!

Since we only see one leg in the work, the ripples add to the effect of the other hidden leg testing the water…. so the ripples stayed!

*Over the years, tracing has played a big part in my pattern design.   I will play with a shape for hours.  Chopping, reversing, changing an angle and sometimes even removing lines.  My dining room window becomes my work bench for this purpose.  The design is attached with masking tape and the tracing paper placed above it.  Being at the window, is good for many reasons.  In winter the radiator below it keeps my legs and feet warm.  The glass lets the light shine through my chosen work and when my eyes need a rest from the close concentration, I have the landscape to enjoy and exercise my eyes on!

I broke the rules!

I met a man from the internet the other day… I never saw him before.

He wasn’t a hatchet man…. I’m still alive.

He bought me a coffee… then showed me his etchings photographs

He has this thing about shoes.  Now he wants to see mine

I decided I better give them a clean first…

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Back in April 2007 I wrote a post entitled Shoes and on 21st November this year, I had a new comment.  It went like this:-

Hi Grannymar,
I picked up on your shoe comments as part of some research that I am engaged in. I am a mature student studying Photography at the University of Ulster and I am currently shooting a Typology of ladies shoe collections. Some refer to this as the Imelda Marcos syndrome but I am much more interested in trying to visualise the emotive aspect of this practice This is an attempt to understand the female psyche through their acquisition,style, storage and treatment of their shoes.
I am currently half way through approximately 10/12 set ups shooting shoes belonging to females in the 20 to 50 age group and I would now like to get in contact with ladies in the 50 + bracket  who have the shoe passion.
If you or anyone on this blog would like to consider this photo project then please contact me. I would add by way of assurance as to the genuine nature of this project, that it can be verified through the head of The Photographic Department at The university of Ulster.

Now I am not sure how far Jim is prepared to travel, so BHB and Gail  no need to tidy that shoe cupboard yet!