2018-01-05T07:03:05+00:00

#JusJotJan 2018. January 5th Memories

January 5, 2018February 12, 2019/Judy E Martin/19 Comments

Day five of Linda’s Just Jot it January and we have already had some cracking prompt words to use. Sorry if I am a bit behind on my reading of your posts, I will try to catch up tomorrow

Anyway without further ado, here is today’s prompt word.

Your prompt for January 5th, 2018, brought to you by friendly “gender undefined female” (click to read the post) Cage Dunn, is “Memories.” Use it any way you’d like in your post. And make sure you visit Cage at Cage’s blog, “Cage Dunn: Writer, Author, Teller-of-Tall-Tales” to read her post and say hi! Here’s Cage’s blog: https://cagedunn.wordpress.com/

Messing about

Every day

magical moments

of fun and play

racing home

in time for tea

endless summers

Special memories

#JusJotJan 2018. January 2nd Boisterous

January 2, 2018February 12, 2019/Judy E Martin/12 Comments

I love that Linda has the Just Jot it January Challenge to start off the year. This is the 3rd year that I have taken part, and it is one of those challenges that I actually look forward to. It is not only because it gives us all to kick-start our writing, but because it is something of a community effort, with regards to all of us being given the opportunity of suggesting the prompt words. Poor old Linda still does the hard work though of posting the prompts daily and keeping us in order!

Anyway without further ado, here is today’s prompt word.

Your prompt for January 2nd, 2018, brought to you by Dan Antion, is “Boisterous.” Use it any way you’d like in your post. And make sure you visit Dan at his blog, “No Facilities,” to read his post and say hi! He’s very friendly. ? Here’s his link: https://nofacilities.com/

On Christmas Day afternoon Me, Miss Hap and Mr Grump went to my sister (Mrs Masterchef) and brother-in-law’s (Mr Musician). We were lucky in that they hadn’t dished out the silly ‘table presents’ that they like to wrap up. My brother (Mr Entrepreneur) and his girlfriend (Ms Glam) were there too, and we all chose a random package to unwrap.

Things got pretty loud and boisterous as we tried on some of the wacky wigs and weird masks. The ‘fart extinguisher’ I unwrapped came in handy with the amount of wind produced by the Brussels sprouts and stuffing balls we had all consumed during our respective Christmas dinners!

Mr Grump looked rather fetching in his ‘pearl necklace’, but Miss Hap seemed unimpressed with her nasal hair trimmer for some reason. Mr Musician’s ‘beer goggles’ went well with the George cross wig.

Then it was time to play the ‘Beat The Into’ quiz. We played in our respective couples with Miss Hap supposedly helping Mr Grump and me out. This was great fun despite the inevitable arguments about rules, counters getting ‘accidentally’ knocked off the board and partners falling out over a difference of opinion on answers. Not that any of us are competitive about our musical knowledge of course. As it happens, I won, (Sorry, my team won), as the quiz was mostly around 90s music and earlier which is right up my street!

Round 2 of the game was even more boisterous due to everyone trying to beat us, and Mr Musician and Mrs Masterchef (cheated) won the 2nd game!

Miss Hap was probably the best behaved – and that is saying something!

The Christmas Tag

December 20, 2017/Judy E Martin/17 Comments

I have been nominated by the lovely Ritu of But I Smile Anyway to take part in The Christmas Tag. I have been getting into the Christmas spirit lately so am thrilled to have a go. Thanks Ritu! 🙂

Related image

Thank the person that nominated you with a link to their blog
Add the picture in your blog
Copy these rules into your post
Add a link to this original post (littlediyprojects.wordpress.com/thechristmastag)
Answer the 10 questions (you can add e:-)xtra Christmas-related questions if you want)
Tag at least 3 other bloggers with links to their blogs
Have fun!

The Questions:

1. What’s your favourite thing about Christmas?
2. What’s your favourite Christmas memory?
3. Are there special traditions your family has for Christmas?
4. What’s your Christmas wish? (Can be personal or general)
5. What’s your favourite Christmas dish?
6. What’s your favourite Christmas decoration?
7. What’s your favourite Christmas song?
8. Where do you usually celebrate Christmas?
9. What does the ‘Christmas Spirit’ mean to you?
10. Who out of anybody in the world would you want to spend your Christmas with?

The Answers

1. I love the Christmas music, not just the old classics that get trotted out every year like Slade and Wizzard (although they always make me smile), but I love a Christmas carol too, and despite not being overly religious I love the Christingle service that the church does for little children, it is beautiful.
2. My favourite Christmas memory is being with the family playing charades, laughing at the rude ones and also at my Mum always shouting out the answers to the wrong team!
3. We did have special traditions when we were kids. As well as opening our main Christmas presents in the morning, we would all buy each other little presents, often joke or useful ones that we would call ‘tree presents’ which we would dish out when we all got together Christmas teatime. There was always a lot of hilarity as we squashed into the front room opening things like posing pouches, a ‘jewel’ encrusted dustpan and brush, and of course the inevitable pair of underpants that my Mum had wrapped up for one of the boys that went to me or my sisters or knickers that went to one of my brothers!
4. My Christmas wish for everyone is, of course, peace and tolerance for one another.
5. My favourite Christmas dish is, pigs in blankets, and turkey, oh and gammon, or perhaps the cold meat, mash and pickles we have on Boxing day!
6. I have a few baubles that my daughter made at nursery that go on the tree every year, and I love sparkly lights too, in fact, our hallway with its ice blue lights look very pretty. I will post a pic at the end.
7. Well, my favourite Christmas carol is ‘Away in a Manger’ especially when sung by children, and my favourite song is Boney M’s ‘ Mary’s Boy Child (Oh, My Lord).
8. This year we will be spending it at home, although in the past it has been with my sisters or mum.
9. The ‘Christmas spirit’ to me means showing warmth and compassion to people, and being aware that not everyone enjoys this time of year for one reason or another.
10. I am happy spending Christmas with family.

Here are my nominees, that I would love to join in, however, I appreciate that you are all busy and might not have chance to participate, so no pressure!

Hugh

Sue

Sally

#SoCS Which, Witch, and Wich

October 28, 2017/Judy E Martin/7 Comments

Linda has gone all out this week for our Stream of Consciousness posts and has given us which, witch and wich to use. We have to start out posts with which and get witch in somewhere too for some bonus points but if we try being clever and write which witch is which, then we lose all our points!

[clickToTweet tweet=”Which word is synonymous with Halloween to you? #SoCS” quote=”Which word is synonymous with Halloween to you?”] Is is vampire, ghost, zombie, or witch? Perhaps it is pumpkin or Trick or Treat that you associate with Halloween. When I was younger we never dressed up or went Trick or Treating as it was something that just didn’t exist at that time, or if it did I was not aware of it! We played games like apple bobbing and frightened each other stupid with ghost stories instead. We were then too frightened to sleep but knew we had to by midnight or the witches might get us!

It doesn’t take long for times to change though. When my daughter was small I used to dress her up and we would go Trick or Treating, as she loved it! The square where we live and the streets nearby has loads of children so Halloween was a very busy night. The doorbell would be going every few minutes and the huge bowl of sweets would have to be refilled before we finally had to admit defeat at around 7pm when there was nothing left, and put a note on the door. No matter how many sweets we bought every year, we would still run out so early!

I never used to decorate much, but we always had a pumpkin (usually that we had grown in the back garden), but when my daughter got to around seven years old, I succumbed to buying some, and it was fun trying to make the house look spooky; I love looking to see how everyone else has decorated their houses too.

Mind you, it is another tradition that has changed. It seems to be more about the sweets and treats now than the fun and frights that I remember. I know which I prefer!

You Know You Are Past It When……

October 20, 2017/Judy E Martin/45 Comments

You forgot what you did yesterday, and it wasn’t due to an over-indulgence of alcohol!”] I like to keep a diary which I have done for years. The problem is when I go to write it up; sometimes I forget what I have done and had to try to work my way backwards to jog my memory!
Instead of having a bit of ‘afternoon delight’ you end up nodding off! You know the scene, you have got the house to yourselves, a good couple of hours of uninterrupted time alone to do whatever you want, so you fall asleep on the settee!
The only time you wear something ‘trendy’, it is accidental. You are at that stage now where comfort is a must; forget fashion, you want practical! So when you do put on something that is trendy, it is more likely that after 20 years it is finally back in fashion!
You still talk about ‘records’,’discos’ and ‘going to the pictures’. Most of the youth of today do not know what a record is, and have never had the pleasure of listening to their favourite song jumping about all over the place where the record had become scratched or warped! Kids don’t go to discos (unless it is the school disco for some reason), they go to clubs (well at least I think so as I am way old to frequent such places)! I still talk about ‘going to the pictures to see a film.’ No, that is old hat. It is called a MOVIE. Pah!
You type out a text message in full. Now I am pretty ‘with it’ I know an emoticon when I see one, and I can even do a smiley face. However, I do not understand all this shorthand typing the young favour when sending a text. Even worse is the lack of punctuation!
You are getting ready to go to bed when the young are just getting ready to go out for the night! You know what it’s like you got up early, work was busy, by the end of the day you are shattered, and end up in bed no later than 10 pm! Now for young people, the night is just getting started at 10 pm. They have had a few drinks, and are raring to go, ready to have a good time. When you are getting up early the next morning (another sign of being past-it), they are just falling into their beds!
Your daughter tells you that her friends’ parents are all in their 30s and are so much more fun and laid back, you are the age of their fuddy-duddy grandparents with your practical clothes and sensible shoes designed for comfort rather than fashion.
You are always reminiscing about the ‘old days’! Yes, things were so much better back then, of course. Life was rosy, and we never got bored; just a stick and a bit of string and we were happy! Music was so much better, summers that much warmer and felt that they lasted longer. The problem is, your kids have heard it all before and are not impressed.

Pebble Pete #SillySaturday

October 14, 2017/Judy E Martin/Leave a comment

I have teamed up again with the talented Sandra (or Daffy as I like to call her), from Wild Daffodil to bring you another bit of silliness this Saturday. Sandra is incredibly artistic and creative, and I just love the images she has created out of shells, stones and flowers.

One of the nicest things about Sandra’s blog is that you never know what she is going to get up to next, from beach art, to knitted wigs, and mandalas to making spirals in her garden.

Here is our little story for this week. Meet a new character, Pebble Pete, who wants to introduce himself..and maybe his friends at a later date!

Hi Everybody, I’m Pebble Pete

The cheeriest chap you could hope to meet

The beach is where I spend my days

With my crew I like to play

We often meet up on the shore

For fun and games, never getting bored

Riding on the waves in the clear blue sea

You’ll find the Stone and the Shell family

I will introduce you to everyone

So you can join in with our fun

Whether in the sea or on the sand

I want to welcome you to Seaside Land!

[social_warfare]

Hugh’s Weekly Photo Challenge Week 12 – Games

February 14, 2016/Judy E Martin/28 Comments

For Hugh’ s weekly photo challenge this week, we were given ‘games’ which was chosen by Ronovan who is looking after Hugh’s blog whilst he is busy settling into his new place.

Now I like games, especially charades. Things can get pretty ugly in our family when the board games come out, though, as everyone loves to win, and although no one will admit it, they are all competitive.

However, the games I am going for are the video games. I have to say, I love the Sims games and can spend hours on them, I also get right into my CSI games too, pondering on the evidence and trying to find clues! I find them a great way to escape from ‘real life’ and lose myself for a while.

A Christmas ‘Thank you’

December 26, 2015/Judy E Martin/44 Comments

Christmas for me was waking up at 4.30! I had told Miss Hap not to wake me before at least 5.30 am but I couldn’t sleep, so went downstairs as quietly as I could. Not 2 minutes later I heard the galloping of excited footsteps, and she burst into the front room all wide-eyed and excited. Needless to say, we got stuck int to the business of present unwrapping!

My sister (Mrs Masterchef) and her husband (Mr Musician) were our hosts for Christmas dinner, and along with us, my mum and my niece were going to be there.

As always a huge amount of thought and organisation had gone into the day. From the personalised table settings to the egg tree decoration in the centre of the table (my sister had blown some eggs and decorated them in glitter, putting our names on each one, plus one for my niece’s bump) to the fantastic menu (turkey, beef and gammon).

Just before we were to eat, we sat around the table to partake in the ‘silly present’ giving that they love to do. We all get to pick a random present which is usually something funny. As you can see from the pics, Miss Hap had some lovely new ears, and my niece had some rather fetching ‘fly glasses’

I had been a little bit down when I first arrived, due to one thing and another, but Mrs Masterchef went out of her way to make me feel better, as did Mr Musician.

We had a brilliant day. The meal was superb.Not only did we have all that meat but there were sausages wrapped in bacon, home-made stuffing balls, the most massive Yorkshire puddings you ever saw, dauphinoise potatoes as well as roasties, and cauliflower with cashew nuts. To say we were stuffed was an understatement! In fact, there was no room even later on, for the chocolate and maraschino cherry trifle with Kirch.

My niece’s husband arrived around 5 pm as he works on the railways and had finished one night shift, and was about to start another. Mrs Masterchef had plated him up a meal which he tucked into whilst we all chatted together round the table.

Some of us braved the drizzle and wind to go for a walk with Milo their labrador as we needed to burn off a bit of room to be able to sit down comfortably! It was a pleasant walk, looking at all the Christmas lights around the neighbourhood as we went.

Once we got back it was into the front room to play some games. Miss Hap got ‘Articulate’ for Christmas this year from my mum, so we started with that. Well, once we had argued over the rules that is! We had a few laughs with that especially as mum didn’t quite get the gist of the game at first and gave some rather bizarre clues that no-one had a hope fo guessing!

Around 10 pm we were all tired and came home. My sister and her husband must have been exhausted but they never gave any indication of it.

I know my sister reads my blog, and although I have thanked her, I just wanted to share with everyone just how much of a star she really is. Her own daughter and step-children were doing their own things this year, so her and Mr Musician could have just spent Christmas on their own, or gone away, but being the type of people they are, they wanted to share it with family, and make everyone else’s day special which they certainly did.

Episode 148: Family Night…..

February 6, 2015/Judy E Martin/4 Comments

The weekend is upon us. The time for families to spend quality time together enjoying each other’s company….not in our house!

We all started off sitting together in the front room having dinner, then Miss Hap got a call afterwards from a school friend, She decided that they needed to ‘face time’ each other as talking is obviously not enough (neither is the fact that she was just with her at school a few hours previously) and she clomped off upstairs to get some privacy!

I remember those days when younger and my friends would phone on the weekend. My Mum and step-dad would moan loudly about ‘bloody kids’ phoning up when we only saw them 5 minutes ago. We didn’t have the luxury of a cordless phone and the cable wasn’t that long either. That normally meant sitting in the front room trying to talk to your friend whilst getting withering glances from the others as you were disturbing their TV viewing pleasure!

Privacy was not an option. If you were lucky, you might be able to yank the phone out to the hall and sit on the stairs for 5 minutes, before being yelled at to ‘get off the bloody phone’ – even if your friend called you! Those were the days!

Mt Grump has plonked himself in front of the (blaring) TV with a few beers, to watch the Rugby. It is England V Wales, and is being played in his home town of Cardiff. The rest of the family are English, and he has been getting a few texts from them commiserating over Wales’ inevitable trouncing by England even though it hasn’t started yet! In fact we are being treated to a light show of dizzying brilliance.

I am sat at my laptop trying to block out the bloody racket coming from the TV. My headphones have blocked out about 50% of it, but no doubt I will still hear the shouts if Wales score, or the swearing if England do!

Good old technology. where would we be with out it?…..Probably all sitting around playing a board game and spending quality family time together no doubt!!!

Episode 89: A Party Is Not A Party Without A Hedgehog!

January 5, 2015/Judy E Martin/12 Comments

Yesterday as I was feeding one of my old ladies her pudding of jelly and ice cream, it got me thinking about party food. (Yes my mind constantly wanders to food, and I don’t usually need any prompting either)! I’m talking about the good old party food of yesteryear.

Nowadays kids’ birthday parties are a bit of a minefield. You have to send out the right invitations, which are to include at least half the class. spend a small fortune on entertainment, (bouncy castles, magicians, ds or whatever), or go to a venue that specialises in holding birthday parties, like soft play areas, the bowling alley, or even having a go at the laser gun experience! Whatever you choose, make sure you provide the good old party bag crammed with goodies, or there will be many disappointed kids, and you will not be popular with their parents either.

Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned birthday party, like the ones we had as kids (Well, if you are as old as me you did)! I’m talking about getting your best party outfit on, and trotting off with a present that had been thoughtfully picked, and wrapped nicely. There were probably only about another 4 or 5 kids there, plus the family of the birthday child, but you still enjoyed yourselves.

The spread was always my favourite (and still is). I love all the little picky bits, cocktail sausages on sticks, vol-au-vents with tinned salmon, or even egg mayonnaise (who has those nowadays?), I love the wobbly jellies that had been moulded into bunny shapes or something fancy, the blancmange, the little triangle sandwiches with ham, or paste or sandwich spread (you can actually still get that)! The pork pies, cut into little pieces, home-made sausage rolls and jam tarts, (my mouth is watering just thinking about it all laid out on the table), and finally the piece de resistance the cheese and pineapple chunk hedgehog! Oh yes, a party is not a party without a spud wrapped in tin foil that is studded with cocktail sticks containing chunks of cheese and (tinned) pineapple! Actually some people used little pickled onions with cheese, Either way,my happiness was complete once I has spotted that on the table!

The games were simple but fun. Pass the Parcel was the favourite. One of the adults would put a record whilst the parcel was being passed around then it would abruptly stop and a tussle would begin as to who unwrapped the layer. Similarly In Musical Chairs, once the music had stopped there would be a load of pushing and shoving as to who sat down on the chairs. Musical Statues was less of a contact game,but a scrap could still break out over who moved first!

Ahhh yes, the fun we used to have! There was none of this ‘everyone has to win something’ malarky. Oh no, if you lost, then tough! Harsh maybe but it ‘built character’. There were a few sad faces not to mention scratched records by the end of the games! Tucking into the food, soon put a smile back on the kids’ faces and they happily sang ‘Happy Birthday’ whilst the (usually home made) birthday cake was brought in.

I think it’s such a shame that on the whole, these parties rarely exist, and everything has become so commercialised now, plus expectations are so much more, I have to say they have not been entirely forgotten though. Over the years, I have given Miss Hap the modern version of the birthday party which she enjoys with her friends, but I always do a little ‘birthday tea’ for the family, where I have of course got a cheese and pineapple hedgehog in pride of place at the table, surrounded by all the other party food I like!

Rhyme and No Reason!

Blogger, author and rhymester who likes to find the humour in life.

Tag: games

#JusJotJan 2018. January 5th Memories

#JusJotJan 2018. January 2nd Boisterous

The Christmas Tag

#SoCS Which, Witch, and Wich

You Know You Are Past It When……

Pebble Pete #SillySaturday

Hugh’s Weekly Photo Challenge Week 12 – Games

A Christmas ‘Thank you’

Episode 148: Family Night…..

Episode 89: A Party Is Not A Party Without A Hedgehog!

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Blogger, author and rhymester who likes to find the humour in life.

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