When they left this morning and Uncle Bruce said "bye-bye birdie', I didn't realise he was leaving.. like going home to his home.. sigh. Never mind, perhaps he will come back in the Summer, he had to go back as he has 3,500 cards to print for the Isle of Man Post Office, they're to celebrate the Chinese New Year which is happening in January.
It is going to be the Year of the Monkey.. MY year! Yes, I'm a monkey and this means that I'll be twelve this year.. twelve.. almost a teenager! Gulp, my mama looked a trifle nervous when she realised this, especially as all teenagers are known to be slightly 'tricky', are they not?
She did something awful today, you know he had got blisters on his blisters from walking, well, she turned the wrong way out of London Bridge Station at midday and they walked four sides of the big square, ie a veryvery long way, to get to Borough Market, which is less than five minutes walk if you come out the right way.
He had the blisters PLUS his bag.. bad mama.. and, to cap her stupidity, the Goaty folk weren't there! She'd read the goaty website information incorrectly and thought they'ed be there today.. BUB and the Goaty mum are friends.. they had to make do with a pit stop for lunch, then go back underground to get him to Victoria Station where he had a train to catch to Gatwick for his flight home to the Isle of Man.
She's come home to strip his bed, wash his sheets and whilst they're in the machine, she went to collect a package from MailBoxEtc. "Oooh GeeGee.. LOOK! That's probably the most wonderful Christmas gift we've ever had", she wrote a 'thank you' note, put a first class stamp on it and then scampered out of the flat and up the stairs to catch the afternoon's post.
Presents of this magnitude are not acknowledged by e:mail.. oh, no. Thought and love and friendship have gone into the purchase of this gift.. it's brilliant.
What else is or was brilliant was the jaunt that she and BUB took yesterday. Bruce, clever sleuth that he is, had found out that their great aunt Constance (after whom her mother is named) and Ambrose, the father of this great aunt, are buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Northwood.
First find Holy Trinity church.. they took a train from Baker Street and went overland towards Amersham and after gambling that it was Northwood they wanted and not Northwood Hills, they got off and were greatly helped by a man who called his wife, she, bless her, knew exactly where Trinity church was and was able to direct them on a 20 - 25 minute walk.. hence BUB's blisters upon the existing blister.
They arrived at a small old church, surrounded by a neat and tidy graveyard which was full of graves! They hazarded a guess and started off on the left hand side, mama walking a different route to her cousin and after about ten minutes, she was trying to decipher some lettering when she looked across a grave to see Amb... M.... Hoop..! Eureka.. "Bruce, I've found them" and there, sure enough, were Constance Jane Hooper and Ambrose Miller Hooper.
They stood together and looked at the grave, after many years of probably no-one from the family being there, it felt strange (but a good strange) to know they were standing in exactly the same place that Ambrose and his wife, Constance, had stood when they buried their only daughter, Constance Jane, in 1902 and where, of course, Frederick Ehmed, (known as FE) Ambrose's son and his fiancée Florence (Flo) Shiel and Constance had stood when they buried Ambrose in 1907.
FE and Flo married four months after his father's death and went out to Madras. Constance, his widowed mother, remained in England.
The hunt's now on for George Hooper, FE's brother. BUB thinks that he may have been the family member who lived up on the Shropshire / Welsh border, for that's where Robert aka Bob, his father and his two siblings spent a lot of time.
All three children, Leslie 1908, Robert aka Bob (BUB's father) 1910 and Constance (my mama's mother) 1917 were born in Madras, they each came to England at the age of six to be educated and only saw their parents every four years when they sailed home. (NO air flights in those days).
I hope that you've worked out that she didn't meet her two brothers until she was six and brought back to England by her mother.. Leslie was then fifteen and Bob was thirteen, a great deal older than a little six year old girl!
They were ALL sent to strict boarding schools, the boys to Marlborough College where FE had gone and Constance to St.Margaret's, Birchington, Kent and they didn't return 'home' to India until they were grown-up.
Their holidays were spent in Norfolk with their mother's sister who was married to a Vicar, up on the Welsh borders with a Hooper relative.. perhaps George? And one (ghastly) holiday per year had to be spent with the 'Witch'.. their incredibly strict Grandmother, the widowed Constance.
OI VEY.. I tell you, Dear Readers, that she, even with her very strict parents, shivers at the way her mother and her two uncles were 'brought' up..
Anyway, the grave needs attention and she'll be off to meet the Canon, who is the person with whom she has to speak..
So there you are and here she is.. with a machine load of ironing to do tomorrow. Christmas is over, she's got a mass of work to do but cannot do any of it until Wizard comes to build the inside storage units of the secret stashroom. So next up is New Year's Eve.. 2016 and The Year of the Monkey.
What sign are you in the Chinese Astrological Calender? To be precise, I'm a Wooden Monkey and she's a Metal Tiger, we're supposed to be mortal enemies. But she is not her parent's child for nothing and she's strict, however, she's softer with me than with people, she learnt as a young child with the family's pets that you must 'bend', be less strict and to remember that I, like all her animals, have a spirit which must never be broken.
I love her, she's 'mama', she always puts my well-being before hers, we are.. the two of us.
GeeGee Parrot.
December 29th, 2015.
It is going to be the Year of the Monkey.. MY year! Yes, I'm a monkey and this means that I'll be twelve this year.. twelve.. almost a teenager! Gulp, my mama looked a trifle nervous when she realised this, especially as all teenagers are known to be slightly 'tricky', are they not?
She did something awful today, you know he had got blisters on his blisters from walking, well, she turned the wrong way out of London Bridge Station at midday and they walked four sides of the big square, ie a veryvery long way, to get to Borough Market, which is less than five minutes walk if you come out the right way.
He had the blisters PLUS his bag.. bad mama.. and, to cap her stupidity, the Goaty folk weren't there! She'd read the goaty website information incorrectly and thought they'ed be there today.. BUB and the Goaty mum are friends.. they had to make do with a pit stop for lunch, then go back underground to get him to Victoria Station where he had a train to catch to Gatwick for his flight home to the Isle of Man.
She's come home to strip his bed, wash his sheets and whilst they're in the machine, she went to collect a package from MailBoxEtc. "Oooh GeeGee.. LOOK! That's probably the most wonderful Christmas gift we've ever had", she wrote a 'thank you' note, put a first class stamp on it and then scampered out of the flat and up the stairs to catch the afternoon's post.
Presents of this magnitude are not acknowledged by e:mail.. oh, no. Thought and love and friendship have gone into the purchase of this gift.. it's brilliant.
What else is or was brilliant was the jaunt that she and BUB took yesterday. Bruce, clever sleuth that he is, had found out that their great aunt Constance (after whom her mother is named) and Ambrose, the father of this great aunt, are buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Northwood.
First find Holy Trinity church.. they took a train from Baker Street and went overland towards Amersham and after gambling that it was Northwood they wanted and not Northwood Hills, they got off and were greatly helped by a man who called his wife, she, bless her, knew exactly where Trinity church was and was able to direct them on a 20 - 25 minute walk.. hence BUB's blisters upon the existing blister.
They arrived at a small old church, surrounded by a neat and tidy graveyard which was full of graves! They hazarded a guess and started off on the left hand side, mama walking a different route to her cousin and after about ten minutes, she was trying to decipher some lettering when she looked across a grave to see Amb... M.... Hoop..! Eureka.. "Bruce, I've found them" and there, sure enough, were Constance Jane Hooper and Ambrose Miller Hooper.
They stood together and looked at the grave, after many years of probably no-one from the family being there, it felt strange (but a good strange) to know they were standing in exactly the same place that Ambrose and his wife, Constance, had stood when they buried their only daughter, Constance Jane, in 1902 and where, of course, Frederick Ehmed, (known as FE) Ambrose's son and his fiancée Florence (Flo) Shiel and Constance had stood when they buried Ambrose in 1907.
FE and Flo married four months after his father's death and went out to Madras. Constance, his widowed mother, remained in England.
The hunt's now on for George Hooper, FE's brother. BUB thinks that he may have been the family member who lived up on the Shropshire / Welsh border, for that's where Robert aka Bob, his father and his two siblings spent a lot of time.
All three children, Leslie 1908, Robert aka Bob (BUB's father) 1910 and Constance (my mama's mother) 1917 were born in Madras, they each came to England at the age of six to be educated and only saw their parents every four years when they sailed home. (NO air flights in those days).
I hope that you've worked out that she didn't meet her two brothers until she was six and brought back to England by her mother.. Leslie was then fifteen and Bob was thirteen, a great deal older than a little six year old girl!
They were ALL sent to strict boarding schools, the boys to Marlborough College where FE had gone and Constance to St.Margaret's, Birchington, Kent and they didn't return 'home' to India until they were grown-up.
Their holidays were spent in Norfolk with their mother's sister who was married to a Vicar, up on the Welsh borders with a Hooper relative.. perhaps George? And one (ghastly) holiday per year had to be spent with the 'Witch'.. their incredibly strict Grandmother, the widowed Constance.
OI VEY.. I tell you, Dear Readers, that she, even with her very strict parents, shivers at the way her mother and her two uncles were 'brought' up..
Anyway, the grave needs attention and she'll be off to meet the Canon, who is the person with whom she has to speak..
So there you are and here she is.. with a machine load of ironing to do tomorrow. Christmas is over, she's got a mass of work to do but cannot do any of it until Wizard comes to build the inside storage units of the secret stashroom. So next up is New Year's Eve.. 2016 and The Year of the Monkey.
What sign are you in the Chinese Astrological Calender? To be precise, I'm a Wooden Monkey and she's a Metal Tiger, we're supposed to be mortal enemies. But she is not her parent's child for nothing and she's strict, however, she's softer with me than with people, she learnt as a young child with the family's pets that you must 'bend', be less strict and to remember that I, like all her animals, have a spirit which must never be broken.
I love her, she's 'mama', she always puts my well-being before hers, we are.. the two of us.
GeeGee Parrot.
December 29th, 2015.
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