A life on the Ocean Wave !

The Royal Yacht"

There were always fresh flower arrangements to be seen in the rooms on the yacht, thanks to the chiller room on board, and freezer Lorries could be seen queuing along side before any voyage replenishing stocks of food for the meals or indeed banquets ,the queen played host ,on board when visiting foreign countries it was all carefully planned with the controller and the Queen ,they had to be mindful of the customs and ethnicity , The many beautiful place settings were also stored aboard ,the very best set was solid gold ,and was kept in the bullion room ,and had to be signed for every step of the way from the bullion room to the table , the next best setting was silver ,and the third ,to quote Charles was ‘common old Wedgwood ‘ When dining informally he told us the Queen preferred simple dishes ,much as we would eat at home ,and always small portions. If they were at sea for any length of time supplies would be flown to near the yacht and retrieved from the sea by the boats .Charles goes on to tell us about the head chef who had trained at the Savoy hotel, his name was Ron Aubrey, and weighed about twenty four stone and was six foot tall, he and his staff in the kitchens didn’t wear the traditional chefs hats because on board ship they would have swept the ceilings ,but wore cap like head gear ,with no peak ,Charles told us ,compared to Ron, Gordon Ramsey ,was like a Sunday school teacher !

There was always a Royal Marine band aboard, to entertain on foreign shores, and the crew had many social activities them selves not least the all-time favourite ‘Uckers ‘(Ludo)Charles can remember being able to phone his wife in Yorkshire  one Christmas day from the arctic circle               

Charles said, he so admired the pilot who navigated the yacht, across the seas throughout all conditions, amongst other crafts, in and out of harbours past harbour walls! With out a scratch, and when you consider the gold decorative line around the Yacht, is actually all gold leaf that is no mean feat.

He said, should you encounter any one of the Royals as you go about your duties aboard, you simply step to one side to let them pass, they often share a few words, and have an amazing capacity for remembering names .I think we all know how sad the royal family were when it was decided to retire Britannia which is now birthed at Leith in Edinburgh .

So there you are at last the rest of the talk from my WI meeting a week last Monday ,I got there in the end !

Thankyou all for your lovely messages yesterday for my Birthday yesterday,and thankyou to dear Kath and Lynne whose cards came today ,so my birthday continues..I like it !

File manager is playing up today ,so I am not going to risk losing this entry by trying any more to find a siggy ....so as ever.......... love to you all ....Jan xx

What a Day !

Yet again Donna gets it right !

I am so Blessed ,and have had such a lovely day ,as you will see from the pictures at the top of the page ,I received some lovely cards and presents from all my dear friends and family .

This lovely graphic came in an email from my/our dear friend Jeannette(jottings )Jeannette (travels )sent an email and a b/day card ,Joan(anirajac)IMd me ,both my daughters rang me up, so did Jean my sister ,and as you know my friend Debbie knitted me a scarf ,and along with all my dear friends in the ADC group I belong to sent lots of B/day wishes and graphics and siggys for me .Linda and Gabby in Washington along with dear Sugar also sent greetings ,I am bound to have forgotten somebody ,but I have saved them all ' save as new ' because I plan to go back and read them all again ....and again ! So thankyou so much everyone .

Aunty Kitty is still hanging on in there ,and we thankyou all for your good wishes for her .of course at her age we cant get to comfortable with her slight improvement.

I continue to be busy ,last week I was at the golf club for a lovely dinner when the WI celebrated its nintieth birthday,Maurice and I went to St Ives ( the Cambridgeshire one ! ),and of course we were visiting Aunty Kitty ,my family came to visit at the weekend .I was at the news letter meeting yesterday ,and on Thursday I have another meeting to attend 'complaints and complements' this time .I learned that a fellow member of the group Maurice ,yes another one ! reads my journal ,so I shall have to careful what I say hee hee ! I learned also that Barbara ,another member of the team,a lovely lady also has a Birthday today ,as well as my neices little daughter Rachel ,will be seven today ,she is Jeans Grand daughter and I hope she has a lovely day ,I know I know ,you still havent read the rest of the Royal Yacht story ,I DID attempt to do it the other day with pictures but it kept getting lost ,so you know! if at first you dont succeed ...give up ! 

Maurice is at work tonight and tomorrow night ,then he has twelve days off ,trying to get his holidays in before the end of March ...so now Have a lovely evening every one with love from 

                          

What a week !

Sorry its taken me some time to get the next part of Charles Pickering’s story to you , we have had an anxious week ,at lunch time on Monday, we had a phone call from Tina ,the manager of the home that Aunty Kitty(Maurice’s Aunty) is in ,to say that Aunty Kitty is really very ill ,Michael and Jackie(Maurice’s brother and sister in law) were with her  ,as was the priest who had come to the home to administer the last rites ,the ambulance was called and she was being to admitted  to hospital ,We really didn’t expect her to survive she is very frail ,and the bug she had succumbed too ,was particularly virulent, she was put on a drip ,and given strong antibiotics as well as fluids ,was being barrier nursed and when we went to see her yesterday ,we donned aprons and gloves ,She looked so frail , like a little girl, lying there ,but perked up when she saw us ,still looking very poorly, but still with her sense of humour, Maurice was singing one of her favourites to her,’ I’d like to get you on a slow boat to China ,”I Don’t want to go to China today!”, she said   We both decided she isn’t out of the wood yet .But she’s a tough old girl so we continue to pray.

Now its Friday late afternoon, Michael has just rung, to say tests have been done and Aunty Kitty is now free of the bug, and is going back to the care home this evening, I suppose they need the beds! ! !     I won’t forget I owe you the second part of Life on Britannia..

Janxx

 

The WI Speaker

Grabbed Prince Charles by the seat of his pants!

As promised,……..I went to WI last evening, and yes as anticipated, the speaker was so interesting, Charles Pickering, a lovely Yorkshire man, told us how he left school at fourteen and ran away to sea, for fifteen to eighteen months he was on a trawler, fishing off Iceland from Scarborough, getting fed up with the cold icy rigging etc.He decided to join the navy proper, he went of to The Royal navy training ‘ship ‘Gangees(this is not actually a ship but a training college for sailors )in due course, he went to sea on Vesuvius, which he said ,did erupt from time to time !it was a coal burning ship and when on shore the sailors would all don over alls and help to load the hold with wicker baskets containing coal, and got absolutely black and dusty .All this time training to be a chef. And was over in Korea, during the time of the war over there .In due course Charles received a signal to attend HMS Drake in Plymouth, for interviews lasting a week, he was interviewed by many branches of the civil service, policemen, and of course captains and an admiral .This was to set up to recruit an initial crew, to advice on the fitting out of the proposed Royal Yacht Britannia ,Charles and the rest of the crew left Euston station London ,slung their hammocks in the guards van ,and slept their way ,to Glasgow ,from there to John Browns shipyard on the Clyde ,

The Britannia’s first voyage was to Tobruck, where the Princess Elizabeth and her husband had been on a tour prior to her Coronation, and on board were, the then very young Prince Charles and Princess Anne, who were going out to join their parents the children were each given a young sailor whose job it was to act as body guards to the mischievous youngsters, and Charles remembers catching hold of a speeding little Prince Charles as he darted towards a lift, by the seat of his pants. To save him from falling down.

It was at this point that we had a power cut, in the Methodist Hall where we have our meetings, it turned out that the power was off all over the town, oh the joys of living out here in the Fens! And by torch light Charles continued his talk ….but I am going to end the entry here and continue another time with the rest of the story ....so have a good Evening every one Jan xx

 

 

 

February fill dyke ( with snow)

Yes, the snow came this morning as forecast ,and you can see from the pictures I took from the patio door ,I didnt  venture out ! as you would expect the country has closed ! We dont cope well with a couple of inches of snow ,Schools are closed so are are many airports and roads ,numerous accidents have been reported on the news ,Maurice rang earlier and said there was no snow when he left for work at six oclock this morning ,but when I woke up about eight thirty ,we had had the results of what you see in my pictures ,I hope the roads have been treated before Maurice comes home tonight

I had a lovely surprise in the post this morning,My Grandson Stuart and his Fiancee' Vicki ,have sent out their wedding invitations ,the envelope arrived complete with a sealing wax seal on the back .as I opened the invitation up ,I was showered with confettii ,can you see an example of some of it in front of the invite ? Bless them ,and I didnt think I would need to vacuum today !

I had a nice surprise Debbie came round bearing gifts ! she really has the knitting bug,after making the lovely scarf for herself ,she has made me one too ,just the same colour as my suede coat ,knitting hey there is no stopping her now ,two scarves in less than a week !

I will close here I seem to have been on this computer all day ,Every thing has been really slow ,at least we can look our American friends  in the eye, now we have our snow, some of them have been struggling from it for weeks now ,So stay safe stay warm every one ...with love

                       

Saturday Evening

Here we are Saturday again ,I went up to the town this morning ,with my trolley to buy my vegetables from the market stall ,all localy grown and taste so much better ,than all the supermarket prewrapped stuff (much more environmentaly friendly too ! )I also took a stainless steel wine rack that we dont use any more to the charity shop .and resisted the urge to buy anything from there ,though I'm sure if Id seen some thing I liked enough, I would have done !

               

The pictures at the top ,I took today too ,remember the flower shop pictures I took at Christmas the theme then was the Snow Queen ,the latest display is for valentines day ,and again really lovely .Those of you that read my friend Debbies journal  http://journals.aol.co.uk/drb1064/whatever ,will know that we had the morning in Huntingdon yesterday ,and I bought some earring wires to make some ear rings with my new bead packs that Maurice bought me from the sale at his work ,so any time now I will be having a go !

            

I havent seen Debbie today ,though she lives just round the corner ,we dont live in each others pockets ,but we each know the other is there ,and when we are together never stop talking ,in spite of the age difference we have lots in common ,we both enjoy reading ,though not the same sort of books ,we both enjoy our computers ,and since Deb started her journal even more. Imagine her surprise last May when she saw me on the AOL  welcome page ,and that was when we started to become friends .

                    

I had a lovely chat on the phone , with our friend Jeannette(Travels) last evening ,we were both surprised to learn we hadnt spoken to each other since before Christmas ,she was telling me of her plans ,for her travels this year ,and since she is planning to meet up with some more of our journal friends ,I can foresee some extremely interesting journal entrys in the coming year .

             

I am going to have my supper now ,then its my knitting and the tele ,Have a good evening every one ,with love from

Pinch Punch !

Hello again every one ,did you say Rabbits this morning ? its what we say at the beginning of the month for luck ! Well yes here we are in February ,so 2007 is now well under way .It is my birthday month , not too sure about that however as I will be 66 and thats heading towards 70 ,and at the rate the time  is flying by ...Oh lets change the subject !

Maurice has just gone off to work ,his few days holiday flew by ,but he has more days to fit in before March so will be off again soon ,He got some stuff done around the house ,and we went shopping ,and to the Sunday market ,and he had a days fishing with my brother in law Pete ,they did well, caught lots of fish ,but it was very cold ,certainly too cold for me to go  with him yet a while .

I have a number of dates in my diary for this month ,on Monday we have the news letter meeting ,for the spring edition , I'll have to put on my thinking cap for that ,then on the Wednesday it will be the over sixties club ,the following Monday ,is WI , when the speaker is to be ''Life on the Royal Yacht ''by a Mr Charles Pickering I am looking forward to that ...I bet it will be interesting and then on the fourteenth of February the WI  in this town will be ninety years old so we are having a celebratery dinner at the local golf club ,another gathering of the Complaints and compliments group on the twenty second ,so February looks as though it will be busy for me .

I have spent ages this afternoon deleting stuff from my file manager in order to add more ,but oh it was slow ,has any one else experianced this ?I put all the ones I have used today into an email to use on my entry ,and guess what ? we had a power cut ,not for long ! just long enough to have lost the bally lot and  have to start all over again ,Happy days !!

I am looking forward to the final part of ''Five Days ''tonight and have to tape it for Maurice .Has anyone been watching ''You dont know you are born ''? its the ITV's version of ''Who do you think you are '',I dont think its quite as good as the BBC's version ,but still watchable ....and so I will now make my self something to eat ,before I settle down with my knitting and the tele ,Have a good evening every one ,with love from....