Do you or your family make any special dishes for the holidays?
Until I was 15 my family did all the same things most other American families did when holidays occurred – Easter eggs at Easter, BBQs on the 4th of July and big family meals of turkey, stuffing, and sweet potatoes with marshmallows melted on top at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
In the autumn after my 15th birthday, we moved from Ohio to the UK and carried on celebrating Easter and Christmas but the others, we forgot. Holidays like the 4th of July, Halloween and Thanksgiving were American and we lived among the British. Relatively recently, Halloween celebrations and decorations have made their way across the Atlantic but the other two are not likely to be taken up by those in Britain; the 4th of July, after all, is a celebration of the USA separating itself from the rule of the British! Sadly, we didn’t have sweet potatoes and marshmallows any more because you couldn’t find sweet potatoes in England in the 1950s or 60s and marshmallows were always white and pink together – pink marshmallows on sweet potatoes? No way!
I can’t say I miss celebrating those holidays much but I do miss the sweet potatoes and marshmallows! I’m afraid I have a sweet tooth, though it has changed with the passing of years. I don’t tend to eat many sweet items beyond fruit, nowadays although I am very fond of a certain brand of dark chocolate bittermints. While I am dieting I try to save enough points to have a bittermint most days.
So, dear reader, the answer to the question posed in the prompt is not really. I try to have a turkey for Christmas dinner though turkeys aren’t all that special nowadays, and also my son-in-law has gout and can’t eat turkey as it is high in purines which are bad for gout sufferers. He can, though, eat chicken and will be cooking our Christmas meal this year! (Hooray! I won’t have to!)
Happy hols wherever you are and whatever you eat! Enjoy!
From my title, you may imagine that my favourite people are my family – and you would be right!
My most favourite person in the whole wide world is my daughter who is known in these posts as Veronica. My second most favourite person is Chloe, my lovely grand-daughter.
I’ll put Julian next – I don’t want him to feel left out again (see my post “These are a few of my Favourite Things”). Julian is quite handy to have around – he’s good at filling the dish washer and emptying it, he changes the light bulbs I can’t reach, he helps with shopping, drives me to appointments and, occasionally, listens to me when I want to tell him something! (I hope you realise, Julian, that I am being light-hearted and amusing in this post!)
Then comes my sister, Jennie, followed by my half siblings from another mother – Lindsay, Una, Alex and Robin (although I haven’t seen or heard from the latter since he was about six years old!)
After these close family members come the in-laws, then the friends I see fairly often and those with whom I message weekly or monthly.
Though I am old and have known many people, I haven’t kept up with many of the people I would have had as friends during those many years. All the friends I had in Zanesville when I was a child, have disappeared – some have died, others have moved away. I remember them all with fondness, though, with aphantasia, it is impossible for me to picture any of them.
Friends I had at high school or college in both America and England, have almost all disappeared, too. Sylvia lives in Ohio, I believe, Bob disappeared after he joined the Marines, Skip is/was an admiral in the US Navy and did not want to have any communication with those of us who knew him at school (I read). I am in contact with Nigel and with Tim but not with Colin or Barbara. And, there are so many people I’d love to find but have no way of beginning the search.
I’ve possibly left out someone who is very important and if I have, please accept my apologies. My excuse is, I’m old. The real reason is that I am hurrying to finish this as I’m meeting up with a group of friends in a few minutes to discuss the film Mr Burton – on Zoom. I may be old but I still am busy! Bye bye till next time!
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?
I think that the coolest thing I have ever found was the nerve to say no to my very controlling mother!
She wasn’t always so bad. When I was a child (between five and ten or so) we, Judy and I, were allowed to play in the neighbourhood. From my birth until I was 7 plus, we lived in Zanesville and most people knew us. We were allowed to go visiting friends down at the end of the street or across the road and I never heard her say, “Don’t go there.”
The first time she forbade us doing something was when my sister Judy was told not to ride her bike in the road because of the potential traffic – in 1950 there were few cars in the roads around us and fewer trucks (which Judy had trouble saying – the sound tr came out as f !). A friend or neighbour happened to see Judy riding her bike in a nearby road and nearly being hit by a truck. Not only did Judy have her bike removed, so did I! I was not pleased, but I understood. (We were never again to have bikes!)
We moved to Cincinnati when I was seven and life went on much as before. Judy and I walked ourselves to school and home again every day. I took myself to church on Sundays (not because I was religious but I wanted to sing in the choir). I would often go to visit my friend Carol who had a player piano with quite a few rolls of music. We used to put these rolls on and sing along. Our favourite was a song about a vagabond. After a while, Carol’s mum must have been sick of hearing us sing about vagabonds as we were forbidden to play the song again! (I wish I could remember that song but it is gone.)
Judy was a rebel. She once skipped school with her friend, Cathy. When questioned about it, Judy blamed it all on Cathy and I imagine Cathy blamed it all on Judy. After that, Judy had to stay with me during recess and before and after school so Patty knew where Judy was. (She trusted that I would not skip school – which I wouldn’t!)
Patty’s marriage wasn’t happy. We all knew that her husband, Bill, drank too much beer and was often in a bad mood, shouting and swearing and threatening. He often punished Judy, partly because she was a rebel but mainly I believe, because she didn’t like him and let him know it.
One day Patty decided she’d had enough and we went off to Reno where divorces were quicker to get. I’ve written about this before – see various other posts including ‘Where Did She Come From part one’ and ‘The Super Chief.’
After that, in 1958, something terrible happened in Patty’s life – the death of a man that Patty loved very much. That tragedy changed Patty. She began drinking a lot. She was in the last year of her degree in architecture and desperately wanted to finish it but had difficulty concentrating. This was when she started to rely on me, a 14 year old, to plan and cook meals – not entirely but enough to make me become the adult and herself the child from time to time. (Patty was 36)
She did finish her degree and got a job as a civilian architect with the US Navy, which brought us to England. We went to school at the American Air Force base in Bushy Park, west of London. We got to school and back by school bus which was usually quite fun. After two years we went to the crammers I have written about in ‘Where Does She Come From’ part three.
Patty was always happy if my friends came round to the flat but she was not always happy when I went out. I would have to tell her exactly where I was going, with whom and what time I’d be back. That’s okay for a fourteen or fifteen year old’s mother to ask but she kept demanding to know these things when I was eighteen or nineteen.
Once I went out with friends, including Shaun, a girl I had known for some years whom I had met at school. We went to a party in Crouch End, an area of North London. Why I rang Patty, I don’t know, but when I told her where I was and that I didn’t know the name of the person who was having the party, she demanded I come home straight away. She knew I was with friends whom she knew, but that made no difference.
Most young people would have refused; I went home. I was so conditioned by then, that I knew things would be worse if I didn’t. So, if I went to a party where I didn’t know the host, I just didn’t mention it any longer.
It didn’t get any easier when I was in my twenties, or my thirties! When we lived in West Malling, I hardly went out in the evening and if I did it was usually with members of my family. Patty was getting more demanding, though.
If she wanted to go around the corner to a dress shop (literally less than a hundred steps away from our front door) she would ask me to go with her. If she wanted a half bottle of whiskey or brandy or even sherry, she’d ask me to go to the off-licence* which was next door! I was her taxi driver, her personal shopper, her financial backer.
One day she asked me to go to the chemist to get her a bottle of a medicine called ‘Dr Collis Brown’. I went to the chemist, as I had before, and asked at the special chemist counter (where one handed in prescriptions) for a bottle of Dr Collis Brown. The chemist looked at me, standing in front of a few others who were waiting to see him, then said, “No. I won’t sell any more to you. You must be an addict!” and he showed me the place in his ‘Poisons Book’ where I had signed for Dr CB several times in the past.
I explained that it wasn’t for me but for my mother. He continued to refuse. Embarrassed, I turned away from the counter and went home. I didn’t set foot in that shop again until years later.
Another very embarrassing moment occurred one evening. I had a ‘date’, an almost unique experience when I lived in West Malling. He was, I seem to remember, a carpenter and I have no memory of how or where we met.
Patty had been drinking through the early part of the evening but seemed to be pleased that I was going out with a man. I was upstairs putting on the last bit of make-up when there was a knock at the door. Judy answered it, then called up the stairs for me. As I was walking down the stairs, Patty shouted out, “Remember, no f**king on a first date!”
Happily, I met Julian not many months after that. Still, I was asked to do shopping, accompany Patty to the doctor, etc until Julian and I bought a house in East Malling (a mile or so away from Patty’s house). She was not happy with my moving out. She had come to depend on a large share of my teacher’s salary to pay the bills and buy things. So, she decided to sell her cottage on the High Street and move to a small house in a terrace on a country road nearby.
In the time we were living apart, Patty would ring me three or four times a day! I had a few months’ relief when she went to America to visit her mother, then she and Judy came back and the telephone calls started again. Often, she would ring about five o’clock in the evening and ask me to pop into West Malling to get her a bottle of whiskey or whatever. One evening I said no. Patty argued but I was firm.
After that, Patty would ring the taxi company and ask them to pick up whatever she wanted and bring it to her. They didn’t mind; they made money. And I breathed a sigh of relief!
(I loved my mother when I was young. I was always proud of how young and ‘with it’ she was. I know that my having a baby without being married was a terrible worry for her, but we survived that. I came to the conclusion some years ago, that Patty really shouldn’t have had children. Her life could have been so rich if she had become an artist or if she had been born 50 years later when women were not always expected to get married and have children. Her upbringing in a wealthy family did not enable her to be a mother of three living on only a little money.
As we both grew older, I found it more and more impossible to ‘forgive’ Patty. Underneath, I hope I still loved her but it wasn’t like when I was a kid. As I get older, I still don’t understand some of the things she did. I’m just glad that I am not an alcoholic like I’m certain she was. We are not, definitely, our parents and that’s something that pleases ‘Veronica’!)
*Off licence – a place to buy alcoholic drinks to take away
Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?
Sitting here in 2025 and thinking about famous or infamous people I’ve known, I’ve previously written about the few ‘famous’ people I’ve met, but my memory tells me there’s no one in the infamous line – except for one fleeting introduction to a young man who turned up for the evening in the flat that I was visiting with my boyfriend at the time.
The word ‘Infamy’ would suggest that all the readers, at least the ones in England, would know of this gentleman, but I should imagine that very few will recognise the name of Aloysious ‘Lucky’ Gordon.
Mr Gordon was a friend of the much more infamous young woman called Christine Keeler. Put her name into Google and you may find an article or two about how she was at the heart of ‘The Profumo Affair’ in 1963 which caused embarrassment to the Conservative government.
If you are at all interested in these characters, do have a look online to find out more about them and the whole scandal that had London aghast in 1962/1963!
*(Thanks to Frank Muir and Dennis Norden; also Kenneth Williams. You can look this up too!)
I’m 82 and a half years old. If I live for those three years, I will be 85 and a half.
I can’t really imagine that life will be much different apart from the fact that I might not be alive.
Of course, if Mr Putin should happen to decide to bomb the UK, I might be under that bomb or another one. Not a lot to look forward to.
If the present Russian ‘Tsar’ doesn’t bomb the UK, maybe I will carry on living at the seaside and eating out once a week, ordering food, cooking food, walking Lola (who will be 12 years old – not so old for a small dog like she is) and enjoying the fact that I am still alive!
It’s really difficult to predict what one’s life will be like in three years when one is as old as I am.
Well, aside from http://www.whitehairedwoman.com, which is my absolute favourite, being my website, I like Google for looking up stuff, the NHS app for ordering my blood pressure tablets etc, and Tesco.com for my weekly shopping.
There are others I like which I don’t visit as often, like jigasaurus.com. Sometimes I like to go there and see what lovely jigsaws I haven’t got.
I don’t really buy old jigsaws any longer as I don’t have my own site now but, every once in a while, I go to an auction site and see a group of jigsaws that are very tantalising – and leave a commission bid. And, once in a while I am the winning bidder and it is then that I remember that the bid isn’t all I will have to pay! There’s the commission on the bid itself and also the postage and packing which can add up to more than my winning bid!
Another that I like is Amazon.co.uk. Since I gave up driving and with few shops within walking distance, I often need things I can’t get otherwise. I know that Mr Bezos really doesn’t need my pitiable sums as he has billions, but, at least, I am helping some people to keep their jobs and am buying things I need and having them delivered when I need them.
I used to spend many minutes a day on Facebook.com then transferred those minutes to Twitter.com, in the days before X. I am glad to say that I tired of Twitter before it became X! Mr Musk really doesn’t need my help to keep his children in the style to which they have always been accustomed and himself in ketamine (if the tales are true).
A website that I do visit every day is bookbub.com. This is mainly because every day they send me a list of books which I may be interested in buying and adding to my Kindle. It’s actually sent by Apple.com but, for some reason I almost always buy those that I want, from Amazon which always has the same books priced at 99p that are available on Apple. I think I like to buy them through Amazon as their website always tells me if I’ve already bought it! I hardly ever remember the names of the books that I’ve read, Sometimes I don’t even remember the name of the book I am currently reading!
Others that I like are in the form of apps on my iPad such as the weather, the news, tv channels, solitaire, and Wordle and other games on the New York Times games app.
So – asking me what is my favourite website doesn’t come with a simple answer, I’m afraid. If I am asked this question next November I might have a whole other list! Now, I’m stopping writing this – I want to go catch up on Miss Marple and Poirot!
When we came to England in 1958, no one dressed up and went trick or treating and so in our family we kids didn’t bother with getting dressed up and knocking on doors on the 31st of October.
In the 2000s, though, Halloween has become a thing, at least here in Broadstairs. Knowing it was going to be busy tonight, I bought two big boxes of sweets (each wrapped so fairly hygienic). I got out my witch’s mask with the big green nose, donned all black and added a long black coat, let my hair hang down, added my witch’s hat, put Lola on a lead so that she wouldn’t try to escape as she had done last year and I waited.
It wasn’t dark yet when the first little boy came to the door with his mum. I opened the door and he said “Trick or Treat!” I said something like, “Hello little boy. Do you want a sweetie?” in a cranky old witch voice. He grabbed one and ran down the driveway, mumbling “Thank you.”
Many, many children arrived at the door, almost all saying something like Trick or Treat or occasionally, Happy Halloween which, I don’t think is something that is said in America although it is almost 70 years since I spent a Halloween night over there so things may have changed.
Strangely, here in England, when the children say Trick or Treat, they seem to be asking me if I will give them a treat or play a trick on them – the total opposite of its meaning in America. I’m not going to point out their mistake, though, because someday, in the not too distant future, I may very well not be able to provide treats dressed as an old witch!
An interesting aside – I’ve been reading recently about the 6, 7 phenomenon, and, at the door this evening, a boy of about 8 ran up to me and said, “I’m going to tell you a joke. Six!”
And I burst out, “Six seven!“ He seemed to be equal parts thrilled that I knew his joke and sad because I knew his joke. I, on the other hand, was completely thrilled because I didn’t think I would ever have the chance!
It took less than an hour for all the sweets in both big boxes to have been taken, though each child was very well behaved and only took one from the box. I am torn between buying 4 big boxes next year and being quite happy to remove the mask and the long black coat, put up my hair and hide from all the kids running up and down the pavement after only and hour!
This is me with my costume on. The hat was good but kept falling off so I ditched it in the end!
What would you do if you lost all your possessions?
CRY!
Then I’d work out how to replace at least some of it.
At my age, I couldn’t go back to work.
On the other hand, my needs would be simple – something to eat, a few clothes to wear, a bed, several sheets, a pillow and pillow cases, a duvet and cover, something to read, glasses to see with, fingernail clippers to clip my nails, shoes, face cream, tooth brush, toothpaste, a water flosser, a comb and a brush, underwear and socks, a nightie or some pyjamas, a bag of some sort, a phone, some Gaviscon for when I get indigestion, my tablets, (amitriptyline, statins, blood pressure), paracetamol for headaches, an iPad, some paints, brushes and canvases, a palette, some painting knives, a kitchen scale so I don’t eat too much of the things that make me grow where I shouldn’t, a bathroom scale to make sure I haven’t been eating too much of the stuff I mustn’t, and, oh, crap, I forgot, I’d need a home to store it all and act as shelter……… I guess my needs wouldn’t be simple at all!
Your life without a computer: what does it look like?
I spend a lot of time using my iPad (a smaller and more personal computer.) I really cannot imagine my life without it! I look up recipes, search for the reason behind new aches and pains, keep in touch with relatives abroad and those friends of mine who have email. I also search for information about films and tv programmes I’ve watched – who played which part? (Ah, yes, I thought it was him! Wasn’t he handsome back then!) or for ‘Whatever happened to so and so?’
It seems amazing to me that I spent the first 55 or 60 years of my life with no internet, no email, and no way of looking up some information that wasn’t in the 1950’s version of the Encyclopedia Britannica Jr. which I still had. Yes, I could go down the road to the library, if it was during open hours but I might forget to bother by the time I got there!
Nowadays, many of my evenings at home are spent watching things on my iPad that I missed seeing when they were originally on tv or at the cinema. Just at the moment I am re-watching the 7 Up series. If you are not in Great Britain, you won’t have seen it. It started in 1964 when a tv company decided to see whether one could look at children at the age of 7 and ‘see’ what they would be like later on in life.
The programme followed 14 children and interviewed them at the age of 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 56 and 63. I had missed the most recent programmes and was quite keen to see what had happened to those people. I’ve watched the first 2 of the 3 in the series and will likely watch the third later this evening.
Without a computer, my life would be very different and I’m glad to say that I don’t know what it would look like!
White Haired Woman 