Just
a thought
Has
it ever occurred to you that when we talk about the bride walking up the aisle
we are being inaccurate? The aisles of a
church are the one or two separate parts parallel to the main part of the
church. The bride actually walks up the
nave!
Green
Fig Jam
One
of the great things about staying in someone else’s house for a couple of weeks
is discovering the foods in their kitchen cupboards (to roam through which I
have been given full licence!). I found
some green fig jam. It sounded as though
it had potential. It did. I can add it to my list of jams that I enjoy.
Another
aspect of staying away from home is finding things in the local shops that
aren’t readily available at home. I love
grape nuts – a malted cereal in the form of tiny, hard, crunchy ‘nuts’. I can’t get them at home but Sainsbury’s just
up the road here had them. Poirot relies
on his little grey cells – I rely on my grape nuts!
No
comment
If
you think I’m ignoring you at the moment – I’m probably not. I’ve lost three attempts at commenting (in
the first case a long comment that I hadn’t copied) because Blogger is timing
out. Who knows why? But all I will say is that no other sites are giving me
problems.
Postcrossing
I
have been using some of my holiday time to update my Postcrossing blog. I appreciate that not everyone is interested
in that blog so I thought I would show you one on the cards I received in April
– from Henry in Finland.
Sadly,
there is no information on the back of the card to show its origins.
An
Early Satnav?
How
about this for a one hundred year old Satnav system?
“This
fantastic contraption, called the ‘Routefinder’, showed 1920s drivers in the UK
the roads they were travelling down, gave them the mileage covered and told
them to stop when they came at journey’s end.
The technology – a curious cross between the space age and the stone age
– consisted of a little map scroll inside a watch, to be ‘scrolled’ (hence the
word) as the driver moved along on the map. A multitude of scrolls could be
fitted in the watch to suit the particular trip the driver fancied taking.”
The
system had several obvious drawbacks including a limited number of available
journeys and the inability of the system to respond to sudden changes of
direction. There was also no warning of road works, traffic jams or speed traps
(yes, they had them in those days - they involved a policeman jumping out of the
hedge at you!). That was the origins of
the AA (Automobile Association) in 1905
- a body initially intended to help motorists avoid police speed traps. The
AA's 100 members in 1905 grew to 83,000 by 1914. Nevertheless, it is said that the Routefinder
didn’t take off because there were too few potential customers at that
time. If only the roads were that clear
now.
The
Routefinder is one of many bizarre gadgets displayed at the British Library.
Well, I certainly didn't know about the aisle - but why would I? I didn't walk the aisle - or the nave of the church when we were married. I wanted to be out in the open of the world, with water in my midst and the beauty of sky and trees and birds singing ;)
ReplyDeleteNot sure how I'd feel about the jam and wondered when you began writing, whether it was still good or not. See, if you roam through my cupboards...you might want to check the expiration dates.
Commenting? Hope it wasn't with my blog - again. Although, I have heard that friends who have the comment posting embed below the post are troublesome. Many tried to comment on my blog while it was like that and gave up. I lost friends because of it - or, at least they do not visit anymore. This is one of the reasons that I have chosen to go back to a simple format as I once had. You'll see when you visit.
Now, before I go trying...I am going to right click and save this comment, otherwise, I'll too easily give up and forget all that I've wanted to say.
♥
Nope....blogger was in a time out because it wouldn't let me publish my comment for about ten minutes, but I saved it through that time, came back and pasted it again. Voila. Done.
ReplyDeletelove the uniqueness of the route finder! I don't know if such a thing existed in the US.
ReplyDeleteStrange, isn't it, how people came to say "walking down the aisle" when all along it was the nave. I doubt they will change that now, though, in spite of it being incorrect.
ReplyDeleteAha! Not the aisle! So the bridge walks up the nave to the groom who is standing firmly in the naive. And that tripfinder is incredible!
ReplyDeleteWe didn't have the route finder in the US of A. Back in the bad old days when you took a trip you had a map, which might or might not be accurate, or you knew where you were going, or, like my grandfather, you had a general knowledge about travel and had reason to believe you'd arrive at your destination safely, having handled emergencies and breakdowns yourself.
ReplyDeleteMy great-grandfather traveled extensively throughout the old West searching for oil - which he discovered and successfully drilled for, using a drill of his own design. Great Grand Dad saw an actual gun fight while he was there - two cowboys got into an argument out in the street, drew their guns and killed each other. 'nuff said, I think.
I enjoy the pictures of your cat and the information about the aisle. I didn't know that about a church building, and it's worth knowing.
Try an English muffin spread with brie cheese and green fig jam for tea time.
Recently when I was in my favourite tea-shop I bought some tiny sample-jars of different kinds of jam. One of them was fig and I think I might try a bigger jar some time ;)
ReplyDeleteI wonder why the type in your comment box has gone minuscule. So minuscule I can hardly see it. Or is it just on my computer?
ReplyDeleteYou are OK for Grape Nuts when you come here CJ. I re-stocked from the Co-op yesterday. I had to go to Tesco for the Shreddies though. I hadn't bought them for years but suddenly had a hankering a few days ago and you know what it's like if you can't find something. I just had to go searching. Mind you with only two supermarkets on the Island that doesn't involve much.
Hi GB - I always think the type in people's comment boxes is minuscule. That's why so many of my comments have typos. It probably looks more so on mine because the rest of my text - which I can control - is large for folk like me with eyesight problems.
ReplyDelete