Happy Star Wars Day With Holiday Memory Doodles

Bank Holiday Monday!!! WOO!

Who DOESN'T love a bank holiday? It's like a whole extra Sunday! *Happy sigh* Have you had a good day? Was it sunny? It was mostly sunny here - The Colonel spent the afternoon under a shrub, being a lion in the garden and seems quite at peace with his bad-ass self. He's had a good brush and we now have a cushion-load of spare fluff. He's like the Homer Simpson of cats - no matter how much fluff I brush off him every day, he just coughs and it all just sprouts back again!

As it IS a bank holiday, I thought I'd share a few more of my memory doodles, this time about the days out with my Grandparents. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I spent as much time with my Grandma and Grandpa when I was growing up as I did with mum - I consider myself very lucky as I got the best of both worlds.

Living by the coast, we spent a LOT of time by the seaside regardless of weather conditions. Sun = beach and paddling in the sea; wind = flying kites and 'brisk walks' along the sea wall; rain = fish & chips in the car staring at the raging sea through the windscreen. Tradition is tradition!  Visiting the beach was an expedition every time. Grandpa would bring deckchairs for himself and Grandma, a windbreaker, newspaper, blanket and towels, and there'd be the wicker hamper with melomine dishes, thermos flask and the inevitable cheese-on-crackers, tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs, with custard cream biscuits for 'afters'. Needless to say, these would all mysteriously be covered in sand by the time we ate them, no matter how well they were wrapped! Oh - and if the weather was VERY hot, the cheese would turn to squeaky melted plastic and the crackers would go all bendy. YUM! Bendy plastic crackers! The thermos flask would be filled with sweet milky tea which would be fairly tepid by the time we got to it. Honestly - I'm amazed none of us contracted some hideous bacterial infestation from sun-warmed eggs! It was the same picnic wherever we went, utterly dreadful but fantastic because it was OUTSIDE! I miss those salmonella roulette picnics!

I had a bucket and spade and made sandcastles decorated with shells and little paper flags on cocktail sticks. I'd dig gullies to the sea and wait to see the water fill the castle 'moat' and eventually look over my shoulder as we walked back to the car to witness the collapse of the castle towers as they surrendered to the waves. On a posh day we'd have ice-creams from the van - with a chocolate flake! My Grandpa was the hunter/gatherer, journeying the sandy wasteland to fetch these treats to myself and my Grandma...his would have been demolished within seconds! By the time he reached us the ice creams would have melted and we'd have soggy wafer tubes of gloop. It was utterly fantastic.

My kite was made of cloth with a wood frame and was crashed and repaired countless times! I was always bothered that I'd lose my grip on the string and would try to attach it to my belt or wrap it round my waist, but my Grandfather, ever the worrier and panic-mongerer, would stop me in case I "was blown into the sea and drowned, tangled in kite string, or whisked into traffic and killed by being dragged under the wheels of a speeding car". EVERY time. My Grandma would just look at me and roll her eyes. Given the risk to life presented by the dripping melty ice-creams and eggs of death I really think his priorities might have been a bit dodgy! It still makes me laugh.

When we weren't at the beach, we'd take a day trip into Wales. We'd drive at a steady 27 miles per hour up winding hills and through mountain passes in the little Morris Minor Traveller - the notorious wicker picnic basket with it's slowly festering contents under an 'emergency blanket' in the back of the car, and me on the back seat with a book or pens and paper, radio chattering away... On some journeys we'd travel through the Horseshoe Pass and 'rest' at the top by an outpost favoured by sales reps and truckers, called 'The Ponderosa'. This was a cafe and gift shop surrounded by hills and heathland...and sheep. Hundreds and hundreds of sheep. Sheep who knew a car containing suspicious foodstuffs when they saw one.....foodstuffs and tourists..... They were sheep with a plan..... Sheep with a mission.... They'd wait, benignly - and you'd only ever see a few of them - until SOMEONE needed to make a dash to the loo...then - they'd pounce, more of them magically appearing from their well concealed crevices, like fleecy ninja muggers. The only way to ensure the safe transit of the loo-dasher was for the remaining humans to spring from the car holding biscuits and crisps and sandwiches (or bendy crackers - turns out sheep ain't picky) and distract the woolly bandits with nibbly treats! When the now-relieved loved one returned, we humans would have to band together and throw the remaining food as far from the car as possible then make a leap to safety and drive like the 27-mile-an-hour wind away from the ravenous gang! Sheep ARE NOT CUTE!

Days out were ALWAYS fun.  At the end of the journey home there'd be a home-cooked meal and some wonderful sweet yummy delight that my Grandma had baked that morning and tucked away safely in the larder. She could 'rub up a round of scones' in minutes and they were so tasty and crumbly! She also made fairy cakes - they seem to be called 'cup-cakes' now - with her own recipe butter icing, shortbread heart biscuits, oatmeal biscuits with jam (she called them 'melting moments'), sponge cakes filled with jam, and fruit pastrty twists. The jam was all her own as well. She made Apricot, Redcurrant, Blackberry, Gooseberry, Rhubarb, Elderberry, Damson, Plum, Raspberry and even carrot-and-apricot jams as well as Lemon Cheese (which IS different from curd...) Store bought jams really don't hold a candle to hers!

I'm so unbelievably glad that I spent so much time with my Grandparents. They were really good fun and wonderful people to be around.

That's today's memory share! Hope you've made it through in one piece - I do ramble! I hope your Monday's been a good one. I'll bid you a very fond farewell and see you tomorrow and, given the date today, I'm compelled to release my inner Jedi and say MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!!! Love and hugs from Shroo :) xxx

ps....I just realised that I should have done some 'Star Wars' memory cards for today! I'll get doodling and have some of them on paper soon. Forward planning....yeah....not for THIS scruffy looking nerf-herder! Hoo-Hoo-Hoo.....(Jabba laugh) xxx