20TH October - Nostalgia week - A GIANT LEAP

Well time to blog again for this week before Monday!

This week Kathi asked us to reminisce about Lifestyle changes in our lifetime and how things have changed  for us compared to our Mothers lives.

I guess technology... phones, computers TV and gadgets are the biggest change in my lifetime

I think we have all blogged about Telephones and the changes we have seen.  In 1967 when I got married,we manged to buy our house but then had to choose whether we had a phone installed or ran a car, so the first few months of married life we had no mobile(unheard of then!) and no landline either!!  Guess what?.....we managed!! We now have 4 phones aroundnthe house and 2 mobiles although Peter rarely takes his with him and can only make phone calls to numbers he knows. When I went to Egypt without him I taught him how to send me texts. Well I thought I had!! The first 2/3 were gibberish then I started getting perfectly written messages,......he was taking the phone to work and getting his friend Lesley to send me dictated messages and for her to open my messages and to read them to him ....no romance in those messages!!!

Computers arrived at schools in 80's for staff called BBc computers, big bulky machines and information was stored on floppy discs. We had training for these and found them quite difficult at first!!

Then next Windows arrived. Still only for staff but finally each class got 1 computer in each classroom!  Finally each school had a computer room with enough computers for half the class to use or 2 /3 children to a computer. It was rare for many children to have a computer at home in those days!!
As I was leaving staff were finally getting laptops to work on. I remember the laptop came home with me every night and I worked on it to the early hours of the morning and I would be on it at 6am working again, not online chatting to people....couldn't get online with work ones then!!

Central Heating is another change in most homes... if this winter people can afford to put it on!! Our first central heating came from a backfire boiler, a Baxi Bermuda fire, before that we had electric radiators electric bar fire and a fan heater we moved where ever we were sitting and of course an open fire in our house

Cars not many could afford new cars.  Our first car was a old Morris and then a Morris traveller and then a Wolsey which was grey but ended up having filler and pink paint where my husband had repaired the body work himself. Many people had old cars with rusty body work and they did their own repairs, no MOT's then!

Changes in my life compared to my mother's ...huge changes.
In my mother's life...
Not many woman worked until the war though after the war some continued to work. My mother didn't once I was born 1945 and never did
No bathrooms so a zinc bath in kitchen and bath night once a week!!
Outside toilets (we did have a toilet and wash basin indoors when I was a child)
No washing machines,everything hand washed using a wash tube, plunger and mangle.
Food rationing during and after the war especially on sweets.
Heating was from open fires, even in bedrooms though I never remember a fire in the bedroom, only the fireplace blocked up!
Hot water had to be heated up until the first gas boilers in the kitchen
No televisions, our first B&W television was at the beginning of 1060's The radio was their form of entertaining, Woman's hour each afternoon and the Archers every evening
No car until my father learnt to drive in 1965
My Mother had a household routine each week, Monday was baking day for the week. Tuesday was wash day, Wednesday and Thursday cleaning and Friday shopping and each day we always knew what food would be cooked. Thursday was the day when we made do until shopping the following day, so we could get soup and steamed pudding or egg or beans on toast and cake for our dinner.
Spring cleaning twice a year when cupboards were emptied, curtains taken down and washed etc
Freezers were non existent to my mother until 60's so we only ate foods that were in season.
Clothes were made by my Mother with patterns and a hand sewing machine and my Auntie did all the knitting for our cardigans and jumpers including for my Father too
Holiday were never taken away from our town except once to Cornwall when I was about 6/7yrs
No entertaining at home except with neighbours on Christmas day that was when they bought a bottle of sherry (Dubonnet) and a few Babyshams.
No eating out
Never saw a doctor or took anitbiotics!
Their only vice was-  they were both very heavy smokers indoors. Each smoked 60 a day until they both died at very early ages 60 and 63!!

So how different is my lifestyle to my Mother's
No set pattern of routine these days though when I first married and had children I copied a routine for a few years, No Spring cleaning every Spring and Autumn
We have newish cars, fairly uptodate with technology though it is slowly leaving me behind with ipods and iphones
Off the peg clothes that are never repaired (socks for example!)
5 TV's in a house for 2 people, though only 4 are new freeview!
We buy any foods out of season we want and foreign grown foods too. Shop whenever we want though I do have a shopping day
We eat out a lot, have alcohol in the home and entertain a lot, take holidays at home and abroad
Look younger than she did in her fifties when she did look middle aged!
Have managed to live longer than her and...
We do NOT smoke

Now to finish with some Autumn skies from las t week and this week

  and a morning sky with low mist over the town one day last week

Sorry I won't be able to comment during my week starting tomorrow as we fly to Italy Tuesday to Lake Maggiore and Stresa