Sherbet Dreams

So doing a special birthday cake at the week-end with a spring theme and using some rice paper daisies for decoration, it was obviously important to taste the aforesaid daisies, quality control is paramount!

As the rice paper melted on my tongue I was instantly transported to the little sweet shop that I used to go to when I was at infant and junior school.

The rice paper had evoked the initial salivation and anticipation of sherbet, the memory of the amazing flying saucers that were one of my favourite treats.

The shop was a sweet shop, it sold nothing but sweets, jars of pineapple chunks, cola cubes, aniseed balls, humbugs, fruit salad, black jacks, fireman’s hose, chocolate honeycomb and so much more, a veritable paradise and for me a place to anguish over what to choose!

In the sherbet department not only were there flying saucers and sherbet lemons but dabs, a packet of sherbet with a lolly to lick and dip, the sherbet tubes with a liquorice straw that you bit the end of and then sucked up the white powder (obviously an early precursor for those who now inhale up another white powder through a straw). Then there was the farthing or even a ha’penny worth of sherbet crystals in a white paper bag, orange, lemon or strawberry. There was only two ways of eating it, to tip the bag up and try to gently shake the crystals into your mouth, not always a safe option as you could get too much and choke or miss your mouth and lose some, or to use your finger as a tool, lick it and dip it so the sherbet stuck and then lick it off, by the time the bag was empty it was falling apart and your finger was either bright yellow, orange or pink.

You could of course take the crystal home and put it in a glass and mix with water to make a sherbet drink, but quite frankly even as a small child I thought that was disgusting!!!

Swimmin’ in the Rain

Why it happens no-one knows, but it is almost a certainty that if we have had a bit of reasonable weather, which we did, that it will disappear the moment we hit a long week-end, especially Easter.

Easter has always marked the beginning of the season. I grew up  in a seaside holiday town and throughout the winter months everything was locked down tight, so other than the cinema and youth activities, like St Johns and Guides there was little going on for us natives, as I got a bit older there was the coffee bar, but that’s a whole other story!

But as soon as Easter arrived, whether rain or shine, the first of the hardy holiday makers would arrive by the coachload and spill out into the town.

Rain or shine the brave, or foolish, would swim in the sea, including us local kids, just to prove we were tough, and I could also run barefoot across the stony beach, strangely not a life skill that has proved to be of much use to me since then!

The hotels and B&B’s would open up at early season rates, the pier would take down the shutters, the theatres would gear up for the summer season entertainments anticipating packed houses, the aquarium would open up, the ice cream parlour’s restaurants and chip shops would start to open extended hours. Most would have either closed down for the winter or tailored their opening hours for the indigenous population, so maybe opening Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday lunch only.

The exception was The Blue Moon Café, which was open all year and it was rumoured that if a gentleman (I use the term very loosely) asked for tea and two spoons, he would get his “afters” served upstairs.

So rain or shine the town would begin to come alive, as if emerging, like a living organism, from winter hibernation.

Things haven’t changed much in terms of the season, I have a caravan at a different seaside location and this Easter week-end the whole place was opened up and surging with people, especially Friday, which was the one really good day of this long week-end.

Well, actually yes, maybe one thing has definitely changed, I don’t do cold weather swimming these days, I may be daft but I’m not stupid!!

Colour me Green

Now I am quite eclectic in my tastes, I like a range of music, Rock, Country, Pop, Classic, Power Ballads, although not over keen on Jazz.

I like most food, obviously not sprouts or cabbage, but pretty much everything else, Italian, Indian, Chinese, Thai, African, West Indian and Fish and Chips.

I like most colours, of course the whole range of pinks, lilacs and purples are my favourites but I am not big on green. I quite like lime green but in reality it is more yellow than green.

I am in truth a little bit phobic about green, not how it appears naturally, I like it in grass, trees and plants, but the manufactured greens especially that horrible deep glossy green that they used to paint all the hospital corridors with when I was a child.

And therein probably lies the nub of the matter, it has for me unpleasant associations but even recognising that fact does not eliminate my aversion to the colour.

Green just makes me Blue!!!

Driving Miss Crazy

So in goes the car for it’s M.O.T. and annual service, couple of minor problems that I mentioned to the mechanic were the interior light, bulb blown, and a problem with the front passenger side electric window, which had rather suddenly stopped working.

Was advised that the window may be a problem, could be the motor, but hopefully just a broken wire, he said it was really unusual and that if they break it is usually the driver’s side as that gets much more usage.

Anyway away I went leaving “the Flash” in his capable hands.

On return at the end of the day, M.O.T. and service fine, just needed a couple of new wiper blades, new bulb in interior OK, and then he gave a little smirk!

Now at this point I had that sinking feeling that this was going to be a story to be added to my two other epic car fails:-

So I not long after I got “the Flash” I was in my local supermarket car park with a huge shopping trolley full of stuff, pressing the remote on the key to open the door and nothing was happening, well except for a lot of heavy duty swearing, my mother would definitely not have been proud!

Just as I was beginning to curse anew, as I also couldn’t get the key in the lock, my partner chimed in with, “actually I don’t think this is our car”.

And it wasn’t ours, it was the same make, model, colour, year and very closely matched number plate but it wasn’t our car. Our car was two spaces away the other side of a big van!!!!!

My best goof however is the one from way back when I owned  a saloon car and out of the blue I noticed this banging noise every time I turned right, it didn’t seem to happen all the time just on prolonged bends and cornering, all very mysterious.

So after checking the entire car for something loose, and looking at all the bits I knew how to look at I sought a professional opinion about the problem. Turned out to be a bent mudflap!!!!!

Back to the present, by the car, in the mechanics garage, with nowhere to hide from another embarrassment.

About the electric window, he said, thought I’d test it out before I disassembled the entire car door. It wouldn’t work, he said, because you had locked it!!!!!

How was I to know, that I had, at some point, inadvertently, pressed a window locking button, that I hadn’t even realised was there.

 

We will never speak of these things again!!