General Chat

Good morning all
Sorry for my absense but I have a lot to do as I am flying to UK on Thursday for almost 3 weeks - this will be the longest time hubby and I have been apart in all our 43 years of married life. I have put some meals in the freezer for him but I am sure he will not starve !!!
My mom is looking forward to me going over to look after her - my cousin who also lives in Spain did the first week and eldest son and wife are there at the moment then I take over on Friday.
I have packed a few things but I am travelling light and only taking hand luggage - if I took a suitcase knowing my luck I would never find it !!
Lovely weather here today after a wet evening yesterday - but we do need the rain - the winter has been dry this year.
Well I must do that ironing so will say bye and hope you all have a good day.
Love Mary xx

I hope you have packed some warm clothes Mary as it is quite cold here in Gloucestershire. Is it South West you are travelling to?

KINGKEITH

I am sure that most people on this thread would agree with you. One of the good things about how this thread has developed with compassion and kindness and consideration. we "talk" about many things some serious some sad others full of fun and laughter, and starting today a new first we are all going too write about housework since 1900!
Now men as well as women do house work of one kind or another so maybe KINGKEITH you would add something about this!

Please stay with us, we get a better balance if some males are with us!!

B

Yes Ann final destination Bodmin North Cornwall.

North coast Mary so probably as chilly as here.

Where is there a message fro Keith. I hate it when posts are deleted now, you can't see where theyw ere so it makes the post answering them look silly.

I have no idea who sent and /or deleted any message sent to Keith, but it would be good if he stayed with us for a while, so come on Keith, talk to us.

I was not able to write my piece today because of problems with computer but better now.

MaryinSpain,

I hope that you have had a smooth flight to the UK and that you get to your destination safely and not too tired.
AnninGlos I have no idea if someone sent a message to Keith or if he just decided to visit us all. It would be good to have a mans' view from time to time. My computer died for a while this afternoon and I was unable to access my tree on GR for quite a while, and I was somewhat distraught...however kind people contacted me which I read when the comp was bank on so I must remember that one is never alone on here.
well time to set the table and start to cook the rice to go with our curry meal this evening.
I am have to leave my House Cleaning episode until tomorrow. became somewhat stressed again today...just as I think I am better back it comes, the anxiety i mean. Oh well I am not as bad as I was a few months and weeks ago.

Take care everyone have a pleasant evening.

Good morning everyone. what a relief when I woke this morning made my cup of coffee and opened my computer and it worked!!

I shall now add my House Cleaning info part one.

I cannot remember a time when I wasn't encouraged to "help around the house". much of my early life involved my grandparents and I owe many of my skills today from what I learned from them. They both enjoyed talking with me and definitely not to me. Grandma used to tell me that we speak with people unless you have employed someone and then you speak to them to tell them what to do!! Not sure that everyone will agree with Grandmas' view but that is waht she told me.
I was always given a duster when the cleaning started and we talked a great deal whilst the work was going on. As i got older grandma would tell me about how she organised her house and gave me one of her books which I still have and this will play a part in this months "activiity".
I will try not to ramble on so feel free to tell me if I do!

Grandma told me (I think the best way is to write in the order i was taught)
.
I am starting from 1949 when i would have been 3 years old.although I knew what a duster was from time immemorial, no one was allowed to be idle in Grandmas' house unless they were a visitor, I of course was family!

I was taught that the home is the lynch-pin of daily living and that the lady of the house must make sure that all is in good order.

We had an order of work:.
Everyday clean bathrooms, toilets and wash basins in bedrooms.
Monday: the washing
Tuesday: Sweeping & cleaning the bedrooms and stairs
Wednesday: Cleaning the windows and the best rooms,
Thursda:y Cleaning & tidying all the cupboards, hallways etc
Friday: Cleaing the best room and depending on where Grandma lived the drawing room and clean the silver.
Saturday: Cleaning the Kitchen, dining room all fireplaces, Coppers etc.

All of this excludes bed making, dusting, cooking, washing up etc.

I must point out that for most of the time granddad was away in India with the British Army and so she had good help as he was an army officer. She nearly always lived in a good size houses with beautiful gardens and I have some photos of her and some of her children in various gardens but sadly none taken indoors.

Part one to be continiued in a short while. Sorry folk but we have a visitor

Of course I was not expected to do all these tasks and indeed they did not all happen in Grandmas' house when I was with her but when she was younger this is how she controlled her home. This was verified for me by one of my aunts when i met her for the first time in 1956.

What is pasted below is very much as I remember helping although i have not written this I found it on the internet.

Almost every woman sees herself as a good home-maker. Before marriage she pictures herself in a dream house or flat; a charming hostess, clever housewife and adorable sweetheart all in one. When she finds out that washing-up and cleaning eat up her days, the vision is apt to get tarnished. Yet it shouldn’t. There’s nothing more monotonous about housework than there is in pounding a typewriter or modelling dresses, or lots of other jobs that have a more glamorous reputation. Look on it as fearful drudgery, and it will never be anything else. See it as a job supremely worth doing, then running the home without help becomes a challenge and rewarding in itself.


“Rise at 6.45am; wash, dress and air bed. 7.15am: clean out and re-lay sitting-room fire; tidy, sweep and dust room. 7.30am: prepare breakfast. 7.45am: serve breakfast . . .”

This was the sort of timetable given in the older books on household management. Few can work with such clockwork precision, or want to. On the other hand, it’s equally fatal to start with the first job to hand and go on to the next without having some rough guide as to how long can be allowed for each.

Begin overnight: A sitting-room put straight before going to bed never has the sordid appearance next morning of the one left anyhow. Cushions that have been plumped out, chairs and covers straightened, ash-trays emptied: what a difference such things make. (I do this as a matter of habit)

Doing the rooms: Begin at the left-hand side of the door and, holding your duster open and lightly crumpled in one hand, go quickly but methodically around the room, not forgetting tops of pictures and mirrors and the legs of chairs. After dusting, wipe over any soiled glass surfaces with the damp cloth. Again beginning at one side and working carefully round, pass the dusting mop over the polished floors.

Bathroom and lavatory: Some people like to use the lavatory brush, with powder cleaner, as well as disinfectant, daily. The seat and pedestal will want wiping round and drying. A linoleum-covered floor will probably need wiping with a special swab to take up damp patches, before it’s gone over with the dusting mop and finished off with the polisher.

See that a suitable cloth and cleaner is kept in a bathroom cupboard, so that there is no excuse for anyone using the bath not wiping it round afterwards. A damp cloth dipped into liquid soap substitute may be sufficient to take off any marks. On the other hand, powder or paste cleaner and a good hard rub may be called for. After removing marks, a swill round with clear water and dry with fresh cloth. The lavatory basin will need the same treatment, though a slightly sketchier one usually suffices.

Bedmaking can be quite a pleasant interlude from the dusting and sweeping. Also it has the advantage of stretching the muscles without undue exertion. Ask that everyone strip their bed on rising, and open the bedroom window at the bottom to air the room. Ask them to place the clothes fairly near, perhaps over a clothes-horse or chair, in the order in which they will be replaced, which makes your task of remaking the bed easier.

Washing-up is a task regarded with particular horror by many, yet really it needn’t be so bad. During the war, when soap was too scarce to allow it being used in the washing-up bowl, it was certainly harder, but with the coming of the liquid soap substitute one can luxuriate in nice sudsy water.
( I smile at the word Luxuriate)!

Soak greasy things in hot water. Begin on the glass or the silver and cutlery. Then do the china in order; finally pans and cooking utensils, which will thus have had more time to soak. When aluminium saucepans are scorched, very fine steel wool and pure soap are best. Always try long soaking rather than drastic cleaning.

I will find more to add and then tomorrow I will move on to the 1960s

Have a good day everyone and I shall say a prayer that we do get some more postings today.

Bye for now

I hope you have a good flight Mary and enjoy your time in the UK. I admire those who are able to paqck without taking everything but the kitchen sink, I have never learnt the art of travelling light.

It is still so very hot and dry here, I find the heat absolutely exhausting andnI feel disinclined to do anything which requires much effoirt. To-day's temperature 30C, and a little while ago the wind came up and there is a strong wind blowing at the moment.

Bridget, I have started writing something about housework but amnot finished yet. Looking at my notes they all seem so garbled!

My daughter's dog dug up the succulents which we had planted in a pot on the verandah, so his shares are not very high right now!

Not sure whether I have mentiioned this, sorry if I have, but Hot Cross Buns are available here and have been since December, nothing seems to be special any more.

I cannot get rid of the tiny black ants on the kitchen cupboard, just when I think I have them under control, there they are. It being so dry I think they are looking for water.

Let me do a little more thinking about the housework.

Take care.


Val.

Hello all just thought I would drop in. Spanisheyes your friend is in my thoughts. Hubby is doing a lot better now hopefully we can get him to go for a walk soon. I will turn my thoughts soon to seriously look for another job. Some daffodils have come up in the garden although there are some that are just about to bloom. Not a lot else going on will say bye for now.

Nice to hear that your husband is doing better Jacqueline, hope he continues to improve.

Daffodils are lovely, they are so bright, my favourite flower is cosmos but I cannot grow them here, too much wind. At the moment we have a potato plant which is doing very well, it is full of purple flowers, with the dry conditions at the moment I have discovered that it is thriving. Another thing I discovered is that the Hibiscus is also doing well without too much water and is also full of flowers. I did not know that these two plants didn't like too much water.

Nothing special doing to-day, just the usual chores.



Vsl.

Valerie & Jacqueline

Thank you for posting today it has made my day.
Jacqueline delighted to read that your husbands" health is improving it has been avery worrying toime for you both. I can understand that a short walk would be such a boost for you both, so I hope that it happens soon. Just a walk around the garden is usually enoough and so very uplifting.

Valerie I know what 30 degress feels like and it actually makes most of us feel quite lethargic. We do not have airconditioning so we have lots of fans. We decided not to put air conditioning inbecause after visiting many homes that had it We found it very noisy and some of our friends found the same and so we bought fans instead and this seems to have worked for us.
Of course we are not in the really big HOT SPOTS in Spain so maybe we would have made a different decision if we had been down south.

We have also been very busy in the garden, well to be truthful OH has been busy and I have made ths suggestions and we discussed what new plants to buy this year. Our garden is really a f group of gardens. Because our hoouse is built on a mountain the family who boilt this home made, in our vie, a very good decission so the roof of our house is at road llevel and then there are stairs which llead down to the main part of the house that is in area and further down again is another part with One very large room a double bedroom a shower room and it leads directly onto the main garden and swimming pool.
Because the house was built this way we raised the roadside wall and the tiled a lagre area , had sturdy rails put in place, and put about 8 big pots with flowers around the walls and have some lovely seating and tables. At the end of the area one can sit and see the castle and the sea. Two years ago we cleared the next level as one goes down ths stairs and this is now known as "Bridgets retreat "as in the summer I have a smal round table, several chairs and I sit there looking across the sea, the castle and" simply sit and stare" as the poem says, I read, think, and relax in this area.
On the ground level we have the swimming pool and more tiled areaswith special tiles this time which are anty slip, and two tables and chairs and since the extension three years ago we also hhave a shady area so the the babies and young childre can play safely. To the rioght there are stairs too the upper level but these are very steep and for short people like me it is easier to use the main star=irs.

Oh dear I have rambled again so apologies if you have get half way through this message and decided to give up!!

I will be back this afternoon sometiime to write more about our House cleaning since 1900, I hope that we have some intersting and fun entries.

Take care everyone

Val, so sorry i forgot to say I look forward to your next entry no matter how short it may be about House Work, and I do hope that others join in, maybe I should NUdge them!!

“Keeping House” is a term not used much to-day. Many of the cleaning tools we use and take for granted to-day were only being invented and then only for the rich in the 30s and 40s

Let me start by saying that we had a maid who used to come in daily Monday to Friday so, as a child, I did not do much around the house, although I was taught. Monday was “wash day” and a maid used to come in to do the washing which was done outside in a large zinc bath, no washing machines then!. The white linen was rinsed in water to which had been added Reckitt’s Blue, and beware if too much was added the things came out tinged in blue. Tuesday was “ironing day” and the maid would be back to do the ironing., this was done using a heavy black iron which was heated on the wood stove. Cloths were starched. To-day we have washing machines and electric irons. Which make life much easier.

Daily chores included :
dusting all the rooms
cleaning the bathroom and toilet
washing the kitchen and bathroom floors
washing the dishes – first the glasses, then cups, plates, cutlery and pots and pans
a special “glass cloth” being used for drying the glasses.
cleaning the work surfaces in the kitchen.
Sweeping the carpet in the lounge – in the l940s we had a carpet sweeper with brushes which rotated and in the 1950s we had a vacuum cleaner – a Hoover. Once we had acquired an electric stove the wall behind the stove was cleaned every day after the stove had been used and the stove top also wiped down.

Weekly chores were:
Polishing the furniture
Cleaning silver and brass
Polishing the wooden floors. – once a year these were cleaned with Turps and very
fine steelwool. This was done to remove the build-up of polish. After I
was married I used to do this myself as the houses we lived in the late 1950s
and the 1960s had wooden floors.

The kitchen was always tidied at night, no dirty dishes left in the sink, and I still do this to-day much to the amusement of my family who tell me that should there be a burglary the burglar won’t mind dirty dishes!

There was always mending, this included darning of socks, turning of shirt collars.
These days everyone I know doesn’t darn socks and of course the turning of collars is most definitely not done any more. Until very recently I still darned socks although nowadays darning wool is difficult to come by, if available at all.
Things were hard during the war years, flour bags were hemmed and used as kitchen towels

Some homes had copper geysers. These required fir-cones to make the fire to heat the water in the bathroom. So there always had to be a plentiful supply of cones. So much easier to-day with electric geysers.

To-day Reckitt’s Blue is also not available and bedlinen is not all white as in the early days.

These days we have washing machines, tumble dryers, dishwashers, electric geysers and many more labour-saving devices which make housekeeping so much easier.

I still prefer my washing to dry outside rather than use the tumble dryer.

I can’t think of anything else right now.


Val.

Wow Val, your entry is very informative. I recall many of the items you have mentioned Reckitts Blue, as soon as I saw that brand name it cam rushing back as did the irons, and in fact I still have two which we use as door stops !

I almost always hang my washing out and even though I do have a dishwasher, which was wonderful when I had the 6 children at home and always at least one set of parents & for two years both sets of parents, now there is only OH and myself we hardly use it!

My grandmother taught me how to use a treadle sewing machine and I will say a piece about this on my next entry which is likely to be this evening or tomorrow.

Well time to get back to sorting and filing the family trees and then I will prepare our dinner for tonight. Asparagus as a starter the Pork chops , locally reared, runner beans, baby carrots and haven't yet decided how to cook the potatoes.

Bye bye for now

PS I hope that some others submit as well as us.!!

Bridget, my mother-in-law had a Singer treadle sewing machine whichwas given to me when she was with us. I must say I never really liked it much as I always started it the worng way and then the cotton would snap. I used it mainly for making curtains. I have had a Singer which was given to me in an effort to get me to do needlework - but I don't really like sewing, I prefer knitting and crotchet..

I have never owned a dishwasher , have thought about it at times but have always decided against it.

Your dinner sounds really nice, enjoy.


Val.

A short piece from me about how housework has changed but not a lot or it will just be repeating yours Bridget and val's.

I used to help my Mum with the housework when little. No fitted carpets in our bungalow until I was in my young teens, just a carpet square on linoleum. My job was to dust and polish the lino. We had a very long hall from the front door to the kitchen so it was a long run of lino polishing. the carpet squares were cleaned with a carpet sweeper, the push kind, not electric and a hoover. When I was tiny the hoover lived in my bedroom behind the door and I was terrified of it at night because it was black and (to me) menacing.

Wash day was always Mondays, Mum had a large boiler that was heated up on the gas stove and in whcih she boiled hankies and pillow cases and sheets. She would fish them out to rinse in the sink with wooden tongs. She also used to use dolly blue bags (the same as reckitts) in the whites. As an aside. The hotel we have attached to our time share in the Lake District used to be the old Dolly blue factory. The blue powdre is embedded in the walls and can still be seen. When I was very young Mum had an old mangle to ring the clothes out. fingers had to be kept clear of the rollers for obvious reasons. Mum didn't have a washing machine until quite late in life probably the late 60s when she had a twin tub, she never had an automatic. The washing was dried out on a long line that was pulled up on a pully. When the line broke, and it sometimes did under the weight of sheets and blankets, it was a sorry day as Mum would have to re-wash it all. We needed to stay out of the way then!

Tuesday was ironing day, Dads shirts were starched using Robin starch, a smell I would recognise to this day. I was allowed to iron the hankies. When I was very young Mum would use irons heated by the fire, but very soon she had an electric iron. Clothes in the late 50s/60s were aired on a flatley drier in the kitchen. My parents never had an airing cupboard.

gas was paid for by a shilling in the meter and every night I remember my dad turning the gas off at the meter. I guess this was due to the war and he carried on doing it.

Mum cooked lunch at midday, (12.30) when Dad would arrive home from work for his lunch, she always cooked full meals using fresh produce, pies, stews etc.

The rest of the housework was allocated to Wednesday to Saturday. beds were top to bottomed (Bottom sheet washed, top sheet put on the bottom). But each job was always done on a specific day.

Sundays nothing at all was done except the dinner cooked.

And every spring the whole house was thoroughly cleaned. Spring cleaning was done in earnest.

anninglos

Your piece certainly brought back memories to me. The Robin starch, the gas meter, I can remain several occasions when we had no money to the next day when dad was paid on the Friday and the meter ran out. We used to search everywhere, down the sides of the arm chairs and the settee, under the furniture in all the drawers of all the cupboards and usually we managed to find enough pence and the occasional sixpence to take to a neighbour and exchange it for the much needed shilling.

On Sundays we also did no domestic work apart from the cooking. We as Catholics also could not eat anything after midnight until we had been to mass and taken Communion of old enough so no lie ins for us. we went to the 06.00hrs service so we could then go home and have breakfast.

I shall add some more tomorrow about how Grandma taight me to keep house!

I must get ready now for our Quiz Night, OH is the Quiz master and I NEVER see the questions let alone the answers as he keeps them in a locked drawer.

bye
bye

Another thing, housework was definitely the woman's job in those days. I never, ever saw my Dad weild a duster or the hoover or help to hang the washing. He cleaned the windows and outside paintwork, sometimes made some cakes, often cooked breakfast but washing, ironing and house cleaning he never did it. When my Mum died when he was 85 (so was she), he had to learn fast. Then he paid for a home help a couple of hours a week, my sister did his washing (after Mum died he bought an automatic washing machine and tumble drier). and ironing. He did a bit of cooking until he had a stroke. What is more I don't think Mum would have let him do housework. She was very house proud which was why it was sad as she got older to see some of the paintwork indoors was not as clean as it used to be. We didn't like to say anything. I realised that it was because her sight was not as good as it had been and she refused to go for an eye test for new glasses.