Rainy recollections

You know what it did yesterday after a dry couple of days don't you? Bloomin well started raining again which put pay to the idea of going to the playground yesterday yo go on the swings which is what I love doing.

The Beano did arrive through the letterbox as last week we marked the arrival fully formed of Rodger The Dodger some sixty nine years ago not that I was around at the start when I first started having it together with strips like Little Plum, Tom, Dick and Sally plus Lord Snooty and Pals which aren't around anymore.

The well read will view this scene where Dennis and Gnasher get to be maids for Walter as payback for the menacing the pair of them did to Walter and his "Softies" mates over the years and their refined manners.

Bullying is never right.

The Pink Panther Show on tv and its spin offs was always a big thing with me as our pink feline friend outwitted everyone to fill the world wirh Pantherly Pride and ensuring everything was in the pink.

These 1981 stickers were just a part of what some of us bought and applied liberally to anything within reach not least any folders that just looked so plain boring at the time or to my parents dismay, walls near the light switches.

Just what did you do back then?

Mid month damp round up

Another week of weird weather here such as near tornado winds early monday morning with thunder and lightning mixed into it which woke me up a few times and not great for going beyong the gate either.

So that meant reading a few comics that had come across the weekend and in the instance of The Beano the joke page with its corny kidtastic jokes.

And the neighbourhood cats came around so you find yourself talking with them, getting down to cat level although I don't feel I could make a home for one with I'm not too good and would neighbours to look after one when I'm away like the other week.

I've been cleaning a couple of  of 12" singles  from the early 80's and putting them in innersleeves to keep dust out and avoid the rough card insides marking them and  playing a few albums by Fleetwood Mac and Dire Straits.

We've had a couple of new sign ups at the forum too which is nice.

Easter themed fun

 Easter again I hear you ask?

Well that was last weekend with all the bloomin' chaos of hastily rearranged train journeys, meet ups and all that and even would the drivers turn out on Sunday to drive the services offered.

Fortunately I did get away, a day later and was about get straight off the train, across the station concourse to the taxi rank in minutes ready for socializing playing games, thankfully not croquet or cricket but I did knock all the cans over!

An easter egg hunt was held which was fun as the eggs were literally everywhere, in the undergrowth, in trees and even sheds but least I found some.

The were easter related quizes and yarns being delivered until everyone fell sleep, talking of which I nearly fell of the chair being that tired head first but at least I didn't quite manage that!!!

We had planned on going for short hike along a disused railay line but conditions were too soft underfoot even for the most able never mind wibbly-wobberly me  so we walk to the venue for lunch which was excellent before making my way back in time for tea.

Rambling Easter thoughts

 

Well this being done on the chromebook because for some strange reason from time to time the bigger laptop likes to just switch off without warning and the battery holds 94% charge which may not be brilliant but is adequate as it's mainly used off the mains.

I've been reading at a slow comfortable pace the recent Codename Warlord compilation with all the stories written for the weekly Commando magazines this century with the first few done for the Watlord Comic itself way back in September 1974 where it really shook up the world of boys adventure comics with its graphics.

Yesterday I was playing a record not uncommon here a new and surprisingly inexpensive copy of Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel which although that album came out in 1968 when I was still just in single digits, was full of songs were grew up listening to as much as did to Top 40 pop hits on Radio One on 247 and buying them.

There's plenty of the original singles here well stored and the thing in many ways is they all connect to that overall sense of that boyhood I am very much in the mindset of today.

That boy had Easter Eggs although I discovered diary milk  chocolate often lead to maigraines and if you ate say a whole small bar then I was out of commission in bed with a bucket by me in case of being sick so I usually try to ensure I get white.

While that's very sweet and you have to mind your blood sugars I can better tolerate white chocolate and that's what I've been eating this easter weekend and the years rolled back.

Gratitude

This is a little late coming out today not least for me feeling pretty tired yesterday and as it will become apparent, not around to write it either.

Yesterday was different for it was one of a number of days my Aunt s and an Uncle would meet up for food and talking about things in general that goes back a good number of years following the  sad loss of a number of members and the feeling we needed to do *something* to keep in touch beyond a phone call or Facebook messaging.

Those were in the days when Mum was very much alive and with us and there was for a period a bit of pause when whe died and all the funeral stuff was being worked through.

Back then it was more a thing I knew of as it was just that group and didn't include me which wasn't an issue - sometimes your parents need spaces from you - but following the resumption, they decided to invite me to attend.

My Aunt knew a bit about my more adult boy side - not the whole nine yards -  when she came few years back with my oldest cousin to which we'd attend lots of parties and that together and they'd discovered this "boy" in shirt and short trousers at home with everyone else well in and okay with it.

Indeed that was how I was at the funeral itself even .

But anyway when it came attending these events not least with that Uncle I hadn't seen for a while that was very much how I presented.

Yesterday we were  supposed to had attended a venue inside the large and much loved as a boy park in the district centre for the North of this city region with it's boating like, playgrounds, gardens and bowling green but my Aunt had forgotten one thing.

Easter Hols. And in the immediate city area, they take their Easter Hols a week before in this part they do so there you are with lots of kids walking around and the menu was changed to more Children's Favourites no doubt with idesa that Grand parents looking after children whose parents work would at least ensure they'd get a decent warm meal.

It wouldn't of mattered for me - sausage,egg and chips is right up my alley - but they wanted something more *adult* so we wet off for the Chatterley Whitfield, name after the area the coal mine (one a good number round here) had been.

We settled on a mass order of Fish and Chips with mushy peas which I added choco fudge cake and ice cream which went well although the place was full and with...children!

Indeed one young child was having a birthday dinner and inevitably there was more background noise.

We talked and talked which really was the kind of point really and then I was presented with a box of chocolates for Easter by my aunt which felt more of a nod to boyhood easters to which I thanked her for  before we went back to her place.

That place has memories such as those cousins, their late father whose presence loomed and the many things that happened as they all sat on chairs and I was on a pouf at near floor level which of course was just how it was as the grown ups always had seats and we didn't enjoying a drink before setting off.

It feels so...different. To be returned in a setting that might of been decades ago but yet in some many ways one that felt so right for me.

Resting up time

 

Today is what would of been Mum's birthday.

I may be off to the Barber's in a bit but I'm having to be careful as my knees ache a lot a little above them hurts too as I was struggling to get about on monday having been out for a stroll a long the towpaths which in the stretch I was on was gravel over the mud of which there had been a lot at the weekend.

I had been out at the weekend to the park but even there after the heavy downpours not only was the playing field all muddy so you sank in it, even the pathways had about two inches of waterover the and mud that had ran on from the adjacent grass so thick I almost went flying in landing head first.

The better stuff of sorts has been its been warmer around thirteen to sixteen degrees c so actually for a few days I've just been able to be out with a jersey on, leaving off a coat completely.

On updates and stuff

 

Today is officially a very wet day having been woken up twice by it and with reports of torrential rain in nearby Biddulph so I'm half expecting to see more pictures of my brothers smallholding with flooded fields by days end.

This of course means I won't be going anywhere soon having been soaked just taking the recycling out ready for the refuse service tomorrow so it's a matter of getting things done that you can today and possibly into tomorrow.

One thing I've been working on is tidying up the main blog which goes all the way back to the earliest years of blogging which is something I tend to do from time to time for a variety of reasons such as having additional information or insights into a topic than at the time I made the post where there is otherwise little reason to make a new post.

These also include some music based entries where the actual records have changed over the years as either I have found better originals or as been the case in the last year or so, actually new superior so-called "audiophile" editions have come out and those old ones replaced entirely.

So the image and where appropriate the text gets altered with a suitable comment added to indicate the last update.

Another thing I try to do is correct spelling or the odd typo which as person with both dyxlexia and damaged paws that mean I don't always strike all the intended  keys or tremoring so a letter doubles which is frustrating to say the least.

Equality or invading spaces?

 The modern world throws up all manner of wierd and wonderful stuff as much that some of things that were wrong back in our day are at least recognized as such equal opportunities when it comes to subjects studied at school for boys and girls, equal pay for men and women and so on.

Football for girls has come a long way from I dare say some of our peers (or even our younger selves) said "Go away! Only boys play football" whenever any girl showed any interest in having a kickabout and when women were in effect banned from playing all together.

So we see a great national Women's Super League (the WSL), more girls teams being set up to cater for demand and a better share of the money from the Football Association to pay for this.

Recently though it was reported a teenage boys parents were pressing to have him join the Girls Team using a "grandfathered" F.A. rule from the 90's where then because of the shortage of Girls Teams, a girl could join a team comprising of boys.

One obvious thing is to say is the strength of children between the sexes changes after 11 and appreciably after puberty with boys being stronger and in general more able to play to almost adult standards compared to girls.

Often boys are"scouted" by the big premiership teams at 14 plus so what could be more discouraging to a girl than to have boys in her team getting all the breaks?

A pretty good question I'd ask is "Just what does a boy in his teens want BEING in a girls team"?

Most of us if there was a group that did something we were mad keen with boys joined them, we were comfortable with one another and wanted the benefits. We certainly didn't wish to be seen to just spend our time as if we were in a group of girls, far from it.

I only hope this nonsense gets stopped so girls can get on playing in girls only team developing as themselves and this boys parents are put in touch with a local team for their BOY to join so he plays with other boys at the level he's capable of.

Teacher

Last day but one given it's a leap year in the month, school in this district is back as the uniformed hordes passed the window yesterday morning and the roar from the Junior playground could be heard as walked around the estate at breaktime well wrapped up.

Slightly later than usual, this week's Beano arrived through the letterbox with some replacement ankle socks to wear with my pe shorts and plimsoles so having attended to that small package I got on to reading that which takes you to The Bash Street Kids.

I'm not massive on childhood toys cos for one thing most of mine went back in the day as the basis you'd "grown out of them" and your brother/cousin/less well of neighbours needed them plus there's a finite limit in this property to just how much you can store.

However I do have this figurine of "Teacher" from 2000 that was originally made for McDonalds as a Happy Meal gift which as these things go isn't badly constructed and has acceptable detail.

He's very screwed up!

His internal workings are arrange that when you move his mouth, his eyes bulge forward as if he's about to give you a telling off which I dare say many of us got.

Given when this was made his iconic cane that many of us recall from comic strips from the eighties and before isn't a feature although the "mortar board" hat still is (and you'd struggle to find a state school that has that as Teaching uniform today).

That sort of mish-mash is usually what happens when you something whose basis was established in the nineteen fifties and try selectively altering bits of it although the children and staff are still in school decades on.

Just imagine if we were!!!!

Back but in the Sick Bay

It may not be officially Ice Cream Season but with me that's an all year round thing which means it is as well the freezer is well stocked with white chocolate magnums apart from helping with my sore throat.

While I was away some bright spark decided to come even though they still had a bad cold and sadly I've been laid low as it were with it ever since I got home snezing, having nose bleeds and suffering from a very bad cough so much so I've had to get some new linctus cough mixture in.

Thus I do feel rather rubbish and achy at the moment which takes a bit of the shine from what that week was like like making aeroplanes and being totally little which all helps with me.

I have some new headphones as an older pair developed a condition where the plastic in the headband and earpads is breaking down getting stuck on my skin which is probably something to do with plasticizers

They sound really good playing my tape of Foreigner 4 and listening to some YouTube channels.

Time out

This week I'm away and all being well I should be back sometime today or possibly tomorrow just depending on how things work out.

Part of it about having a dedicated period of time to let my little side out in the presence of others so you can play with others interacting as much as you may wish to do a few things on your own.

The other part of it is that it is the anniversary of Mum's death so apart from the ups and downs of the last twelve months inevitably ones mind is taken back to those last couple of months and specifically the week this time last year.

I really feel I need not just to be doing something more benefitual to my own mental health than being sat brooding over it in ones chair but really to create a better new experience around the day that honoured what she would of wanted for me.

To continue in making a new life for myself and to continue being her little boy even in death.

Comic fun

After last week's spun off to the past entry we go to the past in the present this week was after a few rough days I'm slowly actching up and reading a few comics in just the same way I'd of done in the 1970's.

Back then it was all Sparky, Beezer, Warlord and Dandy but the world of comics has changed however you might feel about it and at least Monster Fun maintains a connection to those days while strongly connecting with today's children do like old school comics when given the opportunity and all new but varied cartoon strips in the weekly Phoenix.

Comics can lift your mood and even open your mind to new ideas and concepts apart from being something you can share with others talking about the stories and just what you like about them.

Playing that Now Yearbook '90 cd reminded me of the magazine I used to love back the called Big! which was a cross between a tv features and pop fortnightly magazine that had interviews and pull out posters.

One was of Paula Abdul and the Wild Pair featured in the part animated video for Opposites Attract.

This week I'm sorting out things for next week I, touch wood, I wouldn't be around for a few days so have fun!

Early 1970

 Early 1970 or perhaps the transition between 1969 and 1970 is the earliest period I have clear childhood memories of from playing near the railway line at the back of our house and with the wood louse near the trees between our garden and the busy road we were told never to cross on our own.

There were comics like Sparky that my Nan who lived two houses away bought me and I'd watch with my brothers Crackajack, play school at weekends as by that point I was in Infants and Blue Peter on the hazy black and bluey-white tv that stuggled in our area a to get a good enough BBC 2.

Another show we tended to watch together and this continued for quite a period after we moved was Top Of The Pops which would be followed up on the radio on Sunday evening by the official chart rundown.

Musically it was a cross over as we had still hits from the likes of Herman's Hermits and the Dave Clark Five and the Beach Boys although a group with connections to the Beatles being on their label Badfinger had their first hit, Come And Get It that sounded very much like a Paul McCartney song.

Indeed it near lt fooled me.

There were two records by new artists that make lasting earworm memory with me the first being Love Grows by the Edison Lighthouse.

The other was The Same Old Feeling by Pickettywitch.

Observant eyes will have spotted they were both written Tony Macaulay but with different co writers.

Perhaps the biggest suprise from that year was as we moved into it Two Little Boys performed by Rolf Harris got to the number one spot a tale of long lived boyhood friendship and as we left that year into 1971 Grandad by Clive Dunn who we all new from Dad's Army, the WW2 Home Guard based comedy show on BBC1.

It too was a song with enduring theme and message and that was sharing past events and lessons he'd learned along the way, valuing what older people had to offer in society and how that can help us grow so perhaps this image of an older Top Of The Pops audience sat around listening to him isn't so surprising as that's what as younger boys and girls we did around our own.

Just imagine what the nations grandads felt about mini skirts and hot pants!

It alsow as the era of the open season with me and my many Cap guns playing cowboys and indians with the smell of burned mini capsules on a roll having been fired following me in fairly short short trousers.

Back then boys playing in the garden or your own street with silver cap guns was less an issue as was going around with a pen knife.

Perhaps inadvertantly my folks had discovered the secret of getting me more mallible???

Odd ideas and no need fors

This is being put together on fly during the storms having had to pop outdoors to rescue the refuse bin that had blown over from the kerbside where it was put out for collection just before I got to sleep after eleven last night.

Things are moving ahead with this time away fairly well other than this cryptic comment to say that a person one was picking up enroute had apparently stipulated that one wasn't to wear shorts as in that area you'd stand out and could lead to comments and that.

Instead they suggested wearing long trousers or a kilt.

It's rather less that being in a development of relatively low level flats with shared garden that one might be mindful for having a high likelihood of having mothers with school age children of wearing school uniform entering and leaving their place.

One is obliged pretty much to read the room when it comes to shared public spaces such as parks but on the face of it it a kilt in  home counties of England would stand out and in any event shorts is a broad term.

For instance while I do have school short trousers in various shades of grey, I do have blue cordoroy ones that next to nobody would associate with school and a pair of cream long cargo shorts that go just above the knee that in this area many men wear all year around.

You'd think the latter would of been acceptable as casualwear or are there torchlight swaying in the night mobs that would create scenes that see men in shorts as a threat to their children running the corridors in that area?

Given I've no long trousers that fit given there is no need in my life for them, to accommodate  this individual I'll wear a pair of black Puma trackpants which ironically when worn with a baseball jacket, cap and trainers only saw me attempted to be framed for a crime I didn't commit and told by the police in Cheshire that if I didn't wish to be be on the end any unwanted attention I was to present differently in their area.

That same look was never an issue in London or Surrey.

The end of the line?

The last few days has seen a double whammy of news around something that was a part of my childhood that I expected to continue on largely unaltered.

Model Railways was a boyhood thing from the first plastic set that run wide gauge track from batteries that dad bought me to the first layouts and a thing I saw across the generations as cousins of both sexes visited and played with them.

Their offspring have a interest in railways.

Yet it was announced this weekend that the legendary Hatton's originally of Liverpool are to shut up shop and the Warley Railway Show that has been held for many years at the N.E.C., Brum is postponed indefinately.

What's that all about?

One thing is costs business rates, rents and freeholds have all contributed to reducing high street shopping as has online sales from the likes of Amazon.

Exhibition centre fees are quite high and caused issues in another hobby of mine Ham radio where overnight costs shut up and many moved or stopped operating.

The NEC charges around £20-25 per person admission, parking can be expensive as are the captive catering unless you take the train to Birmingham International which makes attending for a day a dear do.

Then there's hobby expenses.

The modern loco has digital control systems with sound effects and often is well over £130 so the days of simple dc control with controllers are long gone.

It may be more realistic but the entry point to the hobby is very step today which makes a hard sell to boys (and for that matter girls) who still love playing but have less opportunities to build up a great layout even if card models and scenery is still affordable.

Then that leaves fewer people to get involved in clubs working on the club layout to show off at shows with stores both shops and bring and buys which draw more in as was the case post war and even into the 70's and 80's as a young lad.

Recollecting in 2024

One common theme across a number of years has been around the purpose and nature of my record collection because across the decades music has been issued in a variety of formats and it's fair to say that from the mid 1980's there has been a strong push towards getting new recordings on the compact disc.

With me while classical music was a early boyhood like, the nature of it means generally once you have aquired what you consider to be  great recording of a particular work, then that is generally it so your collection is generally static with just a few additions across the year.

Popular music being drawn from mainly new songs or tunes is ongoing and additions tend to based upon what you what like in the current charts or anything from the past you have just discovered in either album or single form.

Like many I gathered quantities of lp records in the eighties and early nineties and either part exchanged or otherwise replaced them for compact discs as they were seen as more durable, better sounding and well more modern that having a needle go along a groove cut in vinyl.

As time has gone by a number of things happened of which ones some records left but never were replaced and the other was that actually provided you cleaned them, actually those records for a variety of reasons actually sounded better than the compact disc!

That's different than the whole thing around the more tactile nature of records, the better potential for album art, reading notes and whatnot in a larger but thinner form.

Thus I have being buying back a number and while there are less outstanding from when the first wave started around 2011, in 2024 I do see a number returning.

The other area has been the buying of new albums, and while some modern trends in popular music don't do anything for me, I have been buying a number of albums for the first time on vinyl and these do include some compilations that take me back to my earlier years.

Handling including the placing of the record on the turntable and lowering of the arm all take me back to those days where many of us that's how we listened on our record players so music of that era in that form really pulls emotionally and nostalgically.

New year edition

So it is twenty Twenty Four and some people talk about New Year resolutions but to me just go off with just making an pronouncement seems to miss the point behind them which is that there is something around you and your life you wish to change for the forseeable feature.

If there's anything about change it is nothing is permanent but existance of change itself is and in any meaningful change you need to consider how you will achieve  it, the steps you will take and how that fits the measure of success.

With me continuing progress in getting my life back on track after last years upheavals and my health issues of previous year, making the most of any and all opportunities to spend time away, with others of a similar more littles bent.

While not quite in the same category, to go on trips organized more for adults in the wider community as my little self is one persuing interests making the most of whats available.

Continuing with the wider matter of dressing the age I feel both casually and uniformed establishing a variety of looks and options to resemble on the outside the Boy I am, keeping my shorts lengths more fitting of the era I grew up in so there can no question as to what I am.

Leaving all but the most necessary grown up things proved to be so liberating to me, concentrating instead on just being a responsible, dependable boy.