Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

That’s very true Fruity, but only in the posh Dublin 4 area, to the rest of us Dublin peasants she’s The Whore in the Sewer.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

The wife was telling me today that one of her nieces is very upset after her marriage broke down and she will be getting divorced, it was a whirlwind romance as they say and they had been married for just over two years, no need to go into details, she will be returning to Dublin from his native Spain, they had no children, thankfully she’s only in her twenties and hopefully will be wiser from the experience.

So sad when love goes bad, that old Greek saying is right “Love and hate are horns on the same goat"

I find that the men who go overboard treating their wives with flowers and gifts, are all lovey dovey when they are out in the pub together, are usually the one’s who have a bit on the side.

I’ve been asked to make several mens wedding rings in the course of my working life for fellas who ‘lost’ them, men who are supposed to be pillars of local society, and they had to be made up in a hurry too, if the wife missed the rings from their fingers they would say “Ah sure the thing cracked at the back and I gave it to Jem to fix”
I fixed them up alright but they paid well for the job, he who dips his wick pays dearly for the oil, as de holy bible say.
I have been put on the spot a few times by wives over male ‘comradeship’, but a closed mouth catches no flies, nobody likes a squealer.

Getting back to the point, if I was a young man today I wouldn’t know the way to win a woman’s heart if I didn’t know her well beforehand, I count myself lucky as I’ve known my wife since I was a small boy, spending your entire life with the one person is a huge decision to make when you think about it, and I for one could not spend me life with a person I didn’t love, I’d be out of it like a light and so would she, my heart bleeds for someone who married the wrong person, but we all make mistakes and thankfully we don’t have to put up with that any more in this country since divorce came in not too long ago.

She has always been herself and I am the same, after all they married you as you were, and providing you weren’t a bowsie (old Dublin word for a blaggard), things should work out OK, look after her and protect her, be there when she needs you, take her out and if she doesn’t want to go out it’s still nice to ask her. Getting a bit mushy now so I’ll wrap it up.

We’ve always had a bit of friendly slagging between the two of us, it helps to ease any tension, but the golden rule in any successful union if to never say their bums look big in anything, for some unknown reason they are very self conscious about their backsides.

Worked for me for 54 years of marriage, not once did I ever say her bum was big, not even the time she sat on the toilet bowl and it split in half, I just helped her up, smiled, and by way of consolation said “No problem dear, it could happen to a Bishop… a 20 stone bishop”

Don’t mind me, I always get sentimental around this time, it’s the memory of that old Christmas card again.
I’ll let Jim Reeves explain about that card.
Warning for all the hard men, there’s enough mush in this song to cover a whole football pitch.(everything concerning large areas seem to be measured in olympic swimming pools and football pitches these days, so I’ll just join in )

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Yes Dublin 4 is a completely different experience altogether, worlds apart from where I was born and raised.
Dublin 4 where the mothers children (usually two) grew up and get ‘morried’ and not married, when selected guests were invited to the ‘wed-ding’ never the weddin.
The habitat of newsreaders, newspaper editors, and actors, the creme de la creme.


It seems to be the latest fashion around these parts for old lads to have a kind of plait at the back of their heads, I’ve seen at least three pass by the house today, two of them were completely bald on top but somehow managed to salvage enough hair from the sides of their head to make a tail at the back, looks silly and a sign of desperation to me, literally grasping at straws, but everyone to their own taste and good luck to them.
A tail on your head? it would appear some folks got their anatomical geography all wrong.

Take some advice from Bernard Cribbins

Don’t stick it there
Stick it elsewhere
You’ve pleated it round
When it ought to be square
The shapes all wrong
It’s much too long
And you can’t stick a tail
Where a tail don’t belong.

Ladies what do you think? if your fella looked like this from behind would you be happy to walk out arm in arm with him? Or would you be tempted to snip it off when he’s asleep?

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I have to agree with your comments about getting to know your other half before you take the plunge.

I think in many cases the old saying, "Marry in haste, repent at your leisure" is quite true.

When I was in my twenties I had a friend who met and married a young woman not long after. The honeymoon was in Spain, the marriage was never consummated, and the bride went back to her former boyfriend as soon as she got home.
What a mess.

My parents met during WW2 when R Mar was 16 and dad was 22. My dad courted my mum for four years before they married, and even then had to get his future father-in-law's permission to wed because she was under twenty one.

My maternal grandad emigrated to Australia to buy a farm under a British Government soldier-settler scheme in 1919, having survived the horrors of WW1.
Three years later he sent for his fiance, my granny. She made her own wedding dress and had the banns read on the ship on the way over from England. They married the day after she landed.

I can't imagine anything like that happening today. Three years apart with the only method of contact being post that took eight weeks in each direction.

I was always shy around the opposite sex and would hardly ever initiate a conversation. I have no idea what would have happened if a certain young girl had not had a schoolgirl crush on me when we became cousins.
I might have been a bachelor all my life, I might have been happy with someone else, or I might have been miserable with someone else.
Instead, we had six years of friendship before she asked me if I wanted to go out with her, followed by a good old fashioned year long courtship, a year long engagement, and so far, over thirty seven years of happy marriage.

I still have some catching up to do with you, but we will get there eventually.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

My Uncle/FiL lost his wedding ring whilst we were on holiday at a caravan park. He was convinced it had come off in the shower block but despite a thorough search of it and the ground from there to his caravan, it was nowhere to be found ... until.

He found it in the caravan two years later whilst clearing it out to sell it.



Many years ago I had a couple of old books printed in the 1800s, one of which was called, Enquire Within Upon Everything.
It had information about how a wife should prepare household accounts, home remedies for minor injuries and ailments, how to bring up children, how to deal with servants, how to send invitations and receive guests, and all sorts of useful stuff that would teach the wealthy middle classes in Victorian society to survive.

There was also a section on The Language of Love, broken down into such things as the Language of Flowers and the Language of Rings.

If a lady be seeking a husband, she might wear or carry a certain type of flower to indicate this. If however she was not interested in a man or was being courted, she would wear or carry different types of flowers to warn potential suitors not to bother her.

A Gentleman, seeing the former might send her flowers of a specific type to suggest he was interested in her, and the type of flowers she would wear or carry when next they met would tell him if she was or wasn't interested.
This was great. It meant a chap would know before he asked a girl out what her response was likely to be.

The position of rings and their type on a person's hand had similar meanings. The most well known of these is the wearing of engagement, wedding, and eternity rings on the third finger of the left hand, but other types of rings and their positions had different meanings as well.


My Cousin and I started dating in the Spring just after her seventeenth birthday. I would normally pick her up, take her back to my place so that I could woo her with my culinary experiments, then take her back home in the evening. This was two fifty mile trips every time, so after six weeks I suggested we just spend the day in the town near where she lived to give me a break from driving so much. My Aunt was convinced we had gone to choose rings.
Er, no, not after only six weeks of dating, but that's how convinced her Mum was that my Cousin and I were going to spend our lives together.


That christmas my Cousin gave me a plain gold ring with my initial on it. I looked up the correct etiquette in my old book, and decided the most appropriate place for me to wear it was on the third finger of my right hand as a Friendship Ring.

The day after I proposed we did go into town to choose rings, and I spent my next month's mortgage payment on them, leaving me a bit skint for the rest of the month, but it was worth it.

When we married, I changed my ring from my right hand to the the third finger of my left hand as both a physical and symbolic change in our relationship.

I never wore it to work, having been shown some graphic photos of work related accidents on my induction into the engineering trade. This included a chap who had fallen from some packing cases he had been climbing and lost a finger whilst his full weight was hanging by his wedding ring that had caught on a nail.

I've worn it more in the four years since I retired than I ever did in the preceding forty three years that I was gainfully employed.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Very informative post Fruity, I didn’t know a lot of that stuff, thanks.

I had heard of that book “Enquire Within Upon Everything”, Agatha Christie mentions it in a few of her early stories.

You did right never wearing a ring to work if you have to use your hands, my late Father lost his wedding ring finger in an accident at work back in 1963.

Besides it wears the ring shank out fairly quickly if worn to work everyday, I’ve often got rings in for repair, new shanks (the part on the palm side of the hand) required, some of them were so thin that you could shave yerself with them.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I had to replace an upper tooth that got badly broken when I had a slight accident the other day.
I was on the step ladder painting the ceiling of an upstairs bedroom at the time, the broken tooth was so loose that it eventually came out later that night. I was glad it did come out as there’s nothing looks as bad as half a tooth when you open your mouth.

I was left in a very embarrassing position as I had to attend a funeral of an old friend the next day, sure enough the mask would help to cover the very noticeable gap in the teeth, but I would have to lower the mask sometime, like when I wanted to smoke in the cemetery after himself was lowered, or having a quick drink later at the local (no wakes during this civid thing)

I won’t bore you with the details, just to say I was able to make a new tooth to match the rest of them and all was well again.

The deceased was an old workmate of mine from years back, he lived alone. the only family he had left were two nieces, the rest attending were from the local pub including the landlord and his wife, about 10 in all, we went back to the pub where a meal was waiting for us, all paid for (the meal) by the landlord who’s a decent old skin. everything went smoothly. That’s the fourth person I knew personally who were victims of the corvid curse.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

Moving on from that bit of misery.

The tooth episode prompted me to read up on the history of dentures, I found it most interesting, maybe I should have went into the dental mechanic business when I was younger, these modern day highwaymen charge the earth for their work, and a lot of the processes are related to jewellery making, (mould making and casting etc.).

I even discovered a new word, well new to me, “edentulous”= without teeth. though I’m damned on how to pronounce it.

There’s a lot of info there and the below are just two short items.


“17th century London's Peter de la Roche is believed to be one of the first 'operators for the teeth', men who advertised themselves as specialists in dental work. They were often professional goldsmiths, ivory turners or students of barber-surgeons.”

And this bit.

“George Washington (1732–1799) suffered from problems with his teeth throughout his life, and historians have tracked his experiences in great detail.
He lost his first adult tooth when he was twenty-two and had only one left by the time he became president. He had several sets of false teeth made, four of them by a dentist named John Greenwood. None of the sets, contrary to popular belief, were made from wood or contained any wood. The set made when he became president were carved from hippopotamus and elephant ivory, held together with gold springs.
Prior to these, he had a set made with real human teeth, likely ones he purchased from "several unnamed Negroes, presumably Mount Vernon slaves" in 1784.” Wiki.

Here’s George, ain’t he got a lovely pair of jam jaws, who needs teeth when you have gorgeous rosy jaws like that!, one might even call them "smiling jaws"

I couldn't find any paintings of him smiling, but then again having a mouthful of Hippopotamus teeth is nothing to smile about, no wonder he never told a lie, he was too embarrassed to open his mouth, not to worry, Trump has more than made up for him since. 20,000 documented lies (July 2020) in four years and still counting, an unbeatable record for any Statesman.

I have a vision of Anthony Hopkins in the role of Hitler (Can’t remember the name of the film) banging his fist on a table in the bunker shouting at his dismayed generals “The var is not over!” and comparing it to Trump’s “The election is not over!”

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

There was a joke once about Wauneta, think it involved north American ladies, can't be arsed to dig it up.

Re: Leisurely Scribbles (part 5)

I read that they have discovered a new species of Whale, how did Jacques Cousteau miss that one in all the marine expeditions he conducted?

I mean I can understand him missing a few new species of sea snail or even crab, but a whole Whale!, the largest creatures in the oceans that have been on earth for millions of years.

How did they slip through the net I wonder, they'll be all jumping on the bandwagon to save this new species and all the other poor buggers will have to get to the end of the queue.
Methinks they better have another search for Nessie.

Reminds me of the time the school teacher was telling the kids about Christopher Columbus's fantastic discovery of America.

“He just sailed off west into the sunset and it was 36 days before he found America”

“Well he could hardly miss it Sir, it’s a whole continent”



I checked out Wauneta Spitty, it’s a village in Nebraska. but if it’s any help I know that a girl called Wanetta had a sister called Rosetta, Alan Price and Georgie Fame had a song about her back in 1971, she must have been very very very sick because they keep asking is she well well well.

They seem to be enjoying themselves on this song, but the video is spoiled by very bad sync with the singers lips.