RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Amy K on Thursday 23 September 04 23:24 BST (UK)
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...elecricity....
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Spellcheckers! Sorry couldn't resist!
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Running hot water MMMmmmm
Oh, and Chocolate Digestives, drool...
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Toilets
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Me
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Toilet SEATS
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...elecricity....
oops!!
How right you are Ticker.
*electricity*
That other thingy is only available in Wales you see ::)
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razors....
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Thought you were gonna say Eastenders Amy ;D
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Believe it or not, I'm not actually a fan!
I used to be, alas no longer!!
I have another one though..
...Rootschat...
;D
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a 24 hour garage(As long as it's got a shop bit);D
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Fried Breakfast.
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....telephones...
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That 'find a word' on a page when you click edit ;D...
nearly seriously though!! .....avocadoes ::)
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Well, the internets quite mad. How else could you get so many replies from all over the world to a question in what...20minutes?
Shame about Eastenders though, not the same since Angie left
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Toilet PAPER!
Oh Gawd, those leaves were murder!!!!
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divorce
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Boy Bands >:(
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Thomson Gold holidays (no under 16s!)
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Versectomy
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Computers, calculators, telephones, cars, and just about everything else we take for granted!
Jill
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Strictly speaking this is "off topic", but I thought Ticker might like it:
Spelling chequer.
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Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin not sea.
Eye strike a quay and type a word
And weight for it too say
Weather eye am write oar wrong
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I'm shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My spell chequer tolled me sew.
p.s.
it's not original, as usual "I found it on the Internet".
Who said "I admire my ancestors because ..... no internet" ??
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Bob,
Don't know about Ticker, but I love it!
Jill
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V funny Bob! ;D
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Hairdryers.
criggy
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Asda! ;D
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Chips!
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:) Hi again ,
As Amy said at the start we really have to admire our ancestors .
For doing with out loads of things we take for granted today !
Washing machines , tumble dryers ,dish washers ,cookers as we know today , micros , How many of you lovely housewifes (Fitty) could go with out them ?
Hubbies what about the tv that saturday foots gone ! radio , cds ,tape,
wow what about the Car !!!!!!
If you look around the house a lot of the things around they never had or knew of ! and if they were around were they too dear for the family ?
So if we went back into their shoes could we cope , The answer is a big ............. NO As we have bettered our selfs so much it would be to hard to do all this now !!!
Another thing to think about is illness most going back would kill you lucky we have learn't how to cure things now !
So yes admire our ancestors ,but be glad we have moved on !!!!!!
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Strictly speaking this is "off topic", but I thought Ticker might like it:
Spelling chequer.
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Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin not sea.
Eye strike a quay and type a word
And weight for it too say
Weather eye am write oar wrong
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I'm shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My spell chequer tolled me sew.
p.s.
it's not original, as usual "I found it on the Internet".
Who said "I admire my ancestors because ..... no internet" ??
Can I just say something?? Just for the record?? Everyone: It's not LIASE, it's LIAISE!! That's right! and LIASE is not an American spelling either: it's just wrong!
Thank you. I feel much better now. 8)
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;D Now now Lizzy girl calm down ;D ;D
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Curling irons for my hair. I know my ancestors gave me my stick straight hair but how did they live with out a bit of curl??
By the, are we Americans such poor spellers and mutilate the English lanquage? Just wondering ???
- Kristin :)
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Really Bob.
I stole the spelling chequer poem from the net and published it on this site on 14th September.
Now I find you have plagiarized my original plagiarizing. That is a bit thick! If you want to do this we should liaise [got it right].
Hack
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Hi Hack,
I also stole it off the net and I posted it here, not knowing you had already done so !
Sorry ! If I had known, I could have referred to your posting, instead of having to hunt, for where I had originally seen it !
I agree, better liaison next time !
Bob
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MICROWAVES,SHOWERS,MOBILE PHONES,CENTRAL HEATING,MOTORWAYS.........AINT WE LOT LUCKY...... ;D
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Cheque books & credit cards!
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...modern dentistry..... ;D
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........with anaesthetics!.....
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Chips!
Excellent thread! But, who could do without chips
(for those in the USA, they call them French Fries)
Once I ordered Chips in a USA restaurant, and they gave a bunch of what the English call crisps, and the Canadians
call the potatoe chips. But, I must admire our ancestors for
living without our USA - Canadian - English double speak.
i.e. lift vs elevator, escalator vs moving staircase.
For North American they would guess a moving staircase to be
something in a haunted house or a horror flick.
And we haven't even added in the folks from the Land Down Under, or the Scottish-Welsh-Irish lingo.
Then there is the letter Z - Zed in England & Zee in the USA.
Canadians call it Zed, but many blindly repeat the ZEE.
The only product with the ZEE label is a paper product
used in the washroom or is it bathroom or lavatory
or heads?????
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Underware 8)
( Not sure if Knickers are allowed on this lovely site)
and Birth Control :-X
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Epidurals, pethidine, entonox, tens machines and every other method of pain relief that would have made having 150 kids in 10 years a tad more comfortable.
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Digital cameras
Central heating (but with the smell of a wood fire in the background, which they probably had)
Straightening tongs - well the females with the curly hair anyway
Gadget
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modern day reading glasses, seeing that I just read the last posting from gadget as "straighting thongs" now where did I leave mine?, ........................glasses that is!
old rowley
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Jaffa Cakes ;D
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modern day reading glasses, seeing that I just read the last posting from gadget as "straighting thongs" now where did I leave mine?, ........................glasses that is!
old rowley
ROWLEY - who do you think I am ;D ;D ;D
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Hey I reckon I must be an ancestor I grew up without the following:
Electricity
Central heating
A car - we went everywhere on a bike
TV = battery radio had to do
Pc's
We had water from a pump - Malvern water from our own well of course.
We filled buckets to flush the loo
No bathroom, we had a tin bath in front of the fire
So do I qualify?
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Can I just say something?? Just for the record?? Everyone: It's not LIASE, it's LIAISE!! That's right! and LIASE is not an American spelling either: it's just wrong!
Thank you. I feel much better now. 8)
There I was thinking it was lias. ;) (rock on)
Cheers
Guy
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Plastic and microwaves.
Sharon
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;) Power Lawn Mowers !! ;D
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Electric blankets, instant coffee, plastic bags of all kinds and paper towels, soft toilet paper, to name a few.
Nutkin, its not your fault. :) Americans often speak archaic English because the many settlers that came from England, carrying the language with them, arrived before English spelling was standardized. That was more or less late 18th Century.
I think I am 'mid-atlantic' ( sort of like the way Cary Grant used to speak ;D ) as I was born in England but have lived abroad in Canada for most of my life, but I always use the English spellings.
Some pronunciations that Americans use however, are just peculiar, like firing missals ( prayer books) instead of 'missiles'. Of course. perhaps some people would benefit by having prayer books fired at them. :)
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Hey I reckon I must be an ancestor I grew up without the following:
Electricity
Central heating
A car - we went everywhere on a bike
TV = battery radio had to do
Pc's
We had water from a pump - Malvern water from our own well of course.
We filled buckets to flush the loo
No bathroom, we had a tin bath in front of the fire
So do I qualify?
Hi Meldrew
I remember Tilly Lamps but we did have one of those central bulb thingies, and do you remember when they plugged things into a lamp with and adapter?
Central heating - my Dad was a coal miner
A car - he did have one lesson from his carpenter brother but he put his foot on the accelerator and drove into a hedge
TV - he was a dab hand at building radios
PCs - he lived long enough to have a play with my very first BBC one
Water - I still only have an artesian well ( drilled after 2 months without water 2 years ago) - but it is piped
Bathroom - see above but I remember the old tin bath in front of the fire on a Sunday night
To add another - I was 1 month premature and they hadn't got a cot so my first bed was a drawer ;D
Gadget - moving with the times ::) ::) ::)
(P.S I also noticed the liaise but was being two pollight)
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Underware 8)
( Not sure if Knickers are allowed on this lovely site)
and Birth Control :-X
Why not, or what about bloomers etc.
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My family would say:
remote control - beer - football
PSP - computer games - XBOX - mobile phone - baseball cap (on back to front of course) and jeans that always look as if they are about to fall down
birth control - James Blunt and a glass of wine!!
Now take a guess - who would pick what??
Anna ;D
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modern day reading glasses, seeing that I just read the last posting from gadget as "straighting thongs" now where did I leave mine?, ........................glasses that is!
old rowley
ANY glasses
Hot water from a tap
Washing machines
Sewing machines
Antibiotics, vaccination and anaesthetic (but if you survived, you sure were tough!)
Inside toilets (see note to previous item... ;))
Veron
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A plumbed-in bath and hot running water
Ladies sanitary items :-[
Duvets
Steph.
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A house. If you go back far enough...
Andrew
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A house. If you go back far enough...
Yes ' but I could dig up the pictures that I took of Skara Brae and that goes back yonks ;D
Gadget
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Maybe I'm a bit of a masochist, but I always look forward and enjoy our sojouns in Bohol-Philippines. It is as if taking a trip back to our forebears times. Our home at Dagohoy is in a rural districtwhere only a handfull of dwellings have electricity and running water.
The hardest part is sleeping on a wooden bed without a mattress. of course first task of the day is to fetch water from the well (poorer families would use the communal well where a bamboo pipe runs some 50ft away so that people can wash themselves without poluting the well (It is nessessary for someone to accompany the ladies to shield them from passers by with a large towel). clothes are washed at the river and if you are not willing to gather or kill your food, hunger woul soon catch up with you. For all this, where houses do have electricity it is quite normal to see all modern equipment - computers, tv, etc etc
The rural atmosphere is also obvious in the day to day lifestyle. Where on earth would you still find a young man paying court to a lady by serenading under the lady's window. I could relate how my Wife's Mother chased away young men who she deemed unsuitable for her daughter.
We cannot guarentee to be able to buy milk (fresh or otherwise) r many other goods that in our normal world are classed as indespensable.
Living there for a few months at a time is wonderfull remedy for todays hectic world, but it's probably like someone without children, it's fine to look after them but when we have had enough!!!!!!!!!
Enough waffeling , her are a couple of pics to help give some idea of the place. The first is one of a typical rural kitchen - took last year, while the other is some years ago, and pictures one of my daughters in the bamboo home of one of her aunt's, the house has no running water but has two power points, one of which proudly runs the television.
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As you say Denn, it's fun for a while ;)
Lovely photos. The kitchen one does remind me in some respects of Skara Brae.
They slept on stone beds though :o :o :o
Gadget
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Brilliant pictures Dennford - they make you realise how lucky we all are
When I was born I also had a drawer as my cot, a tin bath to wash in, no running hot water inside, the walls were 2 feet thick to keep whatever heat there was inside. My Great Aunt had the toilet at the very bottom of the garden which I had to visit in the middle of the night with my Great Uncle and a lamp and that was when I was 10 yrs old.
I have done my washing in the bath and taken my shoes and socks off and gone running up and down it to make sure it is well washed. No fridge so a bowl of cold water to keep the milk cool in the pantry.
How long ago would you say that was??
Well I was born in 1960 not 1860 (though I often feel as though I was) I was brought up in the middle of Anglesey in a lovely cottage which is still standing but has now been converted for all the everyday luxuries.
The washing was the beginning of the 80's when I was first married and we had no money to buy a washer.
Did I ever feel sorry for myself? No way! It just made me be grateful for everything I have and know that I have worked hard for everything I have and will get.
No money and don't really need it? - then don't get it !
That should be our family motto shouldn't it? haha
Carol
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Did anybody have "frosted fern leaves" on the bedroom windows in the morning?
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Oh I do!
We had them before the council decided to upgrade the houses with central heating which nobody used as they didn't know how to turn it on and off lol
Too cold to get out of bed but the leaves were too beautiful not to
Carol
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I think the main thing is to realise just how lucky we are. The things that we take for granted such as schooling, a warm bed and good reliable medical care. are to many people in this world not attainable or regarded as a privelidge rather than a right. After all we could easily have been born to parents of a third world country and never even known of the world as we know it.
There but for the grace of god go I.
Denn
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At school (in the 50s) the children were discussing thier homes, one little boy said we have a new bathroom upstairs, the second child admitted that as they were not so well of thiers was downstairs. the third child replied "Ours is hung on the back wall"
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An elderly relative admitted to hospital in the 80s had to ask how to switch the light on and how to use the radio - she and her brothers lived in a farm with spring water (not mains) and no electricity. I never had a particular problem with their earth loos, but I guess they wouldn't go down well today. We didn't have a fridge ourselves until the 70s - though keeping milk fresh was a bit of an art, involving a bucket of water and a wet tea towel, if I remember. Come to think of it some of my earliest memories involve helping Mum do the washing by turning the handle of the mangle - and wasn't she pleased to get her first washing machine!
Linda
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Come to think of it some of my earliest memories involve helping Mum do the washing by turning the handle of the mangle - and wasn't she pleased to get her first washing machine!
Linda
Snap, Linda! My mum as I remember, didn't get her first spin dryer until after my sister, her third child, was born - this in the days of terry nappies, and she also had our grandmother and great grandmother living in the house - Mum always said that if she had to choose between them, she'd have a spin dryer over a washing machine any day as you could always do the washing in the bath!
What a red letter day!
And.. when I bought my first house (in 1978) it had been owned by an old man who had lived there with no alterations since 1923 - there was no hot water or bathroom, an outside toilet in the yard, and there was electric light but some of it only worked when it rained :o :o :o That's less than 30 years ago and it wasn't unusual by any means.
Veron
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pensions and state benefits - when you look throught the census and see very elderly Ag labs who had to keep working till the bitter end..............
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a nice warm shower first thing in the Morn to wake you up ,how could i live with out my shower !!
No really you ain't seen me in the Morn !! ;D
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the fast pace world of today is involved in a never ending
changing of rules & regulations and fresh new buzz words
that keep us hopping up and down, changing pace, being politically correct in all the right places, and putting logic
& common sense on the trash heap of yesterday's world
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Ladies sanitary items :-[
Steph.
I'm with you there Steph. I reckon I could do without almost everything else, but not those. ;D
Prue
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PA!, the good old days, they weren't that long ago for some of us.
Back in the early eighties when I was a kid in the Irish countryside we had an outside toilet until I was five. Most baths were taken in the tin tub in front of the fire, as it was easier.
We did have a bath but no hot water, my poor mother would push the twin tub into the hall fill it up with water and put the hose into the bath so the hot water would empty in there. Then the baths went eldest to youngest, myself and my sister sharing of course, moving our feet out of the way when mam would bring the kettle in to "top up" the water. When we were all done all the clothes that were all over the floor would be chucked in the water to soak.
We had a spring to provide water to the house and during August this always dried up so we would walk about quarter mile to the well with bottles and buckets to "fetch a pail of water"
Sharon
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We had a spring to provide water to the house and during August this always dried up so we would walk about quarter mile to the well with bottles and buckets to "fetch a pail of water"
Sharon
Hi Sharon
We still had one until two years ago. A really hot dry summer and by August a dry dry bed :( For two months we had to carry water - from our nearest neighbour, a mile away- where we had showers and did washing. Eventually, when we had decided to dig very deeply into our savings and arranged for an artesian to be bored, the rain came and came and came and came............................. Don't think the old spring has dried up since :-\
It does mean that I don't have to worry about how many showers/baths and loads of washing are done per day now though. That artesian just keeps coming..........crossed fingers ::) ::) ::)
Gadget
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Great fun wasn't it Gadget ::)
Sharon
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Great fun wasn't it Gadget ::)
Sharon
GREAT
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I remember when my stepfather was made redundant from Ford's in Dagenham, and he and my mum went out shopping with the redundancy money. Among the things they bought were a microwave oven. I can remember thinking (I was 15, I think) "We've managed all these years without a microwave oven. Why do we need one now?" I still think microwaves are not that much of a blessing and think they should have used the money to pay off their mortgage. They live in Lincolnshire now, in a village called New Bolingbroke, about halfway between Boston and Horncastle.
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Microwaves , and loads of kitchen gadgets that fill the cupboards in yer kitchen ,and how many of them see the light of day again after that first use ??
i will say though we bought an egg boiler and that works great and we do use that :D
For 1-7 eggs
Degree of boiling from soft to hard
Clearly marked filling/measuring jug
Egg piercer
Buzzer tone indicates when eggs are ready
Illuminated on/off switch :D
and we use this but we have loads of stuff we never bother with as its easier to use less and save on washing up .
;D
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loads of kitchen gadgets that fill the cupboards in yer kitchen ,and how many of them see the light of day again after that first use ??
My breadmaker.... gorgeous bread but it gets used once a year at Christmas :-\
BUT I still regularly use the breadknife I remember my Aunts using when I was very small, which looks as old as the hills (as they would have said ;D).
Steph.
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Yep we got one of them Bread makers ok but not used enough :(
More Egg boilers here
http://search.ebay.co.uk/egg-boiler_W0QQfcclZ1QQfclZ4QQfnuZ1QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1
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I keep my kitchen as low tech as possible, apart from washing machine, freezer etc. I had one of those food processors once. Couldnt be bothered to read the instructions and couldnt be bothered to clean it afterwards. Now I have a little hand held mixer and a hand held blender. Perfect.
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Yep we got one of them Bread makers ok but not used enough :(
More Egg boilers here
http://search.ebay.co.uk/egg-boiler_W0QQfcclZ1QQfclZ4QQfnuZ1QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1
but making bread is such a doddle, why use a machine to do it? I made bread rolls yesterday in a vain attempt to impress my man!
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It isn't only our ancestors that had to live without electricity, running water, bathrooms etc; I did.
I am still in my 50's (not that old really) and the house I was brought up in had no electricity until I was in my late teens. We had no running water inside the house, just a tap outside that froze every day in winter as did the toilet that was outside in the yard. No garden either. We had to chip ice off the tin bath that was kept outside to bring it in and fill with water heated on the gas stove, it took ages. Then after we had had a bath it had to be bailed out, so that the bath could be turned on end to get it back through the back door and into the yard again.
No central heating, we just had a coal fire downstairs, so upstairs the windows had ice on the insides.
Those were the day's!! :'(
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I don't envy them for the lack of access to education that we have - not to mention plumbing! And medical care and anaesthetics etc!
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I don't envy my ancestors for how they lived but I do admire them - they were toughies in the " good old days"
Carol
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Totally agree Carol. They had such hard lives and just got on with it.
Gadget :)
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I really admire my maternal ancestors for living without .....
real choices
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Yes Leanne you are so right. That is what I think I would have found heartbreaking. Actually if you read the novels of Anne Perry she often addresses issues, such as women not being able to pursue careers or vocations that were perceived as male only. They are great stuff, her books, although I like the William Monk series and the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series the best. They are set in Victorian London and I do recommend them.
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Leisure time - I bet they didn't get much chance to chill out - I'm allways moaning that I don't get enough time to myself but just imagine looking after 10 kids, working and keeping a home without a cooker or washing machine - the poor women must never have stopped.
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I really admire my maternal ancestors for living without .....
real choices
Leanne
I have to agree with you. I can't think of any worse than not making my own choices.
Kerry
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;) Our Ancestors may have missed out on all the New Gadgets ,, But like was simpler ;D
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Oh for a simple life!! :-\ :-\
Kerry
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Well we've just said we want choices - and ultimately if we don't live gentle, simple lives it's because that's the way we've chosen. If we want gadgets etc, we have to pay for them. But I think at some point, you have to decide whether you want this house full of junk, whether it's too dearly bought, and maybe think about "downsizing", concentrating on more rewarding things.
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;D Miss Lizzy whether you want this house full of junk,
True ;D
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In my case, scraps of paper I've scribbled on years ago, letters I've written and never sent, ditto Christmas cards, old make up, old clothes that don't fit and the cat has been sitting on anyway (!!) BTW Mr G Duchess sends her love.
:D :D
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birth control.
Those poor women! :'(
Margaret
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birth control.
Those poor women! :'(
Margaret
Oh yes Margaret, having all those babies must have been awful for them.
Jan
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I read on here the other day about a lady who had 19 children!
Ouch is all I can say!!!!!!
Kerry :-X
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I agree - can you imagine! Also, losing some of your children, which a lot of mothers did- the heart break that they must have felt.
So, I will add - immunisations.
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When I used to visit Cobh, Ireland in the early 1960s as a kid I can remenber using an outside toilet. That used to be emptied down a hole when the tide went out. And going to get drinking water from a pump in the road. So it wasn't just our ancestors who went without.
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Your right Leytone, there are millions of people in the world today who are living in far worse conditions than most of our ancestors ever did.
It really is a travesty >:( :'(