General Chat

as a teenage girl stuck in a swing. That may not be the saying, but for the second time in as many weeks a girl ( not the same one surely?) is stuck in the children's play park swing meant for toddlers.

Fire brigade are here again as this one may have to be cut out like the last girl was.
:-S

Do they not teach teenagers that you can't fit a gallon in a pint pot? ;-)

:-D :-D : :-D

She's out and at least the swing is still intact this time.

You never did that as a teenaged girl? I surely did. ;-)

I can see them now. The wooden swing seats were coated in decades of dark yellow paint, flat bottoms with slatted sides and back, so they were like little cubes with the front and top open. Oh, there was some sort of up-and-down slidey part at the front so a little kid could be confined in the seat. At a park where our family often went, huge area of grass and trees, river running through, a cememt water pool feature enclosed in a hedge, where ... hm ... No. -2 and I slept out one night years later. A playground area with sandboxes, swings, and an enormous elm you could climb a ways up. Gone now; Dutch Elm disease got them all.

I never got actually stuck, but it was a tight squeeze.

JoonieCloonie I was a good girl ;-) ( or maybe just unadventurous?) I was also a lot smaller than some of these girls, they are much taller and a bit chunkier than I was at their age.

A shame about the Elms, we had a small Ash tree which had to go a couple of
years ago because of Ash die-back, but the ones between our fence and the play park seem to have recovered. My tree climbing days are over but I did used to do that :-)

I was a very good girl, I'll have you know! No. Minus 2 and I barely touched that night (but yes: good or unadventurous?) ... although at some point not too long after we set up house together. :-)

You don't have to be reeaaally adventurous to squeeze yr bum into a swing. :-D

Look after your trees for sure! Where I am now, it's the native soft maples that used to line the streets that are disappearing. There's a clump of 3 in our back yard that has to go. I've seen two neighbours directly across the street and down a bit take their front lawn trees down, which really annoyed me until I saw what the insides looked like. A foot and a half diameter, completely hollow. That's what my clump, which is very tall but completely wrongly grown and losing branches every storm, will look like.

The other one that was lost since we moved here 8 years ago (look of shock on my face, 8 years) got murdered by lightning. I happened to have gone out on the veranda at about 5 a.m. to enjoy the storm. I love storms. This one was moving west to east, immediately south of us, the direction the veranda faces. I was standing at the top of the steps taking it in ... when came a mighty thunder clap with a simultaneous explosion of lightning. I leapt backward and decided discretion was the better part of ... adventurousness. I found out later that that would have been what took the tree in the neighbours facing's back yard. Fortunately, it only hit next door's fence.

We do live in a bit of a tornado alley, but none in the immediate vicinity so far!

I have three young catalpas stuck in the ground last year and waiting to move to their forever homes, if I can figure out where that will be. They grow mighty fast. We can't have boulevard trees because we're on the power line side of the street, and the front garden is only a few feet to the sidewalk, and we already have a big very old crabapple at the side. I left catalpas behind when we moved cities, and I can't wait to get them growing here. Another couple of years til they flower, but they grow several feet a year.

JoonieCloonie, when I lived in Kent we used to go often to Rochester, outside the Cathedral there grew a Catalpa tree that was ( is I hope, still there) 140/150 years old. We always stopped to admire it.

I do wish I had more land to plant trees.

Perhaps she has a thing for firemen ;-) :-D

Rose... I had to Google.
I don't know the current situation, but found this.

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/future-uncertain-for-iconic-tree-39699/

Wish I had looked around more, when I visited Rochester Cathedral recently to see the huge black oak table they have at the moment.

Hi Rambling and Gwyn
I live near Rochester. The article in the link was several years ago, when the tree split. From memory half of it fell off. Tree surgeons tidied it up, and railings were put round it to protect it from tree climbers, and it's still there

Hi rose, I don't remember ever doing that but I was a timid child I would have been afraid of getting stuck.

But hey, isn't it lovely when we get long time members returning for a chat. so good to see you JunieCloonie, Duncan too. :-)

Thank you Gwyn and Duncan. I am glad it's still there. Rochester used to be where I spent my day off, my mum and I would visit the charity shops and antique shops, sit in the little park by the Dickens Centre and then go to the refectory cafe at the cathedral and have cheese scones and tea. Happy days.

Ann, yes it is nice to see people returning :-) I came back to look at a finding ancestors post from years ago ( I found the ancestor!) and was tempted back to post, if I can think of things to say lol. I don't do a lot that's exciting enough to talk about.

:-D

I think we are all the same these days Rose, the most exciting thing I did yesterday was plant tomato seeds. :-(

Planting seeds is hopeful anyway Ann :-)

Ive planted some peas in a big tub, fingers crossed they grow this year!

Me planting seeds is always hopeful Rose. Showing willing!!

I put a 'floating' shelf up yesterday - it took 3 attempts to get the poles that make it 'floating' in the right place :-|
Then I put 2 brackets under it, because I don't trust 'floating' shelves :-D :-D

Thank you AnninGlos, nice to be back! I did't exactly stop researching, I just found I didn't have time to do it. But I'm back now, I'm glad to see there are so many familiar names still about.
Rambling - did you used to be Rambling Rose? - you might not recognise Rochester any more, most of the antique shops are gone.

Duncan yes I am still Rose and still rambling lol.

I had a 'walk' around Rochester courtesy of Google maps and saw a lot of changes to the shops. The last time I was there would have been about 1989 so not surprising, everywhere has changed since then, except in memories. The good thing about places on a river and with a Cathedral is that those areas of the towns stay somewhat the same.

I also lived in Otford and worked in Sevenoaks in the 1980s so had a look at them too, just about recognised the old bits of both. But again lots of changes.

I think I might hold some sort of record for getting lost in one's home town

My dad died 3 years after we married and moved over here. OH and I went over for the funeral then OH returned to Canada, and I stayed on for 2 weeks to help my brother and to sort out what I might want to keep from my old home ......... as it turned out I left a lot behind that I've since regretted :-(

Brother used to take me "home" from his house, leave me there, and then pick me up to go back to his place. But I decided one day that I needed to visit my best friend's mother (friend had moved to Australia) and that I could ride the several buses to her place, then to Manchester and out to brother.

Boy oh Boy

I managed the bus from Dad's house to the centre of town, had about a 10 minute walk to the next bus ............... and I was lost, in the centre of my home town, where I used to know how to get everywhere.

They'd begun a major reconstruction including removal of a very large round-about and demolition of a certain very obvious building!

I'd expect major changes after 20 or 30 years, but 3????????

I was completely flummoxed, fortunately someone pointed me to where the bus stop now was, had a good time with friend's mother, and succeeded in getting the bus from her place to Manchester and then out to brother's house.