A train journey to London in 1970

I landed back in England from a teaching post in Germany in December 1969 and was feeling very lonely and not happy with the English weather.  So I decided to try to get a job in sunny Australia.  I had already obtained a temporary position in Brighton England.

On January 8th, 1970 I set out for Brighton station to catch a train to take me to London to visit Australia House.  Once I had bought my ticket I walked onto the platform and peered into the carriage windows.' I might as well have a pleasant traveling companion' I thought .  Then I spied a good looking young man sitting in the corner of a compartment.  So I went into that compartment and sat in the far corner away from him.

Because my boxes had not arrived from Germany I was limited to my best clothes,  a light beige fur coat and hat and long beige suede boots.  

The journey took 59 minutes and I exchanged a few smiles with the young man but as there were other people there nothing more.  There was one stop at East Croydon and a  disheveled tramp got in.   This made me want to laugh and I struggled to keep my composure.  Then we arrived at Victoria station and I still had not spoken to the young man.   I imagined he was married and going to London to work. 

This is all I can type for now so the rest of the story will come in another post.

More animals in Rosie's young life

One day in my early teens I walked by a pet shop in Shoreham -by-Sea, Sussex in England and saw some Dutch rabbits for sale. They were grey and white.   Anyway I ended up buying them though we had no room for them at my house.  I had made friends with a 27 year old young woman  named Betty and she allowed me to keep my new pets in cages in a field she rented for her goats not far from where I lived.  

Later I went to a country market with an older woman, Miss Garret, who also kept rabbits (about 40 of them).  Rabbits have a habit of multiplying fast if kept together when they are of the opposite sex!  At the market I saw some ducks for sale,  Khaki Campbells.  I bid on them and came home with them.  I cannot imagine what  my mother thought but we set up a run for them with the goats.  Only one laid eggs.  The other was barren.  It was not a drake as the drakes are different colors than the ducks.

So from then on for a period of time we had duck eggs and goat's milk for breakfast , though I prefer chicken's eggs and cow's milk really.

I loved the goats and used to help my friend milk them in the evenings. I especially liked to see the kids when they were just born and watched one or two births.   

Meanwhile I acquired another grey Rex rabbit who had several babies so I ended up with seven rabbits.  My Rex rabbit  (named Curly because of her curly coat) was not very bright.  She did not know how to put them in the nest she had instinctively made so my older friend Miss Garret rubbed her hands in the dirt and carefully placed the babies in the nest. We saved all but one of the litter.

I kept all these animals until I left for college at age 18 when Miss Garret took them for me.

My Childhood Pets

By now you know a little about me and know I lived in England as a child and young adult.  Lisa wanted me to tell you a little about the animals I loved as a child and teenager.

When I was almost six years old I awoke on Christmas morning to find a fluffy blue grey kitten in a doll's cradle in our living room. She had matter in the corner of one eye and my mother explained she had got soot in her eye coming down the chimney.  That was my first pet I named Toots.  She was quite an intelligent cat and when hungry would go to the shelf where the cat food was stored and knock down a can of cat food. She also liked table food and learned to sit on her hind legs and beg for it.  

One day a stray cat came to our house looking for food.  We adopted this brown tabby  cat which we called Tibbles.  Toots hated Tibbles and would hiss at him if he happened to cross the threshold and enter the house. However he stayed with us for many years.

Later we acquired a pet parakeet called Joey.  This was when  I was 15 and had whooping cough so had to stay home from school  for six weeks. I spent my time teaching him to speak and he learned his name and address and several nursery rhymes including one I personalized, "Jack and Jill went up the hill and so did Joey Wood!".

Needless to say I did not do so well in my final exams at school because I missed the revision lessons.   At this age I also had silk worms and a mouse.  The mouse died of pneumonia after a valiant effort by me to revive him.  His name was "Onty" The silk worms  were accidentally killed by insect spray my mother sprayed in an attempt to get rid of the cat's fleas on the floor.  That's enough for today.  Lisa, I will describe the rest of my pets in another post.

I've been reading Fauf's blog entry and the comments about this D.......Economy and it reminded me of when I was a little girl in England in the 1940s and 50s.    

We lived in a very small house in which the front room was a newsagent's shop which made the living space even smaller.  We had no appliances except a vacuum cleaner which we called a "Hoover".  I can only think there was no other brand.  We did have a radio and a wind-up gramophone on which we played old 78 records.  We had no fridge so we shopped nearly every day or had it delivered.  We never owned a car which was just as well as there was no where to park it.   I never even owned a bike or anything on wheels as my parents thought the road where we lived was too dangerous and after returning to England later I would say the road was as busy as a freeway so I later understood my parents reasoning.

For many years although the beach was only a mile from our home we could not play there because it was mined and it took several years before the mines could be cleared enough to make it safe.

However there were advantages to living in a shop because I had more candy than most kids  ( a dubious advantage for my teeth!) and I also read all the comics and books we had for sale!  

Oh to be an artist!

I am far behind in writing my blogs. When I was a five year old way back in 1946 I used to love to draw and my mother ordered drawing books to sell in our shop.  We lived over and behind the shop in very cramped quarters.  I drew every day comics of the life of a sad little girl.   I was not really sad so I don't know why I chose this particular subject.

Once I was in second grade I started writing stories and illustrating them.  I was friends with a little boy named John Austen who liked writing and so we sat together at our dining table and wrote stories.  All mine were fairy tales about princesses etc.

  I continued my interest in drawing right through college but found when I was a teacher in my 20s my interest in young men and church activities took up most of my spare time.  The only art I did then was making posters for the church and a political party I belonged to.  Now I go to an art class at the local community college but they are threatening to close it down because of the terrible economy problems right now.

February 15 2009

Today is the day after Valentines Day.  I shall continue to tell you about my life history since I came to the U.S. in 1975.   

I was blessed with three more children, Katie in October of 1977, Lisa in May of 1980 and Michael in November of 1982.   They are all adults now and Michael and Katie with their families have recently moved into their own homes in Santa Maria.  Lisa lives with her husband Kyle in Santa Monica in a one bedroom apartment just a couple of blocks from the ocean.  Susie, my firstborn, has moved from Orange County to San Luis Obispo and rents a studio apartment.  She has decorated beautifully and made excellent use of the space.

Yesterday Dick gave me chocolates and a very interesting book about birds of California.  We have several different species visiting our yard and I've never known their correct names.

 Hi everyone!

I am LitupRosie and I am starting my blog today.  I have not learned how to work the system yet so I shall probably make some mistakes.

I was born in Brighton England in 1941 and came to the U.S.A. in July of 1975 with my month old daughter Susie.  It was quite a change for me but I enjoyed it though I did miss my mother. My father had died in October of 1964.  I think that was more of a blow to me than emigrating to the U.S.

I could not continue with my career as a teacher and so became a stay at home mom  (I had taught elementary school in England (and Germany) for 13 years).  I did do a little teacher's aid work when I first arrived.

I loved the climate of the Central Coast much better than the unpredictable English weather.  

We soon purchased a house after only a couple of months.  I made a new friend, Dawn, who lived down the street and a  lady offered to drive me to the First United Methodist Church downtown.  I felt I adjusted pretty well to the huge change in my life.   Well, that's how I got here .