How full is your letterbox?

December heralds for this household a special time - it is the only time of the year that significant amounts of 'personal' mail fill our letterbox. For most of the year, it contains bills, marketing materials and 'official' letters. For a few short weeks a year, there are also handwritten items wishing us seasonal greetings.

But I've noticed a trend. There was once a time when we'd receive around 100 Christmas cards. This year, I reckon we'll be lucky to get 50. I don't think it's that we're less popular than we used to be....I think it's just that less people send cards nowadays.

Before our time, the sending of a handwritten card through the mail was the accepted way to convey greetings and best wishes to family and friends worldwide.

The first commercial Christmas cards were commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843. It was not an idea of totally altruistic origins however, as Cole had helped introduce the Penny Post three years earlier. Imagine the boost to the postal services Christmas cards must have provided over the years.

By the latter half of the 19th century, Australia and the United States had followed suit.

Nowadays however, there are many options for sending festive greetings: email, e-cards, text messages, a message on a blog or a Facebook wall. Phone calls are cheaper than they once were.

Some people don't even bother with any of the above.

I am a die-hard card sender, but mine don't always make it out before Christmas. I believe a card is as good in the New Year as it is in the week before Christmas.

Call me old-fashioned, but I love to receive cards from friends and family. I especially love the year-in-review letters and/or photos some people include - there's nothing like catching up on a year's news in a couple of minutes.

It takes time, but the sending of a card sends more than a piece of paper. It tells the recipient that you are thinking of them, and that they are still a valued part of your life whether or not you have had much contact over the previous twelve months or so.

But then again, an email could also send that same message. In these technologically advanced times, are the traditional cards' days numbered?

To card or not to card? That is the question.

RSVP grumpiness

While we're on the subject of birthday parties (it's birthday party season in my household), let's talk about the etiquette of RSVPs.

My six year old is having a birthday party this weekend. Written invitations were mailed four weeks ago with a clearly marked RSVP date (one week prior to the party) and two options for RSVP (mobile phone or email).

Three days out from the party and four children were unaccounted for. So, I followed up with their parents. One is going away that weekend, another is coming to the party, the third has been off school ill and will let me know closer to the date (fair enough - although the party is tomorrow and I haven't heard so far), and the fourth I still haven't heard back from.

Then this morning a child who was one of the first to RSVP in the affirmative said to me at school drop off that she was sorry she can't come to the party as she is going to a friend's school fair. As her mother had RSVP'd so quickly and so definitely, this confused me and when I happened to see the mother in the school carpark on my way out, I asked her about her child telling me she's not coming (although I didn't mention the school fair bit).

"Ah, yes," she said. "She's been sick, so I'm just waiting to see if she's well enough to come to the party. I'll SMS you first thing tomorrow morning. She really wants to come if she can."

Okay then.

Call me old-fashioned, but I treat RSVP-ing seriously. When I say yes or no to something I do so before the date on the invitation and in the manner requested on the invitation. Both my girls have been taught that once something has been accepted you don't then change your mind if a better offer comes up. My oldest in particular has had a couple of occasions this year where she's missed good friend's parties or sleepovers because she was already committed elsewhere.

Before our time, a written invitation would have necessitated a written RSVP. Heck, even in my time, I can recall writing endless replies to friends' parents for invitations to 18th and 21st birthday parties.

Another school mum who has much older step-children tells me that organising 18th and 21st birthday parties nowadays is a nightmare, as no-one RSVPs in advance. Parents are left wondering how many exactly they are catering for, while the younger generation watch their mobile phones in case a better offer appears in their SMS in-box.

But then, perhaps they were the ones whose parents didn't RSVP to six year old birthday parties either.

Tell me, am I just grumpy and out of touch with the etiquette of today?

The party dilemma

“New York children grow up and have birthdays just as children do everywhere...but not quite. Forget Pin the Tail on the Donkey and Hide and Go Seek. Today’s most popular party game is Can You Top This? – with both parents and children as participating players. “Janie has a clown for her birthday, I want a clown that does magic tricks,” says one knowledgeable 4-year-old. Her mother complains, “The magician’s been done to death. We’ve got to find something new, something the children aren’t tired of, this year. This problem at age 4. And the parties get bigger, if not better than ever.”

Sound familiar? I've certainly heard parents saying similar things about parties here in Melbourne.

What may surprise you is that the above quote comes from an article written in 1969. (“The Party-Go-Round” by Claire Berman, New York magazine, 19 May 1969.)

While I imagined that the sixties were a time of pass-the-parcel and musical chairs at home, it seems (in New York at least) the party-go-round had already begun.

We recently celebrated my oldest daughter's 12th birthday at home with a group of 14 of her (girl) friends. By twelve, it seems they've done it all when it comes to parties - iceskating, theme parks, reptile shows, crazy hair, nail bars, fairy shops, even Gold Class movies...

So we fell-back on a bit of homegrown fun. We organised a 'reality team challenge' party - based on some of my daughter's favourite reality TV shows.

Four team challenges in four hours. Essentially, what they were doing was old-fashioned games and competition, just with an updated theme. It was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of preparation work.

And this, I think, is how the party-go-round began. With parents increasingly time-poor, there just aren't the hours in the day to prepare games, bake food, make party bags and clean up afterwards.

Outsourcing the party looks a very attractive option. But with a limited number of entertainers and options, it does become a case of 'what's the next big thing?"

My youngest daughter has been to three parties this year with the same reptile show. It was great the first time, but even five year olds start to tire of the same old snakes on their shoulders and frogs on their heads.

It's very easy to say that all kids want is a pass-the-parcel, some fairy bread and a balloon to take home, but even the simplest of parties takes a good deal of organisation and preparation and with many families struggling to fit everything into their lives already, that may be just a parcel and a balloon too much.

Outsourcing or home-grown? What do you think?

How many phone numbers do you remember?

In a recent article* about the impact of technology one technophobe declared she hardly used any of the functions on her mobile and doesn’t even put phone numbers in the electronic contact list. “I remember them all.  All I want to know about is the green ‘on’ button”.

Wow, yes, I remember keeping loads of phone numbers in my head.  I was good at it.  I topped my year in Geography once because I memorised all the essential facts about Australia such as circumference, area, distances and so forth as if they were telephone numbers.  Now I store telephone numbers in my electronic contact lists and in the case of a small number of close friends – on a post-it on my desk.

Phone numbers are always at hand so why bother to memorise them? I rarely even ask for a phone number because in most cases it comes up on my phone display and I can store the number from there.

Having an aid to remember phone numbers is not new.

The first Rolodexes appeared in the early 1930s

And I bet many of you had one of these, way back when.  Perhaps you still do...

When you use a Rolodex or Teledex you look at the number while you dial.   Do that enough and you’ll commit that number to memory, without even realising it.  Use your phone contact list or your speed dial and you miss that step.  You may never memorise numbers outside those you absolutely have to. 

Some research shows that our ability to remember things is decreasing as technology increasingly takes on that role.  With the vast increase in information available technology provides the means for us to sort and categorise the data and enables us to recall (electronically) than ever before. But then we lose our mobile, or our hard disk crashes and we feel empty, like our very life has been taken away.  Perhaps we wouldn’t feel that way if we were sure that the computer that stays with us 24/7, our brain, was able to recall everything that was important to us.

In my younger years I could remember the phone numbers of all my close friends, my extended family, the school, the doctor, the dentist, the beautician, the pizza joint in Nedlands and later the work numbers of many of my colleagues.  Today I couldn’t tell you my own work number.

I’m off to memorise a few phone numbers. How many can you remember?

 

*Australian Vogue (I know, of all the places!), November 2009 p. 146

High on Childbirth

“Heroin. The sedative for coughs” Bayer advertisement from the late 1800s

 

When I was pregnant with my first child I spent a lot of time considering the pain I was about to experience during childbirth.  I was determined to have a plan - just like the childbirth books told me I must have.  I was quite sure that with determination I would need no more than a TENS machine and positive thinking. Ha. Totally didn't work.

During one visit to my Obstetrician I explained that I had this well thought out plan.  He looked at me, raised an eyebrow, and said you know the best possible treatment for pain in childbirth is a dose of Heroin.

Excuse me?

Oh yes, he continued, after it was made illegal to produce Heroin for medicinal purposes in Australia we stockpiled it [at this hospital] and only ran out in the late 1980s. 

Apparently doctors in Britain can still prescribe Heroin (as the drug Diamorphine) in cases of extreme pain – usually patients experiencing trauma, cancer ... or childbirth.

Heroin, along with other drugs now classed as illegal narcotics such as cocoa leaf and marijuana, were common ingredients in many medicines  and ‘tonics’ at the turn of the 20th century, even those targeted at babies and toddlers.

We are a drug-taking society – be it coffee, nicotine, alcohol, prescribed drugs, illicit drugs or chocolate.  The artificial stimulation of the senses occupies a part of many of our days. Now I’m not about to call for the legalisation of cocaine-based teething solutions for babies or heroin-based cough mixture but it did make me wonder what drugs we freely take today that in fifty years time will be deemed illegal or, at least, shocking?

Don't you wish you had staff?

"The Housemaid's folding back her window-shutters at eight o'clock the next day, was the sound which first roused Catherine...her fire was already burning."  from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, Chapter VII.

While chatting last week it struck Alison and I that if we had lived in Jane Austen's England we wouldn't have to do the washing, or the ironing, or prepare any meals.  In fact it is likely that the most energetic task in our diaries for the day would be a brisk walk in the countryside, possibly accompanied by a large hunting dog.

Sure, we wouldn't have been able to inherit property but as I face a large pile of ironing, an ever-growing pile of laundry and decisions about what to cook for dinner I wonder how far we women have really come in the last 200 years.

Even Elinor and Marianne Dashwood in their straightened circumstances were able to afford a cook and a male servant when kicked out of the family home.

So where have we gone wrong? 

I'd be more than happy to put up with the hassle of having to 'dress' for dinner if only someone else would cook it for me.  And as for having to rise at eight to the sound of someone opening the shutters and the cackle of a newly lit fire ... I guess I could get used to it.

Do those cents really add up?

The Mof's One Year National Savings Service Badge.

When I was in primary school in the 1970s, the local Commonwealth Bank staff would visit the school regularly for children to deposit small amounts of money into their school savings accounts. These were interest-bearing deposit accounts which converted to regular bank accounts when the children left school. 'School Banking Day' was a long-standing tradition.

There is a excellent short filmclip at the Australian Screen website showing school children arriving at school in 1951 and giving their teacher small deposits of coins which he records in their bank books.

Before our time, the concept of regular bank savings was drummed into children from a young age, and it was not a phenomenon particular to Australia.

The Mof recalls that in Scotland:

The maxim of, "Look after the pence and the pounds will look after themselves," was drilled into us as children and we were encouraged to save whatever we earned or were given. Apart from the piggy bank, which could be rifled in desperation, one of the common ways to save was through the National Savings scheme.

The National Savings scheme was started in Britain during the First World War. The British Government introduced several ways to save as they needed both to reduce borrowings and raise funds for the war effort. The National Savings Movement, as it was originally called, grew from volunteers who organised Local Savings Committees and was launched at the Guildhall in London in 1916 with the intent to encourage British people to save and prosper.

Groups were formed in factories, shops, clubs and schools with an organiser collecting and recording the monies on a weekly basis. Savings took the form of savings stamps, certificates and bonds.

On a personal level I first encountered National Savings as it came to be known, as a student in primary school. Every Monday morning children arrived with their few pennies (the well off ones may have had a shilling!) to be collected and recorded by the teacher. On reaching a certain amount, which may have been 20 shillings (one
pound) or perhaps 21 shillings (a guinea) the child was given a savings certificate.

Later as a teacher I was on the collecting and recording side. Every year a district National Savings conference was held at a very swish hotel -- one I would never have been able to frequent as a humble teacher!

Service badges were awarded to the volunteer collectors. The one year badge was as far as I aspired, as I then married and came to Australia.

Nowadays we still encourage our children to save, but I suspect that the physicality of clutching coins in your sweaty hand on the way to school, handing them over and watching as the numbers recorded in your passbook grew each week is somewhat diluted by e-banking methods.

Although my husband and I insist that our daughters save some of their pocket money each week, it is transferred automatically via a direct debit to their account. It must be hard for them to imagine that the money even exists!

They do however, 'save up' their disposable pocket money in their purses for things they want to buy, and the youngest has started collecting every stray five cent piece she finds around the place and putting them into a container in the kitchen. It is surprising how many wayward five cents there are in this world! It's a slow process, but she now has a couple of dollars in the container. For her, this provides the joy that 1950s children may have had watching their bank deposits grow.

Does the electronic nature of banking today challenge children's concepts of long-term saving? Do school banking savings schemes still exist? How do you encourage children to save for the future?

Where have all the jumpers gone?

Last week I saw a few snippets of some 1990s sitcoms I used to enjoy watching on TV. Apart from reeling at how corny they seem now, the other thing that struck me was how many of the characters were wearing jumpers (sweaters, pullovers, jerseys - depending on where you live.)

And I don't mean thin cashmere knits. These were serious jumpers. Thick woolly jumpers. Textured, multi-coloured jumpers. Jumpers with cables and high round necks.

Exactly the type of jumper I remember wearing myself in the 1980s and 1990s.

But do I ever wear one nowadays? Do I ever see them on people on the street?

Rarely.

Today I conducted a small survey of everyone I saw within a 90 minute period while doing the school pick-up and ducking into the local shops. I saw lots of fleece hoodies. Plenty of thin shirts, topped by a jacket. A multitude of layered fine knits.

The grand total of jumpers spotted? Two. (And one of those was bordering on a fine knit.)

Is the woollen knitted jumper a dying breed?

Before our time, jumpers were always made of wool and were a reasonably heavy garment intended to cover the torso and arms of the human body to provide warmth.

Have space-aged fabrics such as polar fleece made heavy jumpers redundant? Can we now obtain the warmth required without the bulk?

Perhaps it's just where I live. Do you see many thick jumpers in your part of the world?

Gather round the box

'Good evening and welcome to television.'
Bruce Gyngell, Sydney, 16 September 1956.

With those six words, the landscape of Australian lounge rooms changed forever.

In 1954, the Australian Government announced the introduction of a government-funded television broadcasting service and two commercial services in Sydney and Melbourne. The 1956 Summer Olympics (which were hosted in Melbourne) were fast-approaching and were a motivation to introduce television to Australia.

TCN-9 Sydney began test transmissions on 16 September of 1956 (with Bruce Gyngell's words above), and officially commenced broadcasting on 27 October. GTV-9 broadcast to Melbourne viewers on 27 September. By the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics opening ceremony on 22 November 1956, five stations in Melbourne and Sydney were operational.

It was 1959 before residents of Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia enjoyed the joys of television, with Tasmania following in 1960 and the Australian Capital Territory in 1962. The Northern Territory remained a TV-free zone until 1971.

By the end of 1956, it is estimated that only 1 per cent of Sydney residents and 5 per cent of Melbourne residents owned a television set. The cost of a television set was about six to ten weeks' pay for the average worker of the time.* However, over the following decades television rapidly became more popular and affordable.

Before our time, a home would contain just one television set in the lounge room and viewing of the television was a family affair. Shows such as Bandstand, Pick-a-Box and In Melbourne Tonight drew the family to the lounge room.

One of my own earliest memories is of watching Young Talent Time on a black and white TV with my parents when I was around three or four years old.

Nowadays, many homes have multiple television sets, and pay-TV options which offer niche channels to suit every taste at any time of day. Sport can be on in the lounge room, Disney Channel in the playroom, Lifestyle Channel in the sewing room. We are spoiled for choice, and have to the opportunity to exercise that choice at any time.

However, over the past few months I watched with interest the effect of the show Masterchef (Australia) on the viewing habits of family and friends. Here was a show that appealed to all age groups. It drew families together to watch amateur cooks invent dishes from set ingredients, concoct dishes from mystery boxes, attempt to replicate the signature dishes of Australia's top chefs and hone their tasting, plating and cooking skills in general.

It was good, clean family fun. There was none of the bitchiness of some reality shows. The judges were constructive and fair in their criticism. The contestants were retained or eliminated on the merits of their cooking by experts, rather than on the whims of an SMS-ing public caught-up in their personalities rather than their talent.

And the effect on family culture was phenomenal. Five year olds were discussing profiteroles in the playground. Smart-mouthed tweens were asking their parents as they prepared dinner, "Now Mum, what are you worried could go wrong?" Children were competing at the dinner table to identify the ingredients in that night's dinner. Adults were downloading recipes from the website and trying them out at home. Families started to call scraping up ingredients from the fridge to make dinner: "cooking with a mystery box".

Families have a shared language and conversation about this show that extends beyond the actual viewing time.

In my home, we were late to join the Masterchef bandwagon, but once we did we were hooked. There are a few TV shows that we watch together as a family, and what they seem to have in common is that a group of talented people compete to be the last one standing - e.g So You Think You Can Dance and Project Runway.

However, I know that this format doesn't appeal to all families.

What shows draw all the members of your household into the one room together?


* Source: http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/populartelevision/

Things my elders taught me: A Guiding Light

Today, we hand over to Before Our Time reader - The Mof- to share her memory of the skills she learnt as a Guide. If you would like to be added to the line-up to share what you learnt from your elders, email us on beforeourtime@bigpond.com - Megan and Alison.



Apart from parents and teachers the big influence on my young life was the Girl Guide Movement which was started in UK in 1910 by Agnes Baden-Powell, sister of Robert Baden-Powell who had started the Boy Scout movement three years earlier. Seeing their brothers having such adventures the girls were agitating to do the same but Robert Baden-Powell decided that the girls' movement should be organised differently and despite popular opinion of the day being that girls should not be in Guiding, the movement got off the ground.

The aims of Guiding were to foster physical fitness, survival skills, citizenship and outdoor activities such as camping.

In our the little village in Scotland a Guide company was started by our local doctor and her housekeeper when I was about 10 and I think I must have been first in line to join as there wasn't much extra curricular activity in country areas.

We were divided up into patrols and allowed to choose an emblem. As I was the leader of a patrol (in consultation with the rest of the patrol, of course) we decided to be Kingfisher patrol as I had long admired this colourful bird

Every week we had to turn up in clean uniform which consisted of a blue blouse which we were allowed to wear over warm tops in winter, light blue tie which doubled as a sling for first aid, a navy blue skirt and brown highly polished shoes. There was also the brass trefoil badge which had to be highly polished. All this in itself was a great lesson in discipline as we were inspected at the start of every meeting and there was extra pressure on the patrol leader to make sure her patrol was up to scratch.

Weekly we had to affirm the Guide promise:

"I promise on my Honour that I will do my best
to do my duty to God and the Queen
to help other people at all times
and to obey the Guide law"

We also had to promise to try to do a good turn every day.

The Mof and a Guiding friend.

In keeping with the aims of the movement the programme each week consisted of games for exercise, mental exercise of some sort, lessons in first aid, outdoor nature study and tracking and a time to work out things for personal growth.

We worked towards badges for areas we were personally interested in such as cooking, sewing,first aid, knitting or nature study.Each badge was sewn onto the outer sleeve of the blouse and so it was a big incentive to gain as many badges as possible! I distinctly remember doing the cooking badge. I was invited to the Leader's home where I had to cook the meal I had worked out beforehand and while it was cooking had to set the table beautifully and then present the meal which we sat down to. I had decided to make my mother's brown stew recipe with mashed potato followed by apple crumble but in the course of attending to the dessert I forgot about the stew and it stuck to the bottom of the pan and singed! The Leaders very politely ate it up and I was awarded the cooking badge!

Camp cooking was more my style and I loved the camps, cooking potatoes in the fire and toasting over the fire. We were taught to respect fire -- how to build a fire, make sure that it was enclosed in a stone circle and completely out and covered with soil before we left it.

Looking back it was a time of learning skills, discipline, socialising, lots of healthy competition and lots and lots of fun.




The Mof lives in a country town in Western Australia where she is involved with a variety of community groups. She has recently returned from a trip to Scotland revisiting all the haunts of her youth. She doesn't often burn brown stew anymore.

Were you a Scout or a Guide?

Where the streets have no name.

LONDON STREET NOMENCLATURE.
The sponsors of Old London performed their duties more conscientiously than most of their successors; as a consequence, the names of the older streets of the capital serve not only as keys to their several histories, but as landmarks by which we can measure the changes wrought by time in the topographical features of the city.

The book of days: a miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, including anecdote, biography, & history, curiosities of literature and oddities of human life and character
by Robert Chambers, 1832

(accessed via Googlebooks)

I was interested in an article by Mary Costello in The Age this week regarding street naming, and it started me thinking about how we name our streets and what that tells us about our history, our culture and our people.

Before our time, the first settlers to Australia had an opportunity to start from scratch in the naming of the streets they were creating, and they chose to name them predominantly in a number of categories:

• To commemorate and remember where they had come from: York Street, Kent Street, St Kilda Boulevard.
• To honour people important at the time: King Street, William Street, Murray Street, James Street.
• To commemorate events: Coronation Street, Centenary Drive, Olympic Avenue, Federation Way.
• To point to topographical and/or commercial features: Mill Street, Barrack Street, Exhibition Street, Hill Street, Spring Street, Station Street, Church Street.
• To interpret Indigenous names for local places or features: Toorak Road, Dandenong Road, Warra Street.

So these historical street names serve as pointers to the history and culture of the time.

I once lived on a Water Street named, quite obviously,because it ran down to a pool in the river. My grandparents lived in a house on School Road, which..surprise, surprise...was just along the road from the local school. I've also lived on streets commemorating places and people.

Acknowledging the origins of these street names embeds us in the context of the timeline of the history and geography of the place.

One part of Mary Costello's article that I found a little disturbing related to the naming of streets in new residential developments. She wrote, "Nowadays, naming residential areas is about selling a promise of a particular kind of utopia to a targeted demographic".

I'm not sure I feel comfortable with the idea that street naming responsibility lies with the marketers of the 21st century.

I tried to imagine myself as one of those land marketers faced with selling a hypothetical new housing estate carved out of flat featureless land that was once a municipal waste facility (i.e a rubbish tip). Knowing that a housing estate on similar land was recently in the media regarding the leaching of methane gas, if I was a clever marketer, I would be at great pains to create an image of my estate that is far removed from any such issues.

I may call it something like, "Babylon Gardens Estate", and perhaps I would label the streets with monikers such as; Heliconia Way, Cattleya Crescent, Calethea Court, Ginger Grove...all names of plants of the tropics.

Which may make for some colourful and interesting advertising and sales of the land, but in a hundred years time, what will those names tell the residents about the history and culture of their homes?

So then I imagined what I could call the streets if I used the methods traditionally used by the early settlers:

• Rudd Road (after the Prime Minister of the day)
• GFC Circuit (for a current day event)
• Cholesterol Court (this will be the street the fast-food shops will be on)
• Water Feature Way (as every housing estate has to have a man-made lake)
• Pokie Place (for the street the local Tabaret will be on)
• Three-ars Parade (the road where the school is)
• Empty Nest Avenue (to commemorate and remember where you've come from)

What do you think? Would you want to live in my Flatland Estate?

Who sits where at your house?

DINNER BEING ANNOUNCED, the host offers his arm to, and places on his right hand at the dinner-table, the lady to whom he desires to pay most respect, either on account of her age, position, or from her being the greatest stranger in the party. If this lady be married and her husband present, the latter takes the hostess to her place at table, and seats himself at her right hand. The rest of the company follow in couples, as specified by the master and mistress of the house, arranging the party according to their rank and other circumstances which may be known to the host and hostess.

Isabella Beaton, The Book of Household Management, S. O. Beeton 1861

This is our dining arrangement.

I sit in the closest chair, husband in the chair near the door,

daughter to the left, son to the right.

When dinner is announced at your house do you (a) grab the nearest chair (b) sit in the same seat you’ve sat in for the last 15 years or (c) grab the piece of couch closest to the remote?

Perhaps the last time you considered seating arrangements was when you were wondering how to seat Aunt Maude and distant cousin Reginald at your wedding so they wouldn’t cause a scene. But there was a time when sitting down to dinner involved time-honoured arrangements about who sat where. Father at the head, mother at the other end, children seen but not heard sitting somewhere between – or in some houses, up in the nursery eating bread and butter.

In our house we have set places to sit. This has evolved over time but in every home we have lived the seating has followed a similar pattern. That is, I – being the primary cook – sit in the seat closest to the kitchen. We have a round table so there is no ‘head’ of the table but even if we sit at our rectangular dining room the four of us will sit in the middle seats, with no-one at the ‘head’. I think I may be the only one in the family who cares about this.

Last week, at breakfast, my husband prepared a bowl of Weetbix and went straight to sit at my place at the table - closest to the kitchen - instead of walking around the table to sit closest to the outside door.

Quell horreur!

I asked him to move around to his normal place. I stated (I may have puffed my chest at this point) that, as the primary breakfast-getter and the one with the least amount of time to eat my food on account of having made the school lunches, packed the bags and prepared the children's breakfasts, I should sit in the seat closest to the kitchen. If I was quicker of thought I may also have pointed out that if he was in a chivalrous frame of mind he would sit closest to the door should any undesirable attempt to enter the kitchen (like gentlemen of the past walking on the road side of the footpath).

Was I being a little pedantic? A little unreasonable? Why should I have special dibs on that seat? It isn’t even the best seat at the table (that had been ‘baggsed’ four years ago by the eldest child).

If I look back to my childhood the seat closest to the kitchen has always been taken by my mother and it was she who primarily prepared . It makes sense to me that the food-preparer sit closest to his or her means of production.

My husband, for the record, looked at me as if I was mad, rolled his eyes and stood his ground. I noticed, however, the next day he sat in his normal seat.

Do you have set places to sit at dinner? Does your seating arrangement mirror that of your parents? Or perhaps, like some families, you have a regular rotation of seats to avoid all-out sibling war?

Marmalade as meditation

"I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It's amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges or scrub the floor."

DH Lawrence writing to Arthur McLeod, from 'Villa Igea', Villa di Gargnano (Brescia), Lagodi Garda, Italy. 17 January 1913.

The selected letters of D.H. Lawrence
By D. H. Lawrence, James T. Boulton
Compiled by James T. Boulton
Published by Cambridge University Press, 2000

It seems DH Lawrence may have been onto something.

With thoughts of the future spinning in my head the past few weeks, I took some time out yesterday to make some marmalade. (I drew the line at scrubbing floors.)

I used a recipe from an 1845 cookbook, and apart from a brief moment when I was perplexed as to what the 'straw' may be* that I was to pierce the tender oranges with, it was a very easy recipe to make.

ORANGE MARMALADE Procure Seville oranges, stew them till they become so tender, that you can pierce them with a straw, changing the water two or three times. Drain them, take off the rind, weigh the pulps, previously taking out the pips; and supposing the quantity to be six pounds, add seven of sugar; boil it slowly till the syrup be clear, then add the peel, having cut it into strips. Boil it again and it is finished. This is a new method, and found to be excellent as well as economical. Seville oranges are in their best state at the end of March or beginning of April.

The practical cook, English and foreign, By Joseph Bregion, Anne Miller, 1845

And at the end of the day, I had around six months' supply of marmalade for my breakfast toast.

DH Lawrence was right, it is amazing how the nature of shredding the rinds can be almost a meditative experience, as can the stirring of the boiling pot.

In today's world we have a tendency to see repetitive tasks as tiresome chores, something to be endured and something to get through as quickly as possible.

In doing so, we are missing an opportunity to enjoy the experience of taking time out to do something productive. Chores can instead be a time when we can focus on the task at hand, dismissing the day's concerns from our minds.

When I am working on creative writing pieces, some of my best ideas come about when I an doing 'a chore' such as washing the dishes.

What repetitive tasks do you do to unwind or cheer yourself up?

* thank you to the Before Our Time Twitter followers who offered opinions about the nature of 'a straw' in my hour of need.

Which drawer down?

It appears my husband has been harbouring unresolved angst since we moved into our current home nearly four years ago.

Angst about the location of our cutlery (flatware) drawer.

You see, when we moved in the previous owner kept her cutlery in the second drawer down and her kitchen utensils such as wooden spoons, can opener and whisk in the first drawer. I thought this was unusual, sure, however I was willing to give this arrangement a go - after all, the previous owner had lived in the house for forty years, perhaps this was a better arrangement.

And do you know, I thought it was. I use my kitchen utensils more often during the day than the flatware, and when unloading from the dishwasher or dish-drainer I use the big rocks first method and thus unload whisks and spatulas into the first drawer before the flatware into the second.

However, this all changed two weeks ago. In a conversation with a certain co-writer on this blog whose name starts with an A my husband sought support for his personal issues with our kitchen drawer organisation. Finding support for his cause he then crept down in the dead of night and changed over the drawers.

I have been having trouble with finding what I need ever since.

Using patented Before Our Time survey techniques I have asked all and sundry how they organise their kitchen drawers and all agree that cutlery or flatware should go in the first drawer down, kitchen utensils in the second drawer down, tea towels in the third drawer down (although this varies) and always cling wrap and foil in the fourth drawer down.

Clearly I am a kitchen renegade.

I have not found written support for kitchen drawer organisation in the before our time literature. However perhaps you have your own views.

Do you follow time-honoured methods for kitchen drawer organisation or are you a kitchen drawer renegade?

Quince of darkness

"QUINCE PASTE If the full flavour of the quinces be desired, stew them sufficiently tender to press through a sieve in the prepared juice of page 456; otherwise in just water enough to about three parts cover them; when they are soft quite through lift them out, let them cool and then pass them through a sieve; reduce them to a dry paste over a very clear fire and stir them constantly; then weigh the fruit and mix it with an equal proportion of pounded sugar or sugar boiled to candy height, we find the effect nearly the same whichever method be pursued and stir the paste without intermission until it is again so dry as to quit the pan and adhere to the spoon in one large ball; press it into shallow pans or dishes; cut it as soon as cold into small squares and should they seem to require it, dry them with a very gentle degree of heat, and when they are again cold store them in tin cases with well dried foolscap paper between them: the paste may be moulded when more convenient and kept until it is wanted for table in a very dry place. In France where the fruit is admirably confected the pate de coigns or quince paste is somewhat less boiled than we have directed and dried afterwards in the sun or in an extremely gentle oven in square tin frames about an inch and a half deep placed upon clean slates"

Modern cookery for private families reduced to a system of easy practice, in a series of carefully tested receipts, in which the principles of Baron Liebig and other eminent writers have been as much as possible applied and explained By Eliza Acton, Published by Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864 (via Google books)

There's been a lot of talk lately about eating local foods, and eating them seasonally. And when you do so, it creates a certain rhythm to the year: berry desserts in summer, root vegetable stews in winter, fresh shelled peas in spring.

However, the canny cook from before our time also knew that there was a rhythm to the pickling, bottling and preserving of these foods, which allowed variety on the dinner table all year round.

Tomato-sauce-making-day for instance, continues to be a tradition among some Italo-Australian families I know. Held towards the end of the summer when the tomatoes are cheap and plentiful, a day of chopping and boiling in the company of friends and family creates a store of pasta sauce to carry the family through the year ahead.

In my own family home, I remember the citrus season was marked by a day of chopping and peeling to make jars and jars of marmalade which would be consumed on toast throughout the year and also given as gifts to the less citricly-endowed (yes, I know citricly is not really a word...just indulge me.)

At this time of year in Southern Australia, the rhythm of seasonality dictates that it is quince paste making time.

This is the second year that I have made quince paste. Last year's didn't quite set like it should have, but I now have a legion of fans for my legendary "quince jam". In fact, one friend who I have given several containers to has begged that I make it in exactly the same way this year. If only it were that simple. She seems to think I have some control over the process!

Megan has already posted about her quince paste making experiences and I use the same basic recipe that she did.

One of the great delights of making quince-paste on a cold early winter's afternoon is that it gives you an excuse to loiter around the house. Oh no, I can't go out...I have to stir my quince paste. And the reward for judicious stirring is watching the fruit turn from a light flesh to a deep red colour. Made to perfection it should be as glossy and reflective as rubies.

There is a certain magic in turning a couple of kilos of furry fruit into a delicious dark treat to be enjoyed with cheese the year round, and given to friends as gifts.

What seasonal food preparation days mark your yearly calendar?

Incidentally...are you missing opportunities for exercise?

"Australia is one of the most overweight developed nations, with overweight and obesity affecting about one in two Australian adults and up to one in four children."

Weighing it up: Obesity in Australia. Report by the House of

Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing.

Released 2 June 2009.

In my current house, I have just one landline phone which is a traditional corded phone (slightly more modern than the picture above, but not a lot more) plugged into a phone point in the kitchen, which is downstairs.

This is a fairly unusual situation for me, as in previous houses I have had up to five cordless phones scattered around the house. For technological reasons too long-winded and boring to go into here, that arrangement is not possible in this house, and for the moment at least, I have just the one phone.

Did I mention it is in the kitchen? Which is downstairs? And that my study where, when I'm at home, I spend a great deal of time, is upstairs?

So every time the phone rings, I spring from my desk, I belt down the stairs taking several at a time, I swing around the corner and down the corridor and I lunge across the kitchen at the phone - often reaching it just as it goes through to Messagebank. Grrrr.

It is a frustrating situation, but I've learnt to turn my frustration into a positive experience by thinking, at least I got some exercise. I've stretched out my muscles after sitting at the computer and I've pumped some blood around my body.

It's what they call incidental exercise. And before our time, people's lives were full of it. Who needed to go to the gym when you were active all day long just by getting on with life?

So I've looked at my own life and realised it's full of missed incidental exercise opportunities such as:

• Using the TV remote vs getting up and changing channels on the TV itself
• Using a garage door remote vs getting out of the car and opening a door or gate manually
• Using an electric mixer vs handbeating cream, eggs or a cake
• Sending someone an email greeting vs walking to the postbox to mail a card
• Vaccuming up leaves in the garden with a blower-vac vs raking, sweeping and bagging the leaves
• Playing a computer game with the kids vs playing backyard cricket
• Putting a load of washing in the dryer vs hanging it out on the line, or on racks

Technology. How convenient is it really, if it's helping to make us fat? Are we saving a few minutes and some effort now, only to spend that time on a dialysis machine or in a cardiac ward later when we suffer complications from being overweight?

What opportunities for incidental exercise are you missing?

My button habit

I had to rifle through my sewing supplies drawer this week, looking for some thread to sew up a hem. As I did so, I came across the button box.

The button box has been a permanent fixture with the sewing supplies for almost 20 years now. It is a small wooden, hinged box which I put any spare buttons into. Nowadays, the spare buttons usually come in a plastic bag or a paper envelope, attached to the garment. As I snip off the price tags, I put the buttons aside, and they eventually end up in the box.

Which is where they stay.

Forever.

I don’t think I’ve ever taken a button out of that box and sewn it onto anything. The only time I ever sew buttons back onto clothing is when I catch them falling off and sew them on, then and there.

Anyway, I had a bit of a look through the spare buttons in the button box and it was like seeing my life flash before me. There were some gold and black buttons from a 1990s suit that I remember I changed over for ‘more tasteful’ entirely gold buttons. There was a set of buttons with logos for the corporate uniform items I was required to wear once a year at the company’s AGM. There was a spare fabric covered button from a winter jacket. A large pink square button was a mystery. I have no idea what that came with. A lovely translucent black button for a cardigan I bought in New York last year came with a spare press stud.

One plastic bag contained about 40 spare tiny iridescent sequins. Yeah, like I’m ever going to sew those on.

There was a multitude of delicate small buttons in a variety of colours, the type that may have been off blouses or shirts perhaps.

So many of the buttons originally belonged to garments that have long since disappeared into the depths of charity shop collection bins.

So then I started wondering, why do I have this habit of saving the buttons when I know I won’t do anything with them?

I think the answer lies way back before our time. For generations, every household has had a button box. In frugal times, before worn-out clothing was torn up to be used as cleaning rags (in a time when clothes were worn until they fell apart), buttons were cut off and put into the button box.

When clothing was homemade, you would search through the button box for appropriate buttons rather than buying new ones. It was also the place you went to replace a vital missing button to extend the life of garment. Recycling at its best.

As a child, I took great delight in scrabbling through my mother’s button box. I would sort them into colours, or shapes. I can remember some crystal-look buttons that I was particularly taken with as they were so jewel-like.

My Aunt’s button box was like a treasure-trove of buttons, all sorted according to colour.

Playing with the contents of a button box is a fundamental milestone in a child’s development.

In the early days of my daughter’s schooling she was required to bring to school a container with “50 small objects” in it for counting games. Remembering my own childhood experiences, I turned to my button box and extracted 50 of the most interesting.

I think I continue to save buttons to the button box, knowing that I will probably never use them, because it is part of my cultural heritage. It’s one of those habits, like saving elastic bands, that I’m never going to break.

I'm sure many other people however, save buttons and actually use them.

Do you have a button box? Do you ever use the buttons?

A load of flummery

Flummery (n.)

1. A sweet, soft oatmeal based pudding

2. Meaningless ceremonies and nonsense flattery.

So there I was driving my car, stuck in slow-moving traffic one afternoon last week, when all of a sudden a word pops into my head.

Flummery.

For no apparent reason this word cavorted about, did a couple of cartwheels and disappeared, leaving me wondering, What exactly is flummery?

What I did know was that it is a magic word. Say it aloud and you'll agree. Flummery. It just tumbles off the tongue, and cascades over the lips.

But I wasn't so sure what the meaning of the word was. I had a vague idea that it was a type of dessert. Perhaps a fluffy, fruity one? I guessed there may be sponge involved?

So it was off to Google University to find out.

What I discovered is that 'flummery' means a lot of different things in different places and times. The flummery recipes on websites such as http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/ or http://www.taste.com.au/ look positively delicious: light, summery, fluffy concoctions full of fruit flavour and mostly set with gelatine.

Digging a little deeper however, I found flummery's origins were not so tasty.

According to the The British Food Trust's Great British Kitchen Cookbook, "Flummery occurs in manuscript menus for Scottish feasts as early as the fifteenth century. The ingredients varied but the basis was always soaked cereal, the liquid from which sets to a clear jelly". The base could be flavoured (usually with orange juice or rosewater) and topped with cream and honey and sometimes alcohol.

I found a recipe for what seemed to be a traditional Scottish flummery, such as would have been made and prepared before our time and I decided to give it a go.

I'm warning you, the making of flummery requires commitment. It's a three-day process.

Day One: Soak 75g of fine oatmeal in cold water (enough to cover), stand and leave for 24 hours.

Day Two: Strain off the liquid, discard. Pour 1.2 litres of fresh cold water over oatmeal. Leave to stand for another 24 hours.

Day Three: Strain liquid into a saucepan, pushing as much liquid out of the oatmeal as possible. Discard the oatmeal. Add the juice of two oranges, and 25g caster sugar. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, stir while simmering for 10 minutes until the mixture thickens...

After 20 minutes of stirring the simmering mixture I accepted it was never going to thicken, much less set. And besides, it seemed incredibly unappealing.

The next step of the recipe called for 150mls of double cream to be stirred through the cooled (thickened) mixture before pouring it into bowls to set.

At this point, I decided not to throw good cream after bad flummery and I abandoned my experiment.

This is not an unusual experience. I have had mixed results in the past with recipes from before our time that needed to thicken and set. Who could forget the bad blancmange that had the colour and consistency of snot?

I have a theory about this, which I welcome your comment on. My theory is based on absolutely no solid evidence or rigorous research, just pure hunch. I think that some of our ingredients don't necessarily have the same qualities as they may have had a century or more ago.

Is our oatmeal more refined than the 15th Century Scottish oatmeal was? Does ours contain less starches than are required to set the rogue flummery?

Has anyone ever made an oatmeal flummery that set? Or do you have other old recipes that don't work as well as they used to?

To honour all mothers

It's that time of year again...the day we celebrate and honour all our mothers, and the day we kick off the Great Mother's/Mothers'/Mothers Day Apostrophe Debate.

This time last year, the blogosphere was abuzz with opinions about where the apostrophe should fall.

Google "apostrophe in mothers day" and you'll find over 28,000 results. It seems a lot of us actually do care about this issue!

Last year, M of Easternmax had to get to the bottom of the dilemma. She wrote:

A version of Mother's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world on many different days of the year. A quick Google or Wikipedia search will tell you this. The most popular days are Mothering Sunday in the UK which is on the third Sunday of Lent and Mother's Day in many other countries on the second Sunday in May.

If your country celebrates Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May it is likely that you follow the US tradition inspired by the quest of Anna Jarvis, who wanted a 'holy' recognition of individual mothers and Julia Ward Howe, whose experiences of the American Civil War led her to call for the recognition of the role of mothers. Formal recognition of a Mother's Day as designated by Jarvis was was finally enshrined by the 1914 proclamation by then US President Woodrow Wilson.

The location of the apostrophe is part of the common debate which asks:

-Is it a day recognising your mother eg. Mother's Day
-Is it a day recognising all mothers eg. Mothers' Day, or
-Is it a day of/for mothers eg. Mothers Day

There are no winners here because all answers can be correct depending on your point of view.

My view is: don't argue, choose whichever one you are comfortable with.

However, if you are a stickler for the fine print you will notice that the Proclamation issued by Woodrow Wilson in 1914 was for a Mother's Day. This use of the apostrophe was apparently stipulated by Anna Jarvis because it was to be a singular possessive, for each family to honour their mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world. source: here

Anna Jarvis, in fact, trademarked the terms "Mother's Day" and "second Sunday in May" in 1912.

So, if your country follows the US designation then it is correct when referring to the day in its official capacity to write Mother's Day (unless an alternative proclamation has been made in your country).

You just NEEDED to know that, didn't you...

All of which seems to lead to the fact, you can call it what you like.

Before our time, in the Victorian era in Britain, Mothering Sunday was a day on which children who worked in domestic service could return to their own homes to visit their mothers and attend their home church. Even earlier, it was an annual day for all parishioners to return to their "mother" church, (i.e. the one in their home parish) if they had moved away from it.

Early last century, when Anna Jarvis in the United States began her campaign of lobbying prominent businessmen and politicians to create a special day to honour mothers it was with the intention of creating a celebration of the importance of women and their work inside the home, as mothers. She intended that children would visit their mothers and attend church with them, or perhaps write letters if too far away to visit.

Almost immediately, she became quite concerned about the commercialization of Mother's Day as she had wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit. She opposed the use of greeting cards: "a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write." (source)

One wonders what Anna Jarvis would think of the 'celebration' that Mothers' Day has become now? Retail catalogues try to convince us that every mum wants needs fluffy slippers, dressing gowns, books, chocolates, flowers, jewellery, digital cameras, kitchen appliances and cosmetics.

Restaurants and cafes are packed as families take their mothers out for indulgent lunches.

The retail, food and entertainment sectors see it as a huge marketing opportunity and, obviously, a successful one.

Perhaps, along with the rogue apostrophe, Mothers Day has lost its true place?

How do you celebrate Mothers Day/Mother's Day/Mothers' Day/Mothering Sunday?

Modelling healthy body-types

“We are to be a pretty shape this Spring and for many seasons to come it seems. No more top-heavy shoulders balanced perilously by narrow hips and stilt heels, but the true shape of a woman, curving in at the waist from rounded bosom and hips. A shape, at last, with balance.”

Glamor. The Magazine for Young Women. September, 1947 p. 33

Looking at photos of the models on the runways of the recent Sydney Fashion Week and Melbourne Fashion Festivals I was struck by how impossibly thin they all seemed. At an average of somewhere between 5’9” and 6’ in height and a dress-size of 6 to 8 (Australian , which converts to UK 4-6, US 2-4) the models represent a body type seen on only a tiny percentage of the wider population.

As the mother of daughters, I worry about the representation in today’s media of this waiflike body-type as an ideal.

It is a concern shared by some of the world’s fashion shows. In 2006, the Madrid Fashion Week organisers put a BMI (Body Mass Index) limitation on models taking part. As a result, five models were turned away.[1] Fashion shows in other parts of the world haven’t been so keen to act, mostly adopting voluntary guidelines.

Fashion models haven’t always been so thin. Before our time, in the 1930s and 1940s they were even what we would now describe as voluptuous.

The 1960s was one of the major turning points in the idealisation of being thin particularly following the rise in the career of Twiggy, a waifish fashion model who weighed just 90lbs (41kg)[2]. Studies of the way women are portrayed in the media have shown that models became taller and thinner between the 1960s and the 1980s.[3]

In the 1990s the ‘heroin chic’ aesthetic was adopted. Models looked thin, miserable and exhausted.

Nowadays, models are thin and sullen. Heaven help the catwalk model who cracks a smile.

Is it any wonder that teenage girls struggle with body image issues when the media surrounds them with images that are almost impossible to replicate (and that’s without even starting on the issue of the digital retouching of photos).

How do you think we could bring the happy, healthy body-type back into the mainstream media and the fashion industries?

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/13/spain.models/index.html
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21232157-5001021,00.html

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiggy

[3] Body image: understanding body dissatisfaction in men, women, and children By Sarah Grogan. Published by Routledge, 1999
Accessed via: http://books.google.com/

(photos of Glamor magazine, September 1947)

Things my elders taught me: knitting

Today, it's the turn of another Before Our Time reader - The Mof- to share her memory of a skill learnt from our elders (parents, grandparents, teachers, friends...). If you would like to be added to the line-up, email on beforeourtime@bigpond.com - Megan and Alison.

My mother was a beautiful knitter and always seemed to have something on the needles. I expect she had to with a family of eight children- and in cold Scotland!

I was keen to learn this art and I distinctly remember learning to knit from my mother at the age of four. I had blue needles and burgungy wool. It was a challenge as I was left handed but I cottoned on quickly and learned to knit right handed.

My Mother had a little poem to teach children knitting which went:

"In the little bunny hole (needle into the front of the stitch)
Round the big tree (wool round back needle)
Out through the bunny hole (pull the loop through with point of needle)
And off goes she" (slip the stitch onto right hand needle)

I have used this myself when teaching children.

In primary school there was a syllabus of knitting which started at age seven. An itinerant sewing and knitting teacher came round our group of country schools. I think it was once a month as it took all year to complete each project. We were not allowed to take the project home until the end of the year - I can see why as I would have had it finished in a couple of weeks!

At the age of seven (my third year at school) we had to knit a pot holder. It was made of four 6 inch squares folded in diagonally to the centre and stitched, then padded with old towelling. The teacher then crocheted round the outside and made a loop to hang it up. (We were never taught how to crochet at school.)

At age eight we made a scarf with two colours alternating, in garter stitch. Mine was emerald green and scarlet. (I hope my colour sense has improved! )

At age nine it was time to learn purl (but of course with my early start I was well versed in that!) and we had to make mittens.

Age ten it was into socks, learning to turn a heel and graft the toe.

So by the age of eleven I was knitting cardigans and jumpers not only for myself but also for my little brothers.

The Mof, aged 10, wearing a cardigan she knitted herself.

It was dark brown in colour and had an all over pattern

of alternating plain and purl stitches making a raised texture.

I will be forever grateful that my mother was a knitter and had the patience and willingness to teach me the skill as, like her, I always have something on the needles even if it is just using up oddments for squares for charity blankets.

Arriving in outback Australia in the 1960s as a new bride was a culture-shock of a grand scale for a Scottish country lass, but The Mof took it all in her stride. She lives in a country town in Western Australia where she is involved with a variety of community groups. She loves to read blogs, but doesn't have one of her own (yet) and she hasn’t owned a dishwasher for nine years.