This ex-rocking camel currently rests on our living room floor.
‘Dead rocking camel’ is a phrase I thought I’d never use. I do like phrases I thought I’d never use.
The only other one I can recall right now is “will a severed human hand float or sink in water?”.
There’s a lot of words out there. When I stumble across a new combination of ones I already knew it makes me smile.
Exactly 100 years ago today my Grandfather travelled to Portsmouth and signed up for 12 years service in the Navy. There was a recruitment office at The Quadrant in Brighton, but I don’t think it had opened that soon after the war started. John was 5ft 8, and could swim. I’m chuffed to have his service record.
We try our best, with our kids, from an early age,
To expand and to explore their limited vocal range.
M-m-mah, D-d-dah, please repeat what I say!
The first words when they come cannot help but make your day.
We gleefully applaud their efforts, as they try their best,
And spend the rest of their lives from there on in, asking them to give it a rest!
"I'm not going to speak when spoken to!"
There is one thing you can say about my family. They like Sussex.
Apparently the original Mr Message came over from France about 1500ish, changed his name from Messant, and went for something to help them blend in a bit. Incidentally, there is hardly anyone called Message, so it didn’t work. I digress….
So once in Sussex, the family thought they liked it, so they stayed. Pretty much for 500 years.
My family tree has been extensively researched, by someone who had more time than me, and the places my named line (by that I mean the men who gave me my surname) ancestors were born in were….
Picardie (France), West Hoathly, Wartling, Crowhurst, Brede, Bevelham, Hertfield, Maresfield, Mayfield, Hellingly, Warbleton, Herstmonceux, Wartling, Brighton, Lewisham, Worthing. Then I was born in Shoreham-By-Sea.
Apart from the decade or so living & working in London, until 2002, when I ventured East, The Messages were as Sussex born and bred as it was possible to be.
But I descended from more than one person of course, more than one line. Though Mr Message gave me my name Mum gave me half of my genes. But it’s O.K, as it turns out her family were even less inclined to leave the coast and the Downs than Dad’s.
All in all, of the first 30 people I am descended from, (which takes me back to great, great grandparents and the start of the 19th century) 29 of them were born in Sussex. Of my 32 great, great, great grandparents I know who 19 were, and 18 were born in Sussex.
So when I moved to Suffolk in 2002 it really was a new chapter in my family history. Since then a daughter & son have been born here, and hopefully the name lives on!!
So from 1800 to 2000 all of my ancestors are English. And there is a good chance the majority of those before them were English too, certainly my named line for what is now 500 years. But can I now claim to be really English? Am I not a Frenchman in exile?
I doubt it, as I don’t like the food. They eat some things that just don’t seem to be in the category of food. Things that go into my pigeon holes of ‘Pets’, ‘Garden Pests’ or ‘Dangerous Dairy Products’.
By now surely one of them would have gone back if we missed it that much?
Je suis Anglais!
Took the kids to Centre Parcs. Bit of an upgrade from my childhood which was 80% Butlins, 20% Pontins.
I was expecting people to be more attractive in a more middle class kinda way. My wife says is because of the locals. Reminded her she was a local too.
Not very many Volvo estates. I saw only one. Need to re-arrange my stereotypes. Lots of 4×4’s and MPV’s (including ours) with many things strapped to them. Roof racks, boxes, bike racks and trailers. Forced to admit which one i’d have if my very life depended on it I’d choose the roof box.
Saw a black guy with Down’s and an oriental lady with a hair lip. I just imagined they were caucasian disabilities. More adjusting of my pigeon holes required.
Not much wildlife I don’t see most days to be honest. The only deer I saw was on the Bury-Sudbury road on the way home which had probably written off a Fiat.
No noisy military aircraft though we were warned by the Guest Services Directory.
‘Military and other aircraft fly over our villages……You may experience noise from such activities from time-to-time. This is beyond our control’
It seems Center Parcs is not yet in control of the RAF & USAF, though in true suburbian NIMBYism they are letting the armed foces know they are not impressed and could form a Parish Council in the future if it continues.
They’d write a very stiff letter i’m sure, possibly on cardboard.
Sussex to Suffolk 